I wrote this two years ago, but the story hasn’t changed, so I’m reposting it in honor of today: Pablo and Mallory’s 7th Birthday! I can’t believe my big kids are seven years old already. I mean, I vividly remember BEING seven. I remember turning seven, heading out to run an errand with my dad, and a friend of his giving me a wind-up hopping penguin in honor of it being my birthday. How is it that I have kids old enough to be making memories they’ll conjure up thirty years from now? It feels weird. But it’s true. And here’s how it went down, on this very day, in 2003.
I had no idea what I was in for as we headed across town to welcome our little babies to the world. We grabbed lunch at Le Peep before we went to the hospital, and Paul told everyone there that we were about to go give birth to twins. Our food reached the table surprisingly fast.
The delivery was uneventful, and except for Mallory’s blood sugar being too low, the kids were born very healthy. They were born at 12:16 and 12:32 in the afternoon on Saturday the 30th, and I didn’t get to hold Mallory until Sunday night at 8 p.m. I cried and cried when I finally got to see her in the NICU – I missed her so much! We didn’t know if we’d be able to take her home, since the NICU nurses told us the rule was that she had to be maintaining her blood sugar and off her IV for 24 hours before we could leave. I’ll never forget our precious doctor, Howard Corren, telling the nurses, “They know what they’re doing. I think we can let them take these babies home and love them now.” It had only been about 15 hours, but he was kind enough to bend the rules for us.
It was cold and rainy that Labor Day weekend, and it seemed like it went from hot summer to chilly fall during those couple of days while we were in the hospital. And it was a good indicator of how quickly time would pass for us from then on. Those were crazy, terrifying, amazing, wonderful, horrible days. We got little sleep and I struggled with PPD for months. But what precious days they were. Thank God I took so many pictures, because I honestly don’t remember some of it – we were just too sleep deprived, just getting by day-to-day in survival mode. Oddly, it was ten times easier when the little girls were born just 17 months later. I guess we knew what we were doing by then.
My little punkins:
Now, they’re big bad 2nd graders, with backpacks and Silly Bandz and best friends and light up sneakers.
Time just flies. Happy Birthday, Pablo and Mallory!
