So Close

One of my goals with the boys' new room was to make it as kid-friendly as possible. This might sound silly, considering it's a kids' room, but when I looked at their old room, all I saw were potential death traps: the tall dresser, whose drawers might be pulled out and used as a ladder to climb up; the heavy brass fireplace adornments; the glider that just begged for little fingers to catch in its grip.

Their new room is small, but as I've discovered over the past few weeks that they've enjoyed it, it contains everything two little boys need to occupy themselves for 30 minutes or so, which just so happens to be the exact amount of time Mom and Dad need to wake up in the morning.

There's a chalkboard wall, which offers at least 5 minutes of entertainment as they both scribble their masterpieces. There are just two small buckets of toys, limiting the amount of clean-up we have to do before breakfast. There's a fish tank. There's an easily accessible bookcase with all of their favorite books. And there are always two swords. Or at least two sword-like apparatuses. Not surprisingly, Ronan has easily acquired Declan's love of swordplay, so we often hear the following exchange each morning:

Click, clack, clack (the sound of a plastic toy sword hitting a toy hammer, or a microphone stand, or a pencil, whatever they have handy).

"WAHHHH!"

"Sorry, Ronan!"

Click, clack, clack.

"WAHHHH!"

"Orry, Dec-an!"

I love laying in bed in the morning, enjoying a few relaxing minutes before the day begins, and hearing the boys play so well together. They're so happy together (usually), and I love that they've reached an age where they can entertain themselves and don't need constant adult supervision or interaction. In fact, I can see a time in the not-too-distant future when I can leave bags of cereal at the bottom of the stairs and they'll be able to get up and enjoy themselves for hours before Matty or I even get out of bed. We're so close.

But now we're not. Now we're starting all over again with Molly. We're starting over with something I thought we were long done with--midnight nursings, witching-hour crying jags, hourly diaper changes. We're going back to babyhood.

I hate to sound coldhearted, but the fact is that I haven't quite yet come to terms with this pregnancy. As many of you know from my previous post, this pregnancy was about as unplanned as you can get. I'm still not entirely comfortable talking about it (or writing about it, for that matter). I know that when I hold little Molly in my arms all negative thoughts will vanish and I will fall in love all over again, but right now I am filled with apprehension and stress.

So now, when I see my boys inching ever closer to independence (for a child, that is), I am not filled with nostalgia for their baby years. Instead, as I approach a return to the baby years, I am filled with nostalgia for what I almost had. We were so close.