The last time I wrote a blog post was around Halloween of 2014. It’s been too long. I’m pleased to give it another shot. Our fall was eventful, celebrating Halloween with our friends and watching the twins run around in Super Audrey and Super Andrew caped superhero outfits. They were just getting good at walking, which means Dave and I had to get good at chasing, as they went in opposite directions seemingly by pact to make life difficult for their parents.

November brought Thanksgiving, which we decided to spend in Ponce Inlet, FL at my parents’ place. We took the twins on a plane for the first time. Because they were 1 year old, they were still able to qualify for a lap child, which means that you don’t have to buy a ticket for them, but you must contain them on your lap. Containing a toddler is never easy, but it becomes more difficult on a plane for many reasons. Thankfully both of our children can be bribed with chewy fruit snacks and animal crackers. Thank God for those. And thank God for the kindness of other people. Right after takeoff on a flight, Audrey began to pitch a tantrum, the likes of which was new to me. She was wrestling, screaming at the top of her lungs, and hitting me. I was sitting in an aisle seat, but could not get up because we were still ascending. I was trying to keep it together, feeling close to tears myself, when a man behind and across from me tapped me on the shoulder and said very kindly, “don’t worry about it. We’ve all been there. Every single one of us.” It was such a simple thing to say, but made me feel so much better. I look for opportunities to pay it forward with a kind word when I can. Sometimes it really makes a difference.

We also traveled for Christmas, going to visit Dave’s parents in Pasadena, CA. This trip went smoothly, as the twins were travel pros by this point. When you have twin infants, you cannot sit together as a family in a row because two infants cannot sit in a row together. There are not enough oxygen masks to accommodate two infants. We sat across the aisle from each other and passed the screaming toddlers back and forth to each other based on whichever of us was better at pacifying in that given moment. Our Christmas visit was really nice. We were able to go on several hikes in sunny California. The twins got to go to the park, play in the backyard, and go out for pizza. Christmas presents are not something that Dave and I have gotten all that into in the past, but this year, I decided to put some thought into it. I got him a watch that is silver and has math equations in place of numbers. He loves it and it really suits him. He got me a necklace that has three circles intertwined. There is a small circle, a medium circle, and a large circle and they are all linked together and then attached to a chain. It is simple and I love it, as it represents the past, present, and future. I love the idea that the past, present, and future are all connected.

We returned from California on New Years Eve and arrived at our house around 9PM. We put the twins down to bed and then grabbed some blankets and went out to the front yard to ring in the new year in our lawn chairs, wrapped in blankets, looking at the stars. One of my more favorite new years celebrations.

Next was my birthday. Normally, I don’t get very excited about my birthday. It is January 10, so it’s three weeks after Christmas. Everyone is sick of partying and is not really into eating cake. It usually feels like kind of a letdown. Not this year! My best friend decided to come down to visit us from Nashville. She brought her nearly 3 year old son and husband. I hadn’t had a chance to meet her son yet and I was SO excited about seeing all of our kids together. We spent the weekend eating out, visiting the Childrens Museum, a brewery tour, and playing cards, board games, and running around after our kids. It is hard to explain, but it truly felt like home. My parents moved away from my childhood home when I was about 22. Since then, I’ve not really felt like I had a physical place that I called home. I believe home is more a feeling that you create with the people who make you feel like home. My best friend is a kind, funny, wonderful person. I’ve been proud to call her my best friend since 6th grade. We share a similar sense of humor and a comfort with each other that is indescribable. We even married men who have very similar personalities and interests. I hadn’t seen her in several years, but it felt just like it always had from the minute they walked in the door. This visit left me feeling really happy and peaceful in a way that I hadn’t experienced in a long time. I can only hope we will visit more often in the future.

Two days after they left, the best birthday present I’ve ever received arrived in a giant box. When I was visiting my parents over Thanksgiving, they took me out in the car on a rainy, cold day saying they had a surprise for me. Audrey was with us as we drove up to a store called Florida Keys. I was a bit confused, wondering what we were doing. I pulled open the door, and there sat a brand new piano with a giant red bow on it. I was in disbelief that this was for me! What an incredible surprise. I spent some time learning how to use it and then was told it would be shipped to Houston to arrive around my birthday. It was really difficult to contain myself from November until January while it shipped across the country.

I have played the piano since I was 12. I took lessons for about a year. Lessons didn’t work well for me, so I quit. I didn’t quit playing the piano though. I played for sometimes several hours a day, teaching myself Beethoven, Mozart, Pachelbel, Christmas carols, and lots of Andrew Lloyd Webber. I played when I was happy, sad, angry, stressed, or bored. I was able to lose myself in learning a new song, memorizing it, recording it. The piano I played on was a birthday gift from my parents for my 12th birthday. I played for 10 straight hours when I got it. I cherished it through the years, moving it with me to Texas and dragging it through 5 moves to different apartments and then finally to our house.

My new piano is similar to my old one in that it is an electronic, full sized piano. It is up to date with the newest technology, including a USB input to record my songs and weighted keys so that it feels like playing on a traditional piano. It sounds great. I absolutely love it. I had become somewhat bored with my old one and hadn’t played much in the past 5 years. This new piano has re-inspired me in ways that I didn’t expect. I love it. What a truly touching gift. The twins have inherited the old piano and they love banging on it and pushing the buttons.

The twins turned 18 months in February. They are very mobile, running around everywhere. They love climbing on things, playing outside, riding their bikes and pushing toys around. They enjoy balls and toy cars. They laugh a lot. They carry on full conversations with each other that only they can understand. They are beginning to speak a few words that we can understand too. Andrew struggles with ear infections. He will be getting tubes in his ears in the next few weeks.

On Monday night, he was battling a double ear infection and was incredibly upset all night long. We could not get him to sleep and he ended up staying up most of the night, as well as waking up his sister, who sleeps in the same room with him. Dave and I were both up all night. The only way to console him was to distract him with his favorite TV show, Winnie the Pooh. So, there I sat at 3AM, holding him on my lap, watching Winnie the Pooh. I felt exhausted and stressed with worry about how I was going to manage to catch my 9AM flight to Tucson after no sleep for either Andrew or myself. I made a decision to postpone my trip by several hours to take him to the doctor. He finally fell asleep for a couple of hours around 5AM in my bed. I slept also. When he woke, I woke. I expected him to begin fussing because he was in pain. Instead, he looked at me and smiled. I felt my exhaustion and stress melt away as I smiled back. Then he farted. The fart lasted for 10 seconds. I said “MY!” and he said “HI!” and waved at me. I laughed. It was all made good again. I took him to the doctor, got medicine, took him to day care, packed my bags, and boarded a flight to Tucson, exhausted but pleased.

It has been many years since I have visited Tucson. I have fond memories of traveling there during a couple of family trips when I was a teenager, so I was excited when my travels brought me back. There is something about the mountains and the desert terrain that I have always loved. On Wednesday, I finished up with my work around 4:30 in the afternoon and had a couple of hours to kill before dinner, so I decided to go for a jog around the University of Arizona campus. The University of Arizona is a school that I applied to in high school and I was accepted. I decided not to attend, as it was very far away from my childhood home in Pennsylvania and I was not ready to live so far away. I ended up attending Virginia Tech and completed about half of my chemical engineering curriculum before deciding that I wanted to find a smaller chemical engineering program. I once again applied to the University of Arizona, and was accepted. Instead, I decided to attend the University of Wyoming. As I ran through the U of A campus, finding the psychology and chemical engineering buildings, I thought about these two times that I had almost attended school there and began to wonder what my life would be like if I had. Would I have had a completely different life? Would I have loved different friends, different men, different activities? Surely I would have. Would I have found myself in Texas, Dave, twins? Who knows? I was lost in these thoughts as I jogged. Suddenly I found myself in the midst of a beautiful circular monument surrounded by a vibrant shock of red and white pansies that stands in the middle of the U of A campus. It is dedicated to strong and influential women of the state of Arizona and honors their past, present, and future. Just like the necklace Dave gave me for Christmas that I wear almost every day. The past, present, and future are linked together and cannot be broken apart. They cannot stand alone, separately. They are all connected to make a beautiful whole. I decided to sit down at the monument for a moment. I read the names of the women to myself. I closed my eyes and smelled the sweet pansies and the nearby orange trees. I felt the sunshine warm me. I had spent most of the run contemplating the past. I decided to spend the rest of the run thinking about the future. Who knows what would have happened if I had gone to the University of Arizona. Who knows what will happen in the future?
All I know is it will be a beautiful whole.