Happy Birthday! (all week long!)

Max and Thomas, only hours old.

Check the boys out here.... they got a special birthday shout-out!

It is unbelievable that the boys are a year old now.

I feel like it was yesterday that I was waddling around with my 60-pound belly and giving people dirty looks on the subway for not offering up their seats.

They’ve gone from being these little mewling creatures to standing, walking, babbling characters. I look at pictures of them with us and I can’t figure out how they got so tall or so old! In my minds eye, they are still wee little babies, but then I see images where I can glimpse the boys they will eventually become.

They have big hands and feet like puppies.

Thomas is our ham, our cookie monster, our giggling clown. He’s quick to smile for the camera, quick to laugh and giggle hysterically. And he’s learned how to pick his nose and twiddle his dingle. Both of which are equally amusing at this point. He’s the first to race over if he sees you coming. He’s also usually the first to burn out at the end of the day, falling asleep in his high chair. After he’s eaten everything in sight, of course. He’s figured out how to put the blocks back in their boxes already.

Max is our sweet-faced baby. A little slower to smile, he sort of seems to consider things for longer than Thomas does. He just wants to sit in your lap and get loves and hugs. He wants to kiss you on the nose… though sometimes it turns into a bite. He loves to look out the window and he sleeps on his tummy with his rump up in the air. When he wakes up in the morning he loves to honk the horn on the car next to his bed. Despite his seeming shyness, and the fact that he is still smaller than Thomas, he manages to steal the toys and give as good as he gets when it comes to brotherly rough-housing.

It has been a great year and a hard year. The boys are easily the best thing that I’ve ever done and seeing the look on their face when they see me – MAMAMAMAMA – is really nothing less than awesome. There were certainly times when I never thought I would get a full night’s sleep again. When I was SO TIRED of pumping. When the thought of looking at my post-baby belly made me a bit irritable.

The sleeplessness was easily the hardest part though now, for the most part, the boys sleep through the night. And sometimes I miss the nights of cuddling or nursing a boy at 1 am.

Now we wake up in the morning to the sounds of them happily babbling to each other. If nothing else, they are the best alarm clock ever.

Happy first birthday to my two little men!

Max and Thomas, one YEAR old!