That's how old our daughters are now. That's how long it has been since Raymond and I became parents. And man, have those two tiny, wriggly, sleepy newborns grown and changed! We have two toddlers now, and are in the throes of potty training. I don't spend my days lounging on a couch anymore, pregnant as all get out and feeling as big as an elephant. I'm too busy running after two very opinionated, stubborn, and joyful toddlers.
Joy and Grace arrived on a spring day in 2023. They stayed percolating until the date of their scheduled C-section, which came as a surprise to me since I fully expected them to make an early arrival into this world. Joy weighed 6.5lbs, and Grace 5.1lbs. A decent size for twins! They needed no NICU time, and we were able to take them home a couple of days later. Which was crazy. They just let us walk out of the hospital with these two tiny babies. We didn't know what we were doing! Really, we still don't.
My mom was amazing and came to stay with us for the first two months after the girls were born. I genuinely don't know how we would have survived if it weren't for her. Every early morning -I'm talking as early as 5am at one point- we would wheel the babies out to her in their bassinet, and she would sit with them in the living room while we went back to bed and got a solid 4 hours straight of sleep. My mom was the one who kept our household running -she worried about dishes and vacuuming and laundry and cleaning the bathrooms, while Raymond and I focused on keeping our two tiny humans alive.
Things are more settled now. We have a better grasp on how to be parents. It helps that our babies are no longer babies, but big girls who can be independent to an extent. Frustratingly so -they no longer allow me to pick their clothes for them, so goodbye cute coordinating outfits! Hello, animal pants with polka dot shirts, and bright pink pants with a bright pink shirt. They're potty training right now, so we're already almost out of the diaper stage.
We've also moved. In August of this year, we left our little duplex in Fort Saskatchewan, Alberta, and moved to a small town in Ontario. It was a long process but we love our new home and are settling in very well. Raymond's parents have already come to visit us which was lovely, and that happened because of Raymond's ordination. Because he is now officially officially a pastor!
So yeah. Here we are, living in Ontario (back home for me, sort of- about 2 hours from my parents). A pastoral family. And with two wonderful, amazing, funny, adorable (we aren't biased at all) two year olds.
