Where Has The Time Gone?

Following the excitement of F's birthday, this week has been rather uneventful as we get back into the swing of normal life around here.  Back to our routine, back to our regular activities, back to my regular chores.  Lather rinse repeat.

It is funny, although F has been rather toddler-like for sometime now, he was still a baby.  A really funny looking walking baby, but a baby nonetheless.  Now this week I keep catching glances of my new little toddler.  It's odd how right at a year he seemed to switch over, just like that.  I swear he is taller than even just a few weeks ago, and watching him yesterday wander around in his diaper I noticed that pretty much all his chubby rolls have gone.  He is leaner, and definitely not baby looking anymore.  *sniff*

And so life with two toddlers begins.  I watch the boys playing in the backyard and my heart melts.  This is what I have been waiting for, what I have expected from having them so close in age.  Playing together, hanging out.  Like brothers, like best buddies.  T tears around and F tries desperately to keep up.  Sometimes they play together, sometimes they just wander around aimlessly, not paying much attention to each other yet always aware that the other is there.

We have our fair share of squabbles of course.  Over toys and food.  One day it will be over girls.  But nothing that can't be smoothed out.  They just adore each other.

Like at the dinner table when T is goofing off and F laughs like he is the funniest thing in the world.  Or like when I catch T holding F's hand, or trying to give him his soother (even if F doesn't want it right then!).  When he shares his snack with him or lets him play with a certain toy.  At bedtime when I take F upstairs and T says "Goodnight Finny, I wuv you!".  *double sniff, wipes tear away*

T himself, I swear hardly a toddler anymore.  He has blown through toddlerhood the way F has blown through babyhood.  Trying to put all his own clothes on, often getting his pants backwards or his shoes on the wrong feet, but trying and succeeding nonetheless.  He is so grown up!

I look at my pictures of them over and over, and just can't believe it.  I look at T and never believe he was F's age, and look at F and never believe he will be T's age very soon.  When I see a newborn baby I can't ever remember that my boys were ever that tiny.  But there were.

Where has the time gone?

But then there are times, like last night before I fell asleep and T called me in for a cuddle and asks me to turn his nighlights on.

And tonight, when I took F out of the bath and he ran off before I could dry him, flying across the bathroom and slipping on the floor, smacking his head.  Cue big tears and screaming.  I scooped him up, wrapped him in his towel, and sat there cuddling him while T finished his bath.  He sat there in my arms quietly long after the crying had stopped, in no hurry to get down.

It doesn't matter how old they are, they will always be my babies.  *sniff sniff*