The Barefoot Files: One Year Olds!

I don't know how to write about the boys turning one without blubbering all over the place.

I don't know how to write about the boys without writing about everyone else. Because we are all intertwined right now. It is Luke, and Adeline, and Tula, and Henry, and me, and Josh in a huge pretzel of a family.

I don't know how to write about the boys without saying they are little balls of joy and light.

I don't know how to write about the boys without mentioning that they poop all the time. They are constantly poopy. How can such tiny things poop so much?!

I don't know how to write about the boys without wanting to go wake them up from their nap and hug them, and smell them, and listen to them coo, "Ma ma ma ma ma." Because they are my little loves. They are my heart.

I don't know how to write about the boys.

But I'll try. And I'll fail. Because these boys are the lid on my life.

The girls are the box, and the boys are the lid and inside is everything else that's ever happened.

I don't know if that makes sense, but when people say they had their blah blah number child and knew their family was complete, that's how I felt with the boys. The second they were born my heart exhaled and was like, "Ok. This is it. This is who you are, Amy."

And then it handed me the box and let me try to figure it all out.

The wrapping is tricky, and it's hard to find things in there sometimes, and nothing is as it seems, but it's still me. It's still my box.

That smile on my face, is because the one year olds are so warm and sweet, you can't help but glow around them.

Having children has made me take notice of how kind people are around me. The day Adeline was born I have never been so surrounded by love and kindness and generosity and genuine well-wishings from people I didn't even know. And since that day it has not stopped. Maybe it was there all the time and I didn't really notice it, but having the kids peeled back a layer of the world and exposed a whole lot of love and happiness and joy I couldn't have imagined.

Part of this is strangers who encounter me out in public, and who usually say something like - How do you it? Or - Wow, you've got your hands full, good job! Or - Are all those yours? You look great!

No one walks up to a stranger and says - I'll bet that puppy keeps you up at night, good for you for still walking him! Or - You look like you just went to the gym. Way to get your workout on! Because that would be weird. But there's something so unifying about having kids. It makes people give you a little I-know-what-that's-like nod as they pass you and your tantruming two year old in the middle of Target. And it makes them come up to you in the grocery store and say, "What cute kids you have!" right before two of them knock down every single box of cereal in the middle cereal shelf as they run down the aisle with their arms extended playing "Dinosaur Grocery Store".

But the truth is, having four is easier than just having two was.

And I know that sounds crazy, but it's true. Having two was so hard for me. I could not figure anything out. But having four? Well, I don't have any choice. We get it done, and we get it done (almost) on time or we don't have a life. Maybe all this is just a very crazy way to teach me that I need to be busy in order to be productive, and if that's the case, "VERY FUNNY GOD. You could have just given me a lot of jobs or something."

What's that? On a two day road trip in the car with four kids and three out of the four have blow outs and the bathroom where we stop has no changing table? No problem! TO THE DESERT!

So, the boys are one. And they could not be more different. They are both happy and funny, but in such different ways. Physically, Henry is huge and strong, while Luke is slight and wiry. Vocally, Luke wants to have deep, long babbling conversations while staring intently into your soul through your eyes, and Henry is content to just scream something loud and then crawl away from you as fast as he can. They both do the crazy crab crawl the girls did. My kids do not crawl on their knees, they use one foot to propel them on their butts while the other one pushes. They stand, they walk while holding onto something, they eat anything and everything you put in front of them, and they think their sisters are hysterical.

They love their sisters. To them, Addie and Tula are quite possibly the funniest things ever created.

Their dad is a close second. But he changes their diapers (oh the horror!) so, the girls win every time.

All in all, this year has been crazy, and wonderful, and hard, and tricky, and full of love and joy, and so comfortable and nice, and it's because of the boys. It's because we are a full box now.