Staying Home

November 1st will mark my one year anniversary as a stay at home mom. As hard as it is to believe that a year has already gone by, I couldn't picture this past year any other way. I got to experience so many "firsts" with C that I wasn't able to with D, and while I am really happy that I did, it makes me sad thinking about how much I missed with D.

It also makes me wonder if anything would have been different with D if I was able to spend that time with him in his second year of life rather than only the few hours at night and on the weekends that I was allowed to have. Maybe he would have talked more, maybe he would have walked earlier, climbed faster, transitioned from a sippy cup to a "big boy" cup sooner if he was with me rather than his aunt or in daycare. Or maybe nothing would have changed at all. By no means am I knocking his aunt, or the care that she gave to D while I had to work, but with seeing how much C has advanced before he even turned two makes me wonder why D was so far behind at this age.

Yes, I know that as a baby he was held to much, and probably got away with a little more, but that doesn't excuse why he was so far behind in all of his milestones. Maybe it was just D's course in life, to have to work a little harder to accomplish things that come so easy to his brother. To have to go to speech, occupational, and physical therapy for a year so that he can be where he is today. Sometimes I wonder what would have been if D had been the second child. Would he prove the stereotype that is associated with the second (or third, or fourth) child and been right on track, following in his older siblings foot steps? Or would he prove the belief that your life is mapped out before you are even born, and still go through the struggles that he went through, as well as the ones he has today. I will never know, and to be honest this is the first time that I ever really thought about it. But the one thing that I know with absolute certainty is that I would not change one thing about either of my children. They are who they are, and each where given their own obstacles to overcome so that they can be who they are today.

Which in C's case, means he's a crazy little dude who decided in the space of one day (today) that he was done with diapers and his crib. Hard to believe that in seventeen days I'm going to have a TWO YEAR OLD!

This is not quite where I intended this post to go. I just meant to post a few pictures that I took WITH the boys today and mention how sweet they are with me since we've been in each other's company 24/7 for the past 11 months and five days, but that post got away from me.

Such is the world of blogging and not having a blog post already written in my head.