we're back

I have taken a rather extended vacation as the blogger for the middles. First a week went by then two,and it suddenly became that much easier to just push it down to the bottom of my to do list. I started questioning why I was blogging, was it for me when my long term memory sputters a bon voyage and this is my way to relive my past? Was it for our parents and friends who enjoy seeing what these two little people are up to? Or was I doing it for them so when they are my age they can sit at the computer (if such things still exist) and read these posts and know that Jay and I tried our best to let them become the people they long to be. I realized that not a day goes by that I don't think how lucky I am to have been given Henry and Bryn who teach me daily how to be a better mother, challenge my perceptions of the world and show me on a regular basis the true meaning of loyalty, love and pure happiness. They of course keep us grounded as we try to fumble our way through parenting two extroverted, loud(as in volume for Henry and attitude for Bryn) and determined...yet at most times twins with completely opposite personalities that challenge us to be better people, better parents and better humans.

This is one of my favorite essays of Kahlil Gibran from the book The Prophet and was read to me by my late friend Kathy Bell when I was pregnant with B and H. I think of her and this essay often. Our children are not OUR children.........

On Children
Kahlil Gibran

Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them,
but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children
as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
and He bends you with His might
that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
so He loves also the bow that is stable.

Now on a much lighter note, how does one "catch up" on 6 months of life with B and H? Suggestions welcome.