Surprises

It's been a tough couple of days for me emotionally.  One of my dear friends passed away on Saturday, and I've found my thoughts turning to him and his family frequently. I feel like I was given the gift of their friendship over the past year and a half since I met them, and my heart just hurts for them.  I can't help but think that the boys have a new angel watching over them now...

And I hope that he's smiling up there after the day they had today... for it was truly a day of surprises.  First of all, the boys only wanted ONE FEEDING between 11pm last night and 7am this morning!!!!  Let me repeat that- ONE FEEDING!!!!  I'm sure it was a fluke and they'll wake up every two hours tonight to make up for it, but it sure was a lovely respite from the norm.  You'd think I'd be used to the lack of sleep by now.  After all, I haven't had a solid night of sleep since the first trimester of our pregnancy- there's no reason to not be used to it.  But nope!  I miss sleep so much, but at the same time in a weird sort of way, I kind of like the night feedings- they mean that I get to see my boys just that much more.  And when I start back to work in mid March, that might be one of the few times I see them awake on the days that I work.

So both Jason and I were grateful for last night.  I was so out of it when the munchkins woke up this morning that Jason had to explain to me that we only did one feeding last night- I was so confused!

And the lovely surprises just kept coming.  After our morning feeding and diaper change, I let them hang out in our bed in only their fresh diapers.  They love being naked!  Imagine my surprise to hear Jenson LAUGH when I blew raspberries on his tummy.  I'm not talking just a smile or two.  I'm talking full on laughter for multiple minutes from the child!!  Each of the boys has had a giggle or two before today, but this was truly the first time that the laughter was in direct response to something that we did.  I'm not sure who laughed more in the end- Jenson or me in pure delight at hearing his beautiful laughter!

The other surprise happened this afternoon after their 4pm bottle.  Elliott and Sidney woke up around the same time from their nap and were hungry, so I fed them both on the couch together (letting Jenson continue his nap).  When they were finished eating and being burped, I laid Sidney on my folded leg and held Elliott up to him face to face.  Both of them immediately made eye contact with each other, broke out into smiles, and started cooing at each other!  I know the boys all sense each other's presence around them, and Lord knows we've had more than our fair share of unintentional eye pokings, nose pickings, hand holding, etc.  But it was such a blatant, intentional interaction with each other and it just took my breath away to get to bear witness it.