Is it what you expected?

You know, people ask me all the time if being a mom is everything I expected. And I never really know how to answer. I guess I didn't know what to expect, other than that life would completely change. So yeah, that's about what happened. :-) The funny thing is that I didn't expect to be so completely captivated with these little people. I'm not overemotional (friends who know me in real life are nodding vigorously right now) and I thought we'd get our referral picture and I'd think "hmm, cute babies." And that's it. Then maybe sometime after I met them in person I'd start to feel a little stirring. Then wayyyyyy later, the feeling of babysitting someone else's kids would go away and I'd feel strong emotions. Ha! That was all crap. What really happened is that our agency sent over those referral photos and the minute (no, the very second) that I saw them something grabbed me deep inside and never let go. My stomach turned inside out and upside down. The air was sucked out of the room and I had this instant visceral reaction of "THOSE ARE OUR KIDS!" That feeling never went away, and since then I also flip flop between feelings of "Man, I love these little girls," "How did we get so lucky?" and "Oh god, they could not BE any cuter." Huh. Who knew? I never expected to feel instant love. I never expected to care more about everything they need than anything I need. I never expected that having twins was this much work. I never expected to go an entire day without peeing (and not even notice). I never expected to spend 90% of my waking time with 15-month olds and love it. I never expected to laugh this hard with someone who doesn't even come up to my knees. I never expected to change this many diapers (holy moly the diapers are astounding - they should name a landfill somewhere after us). I never expected my heart would melt just seeing them grab each others' hand to play ring around the rosie. I never expected to be sad when they slept in because it meant that much longer before I could get my sweet morning baby hug. I never expected to survive (and thrive) on this little sleep. I never expected their hair would smell like cotton candy when they woke up in the morning. I never expected to kiss them this much (I'm turning out to be a kiss stealer). I never expected to be this happy. I never expected that this would be better than anything I could have expected. Yep... Here are the lastest pics of our girls - loving, laughing, and enjoying life to the fullest. Click here or on the image below to see the captions, or click here for a non-captioned slideshow. And have a wonderful day - I hope it exceeds your expectations.