they will never be three again

Today, our amazing trips turned four-years-old.

All day today, I kept wondering, does it seem like four years ago I weighed 110 pounds more than I do at this moment? Does it seem like four years ago I was in a hospital bed certain that I was going to die, or worse yet, all three of my precious babies were going to die? Does it seem like four years ago I was hooked up to monitors and magnesium sulfate and watching the Red Sox lose game after game after game to the Yankees ... only to make the greatest come back in all of baseball history, rising like a Phoenix from the ashes?

These past four years have been the most incredible years of my life.

From watching our three tiny and vulnerable premature infants grow in to three curious toddlers and continue growth in to this current phase of adventurous (nonstop talking) preschoolers - there has never once been a dull moment since our children have arrived in our world.

If our lives up until this point had been a book, I think it could best be characterized as a love story, punctuated by comedy and horror.

Since I'm away on a business meeting using my work computer that has limited internet access (particularly as it pertains to accessing those sites where all of my photographic images are stored), I cannot include any pictures with this post. Unfortunately, the photos that I took of the children yesterday, when we scurried about town and they were dressed in their summer clothes while wearing their brightly colored matching hats from Patagonia, will have to wait.

The pictures that I most wanted to include with this post were of the children tossing pennies in to a fountain and making heartfelt wishes. And then, they would reach in to the fountain and do their best to scoop their pennies out so that they could throw them in and wish some more.

After they threw the equivalent of five dollars in coins in to the water, I rounded up all of the children so that they were close in my arms, and I cast a quarter in to the water. I hoped that this big coin would be large enough to cover all of the wishes that I have for my babies.

I wished for them patience and kindness and compassion and good health. I wished for them happiness and joy and the ability to share and the ability to eat a green vegetable every once in a while. I wished for them love. Unending, unconditional, uncomplicated love.

And then, I wished for me.

I wished that I would have the patience and kindess and compassion that will be required to raise these children in to the kind, patient and compassionate people I hope that they will become. I wished that I would continue to find joy in the small things that they do, and I wished that I will always have (or be able to find without too much wine), the ability to see the humor in just about every situation. I wished that I would enjoy them.

Each and every day, I wished that I would enjoy these little people that like a Phoenix, seem to be rising from the ashes before my very eyes.

And then, I thought about reaching in to the fountain so I could scoop my quarter out and wish on them some more.