What I Wouldn't Give For A Good Inner Arm Pinch. Sort Of.

Wow. Halloween. With twins. Twins who are clueless about the holiday.

I am lucky to live in a neighborhood that goes all out for Halloween. We live right at the triangle intersection of 2 streets, and every year the whole neighborhood gathers there for costumes, food and fun. And wine. The Varsity catered the event (for you non-Atlantans, Google it, it's an institution) and everyone ran around chasing their kids. We always do a little parade..... although this year we had a fire truck leading the parade, and the driver didn't realize that the "parade" was only supposed to go around the little triangle, like, 3 times. God bless him, he took off with sirens blaring, down the street and a buch of people followed until they realized how far away he apparently intended to go! The parade petered out, and we all were soon back milling around and hoping the fireman hadn't driven too far away with no followers. Come to think of it, did he ever come back? Maybe he wasn't leading a parade so much as rushing to a fire? Hmmm.

The boys were adorable in their costumes, but of course, the reason for them went totally over their heads. But that's OK. Foster sat and ate 2 hot dogs - in the bun, like an adult - and thought he was the Mayor of the party. Yancey ran up onto a neighbor's porch and refused to leave. We pried them away from hot dogs and porches and took them in their wagon to 3 houses to Trick or Treat. Baths, bed, candy eaten (by parents). Halloween - CHECK.

But, what I really wanted to tell you about was the fact that Foster has learned the art of the full on, physical tantrum. Going totally stiff then flailing around when picked up. He'll kick and scream and flail and scream ad nauseum. Yancey and I have been with the boys all day today, and between the Foster Flail and the Yancey Annoying Scream, we were done in by about 9:30. Yeah, 9:30 AM. Patience was thin, but we made sure *they* had a full fun day. But still, we were over it all day long.

Then, as they settled in for the night, it hit me. Almost 2 years ago, I was in a hospital watching that Flailer fight for his life. He lay there, no bigger than a 20 oz Coke Zero bottle, doing his damndest to breathe, to swallow, to regulate his own temperature. We couldn't touch him (or his brother, the Annoying Screamer)...we couldn't comfort him....we couldn't do anything but watch. And be amazed. At how he was *determined* to grow and heal and breathe. It struck me that 2 short years ago, I was praying that God allow my sons the ability to live a fairly normal life, but today, I was hoping that they would just calm the hell down. Well HELLO Jenny, those children that wore your ass OUT today were born determined as hell and you had just better thank your lucky stars that that was the case. You may be annoyed or tired or flabbergasted or feeling the need to pinch them on the inner arm where it hurts the most (although you never really would), but you need to settle yourself down and Thank God Above that they have that much fight in them. You know what I really think? I think that God planned this all out knowing Yancey and me from the inside out. He knew which children would come to us and in what way. And, he figured he needed to give us some perspective Up Front to get us through the more trying times to come. Huh. Who would have thought I would have ever described *anything* post-NICU as "more trying." Time heals all wounds I guess.

Happy Day After Halloween!!