Shawn

Today (and previously, but today I blog about it) I am thankful for Shawn, our daycare provider. Zoe and Roman are only there two days a week, but I am thankful we found someone like Shawn. I feel comfortable leaving them in her care. After they were born I wasn't sure I was ever going to be comfortable with anyone outside the family watching them. They were so small, they were so fragile and they were so precious. Zoe and Roman became real people, not just the idea of our babies.

I think I really eased into feeling comfortable when Shawn was telling me about her just-turned-5 year old Katie's excitement about the twins. Katie stayed home from preschool the first day they came so that she could spend some time with them. She earnestly told her teacher that she was not sick but wanted to be home to meet the twins. The next time she went in to preschool she brought pictures to share. That warmed my heart. It made me feel good. It made me feel like the twins were in a good environment and would be cared for.

We actually ended up switching to Shawn after they were born, largely because she had less kids to watch. After spending all that time with Zoe and Roman in the nursery at the hospital, where they were given such amazing attention, we couldn't imagine less. It's funny to think of how Mom and Dad were back then, and it's only a couple of months! I'll always remember the first time I carried one of you out to the kitchen. It felt weird, I felt like I was misbehaving. You'd probably been home several days, but had never left your room. We weren't accustomed to moving you more than 2 feet from your crib in the hospital because most of the time you were hooked up by some sort of wire or monitoring device. So when you got home we kind of kept that umbilical cord theme going with your crib. That, and you were so tiny that I think we were afraid to carry you around too much. Now, thank God, that's not an issue. Today it's a rare exception that we sit in your room and feed you there!

Now, you're a little more mobile. Shawn sent this picture of you two waiting for Daddy to pick you up.



A second thing that made me feel good was that Shawn went out and got some Dr. Brown's bottles for Roman. These bottles are supposed to be helpful for babies that spit up. She just went ahead an did it. That was really nice, especially since Mom got crazy tight with money as soon as you were born. It's kind of been a scary thing to consider, and the daily news about the economy hasn't eased her mind! What seems impossible though doesn't have to be. I have faith in God above and Daddy has faith in a more generic "it all works out". It will, it does.

So, thank you Shawn (and family!)
It's going to be fun watching the twins interact more. I anticipate they'll look up to Katie quite a bit :)