So last week my babies were gone for Spring Break.  We dropped them at my Mom’s house and started off my birthday week with a staycation in Dallas with my hubby and an amazing meal at The Capital Grille (a Chicago fave) with sweet friends.  I was treated to a pedicure (thanks Meesh!), bought myself some new shoes and a facial, and then spent the next week pretty much doing whatever I wanted to do.  Stay up till 2 am and watch the entire “Sex and the City” DVD set?  Check.  Sleep till 11 am?  Check.  Go shop in all those stores that are impossible to take a stroller or toddler in?  Check.  Flip through all the magazines I never get to read?  Check.  Truthfully, yes, it was bliss having all that sweet freedom.  But about halfway through the week I started to really miss them.  And as I drove back to my Mom’s house I found myself grinning from ear to ear just thinking about reuniting with them.  Charlie was waiting for me – and promptly wrapped herself around me – all spindly legs and soft, olive-y skin.  “Mommmmmmmeeeeeyyyyyy, Mommmmmmmeeeeeyyyyyy” she repeated over and over as she buried her little face in my neck.  Ah, if felt good to be needed again. About a half hour later my Dad got Ella up from her nap and she came running in on the pads of her feet, screaming “Mommy!  Mommy!  Mommy!” and flashing that gap-toothed smile I love so much.  I snatched her up (forgetting that at 2 she is still less than 25 pounds) and held her close, taking in that still baby smell and kissing her tiny features.  Her first words to me were “I’m Minnie Mouse!”, which she said over and over again in her post-nap gravelly voice.  Sweet girl.  We had a pretty uneventful drive back and of course they were both thrilled to be home, back in their rooms and beds and ready to play with all of their favorite toys.  And somehow, they both looked so much bigger to me.  You know how that happens?  It almost takes your breath away – all this time I wished and prayed for Ella to talk and now she’s saying full sentences and I can actually converse with her.  So strange, and beautiful, and bittersweet at the same time.  So I’ll always be the one who recognizes the not-so-pretty sides of being a Mom.  I can commiserate with the best of ‘em.  But I can also appreciate when my heart is full and my family is healthy and home and asleep in these beds and oh, how good all of that feels.

I’m going to be 34 on Sunday.  Ask me where the last 12 years went…cause I really don’t know.  It’s amazing how the minutiae of the day-to-day can make time feel like it’s standing still, when in all actuality, didn’t it just seem like it was last summer?  My girls were a year younger, even more dependent on me…Ella was just taking her first steps at 18 months.  Charlie was 3 and so afraid of the water she wouldn’t dip one toe in the neighborhood pool.  And now, I have a walking, talking 2 year old (“Yuka, Mom, an aipane!!” – translation: “Look, Mom, an airplane!!”) and a smart and fearless 4 year old.  What happened? The other day Charlie and I had this conversation about getting older: C: Mommy, how many years are you? Me: I’ll be 34 on my birthday. C: So then, next year you’ll be 35 on your birthday? Me: Yep. C: And then, 36, 37, 38, and then 45? Me: Silence.  “Uh, not so fast there, sister!” It got me thinking.  I wonder if gals in their 20’s feel like they’ll be in their 20’s forever.  I sure did.  And although I learned a lot of valuable lessons and made life-long friendships during that decade, you couldn’t pay me a lifetime of Louis Vuittons to go back.  And yet, time sort of feels like it’s going by a little too fast for my taste. I’m going on Day 15 of my Paleo Challenge and have only gone off track a couple of times – and not even that much.  It’s going well – overall I feel great, I’m sleeping better, and am at long last back to my pre-holiday weight.  Everything feels a little tighter, less jiggly.  That’s never a bad thing. I think taking better care of myself in all ways will lead to a longer life – emotionally I am still and will always be a work-in-progress.  I think my search for acceptance has less to do with what “happened in high school” and more to do with my own hang-ups – you know, what I see when I look in the mirror vs. what other people see.  And maybe, just maybe, what other people see is really what’s true.  I think the Devil will constantly prey on those insecurities, if I let him.  If I were better at keeping myself spiritually fed I might be able to fight it in a more constructive and healthy way.  I know the Lord knows where my heart is, but I don’t do a very good job of maintaining my relationship with Him.  This is definitely an area I can improve on in my 34th year.  Filling my heart and my life with things of good and not of evil, surrounding myself with friends who lift me up and don’t tear me down…giving myself a lot of grace and giving it all up each and everyday.    And so, as I look at myself in the mirror as I turn 34, I will try not to notice the teeny lines that have all of a sudden popped up around my mouth and the fact that my skin doesn’t bounce back like it did when I was 22.  And it will be ok – because that’s just life – and what can you do but embrace each year and celebrate the things you’ve learned and the people you’ve loved?  That might be a better use of my time than sitting on my sink, examining my pores for 45 minutes while I sing Lady Gaga songs and flip through catalogs – Whaaat?  (Cause you know, even when you are no longer single you still have Secret Single Behavior.  Carrie Bradshaw admitted it.  It’s time we all did, no?) So here’s to 34, and all of its ups and downs.  May it bring me closer to the woman I truly want to be.