catching up

it's been many months and i keep thinking about writing but always feel bad that i started from the beginning and only got through to our first holidays... and now it's well after our second holidays together, and several family vacations, and preschool, pre-K and this week began kindergarten... and the twins turned 5 just two weeks ago. hard to grasp at times that they were only 2 years old when we met, and now 5! no longer babies but big kids.
we're coming up on fall with school having just begun. they started late since we were on vacation, visiting east coast families once again this year. seeing all of their east coast aunts and uncles and cousins and their only grandparents (my parents are both gone now). celebrating their fifth birthday over and over again! we had to buy an extra suitcase just to carry home all the loot. they went to their first wedding and had a blast. and everyone had such great words of praise for us and them, seeing the big changes in their behavior since last year's visits and telling us how well-behaved they were (we wonder whose kids they're referring to at times, i guess we see them 24/7 and know when they're acting up). my partner and i do have very similar views on discipline and acceptable behavior. one of the first values we tried to instill was manners, please, thank you, no thank you... and two years later we still have to enforce it at times. but i feel so proud when i hear one of them say please or thank you all on their own to others. i read something online a few months back (i'm a voracious reader of anything child rearing related, if i can learn one thing i didn't know i haven't wasted my time) it said that "we hold their hearts in our hands." that left an impression on me. i only wish i could remember it more when they're dawdling and temperamental and tired or talking back or arguing with me... constantly trying to be a better parent. i guess by the time you get it right they're off to college.