20 weeks -- 5 months on May 11

I know I keep bringing this up, still so very weird. Neisha & Dylan started their 20th week of life yesterday, which is 5 months with four weeks per month, yet they will be 5 months officially on May 11, 2009. Development is relative, so is counting!

Dylan & Neisha are experiencing baby rice cereal very differently. Neisha loves it, she really enjoys the texture/social experience and opens her mouth as the spoon gets closer. Dylan on the other hand, gives you the look, shakes his head, sticks out his tongue and squirms as far as he can away from the spoon. Turn on some baby crack, and he accepts what we are shoveling as long as we don't block his view. ;-)

We started with rice cereal mixed with formula, as it would taste like what is in the bottle, yet have some texture. (It isn't as bad as we thought, we tasted it... all of us except Daddy, no surprise here). Really thought Dylan would get into the texture/experience more than Neisha, he can't stand the process, much faster to get what he needs from the bottle. He is so A to B, such a boy with strong engineering tendencies. Neisha on the other hand seems to love the adventure of the new experience.

As parents we try not to pigeon hole our children or create a self-fulfilling prophecy. Really can't help noticing patterns which you dutifully compare to what is "known" to you. Our children are so very different from each other that comparing them to each other seems rather silly. For starters, boys and girls are really different. We can see different strengths in each, development milestones eventually occur, so who is the likely baseline? The logical conclusion is Lindsay & I. Scary!

Parents often say, especially when they are not pleased with something (think teen years), to wait it out until the grand babies arrive for the proverbial light bulb. Think that is why grandparents enjoy grand babies so much, they get to play, fill them full of sugar and energy and then give them back to their parents. A simple beauty we call "payback". Isn't the circle of life beautiful?

When does a couple who gives life to children become parents? Is it at the moment of birth, conception or is it when the "light bulb" goes off? Linz & I are 5 months into this gig, last Sunday, I saw the light so to speak. The light felt more like a high speed freight train straight to the forehead.

I won't bore you with the details, I will however share the punch line. As parents we really don't have the luxury of irresponsibility. The good ol' days, things which had "individual & self" written all over it, no longer exist. The transition from "single to married" or "married to dog" had challenges, those challenges pale in comparison to the transition from "dog to twins".

Somehow, having Neisha & Dylan make me want to be a better me. I want to be someone that my children look up to and are proud to call Mom. Not because I'm cool, but because I emulate the qualities and virtues that really matter in life. While I do care that my children are educated and turn out to be contributing members of society, no matter the career path or fields of interest they chose to explore, I want to be there for them and enjoy the ride!