I open my eyes and look at the alarm clock—two minutes to seven.
Good. I still have time.
I pick up Chandler's hand, still draped over me, and kiss the palm as I slide out of bed. He mumbles in his sleep, so I lean over and kiss his lips, grabbing my pajamas off the floor as I head to the bathroom. As I hurry through my morning routine, it occurs to me that more often than not lately, I'm waking up naked. We go to sleep wearing pajamas—usually—but they're gone in the morning. We're not even having sex all of those nights.
Though that's definitely happening; we've been somehow waking up in the middle of the night and just attacking each other. Maybe our subconscious knows that's the time our kids are usually sleeping the deepest and we won't get disturbed.
It works
But we're back in that skin-to-skin mode, which probably has a lot to do with it being summer; regardless, it's a nice way to wakeup.
I pad quietly across the room, glancing over at Chandler to make sure he's still asleep; he has his arms wrapped around my pillow, so I'm guessing he wasn't completely ready to be without contact, but he's breathing heavily, still asleep.
I look at the clock again—7:04.
I walk into William's room and peek into his crib. He's lying on his back, little chest moving up and down as he sleeps, and my eyes fill with tears. He's so beautiful.
And he's a now a year old.
Well, in about three minutes, but it's been a year.
A whole year since this beautiful little guy came into the world and made our family so much more complete.
A year since I lived through the most physically excruciating experience of my life that was undeniably worth it in the end.
A year since my miracle child was born.
I can't handle this.
I never knew being a parent would be this hard. I didn't know that watching my children grow would be the most gut-wrenching experience I could ever have.
They're all becoming these wonderful, beautiful little people, and it's so much fun to watch them change and learn, but I truly think that if I could freeze time, I would. I want to keep things like this for as long as I can. Every day they need me less and it kills me. I mean, it's not as if they already have jobs and are paying bills—hell, they're all still in diapers. Self-sufficiency isn't their thing yet. But still…it's coming. It's all coming, and faster than I ever thought possible.
I reach into the crib and carefully pick up my baby; he snuffles a little in his sleep but settles into my arms. I bring him over to the rocking chair and get comfortable, gently stroking the fine, soft hairs on his head.
"Happy birthday, William," I say softly, looking at the clock on his dresser. "You came into the world at this exact time one year ago. Did you know that? It was one of the best days of my life." I see a drop hit is face and realize, shockingly, that I'm crying on him.
I need to get it all out now, though, because it really seems to bother the twins when I cry, sometimes distressing them to the point of their own tears.
"We had a rough start, didn't we? I know—Mommy got stressed out, so she made you stressed out, and then she got even more upset when she couldn't calm you down. All it took was being held close, though, right? My little snuggle-bunny. Yeah. You just like to be near us, don't you? That's all you wanted. You weren't asking for much—just a little TLC." His dark eyelashes flutter against his cheeks, his face peaceful, and he's so achingly beautiful that it makes my heart hurt. Right now, he looks exactly the same as Chandler—they have the same sleep face, and I could walk into our bedroom right now, put them side by side, and there'd never be any doubt in the world who he belongs to.
I fight back a sob—I hate that I get so emotional on their birthdays. It's supposed to be a happy time and all I can think about are my babies growing up.
"I love you, baby boy. To the moon and around the world and back again."
His eyes blink open sleepily and he stares at me for a few moments as he gets his bearings and I smile down at him, running a finger over his chubby little cheek. He makes a little gurgling noise, his body twitching a little as he wakes up.
"Good morning, sweetheart."
He gives me a little smile then yawns adorably. I angle him up and kiss his forehead, his tiny hands grabbing for my hair. I give him another kiss as I move my hair out of his grasp, and I can't help but wish he was still breastfeeding. I know it's odd, but I liked having those moments with him where it was just the two of us. Just another sign that he's growing up, though—he started to lose interest in it not too long after Mother's Day, though I guess I should be happy he held out that long. Now he gets a bottle in the morning, usually mixed with cereal of some sort, and it's anyone's guess from there. He still doesn't have a lot of teeth, but he's become quite the expert at gumming his food.
He makes a face and starts squirming, and I stand up as quickly as I can. "Oh, no you don't, you disgusting little thing. You're not going to wiggle around in a dirty diaper on my watch." I plop him on the changing table and pop open his onsi. He smiles at me, and I just know that this isn't going to be pretty.
I'm right.
"You're so gross, dude. How can one little bitty person make such a mess?" He kicks at me and I grab his ankles, pulling him up so I can clean, fortunately, only partway up his back. "Whoever said being a mommy wasn't glamorous, right, Willsy?" My nasty little son has successfully managed to break my sad, introspective mood by delivering what may be his grossest diaper yet.
Somehow, this makes him more like his father than anything else.
I managed to get him cleaned up and re-diapered without any other major malfunctions and lean down to kiss his belly—he laughs and wiggles, patting at the top of my head. I give his little cheek a kiss and a pull a clean shirt over his head. He reaches up for me and I pull him into my arms, bopping him a little as we head into the hallway.
"Mommy has to wash her hands, little guy. You're pretty gross, you know." I walk into the kids' bathroom as he giggles at me and wash my hands, starting when I glance into the mirror. William's just watching me, fascinated, but for the first time I can see that he looks a little like me. He has my mouth, which is even more noticeable when I smile back at him. I pick him up and hold him against my shoulder so we're face to face; now I'm the one that's fascinated. For a entire year, my little boy has looked almost like a carbon copy of his father—so much so, that if I hadn't been the one to push him out, I'd never know who the mother was. But now…I can see it. Maybe it was already there, but…it's kind of nice to be able to see myself in my son. "What do you know," I say to him softly. "Mommy and Daddy really did make a baby."
It's interesting how some things hit you out of the blue like that, because logically, I've known for some time that Chandler and I managed to produce a child, and I've always loved that William looks so much like his father, but finally being able to see parts of me in him just makes the fact that we created a little person all the more real.
It's pretty amazing.
"Want to go wake up Daddy?" I ask William and he bounces up and down in my arms. I'm pretty sure the only word he understands is "daddy" but that's good enough for me.
I walk into our bedroom and we're greeted a cacophony of noise, the twins jumping up and down on the bed as Chandler laughs, shaking his head.
"That was supposed to be 'happy birthday'," he clarifies, and I smile at William.
"Look, sweetie! I told you it was your birthday." His eyes are wide, startled, and I think he's on the verge of tears.
"Bir-day!" Jack exclaims happily, grinning from ear to ear.
Erica claps her hands. "Yay yay yay!"
William takes another moment to decide before he smiles at his brother and sister, their enthusiasm exciting him. He leans forward, his arms outstretched, and I put him on the bed. He crawls over to the rest of his family and he's showered by hugs and kisses and "happy birthday's" of various levels of clarity.
"How did you know we were up?" I ask as I sit down, leaning over to kiss Jack and Erica. "Good morning, loves." They ignore me to play with their brother, which I suppose is a good thing. Chandler's leaning over their heads and I smile. "At least someone's happy to see me," I say as I kiss him good morning.
"In answer to your question," he says, reaching over to the nightstand to grab William's bottle, which I finally notice has a balloon attached to it. "Do you really think that I'm not at least a little aware when you leave the bed? I've been sleeping next to you for eight years, honey—it feels weird when you're not there."
I look at him doubtfully as William's eyes light up at his fancy bottle, his pudgy hands reaching out for it. "You never seem to notice when I leave."
"Don't you notice when I'm not there?"
I make a face, but remain silent—I can't deny that. If his warm body isn't pressed against me, I'm definitely aware of the difference.
"See?" he answers triumphantly, keeping a hand near the baby's bottle to make sure it doesn't go very far. "Just because I go back to sleep doesn't mean I don't know when you're not there. Anyway, I heard you talking to William, so I figured I'd get the rugrats up and give the two of you a few minutes. Of course, then I heard you discussing his diaper situation with him and knew for a fact that I wanted no part of it."
"So sweet," I answer sarcastically, rubbing Jack's back as he scoots over next to me.
"Hi, Mama," he says brightly, looking up at me happily. "Kit?
"Kiss," I correct him gently, but he's already puckered, so it's tough to refuse.
Erica, not to be left out or outdone scrambles over to me, angling her face up at me. "Kssssssss," she demands. I try to suppress a laugh as I grab her cheeks and give her a kiss.
Getting kissed by your kids is one of the best things in life—no question about it. The unadulterated love and affection they just radiate is amazing, and I find it so sweet that they compete for love. One day, way in the future when they have kids of their own, they'll understand that the love I have for them is endless, and that there's no way I could possibly love one more than the other.
I wrap my arms around the twins and look over at William, who has both hands wrapped around his bottle, his head tilted back as he drinks, his eyes focused on the balloon bobbing over him. Chandler catches him just as he's about to fall backwards; William just grins around the nipple of the bottle before he starts chugging away again.
"Did you two eat breakfast yet?" They shake their head at the same time and I give my husband a look.
"We haven't been up that long," he exclaims, throwing up one hand in innocence, the other supporting William's back. "All I've done was go downstairs to get the bottle and the balloon, then I changed diapers. "
I lift my eyebrow and look down at Jack and Erica. "What do you think? Should we forgive Daddy?"
"No!" Erica exclaims, her eyes growing wide as she watches her father's hand come at her.
"No? I thought you were on my side!" His hand makes contact, tickling her sides, and she squirms against me as she laughs.
"No!" Jack says suddenly, but this time it's because he wants in on the action, too.
Chandler switches twins, tickling Jack, who flops around like a fish.
I just shake my head—I'm not sure who's worse, really. Chandler, for egging them on this early in the day, or the twins for liking to be tickled so much.
They're all crazy.
William drops his bottle, breathing heavily, a satisfied look on his face, and I recognize that look—it's the "I just had the best meal ever" look. He burps and looks even more pleased.
"Well, I'm sorry to break up the tickle-fest, but at least two little people here need to eat something."
"Got it covered," Chandler says, rolling off the bed and going to the bureau. He turns around and has a couple of cupcakes on a plate, a candle sticking out of one of them.
"For breakfast? Really?"
"Not their entire breakfast," he insists. "Just as a little appetizer." He sits down on the bed again, leaning in to kiss my cheek. "C'mon. How many times in your life to you get to be one?"
I roll my eyes, knowing I'll give in—it is his birthday after all. "Well, if he's anything like his father—"
"Don't finish that sentence," he interrupts, and I bite my lip. "I figured they could share one, and we could share one."
"Well, you better light that candle," I finally tell him. "The Bing children look like they're about to attack."
Chandler holds up his hand, lighter at the ready, and once the candle is lit, we all sing. Well, two of us sing—the other two try their hardest. They clap at the end of the song, though, both saying, "Yay!" The three of them try to blow out the candle—William's only able to manage blowing bubbles, and the twins don't quite have the technique down yet. I'm about to mention to Chandler that he should get the camera when I look up and see it's already in his hand. He smiles at me sheepishly; I have no idea how he did that.
Their greedy little fingers start to reach for the cupcake when Chandler whisks it out of the way. "Uh uh uh. No grabbing." He carefully breaks it into three pieces, William's eyes lighting up at the taste; even though he had it at the twins' birthday, he still finds it mesmerizing.
One year.
Wow.
We don't have anything big planned for today—it's a Wednesday, after all. We just took the day off from work to spend time together; the party is this weekend, and the usual suspects will be there. Even Chandler's parents are coming in for the occasion, which means a lot to us because they were just here for Jack and Erica's birthday a couple of months ago. They can't get enough of their grandchildren, though. Nora's even been scheduling more spots on her tour in our general area just so she can see them. On Saturday there'll be presents and cake and friends and cousins and neighbors and more stuff than any one-year-old could possibly enjoy.
But today is just for us. A day for us to celebrate the event that made our lives just a little more complete.
How much better has William made our lives? There's no way to measure it, same as we can't quantify how great life is with Jack and Erica. We just know that without these three, our life would be unspeakably bleak.
The three of them look up at me and their father, bright green icing covering their teeth and lips as they smile. The crash later on will probably be epic, but…hell, you only get to be this young once.
I break the second cupcake into pieces and it hand it off to them, their faces lighting up with joy.
Somehow, I think we'll manage.
*A/N...someone asked if I'd be open to writing AUs, and the answer is yes, definitely, as long as I can find a scenario that would be interesting to me to write, or that hasn't been done to death. I mean, everyone loves college Mondler, but would I be able to bring anything to that particular table? Anyway, it'd be a matter of finding something to write about and going from there (I guess that's where that challenge list on tumblr might come in handy).
Someone else-Spot-asked about me posting wisdom when I update because he/she was having trouble writing fics. I don't know what sort of help I could offer, unfortunately. This all comes out of a very weird place in me, but it's been scratching my creative itch. Writing's just the one thing in which I've always been better than mediocre-even in school when I would slack off and wait until the last minute to write a paper, I'd still get a top grade on it. It's just one of those things. As far as general stuff goes, though...I'd say take your time with it. Write the details you want to write-obviously, I like a lot of detail, but that's just me. I see a lot of fics out there that could be really great if they'd just take their time with it instead of forcing it out in a rush (and I wish I could express how hard it is not to rewrite other people's stories...it's a sickness), but if there's ever anything you want me to read for you, I'm happy to do it. I don't mind at all giving my input on other people's writing.
One more thing before I shut up-I don't say this enough, but seriously...thank you for your reviews. You guys can be really sweet and encouraging, and it's really awesome. I may not always deal with things well, but I do want you to know that every single time you leave a review, I smile. I check my email obsessively for them because it makes me happy to know that I've done something for you guys. So really-thank you from the bottom of my heart.