Fun in the Sun

We are so lucky to live here. First of all, it's been near 80 for the past week, and then there's all the fun activities we have at our disposal. We went to the Wild Animal Park on Monday, we've been going almost every week now, and we have our little pattern. We go run around Condor Ridge (thanks Jen for the suggestion!), we spend some time walking out to the Elephant Outlook, we hit the petting zoo, the ducks, the meerkats and depending on time, we may go see the gorillas. I think we need to add something new to our repertoire because while I was looking at this... The boys were more interested in this...
While we were at the Park, we ran into fellow twin and NICU mom's Lindsay and Jen. Lindsay and I had a play date scheduled for our boys on Wednesday, so we just said a quick hello and goodbye.

Wednesday had us at the Aquarium, another one of our weekly haunts, with Lindsay and her identical twin boys, Tyler and Dylan. Our four boys had tons of fun, playing with the plastic sea stars, lobsters and shrimp, but the highlight of the day was most definitely the puddle of water. I tried to get some pictures of all four boys, playing together, but trying to get the faces of four toddlers running in four different directions is like trying to catch lightning in a bottle. At least they are all in the frame, almost. Tyler and Dylan are just a couple of weeks older than us, born at 29 weeks. We met Lindsay and Jamie before all of our boys were born during our tour of the hospital. Lindsay just wrote about this chance meeting in her blog. I said the same thing to Scott, hand slapping my forehead, "We should have gotten their phone number!" I thought at the time that we had missed an opportunity to make friends with someone else with twins, someone who would be able to relate to what we were going through!
Little did we know that two short months later we would all meet again. Scott remembers far better than I, as I was doped up on Magnesium Sulfate, the worst drug ever. Mag Sulfate leaves you, or left me, totally oblivious to everything. I felt like I was drunker than drunk. While I was on hospital bed rest, I'd stare up at the ceiling and everything would move. I couldn't focus on anything, I couldn't read, I could barely watch television. I know I talked to a ton of people on the phone, and had lots of visitors, but those conversations are just fuzzy and distant memories.

I digress...So, after the sudden arrival of Axel and Outlaw, I was promptly put back on Mag Sulfate, my first visit with my boys was while I was drugged and stupid. We also ran into Lindsay and Jamie when I was drugged and stupid. I remember Jamie coming over and talking to Scott, I remember smiling and nodding, I remember asking Scott, "who was that?" I remember a few days later, not so drugged and not so stupid, having a conversation with Lindsay and Jamie. They were so kind, they offered a hand of support when we needed it the most. They were NICU veterans by this time (two weeks ahead of us), they gave us suggestions, offered their experience as guide, their hands in support, even as they were going through their own struggle.
I don't think you can begin to understand what a difference it makes to have someone reach out to you when you are drowning in a sea of the unknown. And now, all of that struggle for life behind us, it is beyond wonderful to see our four boys running (even when they are supposed to be holding their Mommy's hands), laughing, screaming, playing, and being little boys. It's hard to believe that a little more than two years ago, all of those things were just distant hopes and dreams.