Enjoying the Girls While We "Decode" Them

One thing has become abundantly clear during our short year as parents… Kids give us so many instances to pause, think, and enjoy the moment. Even when they aren’t feeling well, sometimes it is more entertaining than anything else. Granted, nothing is more pathetic or tugs at our heart strings quite like a sick child. Still, there are different stages of “sick.” It can be Gwendolyn spending pretty much the first four months her life cooped up in the hospital because of her Myelomeningocele and then severe breathing issues. Let’s be honest, in that case there’s nothing at all that can be or should be “enjoyed” about that moment. Then there’s the situation that played out for the Castellanos this past weekend.

It began innocently enough. Braelyn was going through her semi-regular ritual of deciding that she wasn’t in the mood to sleep, even at 2:30 in the morning. So after we finished with a futile back rub attempt to sooth her and get her back to sleep, Dad took his still wailing daughter and went into another room to lay down with her. (As a side note, this is a downfall of having twins... We typically can’t let one of the girls just “cry it out” because they will ultimately disturb the other and then a dual meltdown ensues… But we digress.)

As parents, it amazes us how even though we’ve never really done the whole mom and dad thing before, you just know certain things about your kids. Like you can pretty much tell when something isn’t right with them or, even at this young of an age, when they are just milking something for all its worth. True to form, after a few hours of Dad getting an up-close-and-personal look at Braelyn’s thrashes as she dramatically tried to settle down, he called Mom over. It was obvious that Braelyn was in discomfort… And maybe even more abundantly clear that it wasn’t nearly as serious as our little drama queen would like to portray it as. Soon, a thermometer confirmed a slight fever and hours later the constant runny nose backed up those findings. Knowing it wasn’t anything serious, all we could do is laugh at the Oscar-worthy performance put in by Braelyn.

And that’s what we meant earlier. Funny or serious, we do try to enjoy the circumstances as much as possible, especially given the journey we’ve already taken. It amazes us how many things a child will do, good or bad, which just comes naturally to them. Sometimes for us its mannerisms, habits, or even a certain look that Braelyn and/or Gwendolyn gives. As soon as it happens, much like an “ah-ha moment,” you can immediately connect it back to either one of us or a relative of ours. And sometimes it’s like the picture that leads this post off today. In their "community," Braelyn lies on her back snuggled up next to Gwendolyn looking for sympathy. Almost instinctually, her little sister is there to comfort Braelyn the only way she knows how… With a series of grunts and moans (a.k.a. baby babble). It’s one of those small moments as a parent that just fills you up with emotion… The good kind for sure!

So this whole long lead-in was to basically say that in the span of 72 hours we went from one child with a cold… To two children with colds… To everyone feeling fine and dandy come Monday morning. And unfortunately we also decoded another trait that Braelyn has in common with one of us. The way our Brae Bear constantly tilts her head back and moves extra slowly while she's “sick” is without a doubt a carbon copy of her father trying to milk every last ounce of sympathy from those present when he’s under the weather. By the time this “bug” made it to Gwendolyn, it was also evident that she already has mastered a much more mature way to dealing with sickness than her dear old dad or older sister does. But at least they are both "recovered" and back at daycare today. As this post’s other pictures portray, everything is back to normal while Mom and Dad have yet another memory to hold near-and-dear to our hearts.

Talk to you all soon!