with, unfortunately, a minimum of fun. 🙁 Poor Maxman was sick and not up for cake, so we decided to forgo any cake crazies until the big party. Which, I PROMISE, I am planning. I refuse to give my children reasons to see a therapist later in life, so a big 1 year party it is. LOL

Shock and awe. Pretty much sums up year 1 of the mini macs! Well, I could also say it was amazing, beautiful, challenging, tiring, energizing, surprising…. so many things. Have you ever looked something up on microfiche in the library? As you look through the reel it just zooms by, a blur of headlines, faces, pictures and words. THAT is what year one of the mini macs felt like to me. An awesome blur of big moments, little triumphs, helpful faces, beautiful images, sweet sounds and words of memories that flit by at the speed of “microfiche.”

We started in an amazing series of moments that brought my little beans safely into the world, where they were surrounded by the love of an amazing cast of helpful characters who kept Mommy and kiddos (all of them) alive and fed while Daddy had to depart for far away places once again. We threw a few moves in there to keep things crazy, fell over from shock when we found out “five” was on his way, decided that building a house to move into the same month we meet five was a smashingly good idea and have spent an amazing year watching all of our children become the most fantastic little unit.

I’ll never forget the fear I felt when I laid down on that table in my doctors office, just waiting to hear if there was even a heartbeat of the baby we thought we were having. I thought I was going to fall off the table when the nurse quietly smiled as she looked up and told us, “well, it’s good news! both babies look great.” For the first time in my life, I think I was utterly speechless. Sometimes I get that way all over again, when I’m struck by how much joy and light these 2 little miracles have brought into our lives.

So Thank You God, for my babies. All of them. Here’s to you and your blessings!!

And now on to the update…

The bottomless pit…
I know you’re thinking this can’t be Mercy, that dainty little thing! HAH! That child might be tiny, but she is anything BUT dainty. She shovels food by the fistfuls, speed eating her way through every meal, where she manages to scoot herself far enough over to steal her brother’s food (to which he responds by pulling off her bib and grabbing her hand…”hey, that’s MINE!”) or she pushes herself far enough back from the table to reach down and forage in her seat for all the food she has scattered down there during the shoveling process. I have no earthly idea where all that food goes, but man can she eat!
She is still a petite bean, but I think the food she eats is increasing her lung capacity daily. I thought Charley had a set of lungs. HOLY COW, this child is DEAFENING. And the frequency of which she voices her displeasure (quite often, I might add) is the “pluck mommy’s last nerve” one. The upside to this? There will never, ever, ever, ever, be a bully stupid enough to mess with my Mercy. Add the screaming to the size of her brother? Scary!
So what, pray tell, has this little bean been doing of late? Well….
Speed crawling to the nearest “object de intereste.” The speed increases if she thinks her brother will get to it first.
Dancing. On her butt, on her feet, in her seat, in the air, she is dancing everywhere! IF there is music in any level of earshot, she is a movin’ and a groovin’. It’s FABulous. and hysterical.
Pulling up on every imaginable stable and unstable surface she can get her grubby little hands on.
Cruising the hallways with her new walking toys, as she has deemed this is more efficient than actually learning to walk.
Checking out her hair, especially when her hands are covered with food… Punk.
Teething, teething and more teething…especially at 3 am. Ugh.
Smiles, Kisses, Hugs, tons of laughter and endless love for all things McCawley, especially her big sisters!

And now, drum roll please……….
The Human Brick.
And yes, I do mean brick. Carrying that little caveman is like hefting a cinder block around all day. I have NEVER met a baby that solid. Even my brother, who was definitely a big boy as a baby, had NOTHING on the stay puff man. Solid, ankleless and wristless, with shoulders like a linebacker, I have not one shred of doubt that my little man is headed for big boy land!
I have also not ever seen a baby eat that deliberately in my life. I think he’s just trying to avoid smearing his ever present green snot into his mouth, so he is VERY careful about how he picks up and ingests his little bites. And as for eating? What a picky little terd. I must say, he has definitely inherited my aversion to anything green and healthy. Thankfully, he has also inherited my love of anything fruity and healthy. So, we might not eat too much green, but holy cow we tear through some fruit.
Butt bouncing like Tigger is his hysteria inducing trait. I just want to dress him in orange and black and attach a tail! 🙂 He also LOVES to plow over his sister in any effort to get to a toy first, get her toy, take her binkie, knock her over and NOW, steal her food too. And he does it all with this great, big, sh*t eating grin. It keeps the rest of us extremely entertained!
A ham, he is the most photogenic of all the clan mac minis and I am pretty sure he has never taken a bad picture. If there is a camera in a 30 feet radius, he is either looking at with a silly grin, a funny face or a serious “uh, what’s up here?” look OR he is attempting to steal the camera to eat it. 🙂
Speaking of eating things, he is the ultimate tiny taste tester. He will put anything, and I do mean anything, into his mouth. And he does it with lightning speed. Tends to send me into fits of screaming “open your mouth, spit it out, what the heck is that? DON’T EAT THAT!!” Watching my kiniptions is almost as comical as watching Max crawl over and yank Mercy’s binkie from her mouth and pop it into his own. (Another favorite twin terror tactic.)
He will sleep through a surprising amount of chaos and always smiling when you pop the door open in the morning.
All boy, he other favorite pasttime is beating, throwing and banging just about anything he can get his hands on. He and Charley have a most wonderful time attempting scar up the few nice things I have managed to keep the military from wrecking over the years!

These twin terrors are certainly nothing like I expected, everything I love and, quite possibly, the best thing to happen to every member of this family. They have taught us patience and perseverance, they have increased our love in this family more than I ever thought possible and they have made me believe that I can do anything, including have yet another little bean!

Happy Birthday my sweet sweet sweet baby beans.
We Love You!!!
Here it is… Your very first birthday poem!

On January 20, 2009…
at just about a quarter to nine,
they told us that you’d soon be here.
So with just a bit of fear, we let out a great big cheer!
Mercy arrived at 1:02,
followed in a bit by baby two.
Little Max took his own sweet time,
arriving later at one one nine.
Thus began life as a family of six,
a crazy, kooky, wacky, maniacal mix!
In the whirlwind chaos of your 12 months,
you grew into such adorable runts!
Completed our family is what you did,
your effervescent joy made us flip our lid!
Happy Birthday to Mercy,
Happy Birthday to Max,
Our wonderful, adorable, twin mini macs!!