Happy New Year

When the boys were four month old, Jon bought me a Flip video camera for Christmas.  At the end of each month thereafter, I started compiling all the video clips we took into a short monthly video to share with our family and friends who didn't get to see much of the boys in those early days.  Jon's family lives in New York and Florida and Pennsylvania.  I have family in California and Ohio.  Some of our best friends live in Florida and we have friends from Washington state to South Carolina.  For awhile I made the videos for all of them.  And then the boys' videos picked up quite a following- among the gymnastics coaches I coached with from across the country, among my twin mama friends, among distant relatives and strangers alike.  And for awhile I made videos for all of them too.  But last year on New Year's Eve, Jon and I sat down at our computer and watched three years worth of videos of our babies.  We watched them grow and learn and become the little boys we had just tucked into bed.  I have never been so grateful as I was that night, realizing that unknowingly, I had documented the boys entire little lives and I would forever have those videos to treasure.  And it was then that I stopped making those videos for anyone else and made them just for me.  For Jon.  For us.  So that someday when we send our boys off to college or the night before one gets married or as I rock my first grandchild, I can be transported back to these moments that are passing all too quickly simply by sitting down with my videos. 

This December marks four years of monthly videos.  And as I have said each and every month for the last four years, this one is my favorite.  But it really is.  In three short minutes, it represents who the boys are.  Who Jon and I are as parents.  Who we are as a family.  The clip of Matthew's little face on the train as he watches New York City unfold before his very eyes feels like it sums up our lives.  The wonder. The joy.  The awe.  The adventure.  Our lives are full of adventures- both big and small.  Some people have questioned why we try to travel so much with the boys when they are this young or why we expose them to so many things.  Some people say they won't remember it.  That we should wait until they'll be old enough to remember.  And maybe they won't remember all of it.  Or even any of it.  But they will grow up with an adventurous spirit.  With the desire to go out and see the world, to follow their hearts and go experience their passions.  And that is our goal.  To raise boys who know how to look at their entire lives with wonder.  With joy.  With awe.  To see life as an adventure.  To love every moment- the big and the small. 

What grand adventures we saw in 2013.  The boys got to spend three days with a personal tour guide at Space Center Houston and got to see a live rocket launch at which they were the guests of honor.  They gathered over 250 gallons of maple sap and made five gallons of maple syrup with their very own hands.  They got to film a movie under the direction of Ryan Gosling and fall asleep on the breast of Christina Hendricks ;) They mastered riding a two wheel bike at three years old.  They fell in love with the Titanic and the London Bridge and Frank Lloyd Wright.  They visited the top of the Willis Tower and the Robie House and the Guggenheim.  They gathered with lifelong friends in Twinsburg and won the best walking unit in the parade and the most alike twins to top another memorable weekend with our Twinsburg family.  They went to New York City at Christmas time.  It was truly an incredible year.

Surely 2014 will being more adventure- big and small, though apparently we'll start out with big.  On Sunday the boys and I, along with my mom, will pack up for a temporary move to New York City.  The boys will be starting the new year with the grand adventure of their first lead role in a feature film.  It will be incredible and it will be hard.  Jon will fly back and forth for long weekends, but during the week we will be apart.  We will all cry tears of joy and tears of sadness, especially as we lay in bed on weeknights without daddy there with us.  But it will be an adventure.  We will learn and we will grow and we will see more of the world.  Because adventure is what we Paddocks do best :)   Happy New Year everybody...  may 2014 bring you adventures both big and small, and may you have the mindfulness to enjoy each and every moment!!