As any one who has potty trained knows pooping in the potty is the ultimate goal. The peeing seems to come easy. The pooping is a chore. Well today one of my sons pooped in the potty three times and it was amazing.

He was incredibly proud and though we will still be wiping his butt for many months to come, if we can move toward underwear and away from diapers that will be the start of a new era.

Twins are hard. At least mine are. These monumental occasions are exactly that. Monumental.

I was walking up our stairs recently and I realized we never put the baby gates back up after a furniture delivery a couple weeks earlier. Monumental. No more baby gates in our household. Soon no diapers.

I never truly understood the word bittersweet until I had kids. Every monumental step forward also means we are leaving behind a time and a place with them. They want to put on their own socks now and they are leaving behind toddlerhood looking more and more like little boys.

We are not having more kids for a variety of reasons including but not limited to my ob-gyn telling me I’d be risking my life if I got pregnant again. Not worth it. So while I am relieved to see them growing and learning and becoming I mourn that I did not have those precious baby moments with just one at a time. That while Declan was smiling happy and we could have had a day out together when he was just ten weeks, Jackson was screaming with colic all day.

I feel cheated at times. Logically I know that I am actually blessed but resentful that we were exhausted and didn’t get to enjoy our newborn days like a singleton can. I remember standing in line going on three days no sleep and my c–section scar was still sore, and there I was at BabiesRUs I don’t even remember why. I was surrounded in line by young moms with one baby strapped to their chests. It was literally three or four of them.

I remember wanting to cry because my boys were home, as I could not get them out of the house due to colic and there being two of them. I couldn’t lift the car seats alone still. I wanted to scream. I have twins. F*&$ you all with your one kid at a time life.

I love seeing them grow but I hate feeling like I’m just surviving for much of their infancy and toddler years instead of enjoying every precious moment.

But I don’t like feeling regretful and I don’t regret them. I just at times yearn for a singleton experience while knowing I’ll never know that.

Today I will relish in the small victory of poop in the potty. And the victory of making it to Quincy Market in downtown Boston with my cousins. We don’t dare go to a city unless we are 4:2 adult to children. We all survived and we all got to eat and walk around Quincy Market.

There will be more victories to come and with each step forward we say good-bye to their dependence on us. Parenting and therapy. It’s the only two jobs where we want our clients to leave us. How incredibly painful to let them go.

Declan put on his socks and shoes and zipped up his sweatshirt. I almost cried. I asked Jackson to put on his socks, and he staunchly shook his head and said, “Mama do.” Now, he can do it. Probably faster than Declan. But that little man is 1- resistant to change of any kind 2- incredibly empathic. I think he knew I was having trouble watching them grow up in that moment so he ordered me to still put his socks on.

I mean. It helped. I stopped tearing up and as he swung his feet around avoiding the socks I started muttering under my breath about when will he learn to put his own damn socks on. Parenting is a conundrum. All these feelings all the time. When I see parents who are struggling emotionally I always say, How could you expect to not lose your mind at some point in this journey?

I relish in the moment of bedtime when Jackson rubs my cheeks with his hands and sniffs my arms and gives me butterfly kisses and tells me all his secrets. Declan asks me to snuggle him and I always do. I hang onto these moments; knowing that soon we will leave these days behind…as we should.