Today I had a good cry...

It finally happened. When I least expected. I had one of those good long much needed crying sessions. I have been waiting for it since the whirlwind of news has been given to us. The twins autism diagnosis, P's lung condition, the Seizure scare, waiting to see if the boys are eligible for case management from the department of mental health and figuring out how to add more therapies to our schedule. P is gonna start 18 hours of ABA therapy, 1 hour of OT and an hour of OT/PT combined. Along with trying to fit in additional speech. 21 hours of anticipated therapy a week will be our life for quite awhile. But we are ready because he needs it so badly.I wasn't expecting to have that cry today. It's been a day free of appointments which is pretty rare these days. The boys and I have visited grandma and grandpa and have just had a good day. I went downstairs to dig through our tubs filled with baby stuff, in search for our Dr. Brown bottles. My sister in law is due soon and I'm handing down these bottles as this chapter of our life is over. The bottles itself kinda made me have that ache in my heart. It was probably the first time I looked at them this closely since we bought them. I had clear inserts for the Dr. Browns bottles along with blue. This worked so we could keep Chase and Peyton straight as we always had to document P's intake. I continued going through all the bags of bottles and came across the bottles that I had completely forgot about. It was probably the bottle that P used the most because of all his issues eating by mouth. It was a 2 ounce Dr. Brown bottle that he used in the ICU after his month long sickness. We have two of those bottles that were sent with us to use in hopes to work our way up to our 4 ounce bottle.Man. I wasn't ready for that. It's always those moments when you least expect it that can hit you right in the gut. Those moments where everything that's been bottles up for so long comes flooding out. You can't stop it and you know not to fight it as you've been waiting for it to happen. So there I was, sitting in my living room on the floor sobbing over P's tiny little bottle. But as I looked at it and my mind raced back to those extremely hard and difficult days where these bottles were the center of our life. I know that these signify much more than just a bottle. This is the proof right in front of me painted in a clear picture how far this boy has come. How much of a fight he's been up against and all the amazing victories we've celebrated after he decided he was finally ready. This bottle shows me how much my patience was tested, my faith and all the times that P and I worked so hard to consume the 2 ounces of high calorie formula that occupied its small space. The middle of the night feeds where I would sneak him out of his bed and attempt to get him to eat because he sometimes ate better when he was drowsy. The days where we watched and waited for the formula inside to thicken because his swallowing was abnormal and his breathing was so fast and normal formula was to thin and he was aspirating his feeds. The days of the NG tube where we would poor the remainder of this tiny 2 ounce bottle in his bag so that he could get fed. It was almost like a slideshow that went through my head from the beginning until we parted ways and moved on to the big boy bottles.Isn't it weird, how the tiniest object can signify so much more? It's amazing to me that this of all things is what finally sent the emotions flowing out of me. It could be because I've put this in the back of my brain and that I actually forgot we even had it. But I believe it happened today when I had nothing going on, the boys surprisingly took a nap without much fight and I had the afternoon feel and allow myself to feel it all.Thank you God for the reminder that was laid in my path today. Thank you for showing me that even though P has a tough road with so many obstacles ahead that I can't focus and obsess so much on that. Take it a day at a time and look back once in awhile and remind myself all the successes he's already achieved. He's gonna shock us all. I just know it! 💙