My Mason...

Here's the thing about Mason: he looks at you like you are the only person in the entire world who matters. Not only that, the truly significant thing is that he really looks at you. His eyes communicate so clearly and his sweet little voice just tries to gurgle out, but it gets caught in this nasally drawl.

If Ronan is an old soul then Mason is brand spankin' new. He is completely unsure of the world around him, though he knows who he loves. Mason is not the easy one; he is very needy. I think this comes from his insecurities; he is not happy unless he knows exactly where his Mama is. The thing is, though, that as long as he knows exactly where I am, he is so happy and so at ease. He smiles these HUGE twinkling smiles.

Mason was born first, so I held him for fifteen minutes while they worked on getting Ronan out (he was breech). I just kept looking at him in awe and joy, so that when they told me to push Ronan out it was a bit surreal; it was like, "wait, I already have him."

bonding with Mason

Once they handed Ronan to me, who as a consequence of the rather traumatic breech extraction looked like a very angry old man, I suddenly had to turn my attention from this little person with whom I had just connected and meet my other little guy.

Meeting the angry old man :)

I kept looking back and forth and then I started to feel guilty because I couldn't just stare at Ronan the way I had at Mason; I was so worried that I already liked one more than the other.

I was so worked up about it, in fact, that I had Ben take Mason from me so that I could take a minute to connect just with Ronan. It only took a minute before I felt the connection with him, too. The thing is, however, that Mason radiates connection; it's like his aura is screaming, "please connect with me; I love you!"

Tonight when I put him to bed he was staring into my eyes. When I say staring, I mean STARING, almost the way one stares into the eyes of a lover. He looks into me with this sweet, trusting innocence that breaks my heart every time; seriously, I get tears of happiness and love in my eyes. When he stares he tries to gurgle out his meaning with sound, but it is like a whisper while his eyes are screaming his heart out.

It is amazing to see how different these two little boys are. I can't wait to watch them grow, side by side, into completely different people. One thing I have learned so far, being a mom of twins, is that the personality of the child himself dictates everything. I can do the exact same thing with one that I do with the other, but the outcome will be totally different, because their personalities are totally different. It's actually a reassuring feeling. I have always looked for ways to blame Kyan's shortcomings or bad behavior on myself: If I had only shown him this instead, or if I had prepared him better for the transition etc.. I've tried to do that with the twins, only to realize that it worked just fine for one, but not for the other. It's a good thing I'm a teacher and have studied Howard Gardner's "Multiple Intelligences" and worked on teaching to the individual, because truly I am going to have to tailor my parenting to each of these two teeming personalities!
So, here's to my sweet, innocent, little newbie; to my Mason John.