Everything seems to shrink around these babies. Onesies that fit just fine only a week or so ago can barely even snap shut anymore. (Fortunately, Claire and Brooke are pretty set for the next few sizes with all the gifts and hand-me-downs they got from friends and family.) My arms must be shrinking, because the girls don’t fit the way they used to, and I know my hands are smaller, because my cupped hand doesn’t swallow them up anymore. I suspect my chest is imploding, because I can barely fit them at the same time if I hold them there nestled beneath my chin.

Time itself has shrunk noticeably. Three hours between feedings seems to go by in about a half hour, and an 8-hr. sleep at night only lasts about two. (It would last even less without our night nurse.) When I’m sure it’s only been three or four days since I last wrote a blog entry about them, the foreshortened calendar claims nine days have already passed. Everything happens two or three times faster than it feels like it happens. (Sorry, Kat.)

Our family room isn’t nearly as large as it used to be. Where there used to be quite a bit of open space for moving around in, there is now an obstacle course of bouncy seats and swings, which we must navigate on the way to moving a Boppy pillow so we can sit down. (The bouncy seat legs, however, have grown, sticking out farther and farther into the way of toes passing by.) Our trash cans and laundry machines have gotten ridiculously small, requiring much more frequent filling and emptying than they used to.

It’s hard to tell with my heart. I figure it must be getting smaller, too, because it hardly feels big enough anymore to hold all the love and pride I have for my family. My family was complete with just me and Kat, but now it’s more complete. I barely leave the house except for doctors’ visits these days, yet these babies have a strange way of making my world feel bigger. It’s like living in Lilliput, only I can’t tell if the babies are the Lilliputians, or we are.