Mother's Day

I feel like this is an important post for me to make today.  Mother's Day for me has always been a day of sadness.  It was a constant reminder of what others had and I didn't, but wanted so badly it hurt.  Sometimes it was a day where I allowed myself to be hopeful of what was to come.  If we were in the middle of a treatment or getting ready to start one, I would sometimes dream of "next mother's day we will have an (insert number here) month old to celebrate with! Only to have that treatment fail. 

Then after losing Zoey and Piper it took on a whole new meaning.  Then, Mother's Day was a constant battle of Mothers celebrating with their children while I felt mine being forgotten by others as I tried to celebrate them in Heaven.  It was feeling my heart shattering when I wasn't recognized as a mother, or crying tears of joy when a select few took time out of their day to wish me a Happy Mother's Day. 

This is my first Mother's Day where I can actually celebrate along with all other mothers.  It's the first time I can relate and laugh about sleepless nights and crazy child antics.  For the first time, I'm feeling what I have wanted and hoped to feel on this day for SO MANY YEARS.  Happiness.  A sense of fulfillment.  Accomplishment.  love.

At the same time, though, my heart is torn.  Let me be clear on this: Xander and Londyn did not replace Zoey and Piper. Sometimes I feel like so much love and attention is given to Xander and Londyn, that Zoey and Piper are pushed out of the picture.  I find myself thinking less and less of them as I adjust more and more to life with Xander and Londyn.  And that scares me sometimes.  I never want to lose my bond with my girls.  I never want a Mother's Day to go by where I don't recognize them.  I never want their birthday to go by without honoring them.  And I never want Xander and Londyn to think they are the only children of this family.  Because they aren't.  They have 2 beautiful Heavenly sisters who I know are elated to see our family finally complete.  I love posting monthly updates of the twins, but don't think for one second I don't also remember how old our girls would be right now (3.5 years) and what they would be doing right now (wearing bows, taking gymnastics, getting ready for preschool, feeding bottles to their siblings)
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I am so happy to celebrate Mother's Day this year in the same way everyone else celebrates Mother's Day.  But remember a piece of my mind and a piece of my heart are still in Heaven with my first born babies.

I love you Zoey and Piper.  Thank you for making me a mother.  You Are Not Forgotten. 

8 months

This is getting to be so much fun!! I love watching these tiny babies grow and develop their own little personalities, and I love sharing it with everyone on here!
This month was hilarious.  I'm going to talk about them each individually first because they are so different!  Then I will talk about them together 😀

Ladies first! Let's talk about Londyn Mae.  She is my chatty Kathy!  This month she has really upped her babbling game.  Her favorite thing to do right now is blow raspberries and make razzing sounds... and get spit everywhere!!  She does it all the time.  After eating. During nap. When she wakes up.  When shes playing.  She literally has a little rash on her chin because it's constantly wet with spit 🙄 She has also started babbling "dada" and "mama" which is so stinking cute!  She is crawling.... unfortunately it's only backwards right now.  But man can she cross a room in reverse! 😂😂 Also, she can sit unassisted.. but she chooses not to.  When on her mat with a toy in front of her, she will sit and play for a minute, then throw herself backwards and play with it with her feet.  If I'm sitting behind her, she thinks it's hilarious to fall back on me and for me to push her back up.  She will crack up.. it's her favorite game! So we say she has the ability, but not the desire.  And honestly I would expect nothing less from my little independent diva!

Xander. IS. WILD.  Y'all.. when I say he is all boy. HE IS ALL BOY.  His favorite thing to do right now is jump.  If he's put in his bouncer or Einstein activity center he will jump for a good 40 minutes non stop.  He also loves being thrown in the air and slammed down (not SLAMMED but you know what I mean) onto the bed.  When you hold him he will pinch, grab, slap, kick, try to jump, etc.!  He loves to grab both sides of your face and pull it towards his to make you give him a kiss.  He is a lover.. but an aggressive one for sure 😆.  He also LOVES dogs.  All dogs, but especially his!  Every time Piglet walks by him or sniffs his face, he smiles so big!  He loves petting her and will scream in her direction to call her over to him.  He is an expert sitter.  I can sit him down on the mat and walk away to do something else and he will just sit and play contently without falling until I get him.  He is trying to crawl but mainly it's just flailing about really really fast 😂😂 He is absolutely crazy and I'm predicting lots of grey hairs in the near future!

One of the biggest challenges this month has been their sleeping.  I have become more lenient with their nap times because they are sleep trained so I figured it was just teething or a developmental thing, so I got into a habit of getting them up from nap when they cried, even if they still had like 30 minutes left.  It was working fine until it wasn't.  Slowly but surely it got to the point where we went from taking 2 hour naps to taking like 45 minute naps.  This threw our schedule totally off to the point that we were done with all our naps by like 4pm and they were supposed to make it to 7pm bedtime (yeah right). So naturally they were going to bed earlier and earlier.. even being put to bed by like 6:10pm.  Of course this made for an early wake up (6am instead of 7am) which made the day all wacky.  So because of my lack of consistency I'm now having to do some retraining in the sleep department!  This morning they wanted to get up at 5:15am y'all.  Hell to the NO!  So I had to listen to them cry for almost an hour.. which was so hard on my heart because I haven't had to do that in months.  BUT they did go back to sleep and slept until our 7am wake up time and now our day is right on track!  So I definitely need to do a better job of staying consistent with that.

Overall this month was wonderful!  Next month is their 9 month well check, and Will and my 7 year wedding anniversary!  We are in the process of planning their 1st birthday party (whaaaat!!) and are excited for the twins to experience many pool days this summer!  Stay tuned 😉