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 😉

 

7 Months!

Well, here we are at 7 months.  I swear, I can not keep up with all the milestones they are reaching.  It seems like each month brings more and more milestones! And month 7 was full of them.
The first big milestone they both reached this month is rolling from back to tummy.  They were taking a nap one day and heard Xander crying, so I looked at the monitor and saw him on his tummy!  So I went in and rolled him back.  This continued for a week until he finally learned to roll back by himself.. but, he has become a tummy sleeper and now stays on his tummy all night long!  Londyn learned the back-to-tummy rolling skill about a week after Xander.  She still hasn't mastered rolling back because she wants to roll in one continuous line, which she can't do in the crib (obviously).  She doesn't realize she has a reverse button, ha! And she is a side sleeper, which is problematic because when she falls asleep she sometimes falls on to her tummy and can't recover. This leads to crying and mommy going to flip her back over in the middle of the night, multiple times!  Sometimes she will just sleep on her tummy but she doesn't prefer it.  I'm hoping she learns to roll back soon! Both of them are really working to get into the crawl position.  Both can push straight up and lock their arms out.  Xander likes to do a frog kick/swimming thing with his legs and Londyn tries really hard to get her knees underneath her.  Sometimes she gets her booty straight into the air 😂😂 Whenever I put Xander in his bouncer or activity center, he locks his legs out and just stands there and looks around.  I think I'll blink and they'll be mobile!! Maybe month 8? 😯
They have also become very good at sitting up this month! They can't do it completely independently yet, but they can sit with no assistance for about 4 or 5 minutes before falling over.  I'm super excited about this because it means I won't always have to put them in seats/swings/bouncers/activity centers/ or lay them down!  More independence is bliss for a twin mama!
Another exciting thing in Xander's world is... TEETH!!! He started cutting his first bottom tooth last week.  I found out because  I was holding his hand and he literally pulled it to his mouth and bit my finger!! That sucker was so sharp!! So I've been watching it grow and yesterday when I looked in his mouth I saw his second bottom tooth poking through! Little Londyn is still at 0 for teeth 😅 but she has been chewing her hands a lot, which is what Xander started with, so hers should be coming in soon.  They are still doing baby food 3x/day but we have started giving them a little bit of regular food at dinner as well.  Xander is a huge fan of spaghetti, while Londyn thoroughly enjoys Broccoli and Cheddar soup from Panera!
Overall, month 7 consisted of my little babies growing and developing into tiny little individuals!  I mean, Xander is in 12 month clothes, ya'll.  How did that happen?! They are growing so big, so fast.  Soaking it all in as best I can!!

6 months.. half a year old!!

My children have been alive for half a year.  CRAZY! Though the month of February was short, it was FULL of milestones, adventures, and laughter!

This month, we started solids.  They were already getting a cereal bottle before bed, so we moved on to fruit babyfood, and then veggie babyfood.  We learned that neither baby is a picky eater.  They have yet to come across a food that they gag on, spit up, or refuse to eat (even pureed pees.. which I even refused to try 😝) Xander's favorite is pears and least favorite is bananas.  Londyn's favorite is bananas (opposites as always!!) and least favorite is green beans (I feel you girl). This month we are going to start on some table food and let them try picking up/eating foods like eggs, bananas, and avocados.  Should be fun, especially for piglet when they drop it on the floor!

Another thing I started this month is adding some learning into our schedule.  Their awake time is up to about an hour and 45/50 minutes now, so we have time for more activities before nap times!  Obviously I know they aren't going to start writing their names or reciting their ABC's yet.. but I think it's important to expose them to a learning environment.  We have started doing a bible study every morning when they wake up.. I downloaded a fun bible app for kids and we do a little story, sing a few songs, and say a prayer for the day.  They love listening to the story and LOVE the songs, especially "Jesus loves me"! After our morning nap, we do sign language.  I purchased a really cool program that does songs/videos for signs.  They are currently learning signs for foods, animals, family members, daily routines (bath, read, brush teeth, bath, bed, etc.) It's important for me to be able to communicate with them before they are able to use words, but it's also important for me to develop them into good humans.  My teacher brain thinks of students who are deaf in elementary school and have trouble communicating with peers.. I would love for my kids to be able to make that student comfortable and communicate with them and teach others to be accepting as well.  That's my main goal for them.  Not to be on the honor roll or be the star quarterback or win the most awards at awards day.... I just want them to be good people.

The cutest thing that happened this month is how much they have started interacting with each other.  Lately, I will lay them down on my bed beside each other and let them do their thing.  Londyn usually starts the conversation by looking at Xander, getting a huge smile, and start making noises/talking to him.  Xander is usually in his own little world for a while and then when he realizes she is talking to him he will start smiling/laughing at her.  He also likes to roll to his side towards her and grab her face, which she finds highly offensive 😒.  It's the funniest/cutest thing to watch and I am so excited to watch their relationship grow as they interact more and more.

A few other things that have happened this month are, Londyn got her ears pierced! She took it like a champ and lets me clean/rotate them every day without crying at all!  She is such a big girl, and looks soo pretty with her new bling! They have also been left with a babysitter for the first time.  Since Xander left the NICU, the only people who have had both babies alone have been me.. and occasionally Will so I could quickly run out and do something alone.  But this month we have had some appointments we had to attend together and without kids, so we left them with family members.  We were nervous (Will more than me) but they did great!! So hopefully we can even (dare I say) go on a date soon?!?

So this month has been soooo busy and fun!! I can't believe we are half way to ONE YEAR OLD!!

Month 5!

Goodness, time is flying by! Not a ton has happened in the twins' 5th month of life.. but there have been several milestones achieved that have been equal parts amazing and hilarious! 

Londyn is now consistenly rolling tummy-to-back, and she loves doing it because we make such a huge deal of cheering and celebrating.  She doesn't get much tummy time anymore because as soon as we put her on her tummy, she's rolling and looking at us expectantly.. ready for us to celebrate!  She has also found her voice, and found it in a BIG way.  She enjoys screaming in a high pitched, ear piercing, glass shattering volume and then laughing hysterically at our faces.  Her new favorite thing is to be thrown in the air, especially by daddy.  She makes the funniest shocked face.  Her favorite family members are daddy (DUH) and her Aunt Crystal. 

Xander isn't rolling yet, but he really enjoys sitting up and can do so independently for about 30 seconds.  We think he is teething because he CONSTANTLY has his hands in his mouth.  He will literally put his entire hand in his mouth and gnaw on it.  He loves to laugh and smiles at pretty much anything anyone does.  He is just an all around, happy go lucky kind of kid.  He loves being thrown in the air like his sister, and he loves snuggling with mommy and having mommy carry him around everywhere (not an easy task when he is almost 20 pounds!).  His favorite family members are mommy and Papa.

The best part of this month is the fact that they are now sleeping a full 12 hours at night!  They go to bed at 7pm and sleep all the way until 7am.  It is so nice to put them to bed, watch some tv, drink some wine, go to bed whenever I'm tired, and wake up refreshed and ready for another great day with my babies!  Their schedule is great.  I love that I can spend all of their awake time fully focused on them.  All of the cooking, cleaning, laundry, bills, dishes, etc. can be done at nap times.  Awake times are for playing, singing, reading, snuggling, going for walks, practicing skills, etc.  Whenever they are awake, they get my full attention, and we are all happy!! I wish people who are so opposed to the "cry it out" method (Yes I see your passive aggressive posts!!) could see the result of the method.  The product of a weeks worth of so much crying. I am proud to say that YES, my babies cried it out.. but I can gaurantee you that they cry WAY less now than babies who never cried it out.  My babies never cry now, unless they are hurt.  I gaurantee you that my babies never see me frustrated with them, or crying from sheer exhaustion.  I'm not saying it's for everyone.  I just really wish people would stop with the videos about how "crying it out changes an infants brain" (UNTRUE and completed unsupported by research.) and how "babies who cry for extended periods of time tend to be more aggressive" (Your baby cries more than mine do...... mine never cry..)  Sorry, going on kind of a rant here, but I'll just stop and say, I'm so glad I made the decision to sleep train my babies and that we are a happy, well rested family!

I can't even fathom that next month my babies will be 1/2 of a year old!

Month 4

Where is the time going?! Xander and Londyn are 4 months old!  This month has been fairly easy, and definitely lots of fun!  Both babies are smiling and laughing now, and they are a lot more independent and can play independently for the most part.  They are also starting to notice each other, which is super fun to watch! They are completely sleep trained now and we have a great schedule in place.  The best thing is that they hardly ever cry, because they are getting enough sleep, and they know when they are going to eat or sleep, so they don't have to cry for it. They take 2 2-hour naps during the day and sleep from 7pm-7am with one night time feeding that we are currently phasing out. They are thriving with the routine and I never find myself frustrated or aggravated with them.  Their awake times are filled with fun, learning, and laughing! A week of listening to them scream and cry was WELL worth the happy babies I now have every single day!!  The only downside is that it makes it hard to break schedule to go out and do things.  These babies know when its nap time or bed time, so if we are out during that time, they are like umm hello mom?! crib.. now please!! which comes across as fussiness and crying!  But luckily as they get older, their awake times will be longer and it will be easier to go out and be home in time for nap. 

The best thing about this month has been seeing their personalities develop.. and WOW are they different!! I always knew they acted like opposites, but they really showed how opposite they are during this month.  Xander is HILARIOUS.  I always say he has a frat boy personality.  He thinks everything is funny and literally cracks up if you do pretty much anything.  He makes silly noises all the time and is just so happy and funny.  He keeps me laughing all the time!! And Londyn is, well, she's just a diva.  She is super inquisitive and will spend several minutes studying something or watching me/her brother/one of her toys.  And if she's not happy, the world knows it!! She has a habit of letting me know she wants to be the boss.  One example: I feed both babies at the same time in feeding chairs, and she was fine with it last month, but this month she has decided that she wants to be held when she eats.. so when I try to give her the bottle in her feeding chair, she will swat it, spit it out, and laugh at me.  She will continue to do this until Xander finishes eating so that I can pick her up, and she proceeds to drink the whole bottle.  She will cry when I hold her and then as soon as I pass her to her daddy she will smile and laugh.  Needless to say, I have my hands full with this little girl!

They had their 4 month appointment with the pediatrician yesterday and he said everything looks perfect for both of them! He told us we can go ahead and start trying solids with them, so I suppose that's our next adventure!! We are also working hard on learning to roll over and sit without support.  Londyn will get her ears pierced at their 6 month appointment in March.

Overall, month 4 has been wonderful!! Babies are happy, healthy, fun, and growing more every day.  I know I will blink and they'll be 5 months and I'll be blogging again!

 Londyn studying the baby Einstein caterpillar

 Their different personalities: inquisitive and goofy

 Silly boy always laughing!!

Happy 4 months!!

Months 2 and 3 *Sleep Training!*

Hi everyone!
So, I am just now getting time to sit down and blog about what's been happening over the last 2 months.  This is because month 2 was HORRIBLE!! Month 1 was pretty easy because the twins basically just slept all the time.. so they spent most of the day/night in rock-n-plays or swings and I had tons of free time!  Well, in the second month they started to be awake more often.. and we quickly discovered Londyn had her days/nights mixed up.  She would sleep all day long, then wake up around 10pm and be wide awake ready to play and explore.  I would rock her for 45+ minutes to get her asleep, then as soon as I would put her in her bassinet she would SCREAM at the top of her lungs until I picked her back up.  So we moved her to her rock-n-play to sleep at night, and that worked for about 4 nights.  Then she would scream as soon as we put her in that until we picked her back up.  As soon as we would finally get her to sleep by about 4 am, Xander was up an hour later ready for the day!! That means I was only getting maybe an hour of sleep a night, with no time during the day to cook, clean, eat, shower, nap.. nothing!! Literally just running around all day every day.  Then we tried to solve the problem again by me going to bed with Xander at 9pm and Will staying in the living room playing with Londy until about 3am when I would go get her and put her to bed, then he would sleep in with Londyn when I got up with Xander at 6.  This was a short term fix though, because Will had to go back to work in a couple of weeks and had to sleep!  I didn't know what I was going to do.
The first week Will went back to work was a hot mess.  It seemed like as soon as Londyn fell asleep, Xander was up.  Then he would fall asleep and Londyn was up.  30 minutes after I fed one, the other was hungry.  They were eating every hour or 2 and were only sleeping in 30-40 minute increments, and never at the same time.  I was so tired and overwhelmed, and I hate to admit this but I started being ugly to the kids and sometimes literally begging them to go to sleep or stay asleep.  It was awful!!
So about a week ago it was 2am and I was in the living room with Xander because he wouldn't go back to sleep, and I didn't want to wake Will since he had to go to work in the morning.  I was scrolling facebook and saw a video about the secrets to getting your baby to sleep.  I was desperate and this point so I clicked the link that took me to a website about a sleep training program to try.  There were so many testimonies about people who started the program and got their babies sleeping through the night within the first or second night (whaaaaat??!) I figured I have NOTHING to lose at this point, so I purchased the program and started binge watching all the videos about how to sleep train.  The basic principle is this:
Babies go through sleep cycles of Deep (REM) sleep and light (Non REM) sleep every 30-45 minutes.  They don't know how to get back to sleep after they wake from the REM sleep, so they start crying.  If they are picked up/rocked/given a pacifier/etc. when they wake, they never learn the skill of putting themselves back to sleep.  This results in the toddlers who are out of bed every 10 minutes wanting water or coming to your bedroom.. they can't go back to sleep without assistance.  So my job was to set a schedule and be consistent with it.  If the twins cried the entire time they were in their cribs for nap, that's ok because they are learning/practicing how to put themselves to sleep.  I found the master schedule for their age group and began on Monday (12/4).  And it was terrible.  They both cried throughout every single nap.  It was loud, heart wrenching, and so so hard to get through.. but I just put my headphones in and binge watched the training videos and reminded myself why I was doing what I was doing.  I was just about ready to give up on it by bedtime.. but amazingly enough, Londyn slept through the night with the exception of night time feedings and she was IN HER CRIB.  That's right!! Not a rock-n-play, not in my arms, not screaming every 30 minutes to be rocked for an hour in the middle of the night.. she just slept right on through! And Xander didn't wake up once!! So the claim about them sleeping through the night on night 1 was real!! Immediately I was back on the sleep training wagon and we continued on to day 2.  Each day they cried a little bit less during nap, and slept through the night except for feedings.  That brings us to today, day 5 of sleep training.  They are to the point now that they start getting tired about 10 minutes before the set nap times, and when I lay them in their cribs for nap, they go right to sleep with no rocking, shushing, singing, yelling, begging, etc.!! They do still wake up and cry in the middle of nap but they are getting so much better at putting themselves back to sleep.  The challenge now is learning how to sleep through each other's crying.  Right now, if one screams loud and long enough, it wakes the other up.. and then they are both crying.  Once they learn this skill and master their daily schedule, my job will be super easy!! Many people don't agree with the "cry it out" method.. and if you think I'm a bad mom for putting my kids through it, I'm ok with that.  This training is maybe a week out of their entire lives, and it teaches them the lifelong skill of how to SLEEP.  And I'm not being ugly to them anymore, nor am I on the verge of tears before lunch time.  This is not a popular method of training for many mothers, but it works for us and that's all that matters!!
So, here we are!! Will is back to work, the twins are operating on a schedule, I'm officially a stay at home mom, and things are trucking right along! Here's to month #4!

                                    Sleeping in their OWN room through the night!! Sleep Training win!!

                  Our Family 12/01/17

Monthly Pictures 1, 2, and 3!