11 months

I'm a little late on posting this month, but THIS IS NOT A DRILL.. the twins are 2 weeks away from being a year old.. and this momma's heart can't take it!! I officially have little toddlers now, and they are such a mess!! They are crawling everywhere and pulling up on everything.  Xander is such a rough and tumble boy.. he does everything full out.. which means he falls often and accumulates lots of random injuries 🙈  We have moved into a new phase of parenting now that they are mobile and quickly learning how to get into everything they aren't supposed to have!! For example.. Xander's favorite toy right now is the dog's water bowl.. and Will can't even get the front door open when he gets home from work without Londyn being halfway up his wheelchair.  She is literally stuck to him like glue from the time he gets home to the time she goes to bed!! So this month I have been really working hard on teaching/enforcing boundaries.  We do structured play each day in the highchair, playpen, and on a blanket.  I can't tell you how many times a day I have to say "stay on the blanket" or physically go grab an escaping child and place them back inside the boundary.  It's exhausting and includes some meltdowns.. but they are getting a lot better at it.  Right now as I am writing this, Xander is playing contentedly in his playpen and Londyn is sitting beside me on the blanket playing with her toys.  Mom win!!
We are busy busy busy planning their first birthday!  They are freakishly obsessed with the Wiggles right now, so we are working hard on that party theme.  We even bought them a battery operated riding red coupe that we are going to turn into "The Big Red Car" from Wiggles 😂
The biggest thing they've got coming up (besides their birthday) is going to be spending the entire day away from me.  I'm going to start getting back into the classroom as a substitute teacher 1-2 days a week for some extra money AND because I miss teaching soo much!! So being a sub will give me the best of both worlds: being able to stay home with the twins while also scratching my teaching itch!! Plus it will be good for the twins to have some days away from me (for all of our sanity..)
Next month will be a big post filled with lots of birthday/cake smash pictures!!

 One of his many injuries!!

10 months.. double digits!!

Oh my goodness this month has been CRAZY!! It was like they learned something new every single day.  So many milestones.. they are like completely different kids from just a month ago!

The first big milestone they crossed off the list this month was learning how to get to a sitting position from their tummies.  Londyn figured it out first.. she took the contortionist approach.  She would go into a complete middle split from her tummy and use her arms to crab walk up into a sitting position.  The first time she did it, she got this big shocked/excited expression on her face and it was the cutest thing ever.. and I caught it on video!! Xander watched her sit up over and over throughout the day.  He would try by rolling onto his side and trying to muscle his way up, but every time he lifted his hand off the floor, he would faceplant.  Eventually he learned exactly how much momentum he needed to get him to a sitting position and figured it out shortly thereafter.

The next big milestone was as huge for me as it was for them.. eating table food!! If you've followed my story, you know I've been terrified of them choking on food.  This month, it got to a point where xander was fed up with baby food.  He would eat it (because he's never been one to deny ANY food) but he would act disgusted and usually let it run out of his mouth.  Londyn also started refusing to be fed.. everytime I would go near her with a spoon she would make an X with her arms in front of her face and clamp her mouth shut. 🙅  So finally I decided to just trust myself and my babies and let them try.  We started with puffs.. my friend gave the suggestion to ease my nerves by cutting them in fourths until I felt more comfortable, then halves, then finally giving them whole.  Xander did amazing with self feeding.  Londyn wouldn't put them in her mouth but would let me feed them to her.  So next we tried melts and the stick shaped snacks with the same results (Xander self feeding, Londyn letting me feed her).  Then my mom suggested cheeto puffs and this was a game changer for Londyn! She picked that sucker up and gnawed on it until it was gone, then wanted another one!  The puffs really helped Xander learn how to take appropriate sized bites.  At first he tried to shove the whole thing in his mouth which was terrifying for me.. but they melted really fast and he never really gagged on them, surprisingly.  But he now takes good bites and eats like a champ.  Will decided to let them eat honeybuns one day and it quickly went to the top of the favorites list!! He now only gets 1 bite per honeybun and they eat the rest 😆 But the thing Londyn loves more than anything in the world right now is.... strawberries!  I just put a whole strawberry on her tray and she will pick it up and gnaw/chew on it until it's gone.  The girl can go through 4 strawberries in one sitting.  Xander has tried tons of food: eggs, muffins, chicken, beef, mashed potatoes (fav!), strawberries, blueberries, mac and cheese, BBQ (fav!!), etc. etc. He will try anything.. such a rockstar eater.  The only thing he has really gagged on is a banana muffin because it was dry.  Londyn is holding strong with only eating honey buns, cheeto puffs, and strawberries.  She will sometimes entertain broccoli and cheese soup but only on the right day at the right time if the weather conditions are good.  Anything else gets an X-ed arm motion in front of the face with a clamped mouth.  But.. hey.. baby steps!!! OH and they are also drinking water from a straw cup! Londyn is good at holding it by herself but Xander prefers to have it held for him or he bangs it around and throws it like a football 😑

Finally... WE HAVE CRAWLERS!! They've been crawling backwards and doing some creeping for a while.. it felt like forever.  Then one day this month I had the PS4 controller on the floor and Xander just randomly got on his hands and knees and started crawling for it! I was like... WHAT?!?!?! Well this frustrated Londyn more than you could ever imagine.  She watched him crawl around for 4 days and SCREAM and have meltdowns when she would try unsuccessfully to crawl too.  Seriously the longest 4 days ever 🤦 she finally figured it out and all was well in the world again.  Now they are crawling everywhere!! Xander's favorite place to crawl is onto the dog bed.. preferably with the dog still on it.  Londyn's favorite is under Will's wheelchair.. where she plays peek-a-boo through the tire spokes and plays with the straps on his backpack.  I spend 95% of the day saying "no" and picking them up and placing them back on their mat!! Great cardio.

Londyn is babbling like crazy now and can say mama, dada, num (for a bite of food), keys (her favorite toy) and dog.  Xander is not as verbal but can say hey and mum.  He also has his fangs now so he has a total of 6 teeth.. Londyn still nothing 😅 Xander is doing great pulling up on things and now uses me as a jungle gym and has pulled his sister down several times!

Some other firsts this month: First trip to the zoo, First playdate at home, First bath together in big bathtub, Xander's first haircut,  First time napping away from home (at mimi and papas) and SO MANY MORE! this month was insane!!

9 months

And just like that, another month has passed!  This month we didn't cross any major milestones off the list, but they are both still working hard at mastering sitting up and crawling!  Xander is great at sitting, but still can't be trusted to not be surrounded by pillows.  The one time I didn't surround him, he got distracted by the dog walking by and fell over and hit his head on the hardwood floor 🤦 Londyn is great sitting up as long as something is in front of her that interests her.  She constantly wants to be on her belly.. So will fall backwards and roll to her tummy the second you give her the opportunity 😂 Poor thing is trying SO HARD to crawl.  She is currently really good at getting into the downward dog position.. but then drops her tummy and goes backwards.  We think she'll be a crab walker.  Xander doesn't really have an interest in crawling.  He's good just laying on his tummy and chewing a teether 🙄 But he does enjoy standing and can do so for a few minutes with very little support.  Xander's top front teeth have come in!  He has the most adorable little gap 😍😍  So current teeth score is Xander-4 Londyn-0 😂😂
This month they have discovered their love for water!! We have had a few pool days at mimi and papas and quickly learned they have no interest in being in those boat things made for babies.  We have to hold them in swimming position in the water where they can kick and splash in the water.  Xander also enjoys sticking his entire face in the water 😲 and Londyn tries to lick/drink the water 😑.  They both absolutely LOVE swimming!!
The main concern this month mainly has to do with me.  I am so terrified of them choking.. so I've been avoiding trying any kind of finger foods with them.  Londyn is super finicky and won't put anything in her mouth even if you paid her.  Girl can't stand a dirty hand.  On the opposite side of the spectrum, Xander puts EVERYTHING in his mouth.. from teethers to socks to his mom's nose.. you name it.. it's going in his mouth.  So I tried the little numnum teething biscuits with him and he bit off a huge chunk and gagged on it and I freaked out.  It scared me to death.  So I'm terrified to give them anything besides babyfood.  It's a totally irrational fear but I can't shake it.  I know there will be times they gag on new textures and flavors and I know its normal.  My brain knows that but I just can't stop panicking when it does happen.  And I feel bad because Xander is getting bored with babyfood and I know he is ready to try some solids!! This momma needs to get a grip 😥
Ya'll.. in 3 months my babies will be A YEAR OLD.  what?!?! how?!?!! They have their 9 month well check on the 19th.  Hopefully the doc can talk me off the ledge about the finger foods.  Can pediatricians prescribe xanax to moms? Asking for a friend.

 Our Family Mother's Day

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!!