We've made it to 14 months

The last year has been the hardest of my entire life.  The stress of caring full time for 3 small children under 3 took a major toll.  Its not that they are bad children - in fact they're all very good little boys.  But there is always something going on, there were months where there was always someone crying (and I'm not exaggerating), there were 12 months of interrupted sleep, I could go on and on.  But now coming through on the other side, I'm sad that I don't know the twins as well as I knew James at this age.  We don't get the one on one bonding time.  We hardly have time for books and finger painting and all the other fun things I used to be able to do with James.  Doing things x3 takes a lot long, more planning and a lot longer to clean up. 

Its amazing how different it is having the twins walking already.  They both started right before they turned one.  In comparison, James started crawling full time at 14.5 months, so slightly older than the twins are now.  Little mobil tots make more messes, get into more things, and love to tug on my pant legs while I'm cooking (something that I absolutely hate). 

Now that life seems to finally be slowing down and I'm getting good sleep, it seems like there is a light at the end of the tunnel.  The boys are fun to play with and we have more fun than bad times.  It still drives me bonkers sometimes when there is so much noise and stuff going on that I cannot even hold a thought in my head.

Spray Park and More

We took all the boys to the spray park today.  Its been in the 90s the last several days and life without air conditioning has us living in undergarments and diapers.  But we're making it through and decided to get out today.  It took James awhile to get into it but then he left pushing the water down and playing in it.  Silas didn't like getting too much water in his face but Sawyer danced happily when water splashed his feet.  We'll have to go back again soon.

The twins will be 8 months old in just about a week.  Its a hard age for Michael and I.  Its when everything fell apart with James and we can't help but flash back to that time in our lives.  We are insanely lucky.  Looking at James you would never know what he's been through but the scars of his hospitalizations, surgeries, and weight issues run deep.  I thought I was past everything until I started having flashbacks when the twins were in the NICU.  When they came home things got better until they were around 13.8 (the weight James stopped gaining at).  That totally freaked me out but I felt better once they each got to 14lbs.  I know without a doubt that Halloween will be tough.  James never got a 1st Halloween.  His was spent having his throat reconstructed.  He has been through so much and he doesn't even have a clue.  Thank god he was our first, I can't imagine dealing with all of that and other children too.

5 Months Later

It's been 5 months since the twins were born.  Life was definitely chaotic for awhile but now things are starting to settle down.  We recently moved to Salem, Oregon so things are a bit unorganized while we unpack and move in.  But once we're settled I expect life to almost feel normal.  It'll be so strange to have a husband who doesn't work all the time and who isn't in class the other half of the time.  It'll be nice now that the twins are becoming more self sufficient.  It's already amazing living off campus.  Living on for 9 of the last 10 years has definitely taken it's toll.  We haven't known 'normal' ever in our marriage - and especially not since James was born.  I wonder what 'normal' will feel like.

A Day of Firsts

The twins are now 17 days old and have been home for the past 10 days.  So far things are going amazingly well.  All they do is eat, sleep and poop.  I don't know how we thought James was hard when he was first born.  Maybe it was different with him because he was our first and we didn't know what we were doing.  Or maybe the twins are so mellow because they're preemies.  Eitherway, I'm counting my blessings.

Today we ventured out for the first time all together.  We made a big trip to Sam's Club.  We didn't need much and I figured we could always leave easily should there be some major problem (like multiple children melting down).  But everything went fine.  James still screamed at the crazy "chicken lady" (aka the greeter that looks kind of like a cartoon chicken).  But the twins slept the whole time.  I'd heard people can be kind of stupid about twins and yup, we got our first "wow, are they twins?" question.  Umm, not to be horribly mean but yeah two newborns clearly weren't from 2 different pregnancies.

Sawyer and Silas also had their first real baths today. 

Sawyer's First Bath

Silas' First Bath