I've resuscitated the blog - can you believe it??! Me neither. I don't plan on making this a regular priority like I used to, since I post many, many photos on Instagram and Facebook, and I know that's mostly what people want to see. But part of why I liked blogging is that it provided a sort of diary of the memories with our kiddos, and I'd like to continue that!
So we're 14 weeks in with the twinners. They've both moved past the newborn-looking age, and are now into the full-on baby stage!In general, they like to keep a nice schedule. Or, more accurately, I've spent weeks putting effort into getting them ON a good sc
hedule. I feed them at 5 before I leave for work, and then they eat about every three hours all day, with their last meal around 10 p.m. They mostly sleep through the night, sometimes needing a paci if they stir a little bit.
Charlie has long been known as "the fussy one," but really, it's just because he's very loud when he cries. He's a tummy sleeper, so as long as he burps and can sleep on his belly, he's not terribly fussy at all. But when he does cry, he goes for volume. He could probably compete, if there were baby crying Olympics! Charlie is very smiley and chatty when he's not sleeping or fussing, particularly after he eats. He has very light red hair, and my light skin, which makes him look a little bald sometimes :) His favorite ways to be held are on his belly and up high on your shoulder so he can see all the things. Sometimes he also likes to just "sit" up so he can watch everything going on around him. He has really strong legs that he constantly stretches and pushes with, so I use sit loosely. He already scootches on his belly because of his legs!
Lydia just started cooing regularly, which is so cute. Sometimes we sit them facing each other so they can talk to each other :) The boys are fascinated by a little girl, with Levi trying to hold her hand all the time and Theo trying to hug her (which we have to watch to make sure he doesn't smother her). Her arms are constantly in motion, so much so that she needs the extreme velcro swaddle for sleeping, and she still manages to get both her arms out. Last night around 2 a.m. she woke herself up flailing all around. Lyddie likes to be held, but she still wants to look around, so she'll angle her head back or around to see as much as she can. She's generally very calm, but she gets pretty angry when she's hungry or when she can't put herself to sleep, and occasionally in the evenings for no reason, of course.
Theo just turned three on Wednesday! He may already have strains of a #threenager. Last week Tim and I had this conversation:Me: I don't know if I'm going to let Theo live to his third birthday.
Let's just go ahead and cancel his college fund.
Tim: That's the beauty of his college fund - it's just a plain old investment account we have 100% ownership of. No obligation to him whatsoever.
Me: I'm going to buy a timeshare at a spa. or a beach house.
Tim: All I have to do is change the title of the account.
(Let's hear it for a husband who gets on board with the plan instead of trying to talk me down!)
I blocked out Levi's behavior and attitude when he was three, I think, so now that Theo has reached the stage in which he is sure he is in charge, and will make every poor choice he can make, and will not be ruled by anyone else, gah. It's at such odds with his caring, sweet personality too. He spends a lot of time headed up to his room for not listening. He is still so fun to spend time with, though. He loves everything trucks and cars, and can play with them for hours and hours every day. Somewhere along the line he dialed up the volume on his regular speaking voice, and we spend a lot of time trying to get him to not shout everything he says! We are also nearing a good point in potty training, which, thank goodness. He was showing signs of being ready in late June, you know, when the babies were 8 weeks old and I was headed back to work part time. But I didn't want to miss the window! It took about two weeks, but after that, he went 10 days without any accidents and wearing undies all the time (as opposed to naked-style training, which we had to tackle for the first few days). He's now graduated to the "I'm only sitting on the potty when I decree I WANT to #threenager, meaning that from either resisting us or just being busy playing, he's not been quite as successful. He's also easy to bribe: a lollipop will get you just about anything. Theo loves his babies, and constantly wants to hug/kiss/hold them. He's great at making sure Lydia has a paci or Charlie has some pats on his back when either one is upset. And his latest thing to do is counting everything, which is lots of fun.
Levi is fast approaching five-and-a-half, and is somehow stuck between being a little boy and a for-real responsible kid. With the twins (actually, more so with my third trimester of pregnancy), he was somewhat forced into being someone to help safeguard Theo, help with many, many more chores, and be able to entertain himself and his brother even more than usual. And after the twins were born, he had to take on even more self-regulation, getting them breakfast most days, having to fetch a lot of things for me, and helping to keep the wheels going on our crazy bus. He's proven very resilient, very willing to help most of the time. Like any little boy though, it was a lot to expect, and he's had some rocky moments lately. After a summer of his caregivers transitioning about every two weeks, it was to be expected at some point. In a world which was very focused on him before and has now fragmented into a lot of moving parts, he has trouble when the house gets too loud or chaotic, and trouble processing his big emotions. Totally understandable, and we're actually enrolled in a dual-learning program with a local children and parenting center to help us learn how to better manage our parenting style (we lean heavily on the consequences and sternness side of the scale), and help him to identify his emotions and process them appropriately. He loves to learn and read, and is right now in a stage where he constantly asks what words mean to expand his vocabulary. He sings songs and makes up stories to himself all the time, and is also a bit of a perfectionist - he needs to make sure things are accurate as a rule. Which sometimes means argumentative. That's what you get when a control freak (me) marries a perfectionist (not me), ha! Yesterday we researched whether or not a commercial airline plane can fly upside down or not.
Life for Tim and I is pretty intense, not gonna lie. There's not much margin outside of keeping children fed and civil, work, and sleep. We're both coping in the ways we do: I'm reading in every free moment I can, and trying to spend time with friends to get out of the house and break up the weight of daily to-dos. Tim has tackled really turning our yard into something beautiful, and goes for a short run every night. We both are trying hard to avoid the ships passing in the night situation, even if it's just talking for a minute before bed. We're not great at that part yet, but we'll get there :)
