Life Lately

Goodness life has been full lately.

Not crazy, or hectic, or even too full… just… full.

I feel like it’s been forever since I just wrote out what’s been going on with us so I decided to do just that!

We’re going to keep things super casual today. Above are some photos from my iPhone camera roll that haven’t seen even the slightest hint of an editing app.

Raw and real is the goal. 🙂

So what’s been going on…

Let’s start with Ella and Rosie. They are now 21 months! I can hardly believe it. Their adjusted age (19 months) is still what’s considered in regards to their development, but they’ve pretty much closed the gap… except for gross motor skills ha! I swear I have given birth to the three laziest girls on the planet. Even now, Kit hates to walk if she doesn’t have to (she walked at 19 months, and the girls are aiming to have her beat). In some regards, I’m okay with that. It’s definitely easier to coral twins when they can’t run in opposite directions (although they can crawl pretty fast!), and I can’t imagine how hard it would have been if they had been walking at a younger age. At least now, when they do start walking, they are a bit older and can understand boundaries a little bit better… and they’re much more familiar with the word “no” now. 😉 But I’m also at the point that I got with Kit. I’m tired of them missing out on experiences because they can’t walk. I’m tired of carrying them everywhere. And I’m just ready for the next chapter.

We’ve had them in private physical therapy for about a month now, although we’ve had in home therapy for them since the beginning, and switched to exclusively physical therapy about six months ago. I’m not sure if I’ve ever talked about this before here on my blog (I know I have on Instagram), but Rosie had stage four bleeding when she was a few hours old (basically, she had a stroke). It can happen in preemie babies, and unfortunately stage four is as bad as you can get. When the doctor broke the news to us, she told us that Rosie would suffer delays in some shape or form. Not, she might, but she will. Basically, she’d never seen a baby with stage four bleeding that hadn’t had some sort of delay. That news was honestly the hardest news I’ve ever gotten in my life. I’ve really had to work through the feelings of guilt… that if I’d somehow been able to keep them in a bit longer, she wouldn’t have suffered from it. I know that those feelings aren’t based in truth, but it’s been a big struggle to heal from that.

But, I am so blessed and thankful to say that Rosie has defied all odds. Our doctor says Rosie is the only baby she’s ever seen that seems to be showing no signs of the bleeding. The reason we have had in home therapy since they were born was so that we could monitor her developmental growth, and the therapists agree that she seems to be doing absolutely fine. She’s a stubborn one!

I’m obviously so relieved to see such a blessing unfold in front of me, but part of me can’t let go of the fear that something will come up. I think it won’t be until she’s in school, and I know how well she’ll do with academics that I’ll finally be able to relax. All part of the post partum anxiety journey… it takes time to recover.

So back to what I was initially saying: they are now in private therapy, and they hate it ha! The therapists both agree with me that Rosie and Ella would be walking if they wanted to… but they just really don’t want to. And having someone force them to is literally the worse thing that could ever happen.

I basically have three strong willed, but lazy girls. Ha!

In other areas they are doing great though… it’s so fun to see their little personalities blossom, and they both are talking up a storm, though Ella is definitely the talker in the family. She has so much to say and it just makes my heart warm every time I hear her voice. Rosie is much more stoic, but she loves to chat when we’re cuddling. It melts me into a little puddle… I need to tuck that information away for later: to get her to talk, she needs lots of cuddles and intentional time.

They’re also in full on fighting and temper tantrum mode. Oh my goodness you guys! They fight so much! Lately they’ve been pulling each other’s hair, but they don’t try to get away from each other… so they’ll sit there taking turns pulling each others hair, and then screaming at each other, but neither one crawls away. Uff da. You better believe I’m hussling to get them through that phase as quickly as possible. Why is teaching kindness to toddlers so hard?!

That’s basically Ella and Rosie in a nutshell.

Kit has less to update on, but she did start a one day a week preschool program this year.

It’s been a bit of a hard transition, but the teacher says she always perks up about 10 minutes after we leave, which is super encouraging.

We chose to only do one day a week because we knew she would need lots of time to warm up to kindergarten, but I also felt jumping right into two or three days would be way too much for her.

I really do think it was a good idea though. Kit is such an independent little girl, and I knew she needed something in her life that would push her to learn how to listen and participate.

Plus, I can already tell she’s having an easier time playing with other kids when we’re out and about, and I’m so glad for that.

She is such a good big sister though, and I’m so thankful for her. She’s so willing to grab things for me when I need them, and to help take off her sisters’ shoes and socks. I really think this whole twin thing would have been a lot harder without her.

As for David and I, we’re just buckling down for all of the travel we’ve got coming up. The joys of not having family in town!

I just got back from my parents house last weekend (David was camping), and then we have two Thanksgiving celebrations out of town next month.

Plus we’ve had lots of new babies in the family! My sister just had a little boy, and my sister in law just had a little girl. So fun to get my baby fix. 🙂

We’re trying to work on some house projects, but it just never seems like there’s enough time. We’ve been trying to paint the upstairs living area since May, and we’re only about halfway done ha! Life with kids.

I think that’s it!

I know this isn’t my normal style, but I thought it would be nice to sit down and just have a nice chat.

I’d love to hear what you’re all up to! Let me know your life updates in the comments below.

Until next time,

Karin