OK, Ok. I might be the worst blogger in the history of the world. But to be fair, my life is pretty busy. My kidneys have gone pretty far down the toilet, but I still manage to work full time, take care of 2 babies, and be a wife. Kind of. I'm still waiting to lose a teeny bit of kidney function before testing my brother for a transplant match, but with less than 25% kidney function, I feel like crap most of the time. The good news is while I'm waiting I 'm trying to lose some weight and gather up some money and some comp time. I'm trying to trust God's timing. He hasn't failed me yet.
First up for the updates is the tiniest one. He's not completely tiny anymore. He's coming up on 16 months actual age and is 32 inches and 22.10 lb! He seems to be a little bit delayed, but nothing super worrisome. We're having Evie's specialists evaluate him just to get someone more specialized than their pedi in on it, but he was 2 months early, and 2 months is a lot of time when you're 1. He's babbling pretty much constantly, but doesn't really say words. He does say mama occasionally when he really wants my attention, so I believe he does have 1 word solidly down. For a while we were sure he just couldn't hear because he doesn't respond to his name, but he has fantastic eye contact and such which was a worry with E in the beginning. We took him to get his hearing checked and it's fine, so our case manager is thinking it might be an issue where he can hear sounds, but his brain can't sort out sounds when there is a lot going on. We're checking into that. But he's responsive and engaging and babbles a lot so they're thinking it's something to do with processing or just being a preemie. He's not walking, but he tries. He will let go of things and take one or two steps but then he falls. The pedi isn't concerned with that because again, he was 2 months early, and he's progressing, not regressing. Basically we're just trying to sort out if he's still catching up from being born early or if he does need some extra help like E did. One thing is for sure... he's a happy kid! He sleeps through the night every night. He always wants to cuddle me, and how can I say no with these eyes looking up at me!?
I took him to the park last week and he was not impressed. To be fair it was really hot and sunny. He likes to be outside when there's wind, but he just doesn't know what to make of grass yet.
He can walk across a room with his walker, and stand for a bit if he lets go. He's pretty proud of himself about it, too.
He's also a big nerd like his mommy. I know he's too little to really be into a lot of things, but his favorite thing on TV is the Star Wars Rebels commercial, so that counts for something.
Evie is something else entirely. She's my little ball of energy. She's a topsy-turvy whirlwind. We call her the tornado for a reason. But she is SO MUCH FUN. If this little girl can't put a smile on your face then you have no soul. She's hilarious and loving and just wants to be with me all the time. She started school last month. She's 3 and she takes a bus every day and does amazingly. She never cries, but just gets on and goes to school and has fun. She's learning so much in her prep program about how to function in a classroom, so we have hope she'll be able to sit still for kindergarten. She seems to have pretty severe ADHD and some Sensory stuff, so it's tough for her, but she is doing well. Her teacher told me she's incredibly smart and knows tons of things and uses ridiculous complete sentences, which of course makes me absolutely thrilled. She speaks in full sentences a lot, and has words that I wouldn't imagine coming from a 3 year old. She plays pretend now like any other child. She knows shapes like "cylinder" and she can read a little. Site words of course, but pretty big ones, like "chicken". The other day she pointed out where her heart and lungs were. She knows most of her letters (though whether she'll tell you them is another story). She knows every color under the sun and can count pretty high. I think 20 right now. She does not stop singing. Ever. And she's on key, which is the ridiculous part about hearing her sing things like "Let it go". Yes, she loves Frozen like every other little kid. She's super into Disney Princesses right now. Movies, little people, castles, towers. Anything princess, and it's adorable. We're still working on the potty. As long as we remember to put her on it she goes just fine, but she still forgets sometimes to tell us. She doesn't seem to mind the potty but she doesn't mind going in her pull-up either. It's getting better every day though. Sometimes she just walks over and sits on the potty of her own accord. I'm confident I will not have an untrained 4 year old. I expected a delay with her processing troubles and us having to take care of the baby and unable to stick to as strict a schedule as we would like.
We took her to a small fair a few weeks ago. For some reason my mom put an 18M shirt on her that doesn't match her skirt, so... pardon that. She LOVES rides.
And this is this morning with her big girl backpack on waiting for the school bus with mommy and daddy. She's so ready to go.
So that's us. Our life in a nutshell. Work, sleep, eat, kids, repeat. It's a pretty good place to be. It would be nice to get a break a little more often. I don't see my husband that much because we work opposite schedules. We're going to a wedding (alone!) in a few weeks, so that will be nice. We also have a family vacation planned in November and a small weekend trip this summer. He's taking Sunday nights off, too, so we can spend it together. There are so many things I want to do with the kids coming up and I'm so grateful to be able to plan little outings for us. We're tired. I'm exhausted. But we have a sweet little family and our kids are happy. I can't really ask for much more.
