Kids, life, and all that

Thanks for all the kind words on my last post. Things are still very hard, but every day we get through is... well, another day we get through!

The girls turned 4 months a couple weeks ago now. They've grown so much. J is rolling a lot, and G is a grabber. G is almost an inch and 2lbs more than J now, she loves to eat and sleep. J is our wild child, she is wiry and fierce. By the end of this month I'm going to have to move G into 6-9 month clothes, J has been about a month behind wardrobe switches so she'll probably make it until mid-December before she needs to. They babble a lot, and notice each other more each day. They love V, he amuses them to no end.

They had their first Halloween, it was cold and wet so we stayed in and passed out candy. V enjoyed going door to door with daddy though. J was Supergirl, G was Batgirl, and V was Spiderman- my superhero troupe.

J and G

We've went to the zoo a lot in the past couple months; V asks to go every single day but it's a bit of a drive and always quite the ordeal! We've been going about once every week or two though. It's really nice to get out of the house, and there's no comparison for how happy it makes that kid. Now that it's cooler we won't be going for awhile. He plays pretend at home though, he sets up his own little zoo and pretend dinosaur boat ride, and he has to show me. We have to go through his little zoo. He has quite the imagination.

V & the T-rex

V does throw a lot of tantrums, makes a lot of messes, and can be a handful. He doesn't focus very well still, has poor listening skills, and he is very independent. By that I mean he wants to just run off and explore, and isn't afraid of anything (except large stuffed costume characters). He is an unstoppable force. He can be very focused, when he chooses to be. He tests boundaries like it's his business, and business is good right now. He's doing so much better than when the girls first came home, but it's still chaos. I feel like we're doing okay most days, but some days I just feel like a failure. Hopefully as we keep working on things it will improve.

He has been having night terrors about 1-3 times a month, and those are really disconcerting. He hasn't had one for a few weeks (knock on wood) and I hope it stays that way. He usually starts screaming, "Nooooooo!" or, "Mommmy!" and thrashing for a good 10-30 minutes, just screaming and crying in his sleep. After I learned how to deal with them it's gone better, the first few times we tried to wake him because we didn't know what was happening. Now I just turn his nightlight on and talk softly to him, and it's over on the quicker end of the spectrum. There is a family history on both sides, so he was at higher risk for them. They suck so much though. The fewer we have to deal with, the better!