visitors

Blurred with little focus as I imagine the tomatoes remember our recent visitors.

Update on Tomatoes

With one week behind us and two more until we see our PT and EI person again - we're doing great with the physical therapy! We've added it to our daily charts/logs attempting to remind me, my suggestion, that I should work on it with them multiple times each day rather than multiple times each week. Seems silly and pretty straight-forward but making time to sit still and do a few simple exercises - with-each-baby - takes planning on top of everything else.

There hasn't been much time to blog this week for a few reasons;
1) I'm completely over winter and spend every free moment wishing for Spring. Blogging about what's going on now just reinforces where we are now - getting more snow and wearing heavy winter coats, still.

2) Despite our debates about going outside this winter, I have respected Roger's fear of them getting too cold, despite how silly I think it is, and have kept our outings to a minimum. Meaning we've gone on walks two or three times each month - this in itself has added to my frustration with winter and cold weather. Now that Spring is approaching, however slowly, I'm making a point to get them outside every day. We've been outside more this week than most of the winter! Adding that time into our days, on top of physical therapy three times per day, has removed a lot of my computer time.

3) Our new schedule, as agreed on by Roger, Sara and me, has been tough. there has been more waiting, planning and fussing than most people can take. It is exhausting. Terribly, terribly exhausting. But after an extremely dry spell we've hit on a few good naps and I think we're only at the tip of the iceberg. Aside from the patience necessary to get through this time, I've been trying to be more precise. Instead of getting them up (or putting them down) with 30 minutes leeway, I've been setting the timer and sticking to it. The consistency is helping their bodies adjust and giving us some more regularity.

4) The main reason that I haven't had time to blog is that I've been making myself sit still during the first part of their morning naps. This is the time I'm guaranteed quiet and I'm at my best in the morning. the problem is I start my day on hyper drive and it's just not relaxing or good for me personally. so, no matter how much I want to get everything done in the first 30 minutes after I put them to bed, I make myself relax. And it's really, really hard! This has been my best time frame for blogging, without it I feel like there's not a good time to get to blogging so I haven't been.

I only have eight minutes left before my timer goes off, I've added cooking and laundry to today's agenda, MWF are our regular laundry days but I didn't get to their sheets yesterday, so I must run!

Quickly though:

Both tomatoes are doing well. Tabitha's face is really changing. Jackson can hold one of our physical therapy positions on his own! Neither are sitting but both are moving backwards. Both can rock on their hands and knees although Tabitha prefers knees and elbows. This week she's started crossing her ankles while she lies on her tummy, too adorable! And, AND! Tabotha has started making consonant sounds! Norah was getting a little concerned but then, as if on cue, Tabitha began da-da-da and ba-ba-ba and yesterday I heard la-la-la followed by ya-ya-ya! It's very, very exciting! Jackson is growing and eating. The screaming, that was so terribly painful, has all but stopped, now rather than Tabotha doing it Jackson does occasionally. And the spitting during meals is nearly gone as well thanks to consistent time-outs by both Sara and I. 

cry, cry, cry.

Built the tomatoes the coolest fort today. They didn't enjoy it, at all. Pretty defeating. Made me want to cry, much like the Johnny Cash song . . .
I wasted my time when I would try, try, try.
When the lights have lost their glow, you're gonna cry, cry, cry.

just a photo . . .