Hanging

I don't think I can accurately tell you how great this statement still sounds to me: "We have nothing important going on...just living life, playing with friends, and training for a sprint triathlon."  I don't think I will ever take the ease of a routine and borderline 'boredom' it brings for granted again.

I remember telling my friend a long,long time ago that the day I have the energy to train for a race, I will officially declare an end to my time of struggle.  This may seem odd to you that I declare this now when really the hardest part of everything has been over for quite some time.  After all, life has been 'normal' for months now.  Yes, this is very true, thankfully, but I have learned that the circumstances of craziness often end long before we recover from them. 

So why is training such an important clue to me? Training is something I love to do but it takes a lot of mental energy, emotional energy and straight up discipline.  Even after things with Emily calmed down, I found that it took all my energy to just keep life moving...a sign to me that I had not yet recovered fully. So I came to the conclusion that although much of my energy had returned, I needed to wait patiently for all of it to come back.  Funny thing is that I wasn't thinking about it or analyzing it or even trying to figure out what was wrong with me, I just left it alone.  If I am honest, I thought maybe the girls had to grow up before it would come back, but deep down, I knew that for me, that marker, that I had recovered fully, was going to be the desire to train again.

Since I stopped training when I got prego with K and then Em came right away, I haven't trained for a race of any sort in four years. I started really running about a month ago and then looked for a tri to do with my cousin.  A few days ago, I planned out my workouts for the next month and it sunk in...I'm training!!  I about ran around the house, jumping off the walls and rejoicing.  I knew that meant I was done, what a relief!  Something I have desired to feel for so long!  If you can't feel my joy, go to youtube and listen to a baby laughing it's head off and let your heart feel their joy and you will be close.  Guess what?  I even bought a bike and am learning to swim at the local pool...that's how serious I am! :-)

What's that life I was talking about?  K and A playing dress up and then posing for photos.

When I say that we have the cleanest toys on the planet, I'm not kidding...she's got OCD and in the cleaning area, I appreciate it.

My crazy second child!!

She often feels the need to have glasses like us or Emily and since she is two, "Weave (leave) me awone (alone), I do it myself!!"

Hanging with Z...you should try to find snacks for these two...between them, they can't have eggs, dairy of any sort, peanuts or pork.  Crackers and cereal it is!

Aww, she's getting so cute!

She is ridiculously cute!

Sadly, they do turn into kids...showing us their food.

Ok, funny story...K is obsessed with Toy Story 3 so Daddy decided to get her a Jessi doll.  She has had it for four days and it hasn't left her side.  Yep, sleeping, eating, bathing, going potty...she's in love.  Sadly since she has never liked pants and now she is potty trained, I can't show you the pics I have of Jessi all over our house and backyard.

She even took her boots off so she could wear them too.

This was from last week but so cute I had to post it.

Well, with all that said up there, what IS normal for us?  Meals take a lot of our time.  I have one kid who eats everything and is hungry half an hour after she eats and one kid who eats like a bird, is allergic to eggs and peanuts, and whom I have to seriously work on to get food down her gullet.  We have to thicken all of Em's fluids because she still has trouble swallowing correctly so she chokes a lot and she's not very coordinated and makes huge messes.  She also still takes a bottle (she will until she can make up the calories elsewhere or her height to weight ratio is balanced).

We don't see the doctors but once or twice a month, unless something comes up, and most of those visits are vision related. Emily's teacher from early start comes out two to three times a week for an hour to try to get her caught up in the areas she is lagging behind in, and the Braille Institute visits every couple of months.  M still works nights so our days are reversed from everyone else's.  We are very low key in the evenings cause it's usually just me and the girls.

The girls play a lot together and K is the greatest thing that happened to Em. Everyone feels the need to remind me that all of the areas Emily is doing well in relate to having an older sister who makes her play with her.  I always say I know, I know, but it's funny to me because I always thought I had Em so K would have a playmate, not so K could help Em develop better than she ever would have under my tutelage alone.  :)

The girls wrestle all the time (not something I really thought I would have to deal with having two girls in the house) and I feel like a full-time referee.  If you drove by my house at any point in the day, you might hear, "No, you can't take that toy from her, she has it!" or, "Stop pushing her! Just leave her alone!"  or "Leave your glasses on, Emmy!!".  Then again, you might hear two little girls giggling and laughing, especially when K blows bubbles on Emmy's belly...or being really, really quiet..."What are you two doing???"  All this makes me happy...the sounds of life, the sounds of two girls, so close in age, playing together...and with each laugh, I feel the tight grip of unnamed fears slowly losing their grasp on my heart.

I could go on and on but I must stop.  I pray God blesses you today!