Thursday, April 10, 2014

Slugger is 3 and Half!! [March of Dime 2014 coming up!]

Age: 3 and 1/2 years (or 1,352 days and counting)
Weight:  28-31 lb (she was at 31 for her last check-up but dropped a few pounds after being sick)
Big Events of the past year: Loving preschool!  2 ER trips (oh, this girl), first trip to Disneyland, performing in preschool plays, starting to sleep over at Nana and Papa's house like a big girl (she's about 2 steps away from taking over Aunty Sara's room=)

It's that time of the year where we ready ourselves to walk in the March of Dimes (Keao's fundraising page and Scott's fundraising page) and we check in with you to let you know how our little star is going.  So here we go!

Well, little Miss Slugger is 1,352 days old.  Earlier today, I wrote some thoughts about our family this past year in a separate post here, but I like to keep Slugger's updates fun…well, because that is Slugger.  Both our girls have had attachments to stuffed animals but I've noticed some key differences that reflect their personalities.  Sunny has 4 stuffed animals/dolls.    She carries them everywhere, with a baby blanket.  She pretends to feed them, she hugs them and pats their backs and puts them down for "nai nai."  She's the mama and they are her babies.  Some of them (like Elmo and Minnie Mouse) used to be Slugger's and she also used to carry them around everywhere.  But they weren't her babies, they were her pals…her friends.  Sunny is our little mama, and Slugger is our entertainer, the life of the party.  She's a little socialite who loves people and doesn't mind a little attention every now and again=)

So, one of the big milestones is that she started preschool at Pali View Baptist.  I never thought we would consider preschool.  Hey, I never went to preschool and I did just fine.  I didn't want to rush school and I wanted to let her enjoy the freedom of childhood.  So August came and preschools everywhere started and something happened that we never really thought about.  Slugger didn't start preschool.  But all her friends did!  Which left our little social butterfly home alone (albeit with her baby sister and ultra-cool parents) or at daycare with…babies.  We really missed the social aspect of preschool and decided that it would be a better fit for Slugger in particular.  So, we finally enrolled her, even if a few months late.  But we were fortunate to find an opening at Pali View Baptist.  It is close to our house, right on my way to work, and when we went to visit, we fell in love.  Turns out we knew the Preschool Director and Slugger's teacher went to high school with Scott.  We are so thrilled with Slugger's preschool.   Every day, the names of her "bess fren" change and we seem to have circled through her entire class several times.  Apparently, she's bess frens with everyone between the ages of 2 and 7 in Kaneohe.

And Kaiser is so good.  They just schedule appointments with specialists and so we just show up when we get the appointment card.  She had a visit with an eye doctor and at the end, the doctor turned and said "great news, looks like everything checks out perfectly."  We asked if we would be back in a few years with Sunny and she said "oh, no, this is just for Slugger because of her prematurity, this isn't a typical appointment for 3 year olds." Oh.  Awesome, we didn't know.  But, yeah!!  Yet another check off the preemie list!  We didn't know this one was on the list so maybe there's some other checkpoints down the line, but I feel like we've almost fully closed that door.

Of course, she's our ER queen.  Not a year goes by with one or two ER visits.   I stay up late editing photos while the family sleeps and I always do a last minute walk through and check on the girls before I call it a night.  One night, I was standing in the doorway watching the girls sleep and it just seemed like Casey was breathing a bit too fast.  Mommy paranoia sets in and I turn the light on and spend the next hour alternating between watching her chest and torso and googling.  Finally, I wake up Scott and we took her in to the ER.  It's sad to say but it's such a relief when the doctors see what you're seeing.  So I'm not a crazy person who over thinks everything?  I don't know why I struggle with guilt whenever I take the girls to the doctor or ER.  Every ER visit we have had, the nurses and doctors have been so kind and reassuring and never question why we are there.  They always say "better to be safe."  And so far, every visit has been warranted.  Although she was alert and attentive, her chest retractions were showing that she was working harder than usual to breathe.  The doc told us that this was not asthma, just asthma-like episodes most likely a result of her past respiratory problems.  Preemie life rears it's head again.

Slugger brings us so much joy.  She has such a big heart and feels things so deeply.  She's twirling in the store just because walking brings her joy.  But it also means that she bursts into tears over the horror of being denied a snack. 

And she's such a character.  The world is a stage and we're in the middle of a musical…a musical that mainly plays the same two Frozen songs over and over again.  She sings and dances non-stop…although dancing is compounded by her sometimes lack of grace and foot coordination=)  Lately, she's started to act out scenes from movies.  Last night, she put on oven mitts and acted out the Queen Elsa's coronation scene from Frozen…over and over again.  Just a 30 second scene, but she kept acting it over over and over again, never breaking form.  Sometimes she says she's going to do something and I freak out and she stops me "I'm just pretending, mommy."

Just recently, she underwent her own little rebranding and transformation. Well, you can just see for yourself!






Introducing our new pixie girl!




Thank you for all your love and support!!  Keep on shining!



Count your life in days


Our Family
It's been an….hmmm, "interesting" would probably be the most positive way to spin it…interesting year.   One of the biggest milestone in our family lives occurred just 2 days after Scott turned 37 when Scott was unexpectedly let go from his position with the church.  We knew they were suffering financial difficulties but frankly, it was still a shock.  I remember telling one of my friends and trying to downplay it, I told her “it’s okay.  It’s just a job.”  And she said “but it’s not just a job, it’s much more than that.” She pretty much hit the nail on the head.  It wasn’t just a job, it was our life.  So, now we find ourselves in a new season, a season of adjustment.  New routines, new patterns, shifting circles, shifting support systems, a whole other new and strange life that we’re learning to live in.

Scott has been a stay-at-home dad (and an amazing one at that) while hitting the pavement and applying for every job we see open, taking night classes and certification classes.  I continue to work at UH and God has been blessing my photography business which is keeping me busy on the weekends and has made for many late nights.  Through this season, we have focused on family time, even seeing this as an opportunity, a blessing to be able to spend more time together and with the girls.  In a few years, Taylor will be in preschool and we wouldn’t be able to spend entire days in her company.  What a gift this was for Scott to share this time with our little one during an age where she’s truly developing into a little person.   This season won’t last forever so we are cherishing this time with both our girls.

The triplets changed the way I see life in so many ways.  We had some warning that we might lose Rory when they sent us to a specialist after our 20 week ultrasound.  We cried, and prayed, hoped, and cried, and prayed up until her birth.  But with Allie, there was no warning.  She was doing so amazing.  It was Casey that the doctors were worried about.  She was the sick one that gave us concern while Allie seemed to be thriving and sprouting.  And then it happened in a flash, within 24 hours, she was gone. 

19 days.  19 days was all we had with her.   When the girls were first born and we looked at the long hospital stay stretched ahead of us, the mom of the baby next to us gave me advice.  She assured me that it was okay if I couldn’t visit every day.  She had other children, she even had to go back to work so she could save her leave for when her son came home.  It sounded right, it sounded wise.  But I never did it, and I am forever grateful that I didn’t.  Because I didn’t have a lifetime with Allie.  Well, I did...but who knew a lifetime could be just 19 days.

Sometimes your life isn’t counted in decades.  Sometime it’s not even counted in years.  Sometimes it is just days.  In my life since the girls were born, I now count everything in days. Sadly, since our girls were born, some of our friends have experienced losswhere days were not even an option for them.   It's hard lesson that not all parents get to see their children grow up, get married and meet their beautiful grand-children.  We're not promised that.  We're not even promised tomorrow.

Our bedtime routine with the girls is split.  Scott carries Slugger to her bedroom when it’s her bedtime and I carry Sunny when it is hers.  I pray over Sunny and every day I pray thanks over the day we had and replay some of the highlighs.  And at the end, I think “man, today was a good day.”  Maybe there was a crisis at work, or maybe I spent an hour scraping the melted cheese out of the oven from when I accidentally flipped the pizza over…but all I remember is cuddles with the girls watching Doc McStuffins or laughing while Sunny chases the hapless baby chicks around the day.  And every day, I can firmly make that announcement…”today was a good day.”  I count myself very blessed that I get to say that.

Today was a good day.  A very good day.