Dayday

    Tonight I feel like telling everyone about my wonderful husband. He is actually upset with me tonight b/c I said yes to his mother when she offered me a FREE trampoline and he doesn't want it b/c he's sure someone will get killed on it. Or at least break a limb. We are getting it anyway. The more things we have to keep the twins occupied the better off we are.
     But let me get back as to why he is wonderful. As everyone pretty much knows we were all set to be empty nesters when the twins came along. We were going to work on the house, much needed work. We were going to take off on weekends whenever we felt like it. We were going to rediscover what it means to be Davey and Karen.
    Then I announce that the twins are going to be living with us for a while. His first question was how long is a while? I said a week, a month, ten years, til they graduate from high school. :) He didn't say a negative word about it. He just became their Dayday. And he is a good one. He was good with the first two. He is better with these two. I think it's an age, mellow, issue. We are both, I think, more laid back about things. We have to be in order to handle things with the twins well.
    And many times when Grandma's patience has been all used up, even with the help of my little patience pill, Dayday steps in with all his even keelness and takes over.  The twins adore him. He is the only father they have ever really known and he is an excellent one.

8 years old!!!!

8 yrs. .today our lives changed and we didn't even  know it. When their mother told me she was pregnant and it was twins I was not happy. I love babies, but I knew what kind of shape their marriage was in, and there were already two children involved. I think she thought the twins would fix things, after all they were happy when the other two were born. But they didn't fix things. With children comes extra financial burdens and added stress. Anyway, I wasn't thrilled but when I went with her to get her first sonogram and I saw Baby A and Baby B, I fell in love. I think God planned it that way. The day the twins were born was a good day. My daughter and I were the first ones to hold them other than their mom and dad. They were so little and sweet. But I was right, children don't fix a broken marriage. Withing 6 mos. of their birth their father had left and everything went downhill steadily from there. It was a mess. And by the time they were 23 mos. old, they were living full time with us. Today they turn 8. They have lived with us for 6 yrs. I am as much in love with them today, even more, than I was when I first saw them. So Happy Birthday twinkies! Grandma loves you very much. :)

Feeling wishy-washy today.

Six years. It has been six years since the twins became a permanent part of our life. They were just babies, a month short of two. I remember I threw that birthday party together very quickly. We never thought that we'd be raising children after ours were grown and out of the nest. Now we can't imagine our lives any other way than with the twins as a part of them.

They're going to be 8 next month. I can't believe that either. They're not baby's anymore. They were babies for more than their fair share of years. Partially because they were a little behind due to being twins and premature, and partially because of all they've gone through, and continue to go through, with not only dna related problems but family issues. I freely admit it, I babied them much longer then I did my own two children, and it is just recently that I find myself saying, "You're almost 8, you're not babies, do it yourself."

They are growing up so quickly. I see everyday more maturity from both of them. Like I said no more babies. Although girl twin does seem to revert back a little from time to time and requires a little laptime and rocking. And boy twin does need to be constantly reassured that I love him. I don't mind. As all parents know it won't be long til they're up and going their own ways and don't want or need those things from me anymore. So I will rock when rocking is required, and I will tell him I love him a million times a day. And I will cherish every moment I can because they won't be around forever, and when their time with us is done, or at least when they're ready to fly I will watch them go and be glad that I was the one, we were the ones to give them a safe nest, and wings.

A Lot On My Mind/Or What's Left Of It LOL

Who was I before I was who I am now? I don't think I remember that person. What happened to the life I used to have? To the life I thought I would have? We all know the answer(s) to this. They're called the Twins, the Twinkies, the Kids. My life. That is what happened to my life, it became their life. Their lives? My whole world revolves around those children. What's going on with them? What's the best for them? And don't take me wrong. I love those children. I've loved them since before they were born. Since the first time I saw them on their mother's sonogram. Babies A & B. But life has become something I didn't know it would be. A struggle. Because they struggle. Because they have the difficulties that they have. Because their parents were and are still so messed up and that continues to effect them. It continues to effect us all. I'm not trying to be depressing. Although I spend a lot of my time sounding that way because I am. I am not sorry we made the choice we made, to take the twins. They need(ed) us and we believe it was God's plan for us to take care of them. To hopefully give them a good life. To do what's best for them. But it is so hard. It has taken over our lives. Mine and Davey's. And I love him for it. It was my idea in the first place. He just kind of went along for the ride. And boy what a ride it is. We had no idea at first that they had problems. As they got older they started to appear and when we look back we can see that they were there all along. We just didn't see it. We have no real life of our own like most people our age do. I have very few real friends. You know, the kind you do things with. Because most people my age are done raising kids. They're working, etc. Doing whatever it is people my age without kids do. I have no idea because I'm not doing it. I'm raising kids. Davey and I try not to be consumed by it all. But it's hard when there's medicine to be taken, Drs. and counselors to see, meltdowns to cool down. Children to love. We snatch whatever little moments we can and try to hold on to each other. But it is hard. I never ask why though? I know why. They are why.

Crazy!

This whole situation with the twins and their mother is driving me that way! I hear this from one person, this from another. I hear that this person said this about me, but when I talk to them I get something else. Their mother tells me one thing, then another. I am so tired of it! All I want to do is make sure everything is good for the kids. I guess that's all I've got. Geez, I'm just so tired of it all!

If anyone wonders....

    If anyone wonders why I am so fiercely protective of the twins, this should fill you in. For the third time in two weeks their mother has not shown up for a visit when she tells them she will. I don't remember what happened the first time, but last Saturday boy twin immediately got an attitude and the girl climbed up on my husband's lap, cried, and sucked her thumb. They are a few months short of eight. Sucking a thumb is not normal behaviour.
    And today was the worst. I was on the phone with her and yes, I said she would have to forgo the visit. Because it was already 5:00 and we had to have supper and bathes, we have school tomorrow. The boy literally jumped on top of me, I was sitting down, and was screaming at me and hitting me. "Tell her it's all right to come now. Tell her! Tell her!" It wasn't alright. There was no way it could be. She is at this moment living an hour and a half away. She wouldn't get her til near 7:00. They go to bed at 8:00. He got off of me but ransacked the house, tearing things up, throwing things around. Took a heavy mirror off the wall and threw it on the floor. All the time yelling at me. Telling me to call her back and let her come.
    The girl on the other hand was in her room, sitting on the floor with a picture of them and their mom that I actually took on Mother's Day last year, just bawling her eyes out.
     I finally let him call his mother back and she apologized and "promised" she would be here tomorrow after school. She had better be.
     I remember feeling fiercely protective of my own children just a few times in their lives. It was nothing like the way I feel about these two. Because I knew that no one was ever going to hurt them like these two have been, and continue to be hurt.

Growing up

     The twins never cease to amaze me. They have made such leaps in growth and are both starting to act so maturely, as a general rule. :)  I can't believe that we have had them with us for going on six years, and in just a few more months they will be 8 years old! No more car seats! I miss my baby twins but rejoice in the progress they have made and the maturity I see coming out in both of them.