Tenaciously TTCRelentlessly pursuing the dream of building our family

Hmmm…so, I’ve mostly updated you on the little ones. Now for the rest of us.

SS is a junior this year, and the end of the school year is nearing. Which means she has a lot of big decisions to make in the very near future. About furthering her education and where the rest of her life is going.

She has had the benefit of watching her step-sister, who is currently a senior, go through the process this year. So she understands the importance of doing what when and how quickly it all comes to a head. However, she has not focused on her academics and certainly doesn’t have the choices her step-sister has. She will not be in a position to choose which school to attend, but instead will be praying that someone will take her. Truth be told, community college may be her only option in the short-term. Definitely borderline. :/

Regardless, we are moving forward in the hopes that she will have an option or two for a 4 year school. And we’re going to tour a few schools that are realistic for her standing. Our first tour will be Chico State on Thursday. I’m really looking forward to it for a number of reasons. I hope that it gets her more excited about going away to school. But also, it will be the first full day we’ve spent together since early in my pregnancy with the triplets. It will also be the longest I’ve been away from the little ones (which I’m not excited about, but SS needs me, too), but still it’s only a day trip. Should be good for both of us.

As for me, I’m focusing on small goals for myself. Like reading 10 books this year. And finding a few hours a week away from the house to do something for myself. My weekly trip is to Barnes & Noble to read. Sometimes it’s Thursday night, sometimes it’s Saturday morning, sometimes it’s both. It gets me out of the house, into an environment where I feel relaxed, doing something that’s important to me.

As for my reading goal, 10 books would previously have felt like a pathetic goal (I averaged more like 50 books a year before the pregnancy), but since I’d only read 2 books in the 18 months previous to making that goal, 10 seems rather ambitious. I’m about to wrap up my 4th book, and I have 4 others that I’m in the midst of (can’t believe I’ve become one of those people, but somehow I have). Definitely feeling good about reaching my goal by the end of the year.

As for PB, he just finished his Masters in Information Systems, and it’s looking as if there is a good chance that he’ll be hired to teach some online courses at the school he just graduated from. He made a lasting impression on several of his instructors and was asked to participate on a peer review committee which gave him even more opportunity to shine. Keeping my fingers crossed that this opportunity materializes into something tangible.

Overall, all things considered, we’re all doing really well.

Juliet and Pacey are doing quite well.

At almost 17 months, Pacey is running, walking backwards, and dancing his little booty off. He is definitely the big dancer of the three. Pacey is also good at sharing, at least with me (especially his food which he loves to feed to me). Not so much the other kids.

He loves to be chased and will do what is necessary to provoke anyone, including the other babies, to chase him around the playroom. With the other two little ones, this tends to entail stealing something like a toy or blanket and running away with it. As soon as they take chase, he begins to giggle like a little madman, running around the room joyfully playing keep away. Never mind that the other baby is crying. :\

Juliet is just starting to practice walking backwards. She is quite the climber and loves to straddle the top of the couch. Unfortunately, the climbing does get her into some interesting predicaments. Like getting stuck inside the kitchen cupboard and sliding behind the couch, essentially being pinned between the wall and the couch. I have video of both that I hope to post at some point.

She is excellent at playing pretend and picks up on things rather quickly. For instance, I jokingly put a little ball down her pajamas and then took it out. The next morning, when I took her out of her crib, she had a pacifier in the foot of her pajamas. Yesterday she began putting a plastic chicken in her pajamas. If it falls down her pajamas too far, she comes and gets me to remove it. And then promptly places it inside her pajamas again. :\

Everyone is eating well. Juliet is sleeping much better and the boys are transitioning into one nap. Actually they are transitioned to one nap, we just need to move it to the afternoon. Right now it’s at 9:30am until about noon. Juliet still requires two naps a day.

We have lots and lots of teeth around here, and the whole teething thing hasn’t really been a big deal. Sometimes a little fussy, but mostly ok.

Generally speaking, our real area of concern is language/communication skills. Juliet can say hi, mama and dada. Pacey can say eat, mama and dada. Flynn still says nothing but is becoming much more vocal with sounds, if not words. Truly we aren’t that far behind if you go by adjusted age, but they aren’t picking up the baby signs much either. Juliet and Pacey are babbling a lot lately though, so I have faith that we’re going to get there.

It’s really frustrating because our circumstances are so different than the average household. If there were some good studies done on multiples and their rate of development, I have a feeling they would find that they develop at a different rate because of environmental differences. But that they catch up eventually. It doesn’t really seem fair to compare them to kids who go to daycare and are constantly surrounded by active conversation, or to families who have several children, but of different ages (most at some level of verbal communication). For roughly 12 hours a day, I am the only conversationalist they are exposed to. And conversations with three toddlers is limited.

Ah well. Chalk it up to part of the unique experience of raising multiples. I just keep reminding myself that a) we are caught up physically and in most areas we are at or exceeding developmental expectations for their chronological age, b) I’m doing the best job I can, c) they aren’t suffering and d) they WILL go off to kindergarten doing all the things they are supposed to.

In a nutshell, we are doing well overall. We are taking steps to catch up in the few areas we are behind, and I believe that they will all be just fine in the long run. In the meantime, I am enjoying my babies and watching them bloom.

If I were to say “I refuse to start this post by apologizing for being gone so long like I normally do because I’m sure it’s getting nauseating”, I’d still be saying exactly that, right? Right.

Just like I won’t say “This is going to be quick because I don’t have a lot of time.”

Straight to the update, shall we?

Flynn. Flynn got his hearing aids in February. The first week we were struggling with just getting them in because he threw such a tantrum, but I eventually worked it out. Then he miraculously wore them for weeks without trying to remove them. Not once. Which apparently is very unusual for a child his age and very lucky for us. Until he got a raw spot over his right ear and it bothered him so much he messed with it until he figured out how to remove it.

And two days later he came down with a horrible cold and wouldn’t wear them at all for 2 weeks.

And then the cold was gone, the ear was healed up, and he still wouldn’t wear them. So I took him to the pediatrician thinking he might have an ear infection that we missed. Nope. She treated him for a potential ear canal infection but when he still wouldn’t wear them after a few days of antibiotics, it was back to the audiologist.

She said it’s unusual for them to acclimate so quickly and then start rejecting them later, but it’s also a normal phase for most kids at some point (seems like conflicting info to me, but whatever). Just keep trying. Try for 5 minutes, 4 times a day, and increase the amount of time as he allows it. Sigh. 5 minutes is a long time when you’re talking about a 16 month old, especially when you have to bascially ignore the other two 16 month olds during that time. But we forge forward.

Due to Flynn’s hearing loss, we qualify for services from the Department of Education in our county. Currently that consists of a hearing loss specialist and a regular infant resource/developmental teacher coming to our house once a week to help me learn how to engage the kids more and reach certain developmental goals. The kids really look forward to them coming, and I’m learning how to play with them more productively as well as growing my ASL vocabulary pretty quickly. Not that I need to know it because Flynn’s hearing deficit is very minimal. In fact, the ENT said it was questionable whether Flynn even needed the hearing aids and he didn’t think he would need them by the time he started school. Just long enough to catch up in his language skills. Whew! But I digress…I’m learning a lot, and the kids enjoy having other people around. Plus, we start going to motor-sensory gym next week, which should be really fun for them.

Other news on Flynn is that the pediatrician referred him to a neurologist to be assessed for an autism spectrum disorder. At this age they don’t diagnose, but he has some potential indicators and they want to intervene now in case it turns out he does fall on the spectrum. If he doesn’t fall on the spectrum, then the services provided can’t hurt him. If he does fall on the spectrum, studies have shown early intervention to have a huge positive impact on their long-term development, especially language skills. So we’re moving full steam ahead until we hear something solid.

At this point, I’m ok with all of it. I’ve had time to adjust to the hearing loss and I’m in a good place with that. The autism question deserves a post all it’s own, but I can say that I’ve suspected for quite some time that something was different. I don’t know if he is autistic, if there is some other condition, or if he just has his own way of doing things, but Flynn is unique. And he’s wonderful. He’s a sweet, smart, mild-mannered boy who loves to be held and cuddled and wrestled with. If he falls on the spectrum, we’ll deal with it. If it’s something else, we’ll deal with it. He’s my beautiful little boy no matter how it all turns out.

I’ll have to write another post to update you on the other little ones and SS and everything in general. I’ll do my darndest to get that done some time this century.

Hope all is well in all of your worlds.

A few posts back (previous to Christmas, I think?), I mentioned that something had come up that I wasn’t quite expecting and didn’t really know how to process. I didn’t have the time to write about then, but I’m making the time now.

With such a large gap in between my first child and the triplets, it had been quite some time since I had done well-baby visits. 16 years ago, they checked length and weight, gave immunizations if needed, and nothing much else. Nowadays there is all this talk of milestones, what seems like endless questions about how much they are eating and drinking of what, etc. And while I admit it may just be an assumption on my part, it feels like there is a heavier focus on milestones with us, either because they were premature or because they are triplets, or both.

So at one of their well-baby visits (9 month, I think? How sad that I can’t even remember!!), the doctor was asking about speech, and I expressed concerns. Everything I read said they should be making more consonant sounds, maybe even saying mama, dada, and baba, and they weren’t saying much of anything. We had our developmental clinic appointment coming up, so she said to cover it with them, but to be safe, let’s have all of their hearing tested again.

At the clinic, we were told that they wouldn’t normally recommend speech therapy until they were at least 18 months because, technically, they weren’t considered speech-delayed unless they reached 18 months with no words. But because they felt I was very stressed about it, they wrote up a recommendation for Juliet to get speech therapy. Of course, by the time we got the write up and recommendation, she was noisy as all get out (if not using words yet), and we opted to skip speech therapy for now and stick to the normal routine. If there were still concerns at 18 months, we would do whatever they suggested. In the meantime, we would follow through with the hearing tests (though they had passed their newborn screening).

Pacey and Juliet both passed their hearing tests. Flynn’s was inconsistent. We scheduled a repeat test to account for him being tired, hungry, overstimulated, etc. His 2nd test was inconsistent. We had to go to the next step and have him sedated for an ABR (Auditory Brain Response, I believe). What a very long and difficult afternoon that was.

The whole process took over 4 hours, plus the 45 minute drive each way, and I took him by myself while PB stayed at home with the other two. I had to wait in the waiting room by myself for roughly an hour, and even though it wasn’t life or death, my chest felt heavy.

To begin with, simply watching your child go under during sedation is very unsettling. They told me it would be, and I kept it together, but inside…I can’t begin to explain to you how it feels. If you’ve been there, you know what I mean. Watching your baby go completely limp like that, it just makes your heart sink.

As he was waking, the audiologist was explaining to me that he had not passed the ABR. That he has bilateral sensorineural hearing loss. She began to explain that it was very mild, in a limited decibel range, only a tad below normal. That he would have trouble hearing certain consonant sounds and therefore have difficulty acquiring speech without treatment. That she recommended hearing aids. And while I heard what she said, I could only focus on Flynn waking up.

It is even more unsettling watching your child wake from sedation than to watch them go under, especially when they are so little. He was confused, and I’m sure felt funny, and being totally unable to communicate, he just cried. And he was so hungry, but so confused, that he wouldn’t take his bottle at first. And between the news she gave me and my baby having such a difficult time, I felt really emotionally overwhelmed. But I held it together. At least until I got on the road and called my mom.

For some reason, it seems silly to me that I’ve been so emotional over this. It is a problem that can be treated. It isn’t life or death. It causes him no pain. We caught it early, so he doesn’t have much catching up to do. Given the fact we had triplets and all the meds I was on while I was pregnant, we are so lucky that we aren’t facing something much worse.

But he is my child. And he has a health issue. And even though she said it’s not something we’ve done, it’s hard not to feel guilty, not to wonder if I should have done something differently.

And I worry about the stigma that may come along with the hearing aids when he starts school. He’ll already stand out, being part of a three-pack. And children can be so horribly mean.

For once, I’m truly at a loss for words. I’ve been trying to put my finger on the exact reason why my heart sinks and my eyes well up whenever I think too long on it. It just breaks my heart. And I think it just does.

He is my child. I am his mother. And though he is still perfect to me, though I love him as much as I ever did, it hurts me that he will have to live with this.

The ABR was on December 8th. His hearing aid has been ordered, and we are waiting to see an ear, nose and throat doctor before his final fitting. So, I’ve had time to process it all. Or at least, I am in the process of processing. I do know that as time passes, it won’t phase me anymore. We’ll reach a state of new normal. And I believe that if we don’t treat him like he’s different, he won’t see himself that way either, and it will make it all much easier in the long run.

But in the mean time, I think I’m grieving a little bit. Grieving what exactly, I don’t know. But I think grieving is definitely the right word for it.

Sorry if I’ve run at the mouth, and if I sound a little disjointed, it’s probably because I am a bit these days. But I have faith that things will smooth out.

So, today is my 36th birthday. Nothing huge planned. I expect my husband picked up a Baskin Robbins ice cream cake (my favorite), and perhaps a sizable Barnes & Noble gift card because I’m saving for a Nook Tablet. I wanted a Nook Color, but why not pay the extra $50 and get all that additional functionality, right?

Other than that, it’s just any other day. No sleeping in, no day off, no celebratory dinner out, no party. Same ol’, same ol’.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how I feel about turning 36. As birthdays go, it isn’t particularly monumental. It isn’t 30 or 40. And I entered AMA territory on my last birthday (yeah). Is there anything truly significant about being 36? Not so far as I can tell. Except that I am now closer to 40 than 30, and while I’m trying to swallow that with some grace, I cannot tell a lie. 40 is the age I have always dreaded, but I can’t begin to tell you why.

For many, 30 is the first dreaded turning of the tides, but I never looked at it that way. While my 30′s have had a fair share of turmoil, they have also brought me my life partner, my babies, more financial stability (not that you could tell from some of my previous posts, right?), and a subtle mellowing. I’m more content with what I have, more accepting of others, and have more solid relationships, even if they are few and far between. The anger I’ve carried with me since childhood has dulled more than a fair amount, and forgiveness is coming more easily to me than it ever has. For all of these things, I am extremely thankful.

I will not say that the idea of entering my 40′s is weighing on me exactly. To begin with, I have 4 more years to get through before I reach them. And really, finding moments to have thoughts about anything other than what I have to do next for the babies is rare and precious. I try not to waste those moments worrying about things that ultimately are of little consequence. But I do think about it. And not with any great fondness.

The turn of a new year and birthdays are likely the two most common times for people to really reflect on their lives. In my case, it happens that those two events are extraordinarily close together. So, I’ve spent a fair amount of time between Christmas and now looking backwards and forwards and chewing on it all a bit.

My life is not at all where I expected it to be at this point, but that should not be construed as a complaint nor is it indicative of regret. On the contrary, I don’t believe in regret. In my mind, regret is equivalent to wishing that you could go back and change something in your past, it’s wishing that you had done things differently. And while it’s true that I can see where I got off track, where I’ve strayed and made poor decisions, I also believe that there was only one path to where I am right in this moment, and had I done even one thing differently, I could very well be somewhere quite different. Not a risk I’d be willing to take.

Still, though my path has veered in a very different path than I had planned, I am happy with where I have landed. I may not love every single second of my life, but I wouldn’t trade it. Yet my old plans and goals stay with me. My bucket list has not changed. And my greatest challenge is finding a way to merge the two paths. I’ve always been a strong believer that nothing and no one should require that you give up “you” in entirety. Anything that costs everything else you ever wanted isn’t worth the cost. You must work hard not to lose yourself.

So my task for myself in my 36th year is to figure out how to blend the path I’m on with the path I was on. To figure out what on that original path was most important to me and find my way to it. To find a way back to myself, to take better care of myself (hell, to take any care of myself), to be a little selfish and make my way towards a greater sense of fulfillment.

Through infertility and then raising my little ones, I have most certainly put myself on the back burner, and in doing so have lost sight of who I am and how to go about meeting my own needs. Although it will have to be done in baby steps, my goal this year is to find my way back to me.

Wish me luck.

Wow. My oldest is 16 today. As in 16 years old. As in how-the-heck-did-that-happen-so-fast?

On January 9th, 1996, my first daughter came into the world at 5:40pm, weighing 8lbs 15.5oz. Natural birth with less than a 3 hour labor. She was 10 days past due and it all happened so fast that the whole thing was a blur. But not really, because I shockingly remember most of it. It was a pretty monumental day in my life.

For nearly 15 years, SS was my only child. And I was a very young single parent for most of those years. But we made it work. She was my partner in crime, my cuddle bunny, my adventure buddy. We traveled to great places together and shared amazing experiences along the way. We always had each other.

We’ve certainly had our ups and downs in recent years, but we are seeing our way to the other side now. She has grown and matured immensely in the past year. So have I, I think. I am really proud of who she is becoming, even if I do worry (it’s a mothers job, ya know). SS has a wonderful way with the babies and it’s clear how much she adores them. She’s gained a new perspective and has a greater respect for the people around her. Her future is becoming more of a focus and her eye is drifting more towards the opportunities and responsibilities in front of her. Her sense of humor is wonderful. She is a true and loyal friend. And if her heart is bent on something, she is capable of working hard to achieve it.

Thumbing through pictures of her over the years, it is hard to believe that my baby is growing into a young woman. That soon she will enter the world of adulthood and true independence. Everything about her is constantly evolving, as it should be, but sometimes the rapidness of it takes my breath away. How did we get here so quickly? Where did the time go? Where is the slow motion button?

Happy 16th birthday to my beautiful, smart, funny, loyal, wonderfully amazing daughter. May the years to come be easy-going and the life lessons not be too hard. May you always know how much I love you and how much I treasure all those years of it being just the two of us. May you carry that sense of adventure throughout your life and keep on racking up new and amazing experiences. I have millions of wishes for you, more than can be counted, but more than anything, I hope you have a life full of love and happiness. Love you, Short Stuff! Always and forever!

To begin with, how about a Christmas photo!

Overall, it was basically uneventful, with two exceptions. On the way there, Pacey puked at the first restaurant. Like massive puke. Then I changed him, and he immediately puked again. We figured out that his sensitive little tummy needs extra care on car trips. Poor little bubba. The second exception was in the home stretch on our return trip. Juliet just started screaming bloody murder and woke up the boys who joined in. We tried everything to get her to stop, but they just had the hardest time sleeping in the car.

The kids got more toys than I know what to do with. I’m packing some away, and we’re going to have Christmas in June. Fortunately, they got quite a few toys that are rated for 18 month olds, so those are the toys I will tuck away to be used later. Next year, I think I’ll emphasize how useful clothes would be over toys.

Wow. And another month goes by where I don’t write a word. Ugh.

Things have been busy, busy, busy and I have so much to update you on that I can’t possibly cover it in one post. Since I last wrote, we have had our one year check up, our 1st birthday party, a very long roadtrip to Washington for Turkey Day, and a big discovery that I’m having trouble coming to terms with at the moment (sorry to be so cryptic, I’ll catch you up soon, I promise).

Plus, it’s just that time of year. Halloween, followed by the babies’ birthday, then Turkey Day, Christmas, SS’s birthday, and mine! All within like 10 weeks. And who does all the planning, shopping, and preparing? Yuppers.

Yes, I’m feeling overwhelmed. And this recent news…I’m just not going to let it push me over the edge.

So, I don’t have birthday pics on hand (on hubby’s machine, hubby not home), but the “party” went well. I limited it to immediate family only. His mom flew in, my parents came, as well as two of my brothers, their significant other/spouse, and my niece and nephew (4 & 6). I made smash cakes for the babies (cake mix from a box, sadly, but homemade buttercream frosting), and got an ice cream cake for everyone else.

My cake decorating skills are rusty (that’s being kind), and I forgot to take the dang cakes out an hour before, so they had a hard time mushing through the stiff frosting. They were all really unsure about the whole thing, but in the end, Pacey and Juliet did a bang up job of tearing up their cakes, and Flynn did his usual…he ate some, but since it wasn’t pureed, wasn’t cruchies or puffs, and wasn’t pancakes…he deemed it not worthy of his time and effort.

No one went truly overboard with presents, but with two + presents per baby, per guest…oh my. Quite a lot of toys in our playroom now. And we still have Christmas to get through! In terms of ripping the paper off, they weren’t so sure. Juliet eventually got into it a little…she does love to rip paper (mostly for the purposes of eating it, unfortunately), but since it’s normally not allowed, she kept looking at me like she was waiting to hear her name said sternly. Flynn, who is our resident mountain goat, was more interested in climbing the stack of gifts then opening or playing with them. Pacey just wanted to play with the cars. His favorite.

We had pizza and cake, and it was nice to hang out with the family. I rarely see my oldest brother (who is actually my step-brother, and we never lived together, so we aren’t close) and his family, but I really like his wife a lot. My parents were AWESOME and picked up everything before they left, so all we had to do was put the kids to bed and we were done. I can’t say how much of a gift that was!

Ok, I hate to cut things short like this, but babies are waking up from their morning nap, so I will have to pick this up later.

So, I’m really going to make a bigger effort to blog more often, and hopefully from time to time I’ll have something worthwhile to say. These days I wonder if this is still the proper venue for me given the direction life has taken, and the topics I’m most likely to discuss, but I’ll stay here for now, and if I decide to move to a new “address”, I’ll give you fair warning in case you care to follow me. But I digress…

I don’t write much these days. In fact, I haven’t been writing often since some point in the pregnancy. And in all of those posts, I’m quite sure that it seems as if I’ve forgotten I have another child. I certainly haven’t written about her all that much. And maybe it’s because there isn’t a ton to say because there are so few issues these days. Whew.

SS (abbreviation for Short Stuff, in case you’ve forgotten or didn’t read that far back) is doing much better than she was at the beginning of my pregnancy. Did I mention that she moved to Tahoe with her Dad? That was last December. She doesn’t love it there, but she’s settled in well. It took awhile which is to be expected. Having had to move as a teenager, I know how difficult it is to make new friends and find a good fit. She seems to have accomplished that.

In terms of grades, etc., she’s hanging on. It’s frustrating because she is so damn smart, but she isn’t even remotely motivated. And the reality is, she can’t be motivated by others either. Or at least, not a one of us – parent, teacher, therapist – have been able to find a way to motivate her. Pushing only makes things worse, and there are no reasonable rewards that make it worth it for her. But, she was failing all classes before, and now she’s passing, if barely. Sad that this improvement excites me, but it’s amazing how much your expectations change when your child has hit bottom. We’re nearly halfway through the year, and she’s still doing homework, so that’s something.

She hasn’t gotten into trouble in nearly a year. I’m not naive enough to think she isn’t doing things she shouldn’t be, but she isn’t getting caught. That doesn’t make it ok, but it does show that she’s starting to think things through, and I do know that she doesn’t have much opportunity to engage in normal teenage rebellion (i.e. drugs, drinking, sex). Plus, she tells me things I don’t believe most nearly 16 year olds would tell their mothers, so I think I have a good idea of what she’s up to. Normal teenage stuff, but frankly, she’s behaving a lot better than I was at the same age.

She has gotten a lot better control of her emotions and her expression of those emotions. She’s respectful even when some adults around here don’t deserve it. When it comes to doing things she doesn’t think she should have to do, it’s still challenging, but fortunately it doesn’t come up that often.

Overall, it has gotten a lot easier. The first 6 months after her overdose, heck the first year…it was hard. So, so hard. I don’t know if I’ll ever stop wondering what I could have done differently, what I could have done better, how I could have helped her, if I should have gotten her to therapy sooner or maybe tried a different therapist, oh the millions of things we parents beat ourselves up about. And when your child goes that far off the beaten path, you can’t help but torment yourself.

In the end, what matters is how she’s doing. And while I secretly wish that she were more focused on the future, I can honestly say that 18 months ago, I couldn’t imagine us being where we are right now. A lot of progress has been made, she’s grown a lot, and our relationship is in a good place. So all things considered, there isn’t much to complain about.

To begin with, I want to say once again how much I appreciate all of your support and feedback on my last post. I can’t say that I’ve gotten out since then (other than the usual running of errands), but I did research and find some other avenues for me to get out and do some things for myself that I can actually afford. Literally the day before Emily mentioned it (great minds think alike!), I discovered Meetup, and I found a couple of book clubs that might suit me in the near future. I also found a gym that a) offers classes on nights I can take them and b) that I can afford. I just have to make the time to go over and check it out with a free guest pass before making the commitment. But, the point is, I’m making an effort, and have more confidence that I’ll find something for myself in the near term.

Now, onto more interesting topics: Halloween! The babies had the first Halloween yesterday. I bought inexpensive costumes at Costco, we dressed them up, and took them to the mall for “trick-or-treating”. Of course, all we really did was do 5 laps around the mall in the stroller with them all dressed up and lookin’ cute. It’ll probably be a few years before we really take them out.

Now onto more fun stuff!

Getting dressed:

Juliet

Flynn - Mama, I have a bad feeling about this!

Pacey - The things I put up with!

Walking around the mall:

My sweet little ducky, Juliet

My ferocious little tiger, Flynn

My friendly little dragon, Pacey

Can you believe they turn 1 on the 12th? Where on earth did this first year go?