Oh, I guess it's fall...

We've stayed pretty busy this summer! Since school started here in VA Beach on Tuesday, I guess it's fall... except it's still butt hot outside. I'm longing for it to cool off and get crisp again. I have a bunch of random iPhone photos for you to look at in this post. They may or may not have anything to do with what I'm writing about. In fact, this post is just going to be about whatever. No real guide or point, just musings about life right now. ;)

 I feel like ever since July hit it's been kind of a whirl wind. After we returned from vacation, I attended two births in a short amount of time. Doula work is amazing. I love it. There's something so amazing about witnessing a birth and being part of the process in a small way. If you want to keep up with birth-y type things, you should follow my Facebook page and my doula blog on my website. I'm really trying to ramp up my doula business. I have a meeting with a potential back-up doula next week. I just need to have clients be able to find me easily now!

  The biggest news is probably that both girls are done with speech therapy now. Amelia finished last week and was discharged. We will go back if needed, but for right now she has met her goals and has had such progress over the last couple of months. She is learning so much lately! The ball pit is in the gym at the therapy services office-- both girls thought it was the coolest thing ever. Amelia was so upset when we had to leave and there was a lot of crying. It was quite the way to wrap up with the speech therapist ;)

I've instituted a few more intentional "pre pre-school" type of activities. I've made a theme and found some activities to go along with that theme to do throughout the week. Our first theme was birds because the girls are super into birds right now. We made a bird feeder, read books all about birds, colored bird pictures, and sang songs about birds. Last week was farm week. I kind of lost touch with the activities other than going to a petting farm because sometimes life just happens! This week we are on a bit of a hiatus because of the holiday weekend and getting back into the swing of things.

The picture in the stroller is of the girls waiting for Brad to run by during his half marathon. It was almost impossible to get down to the start or finish lines because of the way parking and road closures were, so we went to the half way point to cheer him on. Then we left. I'm so proud of Brad for running it though! He had a great finishing time. This summer he had several challenges with his training that prevented him from running for almost an entire month. We weren't even sure he was going to be able to pull it off. He definitely did! So proud of his commitment and accomplishment!

We are definitely in a new developmental phase as the girls turn two (ummm can you believe their birthday is next week!?). I'm finding it difficult sometimes to manage the feelings toddlers have. I'm trying to find tools to place in my parenting tool box that both validate their feelings but also outline expectations, teach them how to be decent human beings, and teach them basic social skills. I feel very strongly that discipline should never shame children, but in the middle of it sometime it's hard. If both girls are tantruming or needing something from me, sometimes it's so hard to not just sit down, plug my ears, and scream for everyone to be quiet! I'm learning that I apparently am sensitive to noise levels and get easily overloaded when both girls are crying/screaming/tantruming. I guess maybe it isn't "noise" per se-- i'm just fine if they're being loud because they're happy. It's specifically when they're both upset that I just feel like shutting down completely and all my ideals about not shaming and being validating go out the window. I am definitely not perfect and have had to apologize to them for not handling myself well. Parenting is hard, y'all.

My birthday was on the 28th. I turned 27. One year closer to 30 and making me officially in my late twenties, as my darling husband likes to point out. ;) I made some mini apple pies to celebrate with, but to be honest they were crap. I was disappointed in them for sure, but overall my birthday was a great, low key day. I felt loved by my friends and family. I kept thinking about my life, as I do on my birthday, and kept thinking how it's nothing like what I imagined it would be. But it's a great; I am really quite pleased with where we are and what the future might have in store for us.