Tomorrow my Twins are Turning 10 and Entering the Double Digits!

Well it’s February 2, 2024… Ground Hog Day, but 5 years since the last time I wrote anything here. 5 years… that is a long time! Life is so different now. The world is so different now. It will truly be impossible to summarize it all. Let me start by saying, the reason I am doing this today is because last night while hanging out with my still 9-year-old (for a day) daughters Alyssa & Paula, I ended up reading some of these entries in here to them and they were so taken aback and told me I should turn this into a book. They never got to hear their birth story in so many details as well as my first ever post here which was right before I was turning 30 and discussing not being ready for kids just yet. Little did I know that I would get pregnant less than a year after writing that. The reason I also did not do my annual Ground Hog Day post in 2020 and the day before their 6th birthday was because we took the kids to San Diego to spend their actual birthday in Legoland. I also already was aware of the craziness that was beginning which would turn our worlds upside down… you know, the early stages of pandemic. 

 

I was terrified to go an amusement park with them having already heard about Covid, however at that point they were still saying there were only 2 cases in America so far (yeah right) and in my head I decided to just battle my fear and go while we still could, I had a feeling we were not going to travel for quite some time after that. That trip was awesome, it was a month before the world shut down, but I’m a germaphobe and we already had masks with us before anyone else did. That is still the last time we did something major for their birthday like that. The drive back from San Diego sparked a discussion into relocating to a different part of the Bay Area, one where it’s warmer, more family-friendly, and of course better schools. And I am so glad we had that epiphany because it led us to move to the East Bay in the Bay Area, which happened to be very shortly after the lockdown began in March of 2020. This was our silver linings of the pandemic; we were able to find something thanks to my awesome Realtor friend Maria Nichols and snatch it up when everything was uncertain, and no one was making any big moves. The move really didn’t make the lockdown or pandemic seem all too bad because we got to be outdoors a lot, got away from the foggy area we used to live in before, explore all these new trails, etc. Another silver lining for me and for a lot of you guys out there too was the peace and quiet, the serenity of not having to go anywhere, working remotely, doing everything from home, and last but not least spending all of this quality time with family that we normally would never get to do. 

 

I could go on for days about all the details of the pandemic years, but I think there’s enough documentation out there about this crazy thing that we all had to witness in our lifetimes. So, I will just discuss my own experience. What happens when a person is already a germaphobe and then there’s a new deadly virus out there? I completely locked us up, huge believe in masks, they have proved to be a reliable source of protecting yourself for years now, regardless of them being comfortable or not. I really don’t want to make this into a medical journal entry. All I will say is that I lost all FOMO, staying safe and keeping my family safe was so much more important to me than meeting up with people for an hour or two or going out anywhere. I got super comfortable using Instacart for groceries, still do weekly, always been an Amazon and online shopper, anything that could be done curbside, I still do, etc. You get the point. I was and still am one of the most cautious people out of anyone you know. Even though the “pandemic” is technically over, my immediate family is still cautious. We have a number of reasons, some old and some new. 

 

Girls remained in virtual school, which was awesome for them and us btw, for a lot longer than others. This school year, 4th grade is their first year back in person since kindergarten. Everyone is different and for us, remote learning just really worked for convenience, academics and so much more. I could tell they’re not getting as much academically now in person as they did online, but at least they get to have more fun and be kids. The pandemic began a few months before they finished kindergarten, that is so crazy! This is something we will always be shocked that it all happened in real life and not in some sci-fi movie. We made huge progress with comfort level of what we do or don’t do these days, and compared to a year or two ago, it’s night and day, but we still have much room left for improvement. And now I’ll stop rambling about this particular topic that provokes all of my anxiety and panic all over again. 

 

In July of 2020, my best friend aka sisterfriend Jessica also moved, but unlike me who only moved an hour away from where I used to live, she moved all the way to Texas. She needed to live in a place where she could afford a nice house, and both could keep their jobs. She definitely loves her house and the life she created there; however, I hate that she’s so far away. I am thankful that her job still brings her out to the bay area a few times a year and we always make sure to see each other every time, and she makes a huge effort to have one trip per year where she comes just to visit me, and we get to spend amazing quality time together. It’s not what I ever pictured for our friendship when we have always lived close and were able to see each other almost instantly if needed, but living so far away, she’s still the friend I see the most. My other friends’ kids are all so grown now, some of us have teenagers, it’s bananas. It’s been cool to witness my work bestie Colleen get engaged, married, pregnant and now she has a little 2 year old daughter! Helen got remarried to a guy named Jereme and we blinked, and they’ve already been together for 5 years, she deserves all the happiness. During this time, my cousin Svetlana who was always terrified at the thought of becoming a parent, now has two kids! My cousin in NYC had a new baby as well in 2023! Sara had a pandemic baby Max, when her husband Dima was unable to go to appts with her and everything was super scary in the hospitals. I say this every time, but life is weird and unpredictable and sometimes things just fall into place very quickly and unexpectedly. So of course, in the last 5 years, new babies were made, existing kids got 5 years older, friends have married, remarried, moved, etc. That in a nutshell is called… life. 

 

Something that I never saw coming was Russia starting a war with Ukraine. I’m from Ukraine, but I speak Russian. When I moved here in 1994, people did not even know where Ukraine was because it’s so small, so I would just say I’m from Russia. Always thought the two countries were interchangeable, but now I’m 100% always going to say I am from Ukraine. Of course, I stand with Ukraine and pray for peace and resolution there as soon as humanly possible. I finished 6th grade there and still have friends who live in the country and try to check in with them when possible. Current events are crazy. My heart goes out to Ukraine and Israel, may these two countries remain strong and live in peace. Peace is most important. 

 

In other current events… of pop culture, *NSYNC reunited to create a new song “Better Place” for the new Trolls – Band Together movie in 2023. This was the highlight of my year tbh. I’m a day 1 OG fan, went to several of their concerts, stood in lines outside of tower records to buy tickets, had all their CDs. Trolls was the first movie we went to see in a movie theater opening weekend since 2019 because it was that important to me. Alyssa, Paula, and I were decked out in our new *NSYNC gear, and it was so fun. I am so excited that I got them into *NSYNC and Justin Timberlake, they’ve always heard the music and knew some songs, but now they really enjoy it, and truly know the good songs. We are anxiously waiting for the *NSYNC reunion tour, at least the possibility of it, for now we will take the new Justin tour. 😊 This was off topic, but felt pretty relevant since this is something I bonded with my babies about and I am so happy about that. 

 

My dog Corky (stayed with parents once I moved out) is no longer around, we had to let him go last year on February 7th, at 14.5 years of age. He lost his sight and hearing, was losing mobility, etc. It was really hard, and it caused me a lot of grief. The grief turned into realization that we no longer have a dog in the family and to me, that was weird. Somehow while grieving, I convinced my husband who’s not a dog person, that there are dogs that don’t shed, like any doodle, that are smart and trainable and will be cute to have. He got on board. I found a litter of Maltipoos that were 6 weeks old an hour away. What do you think happens when you take two 9 years olds to look at the cutest tiny puppies? Everyone was in love. We locked in on one pup we were going to name him Furby.  Long story short (do I ever keep anything short tho?), he ended up crying all the time I noticed via Facetime and his tummy looked weird because he had a hernia, so that all scared me. But we did end up getting his sister and her name is Peachy. She was born on 1.16.2023. She just turned a year old and she’s such a light in this house! I changed my mind about getting her due to all the responsibilities that come with dog ownership, but everyone was set on getting her. So, she’s here and everything fell into place. I love her beyond words and am very grateful she chose us to be her family. 

 

There are things going on that I won’t write about right now on a public forum with different family members and it’s affecting all of us greatly. I think I covered the most important things that have happened over the last 5 years. Last year on their birthday, the girls got their ears pierced. This year, on their 10th birthday, I’m gifting them custom earrings and I hope they will love them. They’re such little ladies now, but also still so innocent and sweet. Yes, they definitely have their moments and are very particular with things, but overall, I have to say that they are good girls, they try to be good students, they are responsible, they appear to be honest. I hope and pray they stay this way even though I can tell they’ll be challenging teenagers. I just hope I can continue to build this bond with them and be someone they confide in and want to spend time with. This is something I want to work on internally to not be so reactive to them and be more patient. They truly deserve it and clearly, we all see how quickly the years fly by. They will literally be teenagers in 3 years, only 3 years. How’s that possible? I’ve been a mom for 10 years now… what? Mind blowing! Next year will be their last year in Elementary School. That too is shocking. Oh, and how about the fact that I am now 40…1! 41, 41.5. What??? I was in my 20s when I wrote here for the first time, let’s not forget that. 

 

Well… let’s hope next time I’ll write in here will not be 5 years. Seeing how interested Alyssa and Paula were in this blog (not a vlog lol), inspires me to write more than once every 5 years. I am overfilled with so many emotions as my little babies are going to be in the double digits tomorrow. I wish them all the best in the world and more. 

 

Here are the photos and themes from their 6^th, 7^th, 8^th, and 9^th birthdays:

 Meet our new family member, Peachy:

Here’s the poem I generated for them using AI… I gave 3 paragraphs of details and did a ton of iterations to get this right, but I kinda love it:

 

In a world where laughter fills the air,

Alyssa and Paula, a duo beyond compare.

Ten years of joy, love, and cheer,

A milestone reached, a moment so dear.

Identical wonders, an inseparable pair,

United in laughter, their bond rare.

February third, a day to hold near,

Double digits, as time steers.

Beautiful souls, with hearts so true,

Great students, daughters, in all they do.

Proud parents and grandparents stand,

In awe of the blessings named Alyssa and Paula.

In their world, Peachy, a furry delight,

Sisters and dog, a bond shining bright.

Gifts of love, wrapped in a smile,

They journey together, mile by mile.

Health and happiness, our wish so true,

For these amazing sisters, a love so rich.

Besties with mommy, a bond so sweet,

In their laughter, our hearts beat.

YouTube creators, talents unfold,

Stories and laughter, a treasure untold.

Alyssa and owls, a whimsical dream,

Paula with bunnies and turtles, it seems.

Miracles they are, in every way,

Guiding our hearts, brightening our day.

To double digits, a grand welcome cheer,

Happy tenth birthday, hold it dear!

May the universe unfold its best,

For Alyssa and Paula, on this quest.

A decade of love, laughter, and play,

Here's to many more, on this special day.

Til next time. Much love to all! 

My Twin Toddlers are Becoming Little Kids Tomorrow and Turning 5!

Oh Ground Hog Day, we meet again! It's the annual tradition now to post a blog entry every year on this day. This day brings on so much emotion for me as a mom; I start remembering everything, my pregnancy, how I felt on this day watching Super Bowl and anticipating my C-section in the morning, life before them, life right when they were born and so on. I can't believe my little babies will no longer be considered toddlers in a few short hours. It all goes by so very fast, it's hard to process.

This year just flew by. I really feel like we just celebrated their 4th birthday and here we are. We ended up cancelling the party last year due to the severity of the flu outbreak and half the party not coming due to being sick. We ended up celebrating with a few closest folks at my parents' house. Girls were bummed, but also had a good time. They definitely brought up why we can't go to the fun place with slides and ball pit. This year they definitely have gotten much taller, but weigh about the same as last year. Tall and lanky. Their English has gotten much better, they still make mistakes and have an accent, but they speak to me almost solely in English. They use Russian with the rest of the family.

We ended up going to LA last March. It was a great trip. We went to Disneyland for a day and it was kind of a nightmare. There were fun moments and we have great pictures from it, but it was so busy the day we went as I'm sure it always is, but the lines were insane, it was tough to get around, etc. Girls were annoyed at the constant waiting, wanted to leave by 2ish, just enjoyed the teacup ride, train around the park and the Disney store on the way out. We enjoyed City Walk and our other outings better, less pressure and chaos. We also took a few quick trips to Calistoga for some pool time. Those were all fun. We did our annual July Tahoe trip for my birthday. It was actually really great and much smoother than the previous year. The house was new and perfect for us. The only downfall was the girls refusing to eat pretty much the whole time. Crying at every meal time, thus making the only activity we were doing together, eating, an unpleasant fiasco. I think it was partially attention seeking and being off their usual routine. Not napping, later bed times, and being in the sun a bunch. Either way, it was a nice time. In August, Pavel and I went to Paso Robles for the first time and really enjoyed it. It's like low key Napa, with cheap or free wineries and not crowded. So in October we ended up taking the girls and also visiting Solvang while there. It was a good family time.

In the fall we began the whole process of applying to private schools for Kindergarten. We don't really love the area we live in and were not looking forward to sending the girls to public. I'm going to try to not go into too many details about this because it's very much front and center on my mind because we are going through the whole process now. Girls just did a playdate a couple of weeks ago there and now we have assessments coming up. Assessment is very hard and the girls are not super confident speaking English to new people, so my hopes are not too high there. However, we already cancelled the process with one private school as their rates went up even higher and it became totally unaffordable for us. This current one that's still in the running is also way too much, but we're still keeping options open. Yesterday we actually applied to a public Elementary school by our house after doing much research. It's one of the smallest schools around us and looks pretty clean and rated above average. Anyway, stressful process, but I'm sure the girls will end up at the the place in which they're meant to excel and be happy. I just can't comprehend that they're enrolled into an elementary school.

They have definitely become more outspoken and irritable this year. There have been and are some days where every single thing is a problem, either to one or the other or both. Wrong shirt/outfit, wrong food, not wanting to do something or go somewhere, you name it. Set off in a second and then it lasts and lasts. Learned to say hurtful stuff such as "Go away" "I don't love you, you're so bad" "No more hugs and kisses for you" and so on and in both languages, depends on whom they're addressing in that moment. But they're also super duper sweet and cuddly. They love snuggling and watching TV with us. They play so great together most of the time, up until they start fighting or letting jealousy take over. You know the twin/sibling thing. They can write all the letters and their own names on their own, can read easy words, know all the sounds. Their letters are not perfect and sometimes backwards, but still. They can count to a 100. They don't dig drawing much and can't draw much besides a few shapes and stick figures, but I'm sure they'll improve. They would definitely rather play with each other and run around than focus on academics. I've been doing flash cards with them almost every night, prepping them for K and specifically for private, but it would be great to save all that money every month. Would love to have unlimited funds where I wouldn't have to jeopardize my kids' education because of a budget.

They have been taking swimming classes all year long and are now starting Level 2, they jump into the water, can swim short distances, float, etc. Huge progress and they absolutely love it! Hope they continue this and later on this year I plan on signing them up a dance class of some sort, they're too musical and flexible to not be utilizing these skills.

Unlike all the other years, they're kind of excited to turn 5, we have been talking about this for a while and they're excited about going to Kindergarten, they really liked that private school they had a play date at. They always used to say they want to be younger and they don't like kids younger than them because they want to be the smallest and the cutest as they say. They are finally understanding that you can't control time, and your age changes every year no matter what you want. Don't we know this all too well. Look at us, the parents, just aging away and approaching new decades just like that. Today while talking on the phone to their Grandpa, he asked Alyssa if she's excited to be 5, she still said that she's not and wants to be little. He then said so do you want to be 1? She said yes, and Paula said "but you're still gonna be 5 tomorrow anyway". That was weird to hear, just the fact that they understand so much and are making sense of everything. Definitely picking up on everything. Patterns, conversations, looks, jokes, innuendos, can't get too much past them. The first big girl thing we did today was to finally convert their cribs, yes we set a record for the longest time in cribs (4 years 364 days) into toddler beds with new bedding and big pillows with a comforter. They LOVE them. They didn't realize their cribs could become that. But they loved the cribs, toys didn't fall off and they felt safe and if it's not broken, why fix it? Tonight marks their very first night in their toddler beds from which they can walk out of on their own. I am not used that idea yet. Hopefully this will be a smooth transition since they're much older than normal and they understand a lot more. However once they'll discover how easy it is to get out at night, they might start doing that a lot. I hope not, of course! We shall see how this plays out, but it was definitely time. I couldn't stand them waking up in cribs at 5!

Well my little girls are about to experience so many changes this coming year. New school, we'll miss our current preschool where they get fed 3 times a day and take a cozy nap w/ their cute little friends. I'm sure by my next post they'll already be going to an elementary school and I'll be talking about them starting 1st grade. This is truly very unbelievable.

A few of my friends had more babies over the last year and one is pregnant with her second. 2018 in general was really tough on some of my favorite people. Sometimes being strong is all a person can do and that's what they did. Overall lots of highs, lots of lows.

Hoping the next year will be smooth and fairly uneventful. I just want everyone I love and care about to be well and also have a good year. That is all.

On that note, I will wrap this up. I'm sure there's so much more I needed to cover, but this is all I can think of at the moment. We have an early day tomorrow with an early birthday party. Hoping for an easy and fun party! We are doing a Belle theme this year. Thanks for reading, I myself reread these blog posts annually and barely remember writing an entry the year prior to.

Happy 5th Birthday to my darling girls! Til next time.

Wasn’t it just yesterday that you were in the newborn phase?

Then crawling infants and running toddlers we had to chase

I can’t believe that you won’t be toddlers anymore

You are becoming little kids as soon as you stop being 4

Turning 5 feels like a big and different milestone

You’ll change so much and become more grown

You will have to part with your first school and teacher Janet

And your kindergarten journey will begin, like a new planet

4 was difficult and fun, yet I enjoyed it so much

We went to Disneyland, Tahoe, Calistoga and such

You learned to count to 100 and write all the letters

You enjoyed yourself this year and that's all that matters

It's bittersweet to see how fast these years fly by

You were just born, now you're 5 in a blink of an eye

As exciting as it is to watch you change and grow up

It pinches my heart that I can't make this time stop

Happy milestone birthday, hope it's all that you want and more

Always be happy and healthy, and remember that you, we adore

May all of you wonderful wishes and dreams come true

Alyssa & Paula, always know how much we all love you!

My Twins are Turning 4...Tomorrow!!!

And just like that, yep just like that another year flew right by. My babies are turning 4 on 2.3.18. Hello Groundhog Day, again. I remember another twin mama telling me the first 4 months are called the “eye of the storm” and once you get through that phase, it will all become a little more manageable. Well here we are turning 4 years old! I actually think every age and every new phase brings on its own challenges and worries. I am an anxious person who worries about every little thing and the older my girls are getting, the more I worry. I really wish I could be one of those cool as ice, chill moms, but that’s just not me. Maybe someday as I continue working on myself.

Their 3^rd Birthday Party was awesome, everyone had a good time and the girls really enjoyed it and their gifts. As I say every year it is extremely hard summarizing a whole year into one post, but let’s try. First things first, when the girls turned 3, we turned their car seats forward and they were just blown away by the ability to see everything and see our navigation system as well the street lights and the road, etc. Of course the novelty wore off, but they certainly enjoy drives a lot more now. And I am glad I stuck to my guns and kept them rear-facing until 3!

Over the Presidents’ Day weekend we tackled potty-training using the 3 day method. We covered our floors in blue pee pads, took off their diapers, put out the potties and just rolled with it. They were miserable the first day. Cried, refused to sit on the potty, held in their pee for majority of the day until they were doing the funny pee pee dance. Each one had an accident or two, but once they realized what it’s like to pee in the potty, they made sense of it and we never looked back. It was super hard at first figuring out the whole public bathroom thing and being afraid of taking them out, but we went cold turkey with diapers since they were old enough to hold it and understand that’s why I always advise to NOT rush anything. Why make the kid pee on the potty before they’re ready and then make them wear pull ups outside for the next year? We love the 3 day method and it took us some time to trust the girls, but now it feels like distant memories.

In May we took them to Monterey on their first overnight in a hotel. We went to the Monterey Bay Aquarium and then introduced the girls to hotels, which was obviously their favorite part. They slept on little cots and actually did pretty well. In July, I turned 35 (I started this blog as I was turning 30… times surely flies) and had a fun celebration at a Russian Restaurant in San Francisco. My girls were the only kids at this adult party and stayed until the very end. Granted, Paula threw up from exhaustion on her way home, but hey what kind of a Russian party would it be without someone puking, right? J Then we spent majority of the week in Tahoe with our parents and kids. We had a cute house there and the girls got to have their own room and have their first little vacation with the family. It was totally stressful to have 3 generations in one house, but overall it’s still memorable and worth it to do this. We spent the rest of the summer and early fall visiting Calistoga a few times and staying overnight after a full day of swimming in the pool. I’m happy we got to do this with our parents and introduced our girls to so many new experiences.

On August 21^st, the girls started their Montessori preschool. We kept them home for 3.5 years and it was so bittersweet to send them off. Overall it was a smooth transition as it’s a home based daycare. So they had to learn how to nap on the floor in sleeping bags, even though they’re still in cribs, like I said before, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it! They didn’t interact with others for a while, they have each other and that twin bond really overpowers their need to make friends with others. My biggest fear about daycares was always the germs and the constant getting sick thing. Ever since they started daycare, my anxiety skyrocketed about that and everything combined. It’s still such a weird feeling for me to get them ready and send them off when I’m so used to them being in the little bubble of our home. They’ve definitely brought home quite a few bugs, we’ve all even already had Hand Foot Mouth! School is great for them, they’ve changed so much, they are learning so much, they had a Christmas concert and they did great and the social aspect is amazing. However, them getting better, going for a few days and catching something else and getting us all sick is a nightmare. The scariest part is that this winter just happens to be one of the scariest flu seasons, and I’m just praying we all stay safe.

Overall, what can I say about the age of THREEnagers? It is way harder than “terrible twos”, by far!  Opinions about everything, fights about their outfits and activities and where we go and what they eat and what we watch and anything and everything you can think of. There are two of them, the same age and gender and they also feed off each other big time. So it’s been very dramatic, very loud, lots of tears and yelling. I would say a few months after turning 3 is when it REALLY kicks in. The real time outs started happening, punishment, losing temper, etc. I could have definitely handle it all and them better than I did majority of the time. My patience runs very thin when the tantrums are nonstop. And I wish I would have done a lot of things differently because me overreacting to their bad behavior, obviously just made their bad behavior worse and gave pretty bad examples of how petty adults can be too. I’ve been doing my best to change it around lately. I’m doing the nice approach and it works wonders. Kiss them and hug them tightly even when they’re acting their worst, more times than not it stops the tantrum and the child hugs you back. They still speak mainly in Russian and fully understand English and are just now experimenting and becoming more confident to say some phrases especially when speaking to me. It’s really cute to observe.

I went through a phase with Alyssa, the older twin not wanting to have anything to do with me, telling me she doesn’t love me and only loves her dad and not letting me hug her or kiss her for the longest time. And like they all say “this too shall pass, it’s a phase”. She probably had reasons to feel like that since I scolded her all the time since she seems to act out more than Paula a lot of the times, she would get in trouble more often. I have changed my approach with her as well and by showing her more love and kindness, she’s fully a mama’s girl now, which is cute and all until she doesn’t let the other twin near me.

I am still not rushing this growing up process. I love them little and I love hugging them and kissing them and I’m going to miss this time when they let me pick them up and snuggle them. This Saturday is their birthday and their birthday party and this year they picked the Cinderella theme, yep they picked their own birthday theme. I hope the party goes smoothly and everything will be ok. I also hope for a good year ahead for them and all of us. Thank you for taking the time to read this and I hope I can squeeze in an entry at least once or twice before the next year. 

Four little hands & four little feet

Four blue eyes & four tiny ears

Two little girls who are so sweet

We celebrate these four years

As hard as some days may be

We still cherish all of your hugs

It feels like you just turned three

You’re growing so fast, love bugs

One day you won’t cuddle with us anymore

While watching your favorite Monsters or Trolls

And things won’t be like they were before

You’ll grow up and focus on chasing your goals

We don’t want to take anything for granted

We’ll even treasure your very frequent tantrums

You bring us joy and make us feel enchanted

May you always march to the beat of your drums

We love you so much we can't put into words

We wish you all the best our cute pink pearls

Always be happy and healthy our love birds

Happy 4th birthday to our tiny big girls

My Twins are Turning 3... Tomorrow!!!

Hello Groundhog Day... again! :)
This is Alyssa & Paula's special birthday that only happens once in a lifetime: today on 2/2 they're 2 and on 2/3 tomorrow, they'll be 3!!!
So it looks like this blog and I only meet once a year on Groundhog Day... how ironic.
The last year just flew right by. Let's start off with the girls' 2nd birthday party at which they did not cry, no longer were afraid of people, played and jumped and had a blast and were actually thrilled when everyone sang them the Happy Birthday song. Definitely a huge change from their first birthday, to say the least.

This year's theme will be Twinkle Twinkle Little Stars. The girls are excited about it as they love the nursery rhyme nightly as well as anything blingy... like stars.

It's obviously very hard to describe a whole year in one sitting. Let's just cover the basics. Terrible 2s mostly are not so terrible. The first half of the year they're actually still very baby-toddler like, as in even when they cried or said no a lot or refused to do stuff or were cranky, it all still seemed cute and super innocent. Now the closer we've been getting to 3, the more real the tantrums have been getting. They yell louder, cry longer, set off way easier, much more sensitive and can say some rude stuff too. I said it last year and I'll say it again, cute little babies who just cry because they're tired or their tummies hurt really are much easier in a lot of ways than demanding and cranky toddlers who truly stress you out and can sometimes awaken the beast in you. I definitely have a lot of moments where I can't keep my cool with them. It is pretty agonizing when you do nothing for yourself over the weekend, but only the things that you think will entertain the kids. You plan, you pack snacks and essentials, you get ready, then they don't want to get dressed or they don't want to put on a jacket or shoes then they don't want to get into the car, basically every step of the way is a battle. Then finally you take them somewhere and they have a good time, but have tantrums when they get tired or can't go where they want to go. Lastly you try to take them home and now they don't want to leave so you have another tantrum on your hands and a scream fest all the way home. They are becoming much more specific with what they want to wear, where they go, what they eat, what they watch, you name it. For those with kids, you know exactly what I'm describing.

At the same time, their ability to do a lot of things on their own is both fascinating and helpful. It's fun to take them out to eat now because they feed themselves (finger foods mainly for now) and they take a while to eat, so we have time to eat as well, of course as long as they watch cartoons on the phone. They can be watching TV for hours on end if necessary. They play together for a while too without adult involvement, until of course someone pushes someone or takes something away from someone. Basically you have to referee a lot. They're also super snuggly when they want to be. Their curiosity with their surroundings is amazing. They ask a lot of interesting questions, not just annoying "why why why" and I love that. They're really making sense of a lot of things and making memories. They remember a lot and ask me all the time if I remember that one time when we went somewhere. They fully know we speak two languages and although they speak 100% in Russian right now, they fully understand English and actually ask to translate almost everything they hear that they don't know. They point at everything and ask what is this in English. That type of curiosity is really cool. Obviously them like this is way more fun than infants.

This winter has been pretty rough with sicknesses, bad flu season. Girls have been getting sick monthly and passing it on to all of us. We had a horrible New Year's Eve. Our parents, me and the girls all got the flu. Paula's fever was so high, she threw up on NYE repeatedly and I felt like crap myself. When we were all getting better, Pavel got sick too. It all lasted for a while. Definitely a memorable start to the year, but not in a good way.

We are not and have not been in a rush to have our babies grow up. We have our routines and we follow them and if it works we continue doing so. We try not to fix what's not broken. We are definitely not those parents who face the car seats forward when the baby turns 1 or convert the crib at an early age. If they're not complaining and they don't know any better, why speed this process along? The older they are, the easier it will be to reason with them during these transitions. So this year will definitely be full of big changes for the girls and us. We will have to transition them to big girl beds sometime in the coming year as well as potty train them ASAP. We haven't rushed the potty training process because they haven't been ready and it's really hard to train two at once and then convert our short outings into endless hunt for dirty public bathrooms or deal with travel potties, etc. The girls are still at home, so therefore we haven't felt rushed to do that. Our first order of business is to face their car seats forward. They haven't asked to do it, they don't fight to sit backwards because like I said above, they don't know any better. They're the same age so they don't see another child facing forward. And right after turning 3 we must potty train. They're also enrolled in a home-based preschool for later this year. That will be the biggest change of all. It'll be expensive and tough on us all, but they desperately need it. There's only so much knowledge we can provide for them at home and they get so bored with being home so much. They need an outlet, friends, social exposure, discipline, organized activities, etc.

I am curious to see how the next year will go and how much they'll change. Hopefully I will check in before next year's Groundhog Day.

Twinkle Twinkle Little Stars

Three years old is what you are

Where has the time gone

Flies by when you're having fun

You're definitely sassy little ladies

To us, you'll always be our babies

Your personality shows more and more

And the little people you are, we adore

Sure we get frustrated sometimes

Especially with singing at nap times

Your tantrums can be so much drama

And yes you got it from your mama

Your terrible Twos weren't even bad

You didn't do anything to make us mad

It's the closer you have been getting to 3

That the real toddlers in you we can see

Just like all the other phases, this too shall pass

Of course sometimes you'll be brats full of sass

But we know you're so funny, loving & sweet

Spending time with you is such a precious treat

Preschool is just a few months away

Hard to believe you'll be gone all day

We kept you home as long as we could

Making friends and learning will be so good

So let's bring on the terrible Threes

Hopefully we can maintain the peace

Lots of changes are ahead this year

We'll tackle them all, have no fear

Happy 3rd Birthday, our little twinkles

May this year be full of happy sprinkles

We all wish you the best and more

And we all love you forevermore