I find that I don’t regularly write about Avery’s vision.  That is actually a good thing….her vision has remained stable over the years and actually improved in terms of numbers.  She stopped patching 1 year ago and she is grateful for that.  She gets her eyes checked every six months.  She has been wearing the same glasses and prescription since the end of kindergarten!  Her primary glasses are her blue glasses that have a bi-focal.  Those have almost no tint so she sometimes wears her purple glasses, which have no bi-focal, but have some tint so are good for when being outside with a little sun or playing and not necessarily reading or doing schoolwork.  She also has her sunglasses, which she wears if it is very sunny and bright outside.  Her eye pressure has increased slightly over the years so we continue to monitor that.  She receives one drop of latanoprost every night in her right eye to help with the eye pressure.  She has probably been on that same dose of medication for four to five years now.  Her ophthalmologist, Dr. David Seidman, doesn’t regularly provide me with her latest vision numbers, but she most definitely sees the chart at 20/200 or better often seeing things in the 20/150 range.

She is a trooper, she knows she doesn’t see things as others do….sometimes it bothers her….for example when we are looking at deer in the woods of our backyard or there is a person in the distance and she can’t make out who it is when everyone else can, but for the most part, Avery knows and accepts that it is her normal.  And as she reminded me the other day when her, I, Emerson and Harper were sitting at the kitchen table looking out the window, it can be a blessing….for she couldn’t see the neighbor’s dog taking a dump. Roses, my friend, roses.  Avery continues to see the rose instead of the weed…she truly finds the silver lining with her vision and that is a true blessing.

While the girls have had a rotating room schedule since they were babies, I have never written about it. 

Avery and Emerson shared our second bedroom in the condo when they were born.  The room which had previously served as our desk/computer area and futon/TV/Nintendo area quickly became a thing of the past when we replaced it with two cribs and a dresser. When we moved out of the condo when the girls were 8 months old, they shared a room (my old bedroom) in my parent’s house.  When Harper came along, she slept in a pack-n-play in the bedroom that Justin and I had at my parent’s house (my sister’s old room).  When she was three months old, she moved to her “nursery” which was the fourth bedroom in my parent’s house.  We rearranged the furniture and somehow managed to fit her crib and a new dresser while also keeping a full bed in that room. When we moved out of my parent’s house when Avery and Emerson were 2 ½ years old, Emerson and Avery shared a room…not the biggest room, but a nice size room that had a floral mural on one side.  At six months old, we gave Harper the room next to Justin and I, which happened to be the largest room.  They kept those respective rooms for about 2 ½ years. 

New Year’s Weekend when Avery and Emerson were in kindergarten, we decided it was time to get them big girl beds.  We had long turned their cribs into toddler beds…in fact, I think we did that shortly after we moved into our house. Two twin beds wouldn’t fit in their current room so instead of swapping rooms with Harper, I thought why not have all three of them share a room.  Justin initially thought it was a horrible idea, but it turned out to be a great one…Avery and Emerson in their new twin beds and Harper in her toddler bed…all in one room.  Avery and Emerson’s old room became the upstairs “playroom/reading room”.  They shared that large room for two years, when Justin and I bought ourselves a new bed…an upgrade to a king from a queen…we even bought ourselves a headboard!  Harper was going to need a twin bed soon herself as she was 4 ½. I realized we could avoid having to buy another twin bed if we to put our old bed in the playroom/reading room and turned it back into one of the kid’s bedrooms.  That is when we began the rotational room shift every 6 month….for 6 months each girl got a chance to have her own room and each girl got a chance to share a room with each sister alone.  We did that for two years….each girl loved when it was their turn to have their own room.  They weren’t always ready to give it up, but it did make them appreciate even more the time when they had their own.  They have different habits as well…Emerson neater than Avery.  Avery somewhat a slob.  Harper in the middle.  Sleeping with a nightlight, sleeping without a nightlight, sleeping with the door open, sleeping with the door closed…each girl had their preferences and there were often disagreements when various preferences had to come to a compromise.   

We did the rotation for exactly two years and as we were getting ready to do it again, the girls, mostly Emerson though, as she was the one who would be “losing” her own room with the next switch, kept begging for their own rooms.  We do have four bedrooms but when our au pair bedroom was no longer needed as an au pair room, I took it over as my office as I was now working from home full time.  Justin and I were hesitant to give our current office spaces, but we decided to give it a try.  We once again moved furniture from room to room and the old au pair room/my old office became Emerson’s new room.  It’s small but super cute and reminds us of a dorm room.  Meanwhile, Harper has the mid-size room with the queen bed and Avery the largest room which has two twin beds in it and extra space for making large messes and doing gymnastics. 

The girls may certainly share a different view of sharing a room when they get older, but I truly hope that having the opportunity to share as a threesome, as a double, and to have a single gave them unique experiences which they will forever be grateful.  

I decided to “end” this blog. It is no longer user friendly and it causes me much frustration in trying to create a post, especially a post with pictures. I’m also nearing the time when I will be sharing the blog with my girls, a gift to them that I have been working on the last 8 years! And I’m not sure my writing will be as honest and real knowing that I’ve gone “public”.

With that being said, even though I am “ending” it in the current format of which I have kept up with it the last 8 years, which is regularly two blog posts a month, I realized that there are still a few stories that I never shared. SO…I’ll have a few more posts this year, likely without pictures, but with special stories.

My “girlfriend” and I decided to take our family to Deep Creek Lake, MD for New Years.  In all seriousness, Justin and I said yes to an insane lake house that Augusta found right after our beach trip.  With the uncertainty of COVID 19’s restrictions and needing some normalcy, we booked it for 4 nights over New Years.  The Brophys, The Nidays, and The Maddys…it had been awhile since we had done New Years together…so it was good to be back in the game!

The house was awesome! 

The lake was frozen, at least enough to “shoe skate” in the very shallow part close to the edge.

The girls hot tubbed while it flurried outside. 

The adults “adulted” and had real conversations. 

The kids played, made desserts, went for walks, read books, played the Wii, watched movies, wore hair extensions, and played Never Have You Ever while eating meals.  There was laughter, sharing, and pretend weddings…and for just a little longer into December we pretended COVID didn’t exist and rang in the New Year with our amazing friends.

Cheers to 2021!  Cheers to hope, gratitude, and making memories!