Rocco... the soccer star!

Rocco is getting SO big... he now weighs just 2lbs less than Gabby.

He is now actively involved in both swimming lessons and soccer. He LOVES soccer class. LOVES. IT. He talks about "my soccer class" all the time and really looks forward to soccer class day. It amazes me how coordinated this child is and how quickly he takes to different athletic-related skills. Yeah... let's hope an athletic scholarship is in his future!

Rocco will start going to school twice a week in May. He is really excited about it and we're excited for him. He is very interested in counting and numbers, but isn't too picky about the order of the numbers, often counting "4, 8, 1, 6, 10". He is also interested in letters and when he sees letters on blocks he'll start saying "A, B, C, A, B, C". He also really enjoys coloring and drawing. He especially likes coloring walls around the house and drawing all over mommy's important papers. He ALWAYS draws and colors balloons. Honestly. If you ask him what he's drawing he'll always say balloons. He is obsessed with balloons. He has had the balloon obsession ever since Matt's funeral.

He still loves trains and when not playing with actual trains, he'll spend time lining up his cars, airplanes, boxes or even daddy's credit cards to make a choo choo train. He loves playing with stomp rockets, riding his scooter, his bike and the cars outside. He does front flips on the trampoline, can hit baseballs from the pitching machine and he LOVES playing football and baseball with Dan. It's super cute to see him and Dan throwing balls back and forth or practice batting. He can throw the ball like such a little pro but still needs to polish up his catching skills. It's funny, because you often hear stories about how twins have complementary personalities or skill sets. Well, one of Rocco and Matteo's was that Rocco could always throw the balls exactly to his target, but couldn't catch a ball. He wouldn't even try (I think it was just him being a little lazy!). But, Matteo could catch a ball from the time he was a year old. He LOVED it when people would throw him a ball to catch. But, Matteo couldn't throw it very well at a target. So... we always joked that some day, Rocco would be a quarterback or pitcher and Matteo would be a receiver or a catcher.

Rocco loves his sisters! Whenever he sees Giuliana, he always says "Giuliana so cute!" in a very high pitched voice as if he's trying to talk soft and gentle to her. He'll give her sweet kisses on her forehead and pats her tummy. Gabby is his best pal. When she walks in the door from school or wherever, she's always greeted with little Rocco running to the door yelling "Gabby's home!". They play really nice together 70% of the time. And they know just how to push each other's buttons the other 30%.

Outside of the first two months after Matteo's death, Rocco now shows no real emotional signs of "missing" Matteo. I'm not sure he even has memories of Matt. We don't yet have that level of communication with Rocco to find out if he remembers anything and/or what he remembers, if anything. He is however able to recognize Matteo if we point to a photo of Matt and ask him who it is. If he sees Matteo's blankey, he'll tell us it's Tato's blankey. If we show him a photo of the twins when they were little, he will often not know which is Matteo and which one he is. When we show him videos of him and Matteo together... he watches so intently. SO intently, in fact, that it makes me wonder if he is trying to remember Matt. Or maybe that he does remember him or that moment, but doesn't know how to ask about him or where he is now, or why he isn't with us. If we ask Rocco where Matteo his. He'll say "Matteo died" or "Tato in Heaven".

Gabby has taken over the role of being Rocco's play-mate. Rocco plays with her, just as he once did with Matteo. When she is at school, he asks where she is. About two months after Matteo died, I remember Rocco was obsessed with asking where people were. He would ask "Where dada go?", "Where mama go?", "Where Babby go?". I was convinced he was obsessed with asking where people went because he wanted to know if they would come back again. When Matteo died, he couldn't yet ask that question. His only clues to us that he wanted to know where Matteo went were his constant tantrums, meltdowns, lack of eating and him constantly saying "Tao" when looking at Matteo's crib or in the mirror. Which would then be followed by him falling onto the floor and crying.

This little dude melts my heart and I love him beyond words.

Oh yeah... EASTER

Easter was a little different this year for a couple of reasons...

All of us but Gabby had come down with a nasty cold, which ended up turning into more for both Rocco and Giuliana. And, it didn't help that the weather was nasty for the Easter holiday. Usually the weather is nice and warm by the time Easter rolls around. But this year we had a torrential downpour on Easter Sunday. Very strange, as I have no memory of it ever raining in April in the 11 years I've lived here. It's almost as if our sadness for Matteo not being with us was visible through the pounding rain. That's how I felt anyway.

Anyway, we still did a little celebrating of the Easter holiday. We went to grandma and grandpa Bailey's house on Saturday night for dinner. And while we were there, the kids did an egg hunt and colored hard-boiled eggs with cousin Courtney and grandma Leo. Gabby did a really good job coloring the eggs and was very focused on making them look spectacular. Rocco was more interested in swiping the eggs off the table and smashing them apart... he was fascinated with how the shell would break off and then the egg was hard inside. When he got over the thrill of making grandma Leo's floor a mess... he moved on to throwing eggs into the egg dye. Thankfully, Courtney was able to somewhat tame the little fella so he didn't make a bigger mess. Giuliana was stuck to me like glue... but even I managed to do a big save as Rocco nearly pulled a cup with dye onto the floor. Sheesh... I nearly had a heart attack.

We all woke up feeling even more sick on Easter Sunday. And, with the heavy rain falling it ended up becoming a pajama and movie day. That is... AFTER the kids hunted for their Easter baskets and all the eggs that the Easter bunny hid around the house. Gabby was SO excited and screamed when she found her basket. Rocco was excited too... but spent a lot of time looking at his sister like "what are you screaming about?" And, I didn't even get a photo of Giuliana with her basket before Gabby and Rocco pulled everything out.

Matteo has been heavy on my mind again lately, causing me to have more "bad" days. Bad days suck and I feel enveloped in a black hole on those days. I finally took a few friends up on their offer to "listen" whenever I need it... and ended up sobbing into the phone.

Still waiting for this grief stuff to get easier.

Oh the irony...

Giuliana is 3 months old now. I honestly can't believe it. Time flies.

Giuliana slept her first 10 hour stretch last night from 9:30pm-7:30am. She's rolling onto her side, and when she's on her tummy, she's almost rolling onto her back. She LOVES when people talk to her... she'll smile and coo and she kicks her legs real hard. She's just beyond precious and we all love her so very much.

This past week was crazy, as Dan was in Boston for work, our au pair was on vacation, Rocco was diagnosed with bronchitis and Giuliana was then diagnosed with a double ear infection. So, every trip outside the house involved dragging three kids along with me... to the grocery store, school drops-offs and pick-ups, the pharmacy, etc. Everything had to revolve around Giuliana's nursing and her and Rocco's naps. And, if that wasn't enough... it was going to the be the first time I didn't have another adult staying with me in the house since Matteo died. I was dreading it. A big part of me was SO scared... especially since Rocco and Giuls were sick..I was so worried something bad was going to happen... again.

I knew it was another big hurdle I would eventually need to cross. And while I was dreading it and didn't think I was quite ready yet.... I did it. By Thursday, I was SO sleep deprived. I must have checked the kids a million times throughout the night to make sure they were still breathing.

I was SO EXCITED to see Dan walk in that front door again!

Anyway, on Saturday... it was unusually cold here. So, we decided to bring Giuliana in for her 3 month photos. And, since we all went together... we ended up getting a few family shots too.

The moment we walked into the studio they assigned us to, we pulled the curtain shut, the kids sprinted across the floor and we heard another mother outside of our studio say "Look at Matteo!"

I looked at Dan and almost fell over. I didn't believe my ears... so I asked Dan if he just heard what I heard. And, he looked at me and said "Yeah... I heard it. Matteo."

The irony.

There we were, with our 3 living children... both of us knowing/thinking about how Matteo should have been with us. And, another mother outside of OUR studio talks about Matteo. Her Matteo. It's not like Matteo is even that common of a name, right? In that moment... I couldn't have wished harder that it was MY Matteo she was talking about.

Pure coincidence?

I don't know. But, gosh... these zingers just tear me apart and make me want to believe they are little signs from OUR little Matteo.

When we left the studio with the prints, all I could think about was what Matteo would have looked like yesterday... where he would have been standing/sitting... what he would have worn. I contemplated photoshopping his little face into the photos. Seriously - I contemplated this. But, I ruled it out for the obvious reasons. It just wouldn't look right and people would probably think I was NUTS. I don't want to be nuts. I just want my baby back. I want him to grow with us and be part of our family again.

Nine months have passed and I still haven't been able to display a recent family photo in our house because Matteo isn't in them. I look at recent family photos and I see incomplete photos... he's missing. Gone. Just like that. Frozen forever in time as an 18 month old.

A friend, who also just happens to be a an amazing professional photographer (David - DNK Digital) took some great photos of us last fall when our family was newly broken and Giuliana was 7 months along. I love the photos, but until now could never even post them on the blog.

Maybe it's time to contemplate crossing the next big hurdle of displaying a more recent family photo in the house.

Maybe.

9 months

Hard to believe it's been 9 months.

Here's a cute video of the boys from April 9, 2009. So typical of how the twins played together around this time last year. I would ask them "Where's Matteo?" and "Where's Rocco?" and they'd sometimes get confused about who was who... as evident in the :50 of this clip.

I hope Rocco will enjoy watching these someday. Who knows... maybe they'll trigger some memories for him.

We love you little Matt... wherever you are.