Moving on...

Exactly three years ago (June 2007), we moved out of our home in California so it could be gutted and remodeled. We bought the home in 2002 as a fixer upper, and since we planned to live in that home for at least the next 20 years of our lives, we decided it was worth the investment. At the same time, we found out we were expecting triplets. While we had a lot of medical concerns related to the multiple pregnancy, we were so excited to be adding to our family. Our daughter Gabriella was 18 months old at the time, and our world revolved around the joy she brought to our lives.

It was a challenging 7 months for us, as I had complications with my multiple pregnancy and we were constantly battling with a few of our contractors to finish the remodel so we could move back into our home before the babies arrived. On January 1, 2008, we moved back into our newly remodeled home. And, just over a week later, we welcomed twin boys, Rocco and Matteo, into our lives. Gabby, was completely in love with her little brothers. And, Dan and I were beyond relieved, elated and proud. We had three healthy, beautiful children. We were back in our newly remodeled nest. And, well, life couldn’t have been sweeter.

In May 2009, we found out I was pregnant with a surprise baby. It was shocking – but exciting too. On July 2, 2009, we found out baby surprise would be a girl… and once again, we couldn't believe how incredibly blessed we were. We'd soon have 4 kiddos to love.

Then two and a half days later, everything about life as we know it changed. Death crept into our home that night and it has never been the same since.

It is impossible to escape the vivid memories of that awful morning while living in this house. Every moment of that morning continues to haunt me. When I walk by or look at specific areas in our house... my mind only wants to replay what happened in those spots the morning we found Matteo dead.

I remember people seeing our remodeled home for the first time when they came to see us for Matteo's funeral. I remember people commenting "oh I love this" or "I love how you did that"... and all I could think was how I now hated this house. It no longer felt like a warm, happy home... it was suddenly just a cold, stupid house. And, I hated it.

Matteo’s death has changed our lives in ways I could never begin to explain. It has impacted every priority, every goal, every conversation, every relationship, and every ounce of our being.

Matteo's death prompted a ripple of change in our lives. Dan searched for and found a job that would allow him to not be required to work around the clock. He now has more time for me and the kids and deals with less work-related stress. His new job has also allowed us the opportunity to move out of state which we were very excited about. And, I decided I'd much rather spend the majority of my time with my kids while they're little, and less time working outside the home or commuting to and from work. We decided we wanted to spend more time living life and less time working to live. We also decided we wanted more living space (inside and out), and more money to spend on fun stuff and good times. So, we decided to put our house up for sale and see what would happen.

Our house sold shockingly (is that a word?) fast. We put it on the market the last week of April... one week before I returned to work. It sold in four days. The sign was out front for a total of 2 days when we received the offer in hand.

Suddenly, we were about to be homeless with a 4yr old, 2yr old, an almost 4mnth old, and an au pair. I hadn't even returned to work yet from maternity leave... yikes! So, that Saturday we hopped on a plane to Denver where we thought we were going to move. After a quick visit, we decided it just wasn't for us.

So, we targeted a different city on the west coast. And, it was a very good fit! Dan's been going there almost every week to look at homes. Giuliana and I joined him on one trip and we fell in love with one house in particular.

Next, I had to "break up" with my work family at Lucile Packard Children's Hospital at Stanford. It was incredibly difficult to resign because I really enjoyed my job, but moreso, I loved the group of people I worked with. They had been there to support me through the birth of 4 children and the death of one. Not sure I would have received the same magnitude of love and support from any other group of people.

Fast forward two months... we're almost finished packing and we move out of this house on SUNDAY! Our "stuff" will all go to a storage unit until we have our final destination secured... which we're hoping to do ASAP!!

We're planning to spend the month of July in the Lake Tahoe area. Dan will be working remotely and traveling a bit for work. But, it will sort of be one very long vacation for the rest of us. A good friend rented her home to us and I'm very much looking forward to this get-away. As we cross the 1 year anniversary of Matteo's death I just want to be away from the noise of life, and be somewhere beautiful. I can't imagine being IN this house on the 4th and 5th of July... too many awful and sad memories.

So... we're moving on.

It's very bittersweet in many ways. We had so many dreams for our family in this house. It was the only home Matteo ever knew. It was the house he died in.

We're hoping this move will give us a bit of a fresh start. One can hope, right?

Giuliana's 5 Months Old

Wow... Giuliana is already 5 months old!

She has some new tricks and habits, including:
* Sucking her thumb
* Rolling from back to tummy and tummy to back
* Grabbing her feet and trying to eat them (all of my kids seem to have discovered their feet at 5 months)
* Grabbing toys and pulling them to her mouth to chew on them
* Back bends... she'll put her feet on the ground and push her back and butt up off the ground
* Laughing at her brother and sister (Rocco does a special dance to make Giuls laugh)
* Grunting and groaning when she's done eating, wants to be held, or wants to change positions
* High-pitched screams to talk and sing to us

Giuliana rarely cries and is seriously the best little baby! She's so good and easy to take care of. She also has big, beautiful eyes and soft, porcelain skin. Her face is framed by her cute baby hair.... long strands of hair that curls behind both ears and then a patch of hair on top of her head that is wild and free... but darling.

She's very busy teething right now... which means she chews on anything she can put in her mouth and she is constantly spitting. We go through lots of outfit changes every day to get her out of the wet tops. I know... I could put bibs around her neck. But honestly, I've never been a fan of any of my babes constantly having bibs around their necks. Not sure why... I just don't like it. Call me crazy, but I'd rather change their clothes.

Giuliana has always been a good little sleeper... until now! Lately, the teething has her waking up 2-3 times nightly. So, mommy is REALLY hoping the bottom teeth cut through soon!

She has developed a regular morning routine which is great and very normal for her age. She normally wakes for the day between 5:45 and 6:15am. She'll nurse and then play on her play mat, the bouncy seat or in her exersaucer. And, by 8:30am she's hungry, and then she naps immediately after she eats.

Her nap lengths are still pretty inconsistent (anywhere from 1 hour to 3 hours), but she's still young. Her wakeful times are getting longer... closer to 3 hours between naps now. And, bedtime usually falls between 8-9pm.

Giuliana now eats well from the bottle for our au pair, Sarah. But, she won't take a bottle from her mommy... she'll only nurse with me. And, these days she is very easily distracted when nursing. She still refuses to drink formula, which means mommy remains a milk factory. And, she has yet to take a liking to jarred baby food. She's only tried banana so far. And, while she now willingly opens her mouth for the spoon... two seconds after I take the spoon out of her mouth, she spits out all the baby food. It's like a game and Rocco thinks it's hilarious. While laughing, he'll say "Giuliana... you need to EAT your food! Don't spit it out!"

Mommy's Day

I am REALLY behind with blogging. Life has been crazy-busy for us since mid-April... but I'll save that news for another blog post.

We celebrated my birthday and Mother's Day a day early this year due to Dan's travel schedule. While he had planned a night out alone for the two of us, I decided that I'd rather do a big family date. For so many reasons... one being that I wanted to celebrate my kids. I wanted to have fun with my living children and enjoy them instead of focusing on the fact that sadness crept into our home last July 5th. And, it's easier to focus on that when I'm not engulfed in chaos. I didn't want to focus on how absolutely sick I feel every time I think about the fact that Matteo is no longer physically with us.

Because of our loss, Mother's Day will probably forever be very different for me. By different, I mean that it may forever be more of a day to celebrate my children and how lucky I am to be their mommy versus feeling that I deserve a day of pampering.

So, we went out to a fabulous burger joint where we could watch a little live concert while we ate. The kids ended up dancing on the stage with a bunch of other kids and it added a whole new level of fun to the night. After finally dragging the kids off the stage, we hit one a favorite cupcake bakery and called it a night.

Gabby was beyond excited about the cupcakes. She asked about them every 2 minutes on the car ride home. The cupcakes were my birthday cake... so I was SUPER excited too. I love specialty cupcakes. Love them. Red velvet's are the best. Coconut are second best. Anyway, we get home... I set the cupcakes on the counter, reminding Gabby that she couldn't open or touch the box until I was able to help her. I ran upstairs to change Giuliana's diaper. I come back downstairs, and Gabby is holding the cupcake box and proceeds to tell me they "fell on the floor".

Yeah. Right. I'm sure they just fell onto the floor all by themselves. Maybe they even jumped onto the floor. Uh huh... with no help from the 4 year old, of course.

So, I opened up the box... and well... they were smashed up against one side of the box and no longer looking fancy or fabulous. Just my luck. Oh well. They were just cupcakes, right?

So here I am sharing a photo of my pathetic and sad looking cupcakes, as well as 3 of my darling kiddos. BTW, the cupcakes still were very yummy.

A visit from Gammy & Papa

Gammy and Papa visited us recently so they could be a part of Giuliana's baptism. The kids were SO excited to see them again and kept asking when they would get here.

It's SO CUTE to see your kids start screaming and running full-speed to the door when they know their grandparents (your parents) are standing on the other side. Gabby & Rocco truly adore Gammy and Papa and it's really fun to see them all together.

My parents really did a lot with the kids this visit... they took them to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Gabby still talks about the seahorse exhibit, the baby seahorses, the sharks and stingrays, and she made friends with a penguin too... and she'll tell everyone how the penguin would come up to the glass and try to snuggle her.

My mom also took Gabby to the Children's Discovery museum. Gabby made a cornhusk doll (with Gammy's help) and got to sit in an alien bus (aka, ambulance).

Papa was required to spend LOTS of time playing catch (football, baseball... you name it) with Rocco. Papa also spent a lot of time pitching to Rocco so Rox could show off his fabulous batting skills.

And of course there were numerous trips to the ice cream shop, wagon walks, books read, laughing sessions, grandparent jaw drops, screaming matches, etc. All in all... I'm 99% sure my parents left exhausted and wondering how we were blessed with such energetic and crazy kiddos.

Giuliana's Baptism

Giuliana was baptised!

She was the youngest of eight children being baptised that day, and none of them cried. She wore the same baptismal gown that Gabby wore for her baptism and that I wore when I was baptised as a baby. So, the dress and bonnet have some significance.

Giuliana's godparents live out of state and weren't able to make it to the baptism, so our family was joined by two sets of grandparents and our au pair, Sarah, to witness and celebrate the baptism.

Gabby and Rocco were a little busy during the service, but they didn't create any big scenes (even after Rocco knocked his head on the pew ahead of us and didn't cry!) so I considered that a big success.

Rocco fell asleep on the way home from church so he missed soccer, and Gammy and Papa didn't get to see him play. But, when he woke up we ate brunch, cake and then we all went over to Gabby's soccer practice to watch her.

Giuliana was SUCH a good little girl all day. She looked SO darling her little dress... a bit amish, actually, with the bonnet. ;)

Rocco's 2.25 Birthday Party!

Finally… Rocco celebrated his second birthday with some of his little friends!!

Forget the fact that he’s actually two and a quarter… he was so happy to finally have a party! For an entire week preceding the party, Rocco kept saying “I want my birthday party!” and “I want birthday cake!” while jumping up and down with huge, super-cute puppy dog eyes.

The party was at a local park, the weather was gorgeous and we were joined by wonderful friends and family. Some of Rocco’s friends that were able to join us included Kiya, Livi, Maddy, Ewan, Kyle, Leo and Van. Sadly, some of his other current best pals (Giovanni, Sofia, Leah and Ayla).



The birthday cake took a beating. The minute we took it out of the box, Rocco pushed the train into the cake and swiped his fingers into the frosting to taste-test it. Luckily, we managed to get a couple photos of us with him and the cake before the sun decided to melt the frosting off the front side of the cake. Yummmm. After eating and playing for a while, we eventually lit the candles, sang the birthday song and let Rocco blow out his candles. Surprisingly, Rocco acted shy as we sang to him, but then he jumped at the chance to blow out the candles. Seconds later, the cake was covered in kid spit and finger/handprints. Hmmm… wonder why none of the adults wanted cake?!


Is it strange that Gabby and Rocco were the only two kids whose faces and upper bodies looked like they had been dipped in frosting? Literally – they were both covered in frosting.

We also did the piñata thing. Only, the Martino’s tend to always add our own excitement to things like this. First of all, we forgot a string to hang the piñata from. So, Dan decided to hold it with his hand. Yeah… brilliant, I know.

The piñata was so strong that after two rounds of all the kids trying to crack it open, Dan decided he would just smash it himself. He of course ended up hitting his own hand that was holding the piñata. I’m laughing as I type this. It was hilarious and very strange at the same time. And, to make things even more interesting, Dan took another swing and the end of the club he was using flung off and flew right between two au pairs, Sarah, and Noris, and into a sand pit. It looked like a scene from a movie as they both had super-quick reflexes to lean ever so slightly and miss the flying club. And, it landed in a sand pit where kids play. Imagine the shock and horror we would have caused had Mr. Martino knocked out an innocent bystander. Sheeesh. I assure you… nobody was hurt. But, it was hilarious and we were all laughing so hard.


Anyway – the party was a success and our little dude finally celebrated the big TWO!

Rocco's first day of PRESCHOOL!

Rocco started school today.

It was a day of mixed emotions for me. I was very excited for Rocco, as he is socially more than ready to be in a pre-school environment. I was sad though too… because Matteo should have started school today too. He would have loved it. He would have loved all the new toys, new friends, and eating lunch with lots of other little people. It was also a little difficult today knowing that the day Rocco started school is the ten month anniversary of Matteo’s last day with us.

I can’t believe it’s been ten months since Matt died. So many emotions. So many thoughts. So many feelings I can’t even begin to share in this sort of forum.

Rocco was very excited this morning. I drove him to school and told him how proud I was of him for staring school. Then, he went on to ask about who else was proud of him. It was so cute…

The second we got into the classroom he was off grabbing big airplane toys and then he moved on to animals… making them talk to each other. I could also see he was interested in the other kids in the classroom and he started talking with them as I was leaving the classroom. They of course looked at him like “Who’s the new kid and why is he talking to us?”

I tried to get a kiss and hug out of him before I left, but he was too focused on the toys. So I left. I looked in from outside the classroom door and he looked at me through the glass. I waved at him. I blew him a kiss. But, he just looked at me. He probably thought “Huh. What’s my mom doing out there and why is she being so sappy. Why doesn’t she just come back in here and watch me play?”

Dan went over to the school around the lunch hour so he could bring a few things that I forgot to bring this morning. As he entered the class, the teacher signaled for him to leave and she went out to talk with him. Apparently, they had just come in from outside and Rocco was VERY upset that he had to go back inside. Dan asked how Rocco was adjusting and if he was behaving. Miss S said Rocco threw a couple playground balls over the fence while outside, but other than that he was doing well.

Apparently, Rocco ended up seeing Dan. And, as Dan was leaving he saw Rocco get his sad *I’m about to cry face* and then Dan heard a very loud “I WANT MY DADDY!!!”

I picked Rocco up at the end of the day and he was laying on one of the nap mats with Miss J sitting next to him. My first thought was that he must not be feeling good. But, Miss J said he had just fallen asleep not too long ago. She said he didn't nap during naptime. Instead, he would cry a little, and whine "I want my mommy" in between looking at a book and playing with a truck. One hour into the nap, he started crying really hard so Miss J took him outside to play ball and water plants and then he was fine. But, then when she had to bring him inside again I guess he was pretty upset and had a little tantrum. Uh oh!

Miss J told me he finally started to fall asleep on Miss S's shoulder during story time at 4:45pm. Poor kid - he must have been exhausted!

I'm still shocked the little guy didn't nap! Especially since the school nap is the same time as his nap at home. But, I'm pretty sure he was not a happy camper mainly because he couldn't nap in HIS bed with his football blanket.

Looks like Rocco might need some time to adjust to this "school" thing. Hopefully, he'll adjust fast because it's hard on mommy too!

Regardless, we're so PROUD of our little, big boy today for starting school!! YAY ROCCO!!

She's ROLLING!

Giuliana started rolling from tummy to back on Monday! We're so proud of our little angel and can't believe she'll already be 4 months old in another week.

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.