Well ... almost ten months later! How is everyone doing?
I haven't been to the forum in ages and am back right now because of, well, procrastination unfortunately

School is on summer break and I should work on all the paperwork and my preparations for my final degree, but ... ah well, I will find the time tomorrow.
Therefore: Time for an update.
Things that didn't change much: Lin's health is a rollercoaster ride as usual. Right now he is dealing with an inflammation of his shoulder muscles which of course takes its toll on his hearth condition. He has to manage dealing with this as always. The kids are doing quite fine. Sward is working and more or less content with our overall situation most of the time. I am stressed and don't have enough for for everything going on in our life.
Changes: Lin has made a foray into a new field of work. He is a bus driver by now (the reason for the inflammation - he is not used to the special kind of motion sequence). It is not his ideal occupation but as he still was not able to find a job as an art designer, he started a occupational retraining. The whole situation is not ideal; he has to work in shifts, which greatly clashes with his desire to be home and cook dinner and fulfil his 'domestic role' for us and the kids, which he really treasured and was happy to have. He is still looking for chances to switch back to his old field of work.
Overall, this does add quite a bit to our general lack of time for each other. This old issue did never really improve, since the kids came into our life (and they are going to turn three next week! where has time gone?!). We hardly have any time as couples for each other, most of our time together is spend as a family. And most of the time I don't mind. But I do find it concerning that we simply live with this current state and find no way to alter the situation. For years by now.
It seems to be a common problem for couples with younger kids and maybe you can not change much about it. You think about the missing bits, the missing time for each other, but then you are just too tired, too involved, too occupied with work/time for yourself/kids/projects that you simply rearrange your priorities and the time as a partner always falls short. I can see the dangers behind this pattern clearly, but I always find couple-time to be just the least important part of my daily life right now.
And I take the fact that I do not know what precisely the other two think about this, as a clear sign, that we need to talk about this. All of us are just postponing the issues to a later date. More or less unconsciously. But we need to change something in our dynamics soon.
A more subtle change happened with my family. More precisely my mother. The after-effects of her cancer treatment are quite long-lasting and severe. She never really recovered from her depression, she is still unable to divide her attention at all and her own life is quite a handful for her. That means that she almost stopped taking part in the life of the kids. As we live 40 minutes away from my parents, and she still is afraid to visit us alone due to a car crash two years ago, they hardly see the kids at all, as they have quite a full schedule themselves. If I do not pay them a visit, I would not hear anything new from or about them. This is the opposite of the behaviour she showed when the twins arrived and it saddens me to witness this gradual change over time.