My April

April is here.  I have hardly had a chance to notice.  Though I know.  I feel it.  The date is creeping up on me.  I did not get a chance to post anything about our Spring Break trip.  We had a blast.

The kids loved the ocean.  It was their first time at the Pacific.  We could have/should have stayed there all day.  It was very relaxing and very peaceful.  My favorite landscape is definitely the ocean.  I looked around to find Chase....I hoped knew he was with us.  I found him in the clouds.....

Owen had a great time, too.  This was at Sea World, our favorite theme park!

Last week I was taking care of sick kids.  Owen had a cold that lasted 10 days.  It was absolutely horrible and very stressful--for all of us.  It turned into an ear infection at the end, which the antibiotics took care of.  He's all better now, but was pretty rough for a while.  Then Reese came down with some pretty bad bronchitis.  Another scare for me....though these days, it doesn't take much to make me worry.  After some meds, he's recovered, too.  So just when I think we are back on track....I look at the calendar and realize it.

I scheduled and rescheduled appointments this month several times and turns out, a couple rescheduled appointments are for tomorrow.  April 14th.  I can't believe I scheduled them on this day.   I don't know why, but I wish I wouldn't have done that.  We have Reese's first baseball game and I am so concentrated on not crashing his happy times with "having" to celebrate his brother's birthday and angelversary in the midst of his baseball season kickoff and his own birthday.  I'm not sure how to do this.  We are not skipping any games and are trying to fit in a trip to go visit Chase's gravesite before Reese's birthday.....but it's going to be a rush to fit it all in.  I hate that he is buried so far away.  We still have not laid his headstone.  It is finished and sitting at the funeral home....but we have not been able to complete this last step.  There are so many questions that were never answered and this was one of them....one we have struggled with and still not answered....

I could not sleep last night after Owen's midnite feeding because I looked at the clock and was in shock at the date.  I found myself going through all the events all over again.  Remembering as much as I could as I looked at the pictures I have in my room.  Wishing soooo badly I would have held my baby boy with so much more passion than I did in those pictures.  Hurting because I feel guilty for not picking him up the first moment I saw him in the NICU.  Not picking him up, because of course I couldn't, but I wished I would have put my hands under him....something I would do now without hesitation.  Just to feel him.  So that he could feel me.  Those memories are so painful.  My eyes investigate every millimeter of those photos now.  Wishing I had more.  Trying to distinguish actual images in my mind from the precise moments captured with each camera shot.  Wondering if I really remember anything other than these photos nowadays.  Hurting.  Still. Hurting. So. Bad.  I miss him.  With every ounce of my body, I miss my little boy.  Owen sleeps on my chest while I tell him I love him.  And that I love and so painfully miss his big brother.  All in the same beat of my heart.