When did Christmas become so sad...

 

Feeling a wave of emotions around me and I find myself here again.  This space...where I once emptied my deepest, darkest, most painful moments for myself to offload them from my head and my heart.  To be archived for no specific purpose other than to hear myself admit these feelings and then try to understand them.  

It's January 1st and the proverbial timeframe for putting away all of the Christmas decorations.   Ive found myself not even using half of my decorations anymore.  Partly because we have less space than we once did but also because I don't have the heart to get them out and decide where to put them and then see them every day for a month.  I used to think of the word nostalgia as like a Norman Rockwell type picture.  My nostalgia reminded me of my own childhood and would put fond memories in my head of school Christmas programs and parties, the decorations my mom used every single year were burned into my brain, the lights on the tree, the tinsel strewn all over the branches, the ceramic decor my mom collected from Home Interiors parties and the Santa hat on the deer heads hanging in our living room.  So many memories that felt warm and comforting.  Nostalgia felt familiar and comforting.  

Not anymore.  I feel so tired when it comes time to decorating for Christmas anymore.  It changed most drastically when Reese left for college.  It also changed when we moved out of the big house on Stardance I guess if I'm completely honest.  We downsized and it forced me to be very efficient with the space we had.  As I look back I think I'm bitter for many reasons about that.  But it also ended up being the year we moved our Christmas last minute to Ruidoso so we didn't have Christmas at that house anyway.  Maybe more bitterness brewed there.....I couldn't do the tree this year without making the boys participate. They ended up decorating it all themselves.  While Patric sat on the couch like a customer who purchased a movie ticket for entertainment.  This triggers me and I can't explain those feelings at the moment.

The next year we were in the mountains for Christmas Day and then last year it was just the boys and us for Christmas Day.  So things have gradually been changing every year and while I've been most concerned about how this all affects Owen, I think secretly it has been sabotaging me as well.  Owen has adjusted to all of the life changes we've had over the last five years (three moves, two deaths, new school, siblings moving) with seemingly ease and open-mindedness.  It is very tender for me because I don't like change anyway and to watch it happen to us without my control and change the childhood of my "baby", I've slowly become overcome by sadness.  His Christmases are not at all like his siblings' Christmases.  Nothing.  And I hate it. Every part of it.  And I'm here dropping the ball in the midst in my own state of mind trying to fake it for him to have something that I once could give but can't anymore.  I feel defeated.  I feel like a horrible mom.  I feel empty.  

The truth is he's 14 and growing up so fast that life is changing for him anyway.  It's that phase I am all too familiar with. I know it well and have braced myself for it in the past.  I'm open to those changes .... the quietness, the distractions, his interests changing, feeling targeted because the options I give him are never the right ones or the cool ones.  I know the hormones are raging and he's finding his own skin.  I feel for him but want to give him the space to do it.  So to reiterate--more change and my overwhelming feeling is sadness and nostalgia.  My retaliation to myself is to try to make as many memories as possible during this time.  We go on trips, games, concerts, experiences....as much as I can think of.  These are precious to me.  Each moment.  I breathe it in and try to hold onto it as long as I can. Snap a quick shot of the scene just for my own records (memory) on my phone.   I know exactly how fast it is going to go.  And this is the last one.  So I'm holding on for my life right now.  

But this holiday mood has me feeling numb most of the time.  Until it all has to come down.  And that's when the emotions take over.  It's like a wave of grief that I'm familiar with as well.  I don't get any help.  But I don't want any help either. Unless...it's the right person at the right time.  I don't know how to make this feel any different.  Sometimes I wish I would have just told the girls they had to be home at Christmas.   But that was something that I tried to raise them to know and want and that it went without saying.  And if they didn't come home, then I failed at that part of raising them.  

Either way, I hate taking down Christmas decorations.  I'm left alone with all of those handmade ornaments and photo ornaments I just had to make every year. It's just me and them.  Packing in place and closing the boxes and stacking them in their spots in the basement.  

Until it's time to do it all again next year.

Growing Sideways

 I don't feel like I'm growing up anymore.  I am past that.  Something clicked at that fucking 5-0 birthday that said it's time to be an adult now. My expectations grew and my tolerance level tanked.  It's wreaked havoc on my marriage.  And here I sit--dumbfounded at how I got here.  Im at that moment where I'm looking in the mirror and not knowing who I see.  Raising kids has always been such a big part of my life--the main part of my life-- and as the third one left for college, I found myself with time and questions.  Time to think for myself and about myself.  This is true to some extent as I have grown MORE worrisome for Emma and being so far away. But an overall sense of independence has never felt so good.  My relationship with Owen has grown to a deeper level of love and with that, we hang out and give each other space in just the right amounts.  I still do things for him and take care of him (of course he lets me) but I follow my own path now.  I come and go as I like.  I take long baths.  I pee without getting interrupted.  Things have changed so much! 

But sadly, this newfound freedom has been felt in solitude.  It's not something I share and celebrate with my husband like I thought I would when I wondered what this season of life would look like man years ago.  We have grown apart.  We have both changed and stayed the same but we don't know each other anymore either way.  There are things deep blow the surface that have festered in me, and probably for him, too.  But somewhere recently I think I summited this feeling and started my decent.  Because I think I am numb.  I am hurting but it's a dull ache mostly.  Sharp pangs are fewer.  There is no consensual effort being made to unite, let alone reunite.  The more I want things to change, the more he wants them to stay the same or go back in time.  That statement isn't even true but I'm leaving it there because it's what came to mind.  I personally want the love and emotion to return from our early years of marriage and when we dated, but I want to live a life of middle age and empty nest together...experiencing things together and living life fully.  And from my point of view, he has everything on hold until he has the right amount of money, the right credit score or the right number on the bathroom scale.  I don't care a lick about any of those things and he has no idea.  I want a relationship with him that is vulnerable, honest, respectful and fulfilling.  And for some godforsaken reason that seams more unrealistic than winning the lottery at this point.  

I'm not sure what to do.  I"m not sure what I can do.  We are both tied to each other because of our bank account, that's about it.  It's the only thing we share these days.  I will figure this (me) out.  I won't allow myself to live less than happy.  And happy does not have anything to do with money or material things.  I wish he knew that.  

To this I digress.  I focus on me and who I am and who I want to be.  I want adventure and purpose, loose on the purpose.  I definitely want to explore and experience new things.  That's my 2024.  I just am both excited and scared what those new things will be...

Life in fear

Living with grief is a never a choice.  And so it is something that you learn to live with.  There are many versions of grief and types of grief.  There are different things to grieve.  Sometimes just change can make you feel symptoms of grief.  

But there is no argument losing someone is the toughest grief anyone will ever endure.    Saying good-bye, how you said good-bye, where and when you said it.  All moments that are etched into your memory forever.  Thoughts that are sometimes at the forefront, sometimes farther back.  Nonetheless, thought of every single day.  

These are things I know from my own experience.  Losing Chase was the hardest thing I ever went through.  The terror of the events that happened.  The pain I felt and then seeing my family in pain.  It doesn't get harder than that.  

But time does change grief.  It lessens the sharpness of the pain.  It even numbs it to the point that it's part of who you are and you almost can't imagine living without it.  Though you would give anything to.  

Though I have felt completely sane and mentally stable, I will say that I have never ever stopped worrying that I would lose one of my other kiddos.  I check on their breathing no matter what age they are.  I don't have anxiety attacks, but occasionally I do panic if I don't hear from them.  The youngest one, yes, I do check his breathing much more often.  

It's because I can't get the image out of my head.   I never will.  

What death looks like. 

Last spring, Emma, now a junior in college, had a first-time seizure at her apartment and her roommates helped her calling 911 and then calling me.   WIth a very clean bill of health, this came as a shock.  But as we learned, there is no predicting this sort of thing because it's something she was born with.  Her genetics left her to abnormal brain activity, only to be seen at the age of 20, sitting in her apartment, diligently studying for final exams at her kitchen table, when all of a sudden she fell to the floor, convulsing.  

We were very thankful that there was nothing fatal going on in her brain or heart, but being told that the seizure was basically a fluke of abnormal brain activity and probably won't happen again, didn't give me, personally, much comfort.  Two and a half months later, while living at home and working from home, she had a second seizure at her desk.  She was on medication but had forgotten to take it.  I was home and found her on the floor seizing and a split second, my life felt once again like that moment Chase was being taken by emergency c-section.  Scared out of my mind what was going on and what was going to happen, I held her and Owen tried calling 911 but not before her seizure stopped and she came to.  

We knew it was because of the missed dosage, so there wasn't to do other than take the medicine loyally.  

That was the plan, until another two and a half months later when another seizure happened after another missed dose.  There are other factors that influenced this behavior that I won't go into because I'm writing this blog post about my own personal fear, not Emma's mistakes.  

Though I don't feel overwhelmed with this fear, I sometimes think I really am.  Almost like a sugar addiction that I think I can easily stop, but really I can't.  (cough-cough). After helping her this last time, and now that she's living back at school, I am finding it much harder to live with this fear.  I've told myself (and her) that I won't text her much.  Because the act of not getting a return text from her might just send me into a panic.  And every time she calls me, when I pick up the phone I expect to hear her frightened, frail little voice, crying into the phone telling me she just had another one.  

Or worse yet, her stopping mid-sentence and having one while on the phone with me.  Because most of the time I am talking to her she is multi-tasking so she's typing a million words a minute on her laptop, finishing an email or some homework that's due.  

And with this fear comes the images that are burned into my brain.  Some that I've already seen and some that I'm afraid to see, but I've imagined them all.  I heard on a podcast once that maybe I'm imagining the worst so that when something bad actually does happen, I'll be prepared to deal with it.  

I don't like that way of thinking at all.  

And since this condition of Emma's is genetic, now my brain travels to my other three living children.  What would it be like to find them having a seizure out of nowhere and where and when will it happen?  Every time I hear a crash or bang in the house, my first thought goes there.  

My fear continues to grow.  

They don't consume me.  I still enjoy my kids and being with them and watching them grow and parenting them.  But what they don't know is that these thoughts are there all. the. time.  I can't stop them.  I pray and ask God to take care of them.  But I guess I don't have enough faith because I can't stop myself.  

And I don't know that I ever will be able.

I am still standing...

The cycle of grief is perpetual.  I knew that.  I knew that there would be hard times and less hard times.  And as from the very start of this cycle I was thrown into, I knew about the paranoia.  I felt it in my core.  The paranoia that something bad would happen again.  But, like grief, that feeling cycles as well.

Living in paranoia is a choice.  Though sometimes that seems very unfair to say.  I hope and pray every night that my kids stay healthy and that I'm thankful for that thus far.  But the moments I think about what COULD happen, silently creep in until they become very real again.

On April 24th, I received the call from Emma's roommate.  I knew it as soon as I saw her name on my phone, which was right next to me while I was working at my desk.  And I knew it was something bad.  I knew it right away.   And she said, "Mrs. Pearson, I think Emma has had a seizure.  I called 911 and the firetruck is here and we are waiting for the ambulance.  She is okay right now she's just very confused...."

I grabbed a few things and new where the boys were and Karly and they were all okay so I got in my car and started out to Boulder while still on the phone, getting as much info as I could from her.  The EMTs had arrived and were checking on her.

I had just texted Emma something mindless about 30 minutes prior and she responded she was getting ready for another online meeting. She was perfectly fine.  And now, I'm shaking, hyperventilating, panicking, crying and scared out of my mind.  How could things change so drastically in just an instant?   I knew how.  I knew it all too well.

Emma had a first time seizure that apparently is genetic as her dad had had one in his teens as well.  Never to have one again.  And the neurologist informed us this was likely the case with Emma as it is fairly common--one in ten have a seizure once in there life and then never again.  There is a 30% chance she will have another one at which time she will go on anti-seizure meds and a 70% chance she won't ever have another one.   We were assured, as much as a specialized doctor of the brain can do this, that Emma will be fine.  As a recommended precaution, however, she was scheduled for an EEG test in a couple weeks, as soon as COVID allowed for the office to open.

The results of this test, however, were abnormal.  It was deemed her sodium blockers in her brain do not behave in the way that they should and that this is just the way she was born, according to the doctor.  This is why she had the seizure, which was probably a result of some extra stress and the sleep deprivation that comes from the last weeks of sophomore year of college.   She had a 70% chance of having another seizure--the doctor sent in her prescription and  she started medication that day.  And we were ensured, again, as much as the neurologist can assure a mom who lives in a cycle of grief, that with the medication, she will likely not have another seizure as long as she takes her medicine twice every day....for the rest of her life.

Emma moved home.  She completed her finals and even started her summer internship from her home office.  Her lifelong dream of studying dolphins in Greece was granted her this summer but cancelled due to COVID-19 and I cannot even imagine how that would have gone in her state had it not been cancelled.  There was more that needed to happen and she wasn't prepared.

This time with her has been so very endearing for me.  I have experienced so much joy with her and I struggle to find words to describe this feeling.  We had such a hard time her junior and senior year of high school and she grew experientially her freshman year.  She was well on her way in her journey with her plans all set and I settled in as her biggest fan, sitting in the shadows watching all she accomplished.

But plans change or such is life.  And this spring I became a bigger part of her life again.  We've hung out more times than I can count and had more conversations than I'll ever remember, but I will never forget this time we've gotten to spend together.  I am so very grateful for that.  So grateful.  However, my wave of grief is building.  I can feel it gathering it's energy.

Two days ago Emma had another seizure.  She was in her office space, working at her computer and Owen heard a crash upstairs and looked at me as I walked out of his bedroom from putting away clothes.  His look at me was so startled, I said, "what?"  And he said,  "What was that?"   I heard noises coming from Emmas room.  I told myself she was reacting to a phone call or email or something and probably throwing a pillow across the room or something, but I still rushed to the door.

I opened the door and did not see her walking across the room as I expected.  Instead, I found her laying on the floor by her desk, seizing.   I felt my blood freeze in my veins and I stopped breathing.  This was my first experience seeing someone having a seizure.   And it being one of my own kids, I felt a fear that I have felt before, but hoped never to again.  From the information Emma's roommate had given me from the first seizure, it was much like I imagined.  And my panic mixed with my innate sense to hold her and care for her and do anything to protect her from hurting herself any worse.

The image of my daughter helpless on the floor is something I cannot unsee.  I cannot help but think of it every single day, several times.  I sleep with her when I can't get the horrible thoughts out of my head at night.  I check on her several times if she's not in the same room or I leave the house.   And I hold my breathe when I walk in the house so I can hear her if she is doing it again and when I don't, I go find her.  If she walks away from me, out of sight, for too long, I worry.   And then there is the future....my worry can get overwhelming sometimes.

I have been here before.  In fact, I have had feelings very similar for all of my kids at one point in their life.   When Reese was a baby, I slept with him in the hospital for three nights while he fought RSV and pneumonia.  I remember vividly watching his chest rise and fall with each breath through the night and calling the doctor in when I thought he was breathing too rapidly.  When Owen was four years old he had his emergency appendectomy and there was a point in his recovery as the morphine wore off that he was in so much pain I thought he had stopped breathing and I screamed from our room for help from the staff.  Karly, thankfully, never had as severe hospital experiences, though she was our ER frequent visitor over the years.  And of course, Chase.  My current experience with Emma has brought back so many memories of Chase in the hospital and I find myself staring off into space at a red light wishing I had done things differently.

The strongest, most prevalent feeling after losing Chase was that I wished I had just held him.  Picked him up out of his isolette and held him close to me and physically loved on him, somehow medically fixing all his problems and making him better.  Because that's what moms do.

When Emma was on the floor in her room, that's what I did.  I held her and kept her as safe as I could and, as scared as I was, I felt like I was doing something.   In a seizure, nothing is normal and it feels like death is just lurking around the corner.  It's suffocating.  Like a home birth--so many things can go wrong, or maybe nothing will go wrong.  A seizure happens and then it's over and despite the slow, confusing recovery period, everything is alright.  But it doesn't feel like it.   And the comparison between Emma's and Chase's experience is haunting.

I am still standing, though.  I am still here.  I grieve, panic, live in a state of paranoia most days, check on ALL of my kids to make sure they are breathing--and they are ages 9-20 years of age.  And I still do this.  I see morbid pictures in my mind to prepare myself for the worst -- so if my world is going to fall out from under me again, at least I was ready for it and the horrible traumatic events.

Emma's seizure disorder is genetic, which means that any of my kids could have it.  I'm tired of being told how low the odds are that something bad will happen because it seems like they keep happening and my world will explode at any little moment.   I feel like I try to prepare myself for that every day.   And I think of this danger every time I leave one of my kids alone at home.  It has changed my life.  What if it happens to one of them and I'm not home?

I'm still standing, but it doesn't feel like I'm very stable.  Some days my legs feel like collapsing.  Some days are fine and I keep my mind busy or constantly try to think positive, and pray lots.  I'm still standing, but I'm bracing for the next wave to crash.

Right Before My Eyes

Not yet edited.....

I caught myself today.  Well, I"m trying to catch myself.  From falling all the way down.  I keep tripping myself up all the time in this journey of parenthood and wondering where I"m going wrong.  But today, this Easter day, I nearly crashed.  Or maybe I did and I just pulled myself up out of it.  I still feel like I've failed.  I just KNOW it.  I'm not in denial.  I'm not faking it.  I just don't know how exactly I'm going to get out of it.

My kids are old enough now that it's really tough .... to please.  To get the wow factor out of them.  To impress them and get that wonderful feeling every parent loves...like when they used to see you as the King or Queen who provides for them, protects them, and  brings them all their happiness.  When a kiss used to fix all their mishaps or imperfections.  Those days were the easy days.  I wish I had known that then.  Maybe I would have relaxed a bit, or enjoyed it even more, if that was even possible.  I loved those days.  I thought I enjoyed them as they were happening, I really did.  I took pictures, I took video, I laughed, cried, walked and talked with them.  It was wonderful.  But I blinked and they became teenagers.  Well, two of them are at least and I'm wondering where time went.  Did I form them into the young people I hoped and dreamed they would be.  Are they gracious and thankful, polite and courteous, loyal and respectful, helpful of anyone that needed help....Those are the questions I am asking.  And though I doubt myself all the time because that is my nature, I am almost always comforted at the end of a challenging time that they are the kids I laid the foundation for.  Yet I am beginning to see the paradox in parenthood of our generation clearer every day.

We want the best for our kids and always will, just like our parents did.  We want to give them more than our parents gave us or could give us.  But it seems somewhere along the way, our striving for perfection became self-fulfilling.  I'm constantly trying to do a better job than I did yesterday or last year or last kid or last birthday or last holiday.  It's exhausting.  Somewhere along the way it became so very physical and materialistic and about things, not feelings.

I did it this Easter.  I have been thinking/stewing about it for two weeks and in my denial of how quickly the days were passing, soon it was the weekend and the next day was Easter.  My sister had come to visit and it seemed like it would be much easier or more comforting or funner or perhaps enabling (lol) to do the Easter rush with her.  It was.  All of that.  And we even shared a bottle of wine and watched a movie during easter bunny preparations until the wee hours of the morning.  But I never stopped wondering if what I had bought for my kids for their baskets was good enough or equal or appropriate or sentimental enough.....or just enough.  Given the snow covered ground this weekend, we had no choice but to hide easter eggs inside the house this year.  For 9 kids.  Four of them 16 or older.  Owen is 5 and it's really fun at his age because he's still at the age that anything will make him smile.  He is so lucky to not have any expectations.  He is just happy to get something.  I don't think he cared what it was.  But the older kids have expectations because they get stuff every holiday, every year and lots of it.  And the older they get it seems the more expensive it gets.

And then I see myself and wonder how did I let this happen.  Why do I feel like I need to do this and have to try and do better this time than I did last time.  Because the harder it gets, the more I don't feel like I'm try to outdo myself, but rather keep up with myself.  I fear more doing less than I did last year....because I'm tired, because it's too expensive or I just don't get it all planned out well enough.   And I don't have help.  Patric helps by providing the money to let me do their baskets, but the rest of it is on me.....fitting it into the budget (or not and then stressing about that) and then the time to prepare and each year I feel like I fall short.  And this year I got to do this and share the stress with my sister ;-) but staying up all night did not do me any favors.  I was short on sleep and when the kids woke up to find the eggs, I was about half way into my necessary sleep time.  I was exhausted.  And when the kids walked around our small house searching for nearly 100 eggs, the comments from the hard-to-please crew started landing on my ears about how easy it was to find their eggs and baskets and the lack of thankfulness or gratefulness just started to get to me.  The exhaustion setting in and lack of patience taking over as I worked on our holiday meal continuously all morning.  It got to me.  It caused me to crash.  As I was waiting for rolls to rise, I found myself in bed. trying to hide under covers and fall asleep for some peace and quiet as half of our crowd went to church.  My mind racing trying to figure out where I had gone wrong.  Why I felt like my kids were so demanding and inconsiderate of the effort and care and love that I put into this holiday for them.  I was trying to hide from it.  And I realized this....but I also realized I don't know what to do.  I feel myself in this rat race and I need to get out of it.  I want my kids to appreciate the things we give them.  I want them to be respectful and courteous.  I know they are all of these things.  But I want them to see the difference between needing things and wanting things and whats most important.  I want them to be helpful when they are guests and leave things they borrow in better condition than they found them.  I want them to be able to cook for themselves the basics and offer to cook for others and clean up after them.   I know these are things that my kids are capable of even though they may not do it all the time.  I want to have as much faith and confidence in my parenting as I do in them that  this is how I have raised them and am raising them and that when not under my watch, they continue to behave this way.

It's a constant work in progress.  It's a constant battle and a constant act of living by example which I am not the best at either.  I just want to instill in my kids that things have value and that they value them appropriately and intelligently.  These are things I'm not perfect at.  But I am trying and will not give up.  I will continue to tell them the things I want them to know and believe and trust.  And how much I, and most importantly God, love and value them.  These are the things I can do.   And I will try.

Happy 6th Birthday, Chase Allen Pearson

We celebrated you on Tuesday and I have to be honest, we were quite sad.  There is never going to be much happiness in celebrating your birthdays and there's nothing anyone can do about it.  We drove up to the mountains and bought the most perfect balloons six balloons.  We each wrote you a message and we found the most perfect place to let them go.  But it was hard.  It's always hard letting go and I feel like I have an eternity of it with you.  The wind carried the balloons and it was hard to tell where they went before they were lost in the blue and white colors of the sky.  Reese was sure his balloon got held up by a treetop and popped and it absolutely crushed him.  His heart broke…for you…for him…for his balloon.  It was out of my control again and all I can do is watch, and love with all my heart, the kids that I CAN hold in my arms.  We miss you Chase.  Our hearts ache every day because you aren't here with us.  But we hold you in our hearts and will never stop remembering and loving you.  And we continue on only because we all know that we will see  you again someday.  And we will hold you and hug and kiss you and there will be so much love.  More than any of us can even fathom.  Here are a few pictures of our day celebrating you.  I hope you got our messages and maybe you can somehow let Reese know that.  And hopefully you had a cupcake with us, too.  Happy birthday sweet boy.

Love,
Mama

What 6 years feels like

If you would have asked me what it feels like to have a six year old before Chase was born, I would have told  you, that it is such a long time.  Six years old is so big and I want them to be 2 again!  But Chase came and my perspective is completely different.  Most likely due to circumstances, but six years seems like yesterday.  I remember it clearly.

Chase's birthday was yesterday.  He turned six years old in Heaven's arms.  Not mine.  And it has been hard.  I had been thinking about this day for the past week.  My pregnancy with Chase kept popping into my head.  Him moving inside of me.  That I had read that his DNA is still in me.  That I was such baby for not being able to carry him longer.  That he was born five days before Reese's birthday and he should have been born five days after.  Still, my life would have been crazy planning two parties so close together, but it should have been the other way around.  Patric and I were fighting on Easter and it reminded me of the big fight we had on Easter the days before Chase came.  Deciding to tell Emma about the Easter Bunny because I needed help.  I was such a big baby.  And I went to bed the Monday night thinking about the night before Chase was born.  Crying myself to sleep because I was taking God's work into my own hands asking for an induction so I wouldn't have to endure 12 more days of the discomfort.  Why couldn't I have just rode it out?  Hugging Owen a little tighter as my tears and fatigue set in, I finally slept.

I looked at the clock Tuesday morning and saw 7:21am.   I felt a punch in the gut as I thought of 7:21pm that day six years ago and the madness that ensued.  I remember what seems like every little detail of the horror that unfolded.  Why didn't we just demand a c-section earlier?  I knew somewhere inside of me that all that blood I lost all day long was not right.  I knew it wasn't.  Why didn't I call him on it?  And when the baby's heart beat was lost, the fear in the doctor's voice as he said we were going into surgery.  NOW.  Those details, the little ones, that I so often block from my mind as they try to resurface.  I was trying to recall every single one.  I wanted to let everything come back.  It felt like yesterday and I could see it in my mind all so clearly.  The out-of-body feeling that haunted me so heavily after Chase was born...I let it come back.  The feeling of floating around the room hearing the voices...then the cosmic blackout.  And re-awakening.   Knowing/feeling not pregnant anymore. Wanting to know....was it a boy or girl?  Where is the baby?  How is he?  And seeing him the first time.  When they wheeled his isolette into my room so I could see him before they life-flighted him off.  Those eyes that looked at me and my voice that sounded so comforting, even to me, when I spoke to my child for the very first time.  He was mine.  But what happened?

I'm shaking even as I type these words.  But I remember being in a state of shock for the next several days.  Not knowing how I was even living under all the stress and worry and fear.   And so many more little details that happened over the  next few weeks continue to haunt me...but I feel like stopping here.

Because I'm realizing again that I'm on my own right now.  This journey is a lonely one.  No one who has not lost a child knows your life or how your thoughts are controlled.  The new normal that six years ago, I thought would eventually grow old.  But it doesn't.

Several  years ago, way before I had kids, I had a friend where I worked who became very close to Patric and I.  She was almost like our adopted mom in some ways.  She had lost her son to a drowning accident when he was 2 years old.  I remember her saying it the first time and thinking how horrible it would be to lose a child.  I don't remember her talking about it much at all but I do distinctly remember her telling me that even then, it was like it had happened just yesterday.  And her eyes welled up with tears that she struggled to keep in.  Of course I didn't know what to say to her and I don't remember it coming up again.   But I have thought about her a lot since I lost Chase.  We don't keep in touch anymore but as I am now six years out, I know that these memories will never fade.  I still think about Chase every singe day if not the first thing when I wake up, then he is the last thing I think about as I fall asleep.  And several times in between.  That will never change, for the rest of my life.

I guess what I was reminded of this year was that this journey is solo.  And by that I mean for me and my husband and my kids.  Only we celebrate Chase and think of him as much and deeply as we do.  No one else does, even in mine and Patric's own families.  My community of BLM's support me every year and give me comfort because they are on the journey too.  But no one else does.  At a point of my life when my relationships with my own siblings and parents have become distant and broken, I am reminded of this again.  That I am in a club I was not invited to.  A place that I can never leave.

A moment in time

I'm just trying to freeze time here….but I had to post this picture.  It's the end of the year and I have been posting more to the kids' individual blogs recently and not this one and I felt this was totally worth taking the time to write about for this space.

The kids are out of school and we have nothing going on today…just four days out from Christmas.  They've all been doing their own thing and I've been playing with Owen but asked the kids to play with him somehow….and this is what I got.  A long time family tradition of theirs.  They started this years ago when Reese was probably Owen's age.  Actually, the girls played this even before they started including Reese!  But they "divvy" up their stuffed animals and give them names and characteristics and play.  For hours.  The stuffed animal pile has certainly grown over the years and it was so fun listening to them dump these out and remember things about them.  Telling stories where they came from or something that had happened with a certain one.  This is something they get pretty serious about and what means the most to me is that they are doing it together…even Owen.  (We'll see how long it lasts!)  THey'll have memories the rest of their lives about this time together.  I just hope they keep doing it so that Owen will have memories of it, too.  I love seeing my kids all together and I always imagine Chase in the middle of it all.  I know he would be loving it.  

These are the times.  Times I wish I could freeze.  I listened to Owen ask his sister to sing the Jingle Jingle song to him this morning and when she did without hesitating because she totally adores her little brother, I saw a flash of the future.  I saw my kids sitting down talking at a dinner and saying how they loved how cute their little brother was and how much fun he was.  And I can see Owen saying "yeah, right" and not remembering what they were talking about because he was too little.  They will continue to make memories I know, but they won't be like these or like the old ones.  I can't make Owen remember our life before Colorado, those will be memories just for the older three.  I'm afraid I'll be sad that he won't be able to recall those times like they will one day, but I know there will be many that he can from these days forward. 

Such is life.  It moves on.  Time never stops, no matter what one hopes for or wants.  I'm just thankful for these moments that I can freeze a memory in a snapshot…one that will spark conversation and recollections years down the road when they are adults. And we will all remember when….

Making mistakes

I've never claimed to be perfect. I'm far from it quite honestly.  But when my actions/behavior doesn't provide the kind of example I wish to give my kids, I try to be honest with them and let them know where I have failed them.  If they don't see me fail and try again, how can I expect them to do so.  And if I have expectations of honesty and ownership from them, they need need to know they should expect the same from me.  

This came about when I posted a picture on Carly Marie's #captureyourgrief for Pregnancy and Infant Loss month and stated that I had two miscarriages between Reese and Chase's births.  Both of my girls were hurt by this because I had not told ever them about the miscarriages.  They felt this was private information that I had shared in a public way and they were hurt I hadn't confided in them before doing it publicly.  At first I was focused on explaining to them how I use the CYG project to post and read other's sharing of their experiences.  I thought they misunderstood my use of the social media tool and was trying to explain my intentions.  And I also felt that them not knowing about the miscarriages was a result of their age appropriateness on the topic and when they were old enough I would have told them, though I may have been too late.  At first I didn't see the implications of my post.  But after hearing from my oldest about it immediately after I posted and then later seeing how upset my second oldest was, I thought long and hard about it.  

And I felt horrible.

I couldn't believe that I was so thoughtless as to not have the piece of mind to make sure they had known the information I was posting about.  It was insensitive and stupid on my part and I should have known because I, too, have been hurt by learning personal information about loved ones in such a public forum.  I knew I owned them a heartfelt apology. Any further explanation of my use of social media or intentions for the post were futile and insignificant.  What they needed to hear was that I messed up.  Big.  And that I should not and will not post something that they don't know about without telling them about it first.  I couldn't believe I had done that--something that I was so angry when I had been "treated" that way both someone else.  

But that wasn't the end.  I am so thankful that it wasn't because what I learned during the rest of our conversation was probably one of the most important things I needed to know as their mother.  

Karly was upset because she said I have always done that…posted things that she didn't know about Chase.  And while I was again, focused on explaining how the miscarriage information was not related to our experience with Chase at all, I was missing the boat.  She said that we don't talk about Chase at all.  

That was a pivotal moment--because we talk about Chase all the time.  Even Owen knows Chase's name and that he's his big brother and will say "hi Chasey" when he sees a butterfly.  But what she meant is that we don't ever talk about what happened with Chase and how all of that….the whole tragedy happened.  And she was right.  I had been waiting til they were old enough and ahd questions to explain to them what happened.  About two years ago I had a long talk with Emma in the car after she asked me some questions and I told her what I thought was too much.  Partly because I didn't want her to be scared for me and partly because I knew she wouldn't understand the medical side of it all.  But she asked and so I told her as best I could.  We cried and talked about it for some time until we were able to move on.  Karly is now that age and I told her that I would answer any questions she ever had and that I don't mean to NOT talk about it and that there is nothing I would keep from her.  But the thing is, Karly's not the type to come right out and ask the questions.  And I told her talking about the events surrounding Chase's birth and death are all very painful so it's kind of like catching both people in the same mood at the same time in order to start the conversation.  But it opened my eyes to the fact that I needed to make sure and take the time to fill in the blanks for her and explain some things.  Part of me feels like a complete failure for not doing this for her but part of me is so completely thankful for the fact that I know this and we had this conversation and I have the opportunity to do this right…..not letting this past and never talking about it and then when she's 30 years old being upset with me for not feeling like she was ever told why or how her baby brother died. 

 When I was much younger than her, my parents were divorced and my step dad stopped picking us up for visitation.  Since we lived in a new town, my mom made us keep it a secret (that we spent weekends with our dad) and lie about it to anyone who asked, like she was trying to extinguish all of our memories like the ashes of a smoldering fire.  And eventually anger rose up inside me at her for trying to act like none of it ever happened.  I don't want my girls feeling that way about what happened to Chase.  I don't want there to be any secrets from them.  They deserve to know the truth and what happened and now they are old enough to handle it. I want them to feel like they can ask me anything.  I asked Emma how much she remembered of what I told her two years ago and she said not much really.  I told them that's because it's pretty complicated and as you get older and learn more it will make more sense.  And more questions will come up at that time and again, I'll be here to answer any of them.  

We talked about some of the things but we didn't go into all of it because it wasn't the time or place.  That was a talk that needed to be started at the beginning and what we were doing at the time was throwing snapshot memories out at a time.  I started to realize how different their memories were than mine….even as fresh as my memories seem.  They were so little when Chase was born; it's just so hard to believe it.  And quite honestly I want to be sitting down and prepared when I hear what their specific memories are because it's a lot for me to handle, too.  Karly told me her worst memory and it broke my heart--when she walked into the kitchen and found me on the floor by the trashcan crying.  This conversation was about letting me know that they are ready for more information and want to hear things about the day he was born and I am so SO thankful for that.  I know Chase is part of this and helping me through this every day and making sure I handle this right.  I almost feel like if this hadn't happened tonight that we were headed down that path…..of not talking about "it" and that leading to never talking bout it and then them being grown adults and never knowing.  Because they didn't ask and I didn't tell.  Maybe that wouldn't have happened but nonetheless I had a wakeup call and am grateful for that.  

My girls are awesome.  I am so lucky to be their mom.  I hope and pray every day that I don't mess this up.  Because of my shaky relationship with my own mom, I work so much harder on mine with them.  They already know I make mistakes.  But they know I will fix it and be honest with them and that's all I can do.

All for one

These guys are definitely siblings.  They fight about as much as they get along, but when they get along, it's music to my ears.  I love listening to them converse, interact and play together.  Owen imitates everything Reese does and kicks up everything to the Nth degree just so he can be heard or noticed around here.  And if he's lucky enough to get their attention, and if they are all in a good mood, I love to be the fly on the wall.  

As I've said earlier, how my kids interact and get along is one of the most important things to me as a parent.  I love the fact that the girls are so close in age and even though there's a gap that shouldn't be in between the two boys, they have each other.  Chase being here would make it perfect…in a different way.  But right now they have each other.  Some days they get along and some days they fight.  But as they get older, this will tilt toward getting along more and more and their relationships will change, become even more dependent and more unique.  They will have each other always, no matter how many miles are between them.  Distance will not matter.  They will always be close in their hearts.  

This is my hope and dream, anyway.  I grew up a different way and, thus, not all of my sibling relationships are the close knit type that I wish they were. Actually, they are very distant relationships nowadays.  I didn't work on closeness as a kid, because….well, because I was a kid and so were they and we fought a LOT, just like siblings do.  But there was no working on that relationship and bond encouraged by my parents.    They officiated (sometimes literally--we used sock 'em bop 'ems), but they never tried to make us bond--especially across the gap in ages.  They'd get us to stop fighting with punishment, but that was for their sanity.  There was no "working on relationships" when we were kids.  Things were just they way they were and you got used to it.  My older sister and I are super close today but we weren't always.  We had some major disagreements and fall-outs as adults.  But we worked things out between us over time and have a very special bond.  For the other two sisters, one is completely out of touch and the other relationship is one-sided and hindered by my mom despite her opinion.  But this is all part of what helps guide me and be motivated in encouraging a relationship between my own kids.   In the end, though, a mutual desire to be close was what bonded me with my older sis.  That and we are closer in age, too.  Going through life's milestones (college, weddings, babies, etc.) together certainly facilitates closeness, when both individuals want that.

That's why I do what I do with my kids.  I so often am looking into that crystal globe trying to imagine what things will be like between them as adults.  We even talk about it amongst all of us.  "Reese will be the type to not call or anything and so I'll  be really close to his wife and that's how we'll stay in touch," Emma says.  "Owen will always be the loudest," Karly says.  And so go the predictions….  I try, though they seem to do it on their own, to bridge the gap between the age differences.  But I strongly feel that the way I teach them to get along with each other now will affect how they get along when they are independent.  I tell them I can't make them be best friends.  But I can show them, as I do with my closeness to my own sister, how important those bonds are.  And then I have to let them try it on their own.  They have to see that when they reciprocate on this relationship, it will grow.  I don't get involved on all of their arguments (there are toooooo many).  And there are days when I get sick and tired of officiating.  I remember my mom saying that.  But I do my best to talk to each of them in private about all their siblings and what role they play in our family and how we will all be here for each other.  Always.  And how incredibly important that will be later on in life, in so many ways.  The boys are definitely different than the girls on this whole relationship thing, but I truly see this being important to my boys as adults.    

I'm not saying this is going to work and that it will all be like I hope it will be.  They will piss each other off.  A lot.  And sometimes it will be a big deal. A really big deal.  But I try my best as their mom.    It's not all I do, but it's part of what I do.  I foster their relationships as often as I can and instead of fixing their problems, I make sure one of their siblings fixes it for them when possible.  And when they fall ill, I see the result of this…

A couple of nights ago Owen had a really quick allergic reaction to something, I'm not sure what exactly, and his eyes got red and puffy and watery and he was crying and we were all concerned.  None of my kids had ever had this instant of a reaction to something or this bad of a reaction so I was even caught off guard.  To see the care and concern come out of each of them, was incredible.  Karly wanted to go to the hospital with us if we took him in (I called the hotline first and this took a while so we didn't know what we would need to do).  Emma helped with him and Reese tried entertaining him with toys and giving Owen some of his own toys.  It reminded me how delicate their little hearts are.  How all sibling rivalries are put aside and all they cared about was his well being.  It broke my heart all over again to remember the pain these guys went through watching their baby brother die and how little they each were themselves.  And how much they care…which makes them fragile, whether they are sick or worried about someone who is sick.  

This is why I want them to be close to each other.  I want them to always be there fore each other and know the importance of this.  And I think Chase has a large part in helping me make sure that happens. He has taught them so much in their short lives and he continues to every day.  Owen knows he has a big brother in heaven and I know he'll have questions one day for me that will tear me inside out…  But it's who we are and it's part of our lives.  And it's part of them realizing the importance of each other in their lives and I'm just hoping that this, along with my efforts, will forge that bond between them and continue growing at the incredible rate it is.

How Perspectives Change.

warning…if you're related to me and you don't talk to me every day or every other day, you should close this window now. these are a few of my uncensored, unedited feelings and thoughts going on inside my head about an area of my life i'm feeling like is totally messed up.

Adulthood is everything we've ever dreamed of as kids, right?  I mean, I learned a lot as I became an adult and moved out of the house and into college dorms.  I learned even more as I moved into my first apartment and even more as I graduated and started my first real job.  There were more responsibilities each time and that day you finish your last car payment on the car your parents helped you with or that last payment on your student loans, you feel the freedom…and even more responsibility…of adulthood.

It's all part of growing up.  Some of us are still trying to get there, right?  Ha--maybe emotionally but that's another post.  You're the boss.  You're the one calling all the shots.  Making your own decisions.  Which job you take.  Where you live.  What you do after work.  Whether or not your bed is made every day and how clean your bathroom is.  No one else is there to check up on you or tell you how to do things.   No one to nag at you or advise you.  All you know is that all those things you learned from your mom or 4-H or home ec class or whatever, are really coming in handy now.  You cook for yourself, you take the trash out, you pay your bills on time, or you dodge calls from the credit card company.  Your actions, your consequences.  No one else to blame.  

Fast forward to getting married….and fast forward a little more to having kids.  

BAM!

Everything changes.  I.Mean.Everything.  Kick up the responsibility factor to a whole new level now.  There's a whole 'nother human being you are responsible for now.  Your perspective changes on a lot of things.  Maybe your career isn't as important as it used to be.   Maybe it becomes more important.  But raising those kids, that's what it's all about.  You focus everything on them.  They learn things from you from Day 1.  And the older they get, you realize the more they are learning from you.  Of course that is how it should be, but they start to form who they are and they are a piece of you.  One of them, at least, is probably exactly like you, down to the temper or creativeness or laziness or whatever.   

As they get older you start to teach them things, like how to brush their teeth or clean up after themselves, or fix things or bake.  And here's your chance to do it right.  You don't just teach them to brush their teeth, but you teach them how to clean out the sink after they're done.  You (try to) make sure they pick up their rooms and make their bed in the morning.  You are teaching them things that they will be doing every day of the rest of their life.  You teach them how to curl their hair and put on make up.  And what you teach them is probably what you did when you were a kid, or how you fix your hair now.  

This is parenthood.  A lot of people do it.  But no one is ever taught how to parent.  Usually people don't take classes how to parent.  You just do it.  You know it from what you've learned as a kid, adolescent, young adult and now…adult.  And you draw on  your experiences as a child.  

A LOT.  

When our kids were really young (like 3 or so), I used to argue with my husband because he'd compare them to himself as a kid in situations and I knew there was no way he remembered his life at that age.  He may have remembered elementary school, and as a poor judgement of history or how fast time flies, he just thought it was the same.  But it wasn't and to me, how you discipline your kid at age three is quite different from you discipline them at age 7 or 8.  What's interesting, though, is that you draw from how you were raised to make these decisions.  And at this age, through the elementary years, my memory, or perception of my childhood, was pretty carefree and typical, but with pretty strict discipline.  We had tough consequences growing up.    My parents happened to be spankers, and timeout was something I had learned about in my parenting resources so we used a combination of both to discipline our kids.  I tried as best I could to teach them lessons without disciplining.  When I was a kid, our punishment was extra time weeding our rather large garden from what I remember most.  And our spankings were pretty harsh, with scrap lumber in the shed.  One or two swats was all it took to teach us a lifelong lesson and burn it into our memories forever.  Something I don't think any parent enjoys but some find it necessary.

So let me get to the point of this post.  I realized early on in parenthood that my own upbringing would provide an integral part in the way we chose to raise our kids.  Patric and I have talked a lot about how we were raised….everything from family traditions to family time during the week to supporting them in whatever activities they choose to participate in to discipline and beyond.  Both of our parents were strict and both of them pushed us hard in athletics so that we talk about that a ton.  And as our kids are getting older, to ages that I have a pretty vivid memory of in my own childhood, there are issues coming up that I have to deal with.  My dad kept a very tight reign over my older sister and I through high school.  We were not allowed to go out with friends or date.  That's just how life was; there wasn't any success in fighting it so we just accepted it.  We were forced to dedicate our time to our schoolwork and sports and that's what we did.  We were both successful at both of them, which is what our parents wanted for us, so it made a pretty good cover for what was really happening inside our little house in town.  

Since our girls are first, I feel like I'm going through my own childhood again in a way.  Maybe when the boys are this age, Patric will feel this way, too.  But when they have fun opportunities come up that I was not allowed to do when I was their age, I want them to take advantage of it and support them in whatever they choose.  Of course as far as activities go, I didn't have much available to choose from so that doesn't really count.  But it's little things like wearing makeup or talking about boys.  I have boundaries for them and as long as they stay within those boundaries, I love talking to my girls about who their crush is or what makeup tutorials they have seen. Now they are kids and occasionally step outside their boundaries so I discipline them, by taking something away that means a lot to them.  I don't spank them with a piece of lumber.  I couldn't even fathom doing that to my kids.  Not for a second.  I gave up spanking several years ago because I physically couldn't and it was a disaster if I even tried.  

Without getting into detail that I'm not ready to write about, there are many things that come up with my girls that trigger flashback memories of my own childhood and are creating a pit of anger in me--mainly why we were physically and emotionally handled the way we were.   This triggering helps me in a way that I deal with my girls' issues in my own parenting style.  I have made plenty of mistakes but for the most part, it's working for me.  Karly is so much like me so I draw from my relationship with my mom at her age and it helps me to know and decide what I want to do with Karly so that we have the kind of bond that I want to have with her.  I've had a rough time with Karly--it has not been an easy road.  But I feel so much better equipped in knowing how to talk and respond to her because of my memories with my own mom and with Patric's help and advice how to positively affect her.  And our relationship is amazing.  We still fight, but I feel so much closer to her than I ever did with my mom at her age and I am so thankful for that.  I was a tough cookie at her age.  I didn't talk much and Karly has those moments too.  But I'm able to do what I need to do because I know what makes her tick.  And I have Patric's help and support which is just as important.  

While these childhood revisits that I have frequently help me in parenting my girls, I can't say the same for my relationship with my own parents.  I have a lot of anger that has risen as a result of memories that come to me out of nowhere.  Memories of things that are, in my mind, insane.  I saw "When The Game Stands Tall" with Patric last night and in the movie there is a psycho parent that pushes his son to the extreme as he nears a national high school record his senior year.  This dad's lines in the movie were almost identical to the things that our dad used to say to my sister and me during our high school athletic careers.  And to hear it in a movie and see it on a screen so much bigger than life triggers an intense flashback.  Some of the scenes in the movie resonated with me so much so that I caught myself trying to block out my own personal images of them.

And this is what happens as you get older and your kids get older.  You look back on your own childhood, whether you want to or not, it comes back.  And your perspective changes.  What was once innocent and simple, a little messed up, but normal and so perfect, now becomes flooded with bad memories, negativity, and anger.  And what's unfair is that they don't know that.  They feel the distance, but they don't know why.  And I'm not at a place where I can tell them why.  I honestly don't feel it will benefit anyone to go back in time.  Digging up the past reveals way too much about a person and can wreck families.  But covering up ends up smothering you instead.  I am struggling with a lot of things about my childhood and family relationships I but also know that this struggle has probably helped me to work toward and achieve the kind of relationship I have with my own girls.  Which is something pretty special.  And it's been such a pretty thing covered up for this long, why open the package and risk ruining it?  In the meantime, I stay buried in our crazy busy life, consumed by the schedule of school drop offs and pick ups, practices for four kids and homework and everything in between….so nobody can even tell.

The memories and still holding on...

I have always been one to take pictures.  I have ALWAYS loved pictures.  I love photographs in the professional way as well as candid shots taken by polaroids, DSLRs, instagrams, whatever.  I love catching the moment for the purpose of preserving it. And….in a way, holding on to it.   Never forgetting it….always remembering it.  No, I can't freeze time, but I can certainly frame it, make it my screensaver or home screen and age myself while i search through photos or starve at it….remembering that time.  In the past, I have been known to take 10,000 photos in one year.  Yeah, probably capturing about 5000 moments, but either way, it's still a lot of photos.  I make a photo book at the end of the year (with about 300 of those photos) to tell our story in a special way and that can be picked off the shelf at any time to reminisce…or whatever.   But that's not to say that I don't ever go back to those dated folders on my hard drive or old printed photos, to search for a specific photo that I KNOW I had snapped.  Like that one year I had a photo of Owen wearing the potato head glasses and thought it would be fun to include photos of each of the kids when they were toddlers wearing those silly things because I knew they all did it and I was SURE I had Captured.The.Moment.

That is just one example.

I have argued with my husband a time or two before about him always looking so far in the future and not enjoying the present while he rebuts I am always looking in the past at old photos and books and then being sad that the time went by so quickly.  I think it's kind of Mars vs. Venus but I don't deny that I enjoy old memory books.  And I do my best creating memory books and boxes for my kids for when they are older and sometimes will initiate a conversation at the dinner table of the memories we made in our first home and their favorite times from childhood.so.far.  I know from my own experience and as a bystander that one's past is comprised of what their memory is of it.  Whether their memory is accurate or not.  If you have an idea in your head of how something happened in your past, unless it's photographed or journaled, there is not really any way to correct the memory if it's wrong, or prove that  it is right.  Just sit around at a family reunion sometime and listen to siblings or parents reminisce and almost always, there is a disagreement, if not argument, on what happened in an old story….who did it, who won, who got caught, who broke what, etc….

As much fun as I have with photos and momentos that help me remember fun moments, like ticket stubs, programs, receipts or whatever, I recently lost a very important momento (that's what I am calling it) to me and I am trying to help myself get over it.  I'm trying to justify the difference between material things and memories…the tangible vs. the intangible.  Since my most plentiful and present moemntos are photos, those are tangible, are they material?  Because I don't want to be a material person. (I know I am but I strive not to be. Don't judge.)  I spend precious time (read: HOURS) making things for my kids to remember their childhood when they get older and for  me to reminisce and even spend money producing these things.  These are the kinds of things I would grab if there were a fire or a natural disaster headed my way.  (After grabbing my children of course) But not because they are things….because they remind me of moments.  Of time.  Of life.  Of our history.  They are what tells our story and proves our memories write or wrong.  They document things that will be forgotten.  Yes, forgotten.  Because we can't possibly remember every little detail and with 10000 pictures per 365 days, there were a lot of details documented, right?

Memories. Details. Things so desperately held on to as our kids are growing up right before our very eyes.  This is kind of a battle I am fighting within myself of how important these things are to me.  Are they too important?  I would rather spend time ON my kids than on looking through all those pictures OF my kids…right?  Actually, I don't regret any of the time I have spent on my memory keeping.  I'm sure not everyone is like me.  But I don't.  I'm so glad I have the finished products of the things I have stayed up late creating.  The momento I lost, though, is not a photograph.  However, it is present in MANY of my photographs.  And though I knew I wouldn't always have this momento to come back to, I never ever wanted to see it go. Or see it gone.  It tells a story all by itself.  Just it's presence and just by looking at it and touching it, thousands of memories are flooded into my mind and the minds of my kids.  I just hate that it's gone.

It's our swing set.  Our old, warn with broken parts, but still lots of life….swingset.  Our renters' kids used the swing set and they have taken it with them. (on our accord--not mine, my husbands).  I didn't know this arrangement had been made so it was a heartbreaker when I laid my eyes upon an empty spot in our yard that once held a piece of our families history.   Milestones were marked there.  Battles were fought and won there.  Treasures were built and buried there.  Flights were landed there.  Stories were made and told there.  The rhythmic squeak of a swing being ridden….all in that spot.  By three of our children.  And a swing set has been what I have missed most for Owen since we moved.

But now that I got my sob story out and it is obvious what that old thing meant to me, I don't want it to be so important.  I don't want to feel this way over something that is material.  But I am just trying to tell the difference, in my heart, between that being a thing, or it being many happy memories that we will have forever.  Yes, we could have still played on it on our once or twice-a-year visits back to this place,  but we can also replace it for that matter.  But there's the bar that Karly used to flip over and the swing that Emma and Karly would jump out of and the slide that Reese would slide down and the sand box that he hid his army men in…where Owen would have done the same thing...

But it's all just stuff.  And I don't need to be so emotional about it.  And I'm trying not to be.  I'm just bummed.  I didn't expect it to be gone when I rush Owen around the corner and told him to "Look at what you get to play on!" and then find nothing there.  He hardly noticed as he ran off and played in the dirt.  No big deal.  He doesn't remember that thing.  And I didn't expect him to.

That's why I took all those pictures.

MIssing you...

Chase,

We are spending time together as a family as much as we can this week.  It doesn't make it hurt less that you're not here, but it does make it more bearable.  Leaning on each other is what we do and what we do best at times like this.  I spent the day at your daddy's side and we talked about you and shared you with each other.  We miss you with every breath we take and that will never change.  THank you, though, for the gift you have given us and continue to give us.  We struggle to see them at times, but we are searching for you always.  We love you little buddy.  

Hurting for you today,

mommy

5 Years Old....Happy Birthday in Heaven sweet boy...

Mama misses you.  I can't ever say enough how much I miss you.  There are not enough words in our vocabulary to describe the love and loss I feel for you.  Today you would be 5 years old and I would be teary-eyed thinking about the last of your pre-kindergarten days.  I would love to have that right now.  I would give it a thousand times over if I didn't have to live this life on earth without you.

I hope you have the most wonderful of birthdays up in Heaven my sweet boy.  I know you know we are thinking about you and celebrating you today and always and hold you closely in our hearts.  You live within us each day as I see you in each of your siblings.  I see you in the beautiful signs of spring and in all the signs you send us.  I miss you sweet boy. Happy Birthday.

Love,

Mall Scavenger Hunt birthday party....I survived!

I have written about this on both the girls' blogs so that they will have (my version of) a little bit of detail to come back and reminisce on....But I wanted to include this on my blog, too.  This was a very important night for me.

My girls are 6th and 8th grade.  That's 12 and 14 years old.  They are mini adults.  They are making bigger and bigger decisions all the time.  They are growing up and I have nothing to do about it.  Except make memories while it happens.

When they were little I went all out with birthday parties and the planning that went into them.  We did princes  more than a few times, we did spa parties, cooking studio parties, fancy tea parties, bowling parties, roller skating, horses, safari scavenger hunt....the list goes on.  We talk about them every year at their birthdays and try to remember the theme to each one.  But the last couple years, they kind of dwindled.  Or were replaced by bigger gifts like summer camp or expensive concert tickets (great memories!).  Moving from NM to CO also factored in because it has taken a while to build up their friend base which is what a party is really based on.

This year Emma did a little searching on Pinterest and decided she wanted another scavenger hunt.  And though the Lion King 5th birthday party was pretty awesome, she wanted to do one in the mall with her friends.  And oh yeah, it has to be, like, hard mom.  Okay?  For 14-year-olds.

Great.  No pressure.

In the meantime, as kind of a long time wish of mine, I talked Karly into joining us and combining her party with Emmas so both groups would be in the hunt.  Karly's situation is a little different as her friend base is pretty volatile (read: inconsistent).  It changes quite often.  But as the time neared, she was able to formulate one of the four teams that would be in our Scavenger Hunt Party.

I got a lot of my ideas off of Pinterest but here are pictures of the stuff I ended up making...I did two versions.  Turquoise for Emma and Pink for Karly.  Everything else was the same for each girl.

Invitation and envelope, goody bag, water bottle, hunt rules and scoring sheets.

Again, I found these on Pinterest but instead of purchasing them, I made them myself in Photoshop.

For the "credit card" I used business adhesive 3M card protectors.

The goodies were big size candy bars and some candy from the candy store, beauty items from Forever 21, glass bottle of soda and straw, and face mask/mud from Forever 21.  

The party was from 4-7pm as the mall told me it starts thinning out in the mall after 5pm on a Saturday.  I had asked the stores (and the mall) that I was including on my hunt before hand if it was okay to send my girls in.  There were a couple stores that said no so I steered them clear of those.  The hunt part was from 4-6pm.  Then they came back to the food court and ate, had cake and got their prizes.  I learned a lot from this experience and unfortunately, I wouldn't have know if I hadn't tried it this way.  But the girls loved it and we talked about doing it every year.  I had a lot of fun with it because it was a fun "girl" thing to do. 

As my girls get older, I see them growing into the adults they will soon be.  I am absolutely loving talking to them and spending time with them as they grow.  They are such cool, neat little spirits. They are so much like they were when they were 5 and 3.  In some ways they haven't changed a bit and I just smile to myself when I think about those times.  As I get older and my kids reach the age that I wished I had done things like this, my brain sends me back to that time in my life.  The things that my parents did or didn't do to make my childhood the way I wanted it to be.   Teenagers usually go through a phase where their parents "ruin their life" and I expect that.  But I fully intend to make the best of my time with my "big girls" now that they are old enough to do things that I like to do (and wear the same clothes, ha!).  Our relationship is growing with them.  We are learning from our mistakes and they know I will make mistakes, too.  I have already shown them that.  But I have owned up to it and admitted where I went wrong and how I will try to do things differently next time.   We talk about the decisions we make and how they affect the rest of the family.  About being happy with who you are and what you are doing.  And this all goes for me as well as them.  As long as they know I'm not perfect but I'm honest and am not hiding things from them, I think I have a little less chance of ruining their lives forever.  ;-)  Things are well right now.  I  know there will be ups and downs.  But I intend to make it through those times and come out holding hands on the other side.  Or I will die trying.  Here's to the many more memories we will be making.....