back home again

So I took a very long break from blogging.  I didn't even think about it.  But then I realized I have no idea what's going on with my favorite bloggers, too, and I miss you guys.  So I'll be catching up here and there this week.  But it was good to unplug a little.  Not counting Instagram because that's pretty much an addiction at this point.  

The littles and I had a trip back to my hometown planned since the summer is Brian's busy time at work.  We were planning on staying a couple of weeks, lounging on the beach, and seeing lots of friends and family.  And we did all that!  But a few days before we had planned on leaving, my grandmother passed away.  So Brian took off from work, and helped me throw luggage in the car, and we caravanned it up together.  He took the kiddos to his parent's house and my parents and I headed to North Carolina for my Grandmother's memorial service.  It was a bit of a whirlwind, and although it was a sad reason to be there, it was so good seeing Uncles, Aunts, and cousins- some that I hadn't seen in decades.  

 When I got back, Brian was already on his way back to Missouri.  So the littles and I resumed our trip as planned.  We had cousin time, grandparent time, friend time, and a load of beach time.  My parent's home is just down the road from the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore.  We spent more time at the beach than anywhere else, and it was lovely.  All these pictures are from one evening, since I didn't want to drag my camera bag every time we went.

 Can you see Chicago there in the pink light?  I love looking across the edge of Lake Michigan and seeing that skyline.  We took the train in one day and did the Field Museum, which is a wonderful natural history museum.  I HIGHLY recommend it for families with kiddos older than 3.

 On this particular night, we weren't planning on getting into the water since we had been to the beach earlier in the day.  We had planned on watching the sun sink, and then head home.  But my kids are water babies.  So shirts were stripped, and pants were soaked, and we all loved it.

 It started on a such a sad note, but this trip turned out to be so good for my soul.  I saw many old friends, a few dear friends, and I got lots of extra time with a best friend that came all the way from Colorado!  My parents were wonderful as usual, letting us run rampant through their home (while it's being remodeled!) with my friends and their littles.  And every time I go back "home" to Indiana and Chicago, I realize just how lucky I was to  have grown up in such a magical place.

So what have you all been up to this July?  I'm going to go catch up and find out!

confessions

I have to get a few things off my chest.

Number one.  Ever since opening my etsy shop, I haven't seen our dining room table.  I actually have a pretty large studio area available to me.  But only when it's the perfect temperature outside because it's in our sunroom.  Which has no heating or a/c.  So it's basically unusable roughly 95% of the year.  My options are generally a literal sweat shop OR walk in freezer.  Here's a glimpse of our table.  We have a table in our kitchen that we use, don't worry.

p.s. Mail and school papers also gets dumped on this table.  So... you know.  I'm an organizational nightmare.

Number two.  Speaking of my shop, my husband talked me into adding a Dr. Who themed hoop to my shop last week.  Confession: I haven't sold one yet!  

Number three.  Last week another mother from the kid's school asked me, "Aren't you expecting?" In her defense I hadn't seen her in a while.  But I've been in a bit of a funk ever since.

Number four.  But!  Despite said funk, I took photos of a friend's new baby and DID NOT sob all over the baby!  I even held and snuggled on him, and felt nothing but happiness and love for them all.  High five.

 Number five.  We had a 78 degree day here yesterday, and a 40 degree day today.  I really wish that we could have something in between for a couple months.  What's that called?  Spring?  Confession: I don't want summer yet.  I want Spring.  I'll even take a 50 something day over a 70 something day because I feel so strongly about the appropriate temperatures of the season.  That's right, I just went on about the appropriateness of seasonal temperatures.  I can feel you all rolling your eyes.  Luckily, I'm finished!

Thanks for listening.

on anger

taken December 7th

The stages of grief go something like this:
Denial
Anger
Bargaining
Depression
Acceptance

I feel very stuck at anger.  I know that grief is not a straight line.  I know that it won't be linear and a constant forward progression.  I know that I might take two steps forward and stumble three steps back.  I know that I don't magically wake up one morning, check the box on anger and move on to bargaining. But what I wouldn't give to fast forward to a place of peace.

I do feel the bargaining, and I do feel the depression, but I always go back to anger.  And not just anger at our situation and loss, but anger towards EVERYTHING.  Anger towards strangers posting pictures of their dinner on Instagram because: DON'T THEY KNOW SOMETHING BAD HAS HAPPENED TO ME??  I know, grief is very irrational.  Stupid grief.

The truth is that I am doing ok.  Most days I can go through the motions of being a mama to Fletcher and Rowan, and even sometimes take pleasure in something that we're doing.  Even laugh out loud at some of the funny Fletcherisms that have been pouring from Fletcher.  Even sit down as a family and play a game of Go Fish and laugh til I cry.  That means something.  That means that I am moving forward.  That I am not being swallowed whole by grief.  But I just cannot shake this pervasive anger.

I am so very angry that I no longer have a delicious baby belly like in the picture above.  And that I don't feel the baby gymnastics that go on inside.  And that in 3 1/2 months I will not be holding a sweet little bundle and breathing in that wonderful scent of newborn.  I feel so angry that I can't make a definitive decision about the future because one minute all I want is to fill this baby void and the next I know that I cannot possibly subject myself to such heartache ever again.  I feel so angry that I have to miss someone so much, that I didn't even get a chance to know.

So there it is.  I'm stuck at anger, and it's a pretty ugly, irrational place to be.  But I am having flashes of normalcy creeping in, so I am ever hopeful that I become dislodged for good.  And soon.

tree bonfire

Last weekend we had our Christmas tree bonfire.  I love Christmas tree bonfires.  They go up so quickly and so gloriously in flames!  Add in a bit of a windy day, and things get exciting.  I used the opportunity to take a load of pictures of the littles (who were disappointed that we didn't have marshmallows on hand).  And I used the opportunity to burn a list of bad habits or mindsets that I want to shed in 2014.

Since 2014 started out on such a sad note for us, we didn't really have a chance to talk about what our hopes and wishes were for the year.  My own hopes and wishes have had to go through a major adjustment.  So I thought that instead of trying to figure out new hopes and wishes, I'd do well with letting go of the rubbish in my life.

 And I tried to get the littles to smile and pose for me.  If Rowan is aware of the camera, I get a lot of goofing off.  And funny faces.  Her teacher told me that she's the class clown.  I believe it, lady.  I believe it.  Fletcher tends to ignore the camera.  It's all equally frustrating.

 Since it was a bit windy, we had the kids stand a ways back from the flames.  We all watched as the fire whooshed up to the sky quickly, and then settled back down after the needles from the tree were burned.  It was a pretty fire.

 And that is how I hope 2014 goes for us.  That the intensity, sadness, and scariness that 2014 began with wanes into a comforting, peaceful rhythm that can somehow be beautiful in the midst of the wreckage.

cormac

Brian has been urging me to get back to blogging again.  I told him I couldn't yet, because I would have to write about our loss.  And he said that I did NOT in fact have to write about it, but could just move forward with something else.  Write about Fletcher.  Or Rowan.  Or whatever.  But I can't just move forward without acknowledging our baby that we just lost.  I know it's not a fun topic for a blog post.  I know this post won't be funny.  Or witty.  Or flippant.  Or fun to read.  It's also not going to be fun to write.  But I HAVE TO WRITE IT.  Because I can't move forward without pausing in my current sorrow.  And the sorrow is overwhelming right now.  I'm trying not to wallow in the sorrow, but to allow myself to pause in it.  I don't want to become petrified by it, but just pause in it.  I don't want to become lodged and paralyzed in it, but I will pause in it.  I have no idea how long this pause will last, but here I am.  Paused.

And the facts of the matter are that my water broke at 20 weeks pregnant, and two days later I went into labor and had a baby boy many weeks too soon to allow for his survival.  And I've searched mentally for any reason that this happened, but there seems to be none.  My mind keeps washing over the few days before my water broke, wearing my memories smooth.  Did I feel pain?  Did I feel cramping?  Did I... cause this?  And of course the "answer" is NO.  But my heart nags at the question in such a way that I can't help but revisit the days before I lost our baby.

Our baby.  Was a boy.  We named him Cormac Michael.  He was 7.8 ounces and 9 inches long.  He was beautiful.  He was tiny, a miniature of a perfectly formed baby boy.  It broke our hearts to see him before it was time.  It broke our hearts to say goodbye to him before it was time.  We held him and kissed him before it was time.

And it happened on the first day of 2014.

on the mend

These are the scenes of the last 24 hours.  Hence my lack of a real post.  But!  Rowan woke up and her fever was gone, and she was asking for breakfast!  And although Fletcher was still warm when he got up, he just came into the kitchen asking for "a cheese sangwich, apples, cucumbers, and carrots, please."  We're taking a bit slower than that on the food front, but I took it as a good sign. 

We're on the mend after a day of sparkling water and juice, watching Shaun the Sheep on the ipad in mama and papa's bed, and lot of naps and snuggles.  Do you have sick-time rituals in your home? 

goodbye house. goodbye friends. goodbye neighbors. goodbye west dundee.

Tuesday I took the littles to my parent's house.  Wednesday morning I drove back to our house and watched as all our stuff got packed up into big boxes.  You never realize how much crap you've accumulated until you see it all in boxes.

I may have cried when they packed up the kid's rooms.  It was sad to see the rooms empty.

And today I watched as the boxes were loaded into the truck.  The huge huge truck needed for the crap we had accumulated.  Our house felt echo-y and empty.  Especially without the kids running through. 

And then I said one last good bye to our little house.

And then I said one last goodbye to West Dundee.  I fell in love with our little village.  I hope we find homes and towns as wonderful as we had here.  And I hope we find friends and neighbors as wonderful as we had here, too.  We'll miss you all!

I would be really sad and depressed right now, but tomorrow I'm leaving for a long weekend with my 3 best friends!  We're going to Vegas, and I just feel excited and happy to have something so great to look forward to.  So I'll be away from here for a little while.  Try not to miss me too much, and I'll update soon with details from a trip to Vegas!

goodbye, little crazy friend

The dog is a gentleman; I hope to go to his heaven, not man's.  ~Mark Twain

Yesterday we said goodbye to our little French Bulldog, Napoleon.  I thought I would feel relief at him dying, but I only feel so sad.  If you don't know why I would feel relief, then you never met Napoleon.  He had a bad addiction to water.  No joke.  He would drink out of any receptacle- toilet, plant containers, open dishwasher, bathtubs- anything that had water.  And then once his bladder was completely full, he would have numerous accidents regardless of how many times we would let him out.  His system just was whack.  We literally spent thousands of dollars trying to figure out what was wrong.  No urinary tract problems, no diabetes, no kidney disorders, no hormonal imbalances.  IT WAS ALL IN HIS HEAD.  His official diagnosis was psychogenic polydipsia.  In layman's terms: dog was CRAZY.  We even tried doggie-antidepressants, but no dice.  So since I am the stay at home mama, it usually fell to me to measure out his water, keep him out of the bathrooms, let him out every half hour, and clean up 2-4 accidents every day.  We got a carpet steamer simply out of necessity.  And I pretty much resented the dog for making me do all of it. 

I am not a dog person.  I know, tsk tsk, from all you dog people.  But I'm not even a cat person.  I'm an "I don't want an animal in my house" person.  But my husband is a huge dog person.  The only time in his life that he didn't own a dog is during the time we lived in Texas and he was deployed for 2 out of those 3 years.  I knew it was one of those non-negotiables when we got married.  I knew in advance that we would always own a dog, no matter WHAT.  So I tried to control the whole situation by insisting that I get to pick out the dog.  So after a lot of dog breed research and analysis, I settled on the French Bulldog.  They are lazy, sociable, and pretty good with kids.  And not too big, but not yippy or barky.  And oh so cute.  Napoleon was the cutest puppy I had ever seen.  He was perfect for us, and I actually fell in love with him. 

And then he went bat shit.  And we went into overdrive trying to figure out how to cure him.  I felt defeated when we realized there would be no cure.  And my love for him slowly turned to resentment.  He used to cuddle up and sleep with us- but now he started peeing on us in the middle of the night.  We had to start crating him at night and whenever we left.  It was madness.  And I wanted out of it all.  I wanted to give him away, get rid of him, drive him to Lake Michigan and let him die happy.  And you may think badly of me, but keep in mind that we've dealt with this for the past 3 YEARS.  He was only one year old when he went insane. 

Unfortunately, in those 3 years, our children have been born and had grown attached. 

{meeting Fletcher for the first time}

They both loved to give pets, kisses, and snuggles to him, and Napoleon tolerated it all very well.  He even seemed to be warming up to Fletcher, whose pets had started becoming less and less aggressive.  Rowan liked to share ice cubes with him, so I think she got on with him, too. 

And Brian never wavered in his love for Napoleon.  Every night after the kids were in bed, Napoleon and Brian would snuggle up while we watched t.v.  And no matter what rules I tried to impose on no leaky dog in our bed, Brian would try and sneak him up with him during naps or rests.  Napoleon adored Brian.  When Brian was out of town on business trips, Napoleon would start staring at the door around the time Brian usually came home.  He wouldn't stop until I made him go to bed.  He was Brian's dog, through and through. 

But me?  He drove me crazy.  But I owe a huge debt of gratitude to that crazy little doggie.  We got him around 6 months after Brian got back from Iraq, and I think that crazy little doggie saved him and us in many ways.  Brian was not himself after his last tour in Iraq.  I'm putting it mildly.  Brian had ISSUES.  Who wouldn't, after everything he had been through?  But it was damaging to our marriage.  I had no way of breaking through whatever shell had built up while he had been in Iraq.  But that dog sure did.  He helped Brian so much, I'm almost jealous that the dog could do more than I ever could!  But mostly I'm just grateful. 

So now we're sad.  He died at the vet's office yesterday from a bad infection that he just couldn't overcome.  When Brian brought him home, I sat petting him while Brian dug the hole.  We both cried and said goodbye to a little dog that saved us and that drove us to the brink of insanity.  I may not have liked that dog very much, but I sure did love him. 

Plus, he let me dress him up for funny Christmas pictures.

We'll miss you, Napoleon.  I promise I'll only remember you fondly.  All is forgiven.



Rest in peace, in doggie heaven.