Little Bird

This year, this year ... so much happened.  I wish I had something profound to say.  I can barely string a sentence together so wise statements will have to wait.  I'm on my third cold since Bennett was born (seriously!), exhausted for many reasons, just home from a great trip to Seattle to see family. 2011 was stressful and wonderful and exciting.  It was full of love, joy and some sorrow - always sorrow as life continues without Charlotte. And this blog grew and grew and grew this year.  I cannot believe so many have found comfort, peace, healing and understanding here.  I am grateful and blessed to have a place to write, share, set down the crazy grief.  When I began writing here I had no idea it would become a large part of my healing.  Thank you, thank you, thank you for reading. It's been a wonderful year, and I'm excited to see what 2012 brings. And speaking of 2012, my new year's resolution: sail through 2012 without a baby in my belly.  I wa

Sorry about the crooked, not so good picture, the baby did not want to be set down, not even for a second.  And our house is slightly crooked, the floors all slant a bit, which makes playing with the dog easy.  I am really pleased with how it turned out, a few adjustments and it will be perfect, I think. I even have a little pile of books to get rid of!  J said he would like to see all the books I've ever read stacked in one place.  I can't even fathom how many books that would be - thousands?  And for those who think I need an e-reader, I probably do, but I love books, how they look, feel, smell and my one serious obsession is my books.  I just can't imagine not being surrounded by them, or buying new ones, or compiling massive lists of ones to buy.  We leave to visit family at 8am tomorrow.  I have nothing packed, laundry still to do.  J is working on kitchen shelves - yes, he's amazing, and B doesn't quite have the coordination to help.  Although

J's big gift to me this year was more - yes, more - book shelves.  Though we have many we do not have enough and the books have been accumulating on the floor in the living room. Our neighbor friends have the Expedit shelves from Ikea, I spent a lot of time admiring them so J gifted them to me, though we bought a slightly different version. We spent the afternoon shifting bookcases, moving books, hauling furniture around the house.  With everything we've moved around lately I could be a certified mover, albeit a super weak one who drops furniture quite often. If we are ever in need of money I think I will sell my books one by one, turn the downstairs of the house into a used bookshop to help us through. And that's not even all of them ... I have a problem, I simply cannot get rid of books, or stop buying them. Ikea overwhelms me.  I don't understand those who visit often.  We go once a year and must plan, think, save up before walking through the doo

How did you survive Christmas?  I made it through with cookies, candy, placenta capsules, and diet pepsi.  Seriously healthy way to do it. Sometimes I think J and I work on our marriage all year - strengthening, fixing, tightening - so we can make it through Christmas.  We are both so stressed we have to relieve pressure somehow and so we have explosive fights.  Last year we screamed about saran wrap vs. glad press 'n' seal, this year we had a fight about the diaper pail and who empties it.  Silly, stupid fights that echo with a general theme: we miss her, we miss her, we miss her. I had an added emotional bonus this year: my period.  Sorry if that's a bit too much information for those who know me in real life.  I'm exclusively breast feeding and yet my period came back right after my postpartum bleeding. Unfair, very, very unfair.  I am so jealous of women who don't get a period back for eight to twelve months.  Also on my jealously list: women who have six (

The next few days are going to be busy, busy, busy.  I hope your holiday is wonderful however you choose to spend it (under the covers is absolutely acceptable).  May you have a beautiful weekend full of love and laughter.  My heart is with those who have a place around the tree or at the table where a sweet baby should be.  We have been blessed ten times over this year.  Though this is a sad time of year I am grateful for Bennett and the joy he has brought to our lives, and I am thankful for the loving Savior whose birth is the reason for Christmas.    Peace, love and merry Christmas from our family to yours!

I've walked every day this week.  Long walks: to town twice, down to the creek and around the war memorials once.  So much heartache, too bad I can't walk it off, shed it at the war memorials where sadness gathers like fog. Although I am walking something off because I was able to get in an old pair of jeans without doing squats this morning.  Do you ever do deep knee bends to get your pants on?  It's humbling.  Also humbling: I bought a full length mirror because I finally have a good place for it now that we've moved upstairs.  I think I was better off not knowing how I looked before leaving the house.  It's impossible to be put together and clean when you have a baby. The blog has been so gloomy lately.  I think it's time for some Bennett pictures to brighten things up: Bennett likes to sit (and stand) but I don't have a Bumbo so I've been propping him in a laundry basket with toys.  My mom gave me this idea. What should I play with?

A few days ago I pulled my stash of placenta capsules from the back of the fridge to the front and started taking them daily again.  Though I forgot today and I feel like I've been run over by a truck, repeatedly.  I am so glad I saved enough to get me through the holidays, and maybe her second birthday too if I don't need them all in the next few days. I'm blogging every day, which means things are tough, tough, tough, and I need an outlet to ease the pressure some. In the new year - therapy - counseling - it's time.  Though I've said it before, though I've halfheartedly tried to find someone in the past, this time I'm serious.  If I didn't have the capsules I would need some other form of medication, so probably time to work things through. I hate that I'm somewhat missing Bennett's first Christmas.  I don't like being back here, in the deep, deep grief, when tears come in furious waves with no warning. In the morning I don't w

Having one of those days where B is (finally!) down for his nap and I'm sprawled on the couch, feet propped, hoping it lasts a good long while and thinking I need a huge glass of Diet Pepsi with tons o' ice.  I don't drink, you see, well, not really, I love me a beer once a week or so during the summer, but on days like this I don't think hmmm, a drink with lots of gin , I think hmmm, a big fat Diet Pepsi , even though it may very well give me cancer. The whole nursing deal makes consuming caffeine difficult, though Bennett doesn't seem affected by it.  I ate my weight in chocolate while on our usual Monday walk so I don't want to have anything else with caffeine in it.  (And I don't have any in the house so that makes the consuming of it difficult.)  My friend had to stop at See's to buy a Christmas present and it was crazy busy.  I had two babies, plus a five-year-old to entertain for quite some time while she went inside the very small store to pur

I asked a friend to make stockings for us.  I couldn't find anything I liked, and there's no way I could make them, so I asked and she said yes, of course.  I love, love, love the stockings she made.  We picked the fabric, handed it over and she sewed up these beauties: From left to right: mine, J's, Bennett's and Charlotte's.  It's a little silly to have a full size stocking for Charlotte, but I wanted one. We picked a different fabric for the insides.  Aren't they amazing?  I wish I had crafty talents. And she had leftover fabric so she whipped up a holiday pillow for us as well.  Of course I put him in his baby's first Chrsitmas sleeper and tried to stuff him in his stocking. What is this?  Why should I care? This sleeper is so strange.  I'm glad I bought it at the consignment store.  It buttons up the back, opens like a sack kind-of.  It looks really odd on Bennett because it's too big A

Bennett is growing so fast my uterus now believes he is no longer a baby and is urging me to create another baby for it to house.  I refuse to entertain the notion.  Well, I'm trying to refuse.  I think I'm losing the argument. This evening Bennett was having naked time on the floor in the nursery.  He has a bit of a rash on his bum and I cannot make the darn thing go away.  Tried Burt's Bees diaper rash cream, now we're on Earth Mama Angel Baby bum cream and lots of naked time.  I hope his super sensitive skin won't force me to cloth diaper him.  His legs are super dry right now too, and he has a couple personal issues, and well he's a bit of a mess.  Perhaps it's time for a doctor visit. Anyway, floor time, naked, all happy on his big robot blanket that someone at J's work made for him.  I put him on his stomach for a while to see if he would roll over and you know what he did?  Scooted forward on his belly!!  I kid you not.  I called J

Christmas is almost here!!!!  I want to open my presents now!  I know J bought me a pair of pants for when I go out walking, which will be so nice since I have to walk in jeans now because the walking pants I was wearing are too thin for this weather.  And I alternated them with a pair of yoga pants day and night for a week straight while we were in the hospital after B was born so they're a bit worn out. We had lots of Christmas traditions growing up.  I want to incorporate some of them - reading from the Bible as a family on Christmas Eve will be included for sure - but others haven't worked so far.  My mom used to buy a family game that we would open on Christmas Eve and play.  I have tried to incorporate that with J, but there's only two of us so it hasn't worked out. Maybe in a few years ...??  My sister has everyone in the family unwrap new pajamas and a movie on Christmas Eve so they can have cozy movie time the night before the big event.  Perhaps I will stea