Halloween 2013

We had a really fun Halloween season. Both girls understood what Halloween was and looked forward to the actual day/week of celebration.

I asked Megan what she wanted to be this year, and she told me she didn’t care as long as she was coordinated with her brother and sister. SCORE! A girl after my own heart. She has loved the themed Halloween costumes of the past. I wonder how long this will last with her.

I decided to still base their costumes off of something she loved, so I choose to have her be an elf (she loves “Elf on the Shelf”) and coordinate brother and sister with her. So I give you, Santa, an elf, and a snowman.

The children wore Halloween attire throughout the month. Not as much as in years past, but every couple of days I put them in Halloween clothing.

This Halloween bow tie was a gift from my cousin Sara. And Alec’s jean jacket was sent to me for Jack from my good friend Heather.

We did a lot of fun Halloween activities during the month of October. One night, for family home evening, we carved pumpkins. The girls didn’t really care to carve pumpkins. All they really cared was that we had carved pumpkins. So mostly I did the pumpkin carving. Do I say every year that I’m not doing it next year? Probably.

We took the girls trick or treating to the assisted living center. They had a great time and they brought a smile to the faces of a lot of people.

Our ward had a “trunk or treat” for the first time since we’ve been in the ward and the children loved it. There was a chili dinner, lots of fun activities, and trick or treating in the upstairs rooms (since it was raining out.) We all had a great time.

Megan’s school has a Halloween parade every year which is a lot of fun. They have the preschool children parade around while we wait for the school aged children to arrive and Jane loved that. She was an absolute DIVA making the rounds; waving and smiling and dancing her way through the crowd. She was so cute. She is something else, that’s for sure.

Then Megan arrived and just lit up the room with her smile. She is just so sweet. She may have put her hat on inside out and her costume on backwards, but she was just so radiant and happy. She was the cutest little elf.

Megan woke up Halloween morning to find a surprise visit from her elf, Jass. She was so excited and wrote a note back to Jass.

On Halloween night we went to a party at our old bishop’s home, and then we set out for trick or treating. The girls had fun, but we were tired and done before long. It seemed like there were a lot of homes with their porch light on but no one answered. It was pretty anti-climatic for the girls to go from door to door and no one answered. They had fun, but it made for a long night.

I love being a mom and being able to witness holidays through the eyes of my children. I hope you all had a happy Halloween as well!!!

Alec at 7 Months

It’s getting more and more daunting keeping up with this blog as we get busier and busier! I’m going to try to sprint to the finish today but let’s be honest…it’s probably not going to happen!

Alec is now seven months old. And he is glorious! I love that little boy so so much. He is so sweet and cute and perfect.

He is a sleeping rock star; sleeping all through the night and then napping 3 times a day. He is nursing to sleep more often now, but I can still lay him down awake and he’ll go to sleep on his own (although if he even slightly whimpers I rock him.) He takes a long nap in the morning, a shorter one in the early afternoon, and another short one in the evening.

He isn’t yet a big fan of solid foods, although he does like finger foods like puffs and bananas or avocados in a mesh feeder. He had 6 teeth by 7 months so he can definitely munch on the more textured food. I’m going slow with the food and trying not to worry…too much.

He’s still not crawling on all fours yet…which I thought for sure would have happened weeks ago, and I wonder if it will ever happen with how fast he is! He can pull himself to a sit and even to a stand on lower furniture. The other day I came downstairs to find him trying to get up the stairs. I really love the image of a little baby crawling around on all fours, but he is definitely super mobile just moving around snake style. I guess only time will tell if he will skip the traditional crawl all together.

He is a very determined boy who knows what he wants and will let us know it too. A few weeks ago we were outside playing and he was in my arms and the girls were running around playing and he made it VERY clear that he wanted to be down playing. He was rocking and squirming and squeaking in my arms. I didn’t really want to put him down on the grass or ground but I did and he was SO HAPPY.

If ever the front door opens and anyone goes outside, Alec makes it very apparent that he wants outside too. If he is on the ground, he books it for the door. If he is being held or is in his high chair, he leans and pushes and pulls toward the door. He’s like this with anything he wants to get or do. I am grateful that he is capable of “communicating” with us, but man, he is very determined about getting what he wants.

Alec also really, really, reeeeeeeally loves his mama. Alec needed to be referred to a urologist by our doctor, and when the urologist met him, she commented on how he already had awareness of strangers and how he seemed so attached to his mom. No complaints here. He for sure loves his dad and his sisters but there is no place he would rather be than in his mother’s arms. And there is no where I would rather have him be.

We all just grow more and more in love with Alec every day and can’t imagine our family without him. He is the very definition of a sweetheart and he just has us all wrapped around his little finger.

25% of Second Grade: In the Books

Megan is doing really wonderful at school. She is loving second grade. Her teachers are wonderful and they love her. So far, so good.

It does seem as though Megan expends all of her mental stability at school and has little left when she gets home. The first few weeks were pretty intense at home, but it does seem as though she is getting better with each passing day. I think we are working our way up to a high point on this rollercoaster we call Megan. I am really, really, really hopeful we stay there for a while…especially with the holidays approaching!!!

Megan’s English teacher sent them home with a challenge to read 100 books. It took Megan almost no time at all to get it done (and honestly, I didn’t even keep track of ALL the books she read.) She was so excited to be the first student to turn in her chain, and the other students were so happy for her. It was a great day.

Megan has always been quite the scholar, and it seems she is super excelling in Chinese and Math. I am so proud of her and all her hard work and accomplishments. I sure love this little girl!

Ridiculous

Lying in my bed here. No reason I shouldn’t just go to sleep. But instead I wanted to write a post. Things have been crazy busy lately. It’s been a long time since I’ve been this short on time. Truth be told, my time is filled with all good things, there’s nothing I’d like to let go of or change. It just means there’s not really extra time for other good things.

Anyway, it’s been a while since I’ve used this blog as the therapeutic outlet I once heavily relied upon. Lately I’ve felt a need to do so. The other night/morning Alec woke to nurse several hours before the day was to begin. In those quiet and early hours, he does not completely wake, nor does anyone else in the home stir. Except me. It takes about 8 minutes to feed him and lay him back down but I usually end up lying awake much longer than that.

This particular night, Alec had his little fist clenched around one of my fingers and I was running my fingers through his combover hair and I was thinking about how much I love him and all of a sudden I was just so angry that Jack wasn’t allowed to stay with me. I would have been such a good mother to him! I would have loved him so much and done anything for him and taken such good care of him. It’s ridiculous that I didn’t get a chance to do that. Our family is so incomplete and now for the rest of my life I have to walk around with these ugly shoes that don’t even fit and they just hurt so badly.

I know a thing or two about chronic pain. Every day of my life I’m aware of the things that I should avoid unless I want to be in a world of hurt with pain radiating down my back through my legs and knees and ankles and even into my toes. I’ve lived with physical pain for over two years now. I’m over him. I ignore him as he pesters me, and occasionally I accidentally bump into him and sometimes that gets ugly, but for the most part I sneak and crawl and quietly tip-toe around him. And this living arrangement works for us. At least for now. 

But chronic pain is different from emotional pain and a backache is different from a heartache. My brother Loren, who is a chiropractor, taught me that the body tends to get used to physical pain and that even though the trigger may not heal, the body will adapt and change in order to lessen the pain. I believe this has happened for me. But emotional pain? Overwhelming grief and loss? There’s no adapting to that. I can’t just ignore it and hope there are no incidental run-ins. I see it in the face of my living children. I hear it when people ask “how many kids do you have?” I feel it in my heart when we’re all home together, enjoying an evening in, but we’re not really all together, nor will we ever be…at least not in this lifetime. I can sense the pain knocking at the door, waiting for me to answer and the knocking gets louder and louder and more impatient as Jack’s birthday and the holidays and then his death-day loom near. And it’s just so….well it’s ridiculous that’s what it is.  

With my back, it’s easy to cover up the hurt and mask the pain and pretend that things are just fine. I just walk a little straighter and bear down on the stronger leg and I’ve got the world fooled. But it’s so exhausting. But even more exhausting is trying to hid the longing for and missing of my little boy who would be almost five. What a fun age! He would be learning to read and riding a bike and idolizing superheroes. Maybe he would be a handful. And maybe he would have special needs. But at least he would be here. And I could touch him and hold him and scoop him up in my arms and I wouldn’t have to lay in bed and wonder what he would look like and be like, and I wouldn’t have to get angry and mentally cry out “I would have been so good to him!”

And there wouldn’t be such a huge, gaping, excruciating hole in my heart.

I need to sleep now. With tears rolling down the sides of my face and a painful lump in my throat. But in a few short hours Alec will wake and I will tend to him and I will hold him close and I will cherish the opportunity I have to prove how good I can be to him and how very much I love him. And when morning comes, I’ll pull myself out of bed and dust myself off. And I’ll bandage up my heart and I’ll crack open the door and tell the pain waiting on the other side that I know. I know my grief is waiting there for me. And I know the next few months are going to be difficult. But I’m going to wag my finger at that hurt and despair and I’m going to remind it that I would have been so good to Jack.

And I’ll also throw in that this whole thing is just so ridiculous.