One of my all time favorite things to do is read. Since I have been really busy lately with work, school, family life and my social life I haven't had much time to fit it into my schedule. Well now that I am at school Tuesdays and Thursdays I have a break in my day where I find a bench on campus and read for an hour. This is one of my favorite times of day. The weather has been so beautiful lately that is has been really hard for me to pack up my book and my lunch and head back to class.
One of my favorite authors is Jodi Picoult. I love love love her stuff. She writes fiction but in the two books that I have read so far these things really could happen. The first book of hers I read was My Sister's Keeper and the second one I read was 19 Minutes. Both of these books had endings that you thought you had figured out and then BAM! she throws a curve ball at you. I am over halfway done with A Change of Heart right now and I am eager to figure out what is next in line. Anyone have any suggestions?
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Hooray for Daddy!
Jay had a great day at work on Monday so Caiden and I wanted to do something extra special for him. I decided this was the proper time to introduce Caiden to finger painting and I am so glad I did! He did such a great job and I had so much fun watching him experiment with the colors and create textures with his hands. He only tried to eat it once and I got to it before he put it in his mouth. No worries though- I bought non-toxic washable paint for him. I am an art teacher in training so these are things I am constantly thinking of. Anyway, I was very happy with the outcome and so was Jay. Caiden's painting is proudly on display in his office cubicle for everyone to see.
Antioch Park
This weekend Caiden and I met a few of the other mommies and kids from the Mom's Forum at Antioch Park. This park is so beautiful and it is packed full of activities for kids and places for families to gather. We loved it so much we stayed for over 2 hours! After the other mommies and babies left Jay met us for a stroll around the lake and we got to see most of the park. It is so big we will have to make another trip out there soon to see the rest of it!
Thank you so much to Lori, Skyler, Heather and Braden for playing with us- we had a blast~
On a side note, it was interesting taking Caiden and Braden to the park where there was an Aiden and a Jayden. Who knows next time we might add a Hayden or a Payton?!
Monday, September 15, 2008
When sadness overcomes what do you do?
I have been really down lately and most of you know why. Just when I think I have dug myself out of my hole something happens that puts me right back in it. Well the truth is I lost a baby recently. This is such a hard thing for me to say out loud and I am hoping that by writing about it it might help me. As many of you know this isn't the first time this kind of thing has happened. In fact, from what I am hearing now from my doctor, it most likely will not be the last.
This is truly a heartbreaking thing to face and I have unfortunately done it somewhat publicly. When I say "publicly" it is because we had just started telling people about our little bundle of joy. We were careful in the beginning and thought that by keeping it a secret we would be protecting ourselves and our feelings from becoming something that others feel they could be a part of. Having a baby, of course, is usually such a wonderful experience that originally people truly want to be a part of it. Well in our case we are now 1 for 3 so it hasn't proven to be such a great thing quite yet for our family.
While many people tend to loose their babies early on I seem to loose mine rather late in the first trimester. Because of this I am now considered "High Risk" by my doctor. For example in this case I had already gone in 4 times and had 2 sonograms done before I found out my baby was no longer living. (To those who may not know, I lost this one and the other one around 11 weeks). In fact, we had already seen our baby's heartbeat and confirmed that it was alive and healthy. I had no indications that anything was wrong in the beginning and neither did my doctor. I was still incredibly tired and very very nauseous more days than not. I don't know about you but I have always heard that it is a good sign when you have these symptoms so of course I had no idea anything was wrong.
Since this is a public blog I don't want to go into too much detail about the things that happened to me in the last two and a half weeks. They are still personal and incredibly heartbreaking and because of that I cannot bring myself to talk about them. What I can share with everyone is a couple of experiences that came out of no where but will never be forgotten.
To start I must explain that my husband and I were in a store shopping recently with my son. We had just decided on a gift and were making our way to the front when we stopped to look at a display. While we were both discussing whether or not we should buy this particular product I got a tap on my shoulder. When I turned around there was an older woman standing there. When I looked at her she simply pointed her finger at my son and said, "Good job", then walked away. Now I know that to most people this is nothing; but to me- at this time in my life-it was everything. How is it that this stranger who knows nothing about me can come up to me at such a time in my life and tell me the one thing I needed to hear? Was she an angel sent from above? I will never know. All I do know is that she came just in time. She didn't try to talk to me about her own life or try to delve into mine she simply stated what she wanted to then went about with her shopping. I was able to hold my composure until I left the store and when I got to the car I started crying so so hard.
These are things I deal with daily. I know that each day will get easier as it usually does for most people and I find comfort in the normal parts of my life. I like being able to go places where people don't feel awkward around me and no one asks me how I am feeling (FYI- this is quite possibly the worst thing you could do). In fact, when I was at work last Friday I got a huge shock from a random customer who came into my store. This man came in 2o minutes before we close and asked me to match up a listello (an intricate tile border) from a picture he had in his phone. Well as you can guess there are tons and tons of different designs for tiles out there and matching up this exact one was going to be very diffucult. He had no information to help me with regarding where the original tile had come from or what it was made out of. The only thing he could tell me was that he thought it was a natural stone. (This clue in itself really wasn't that great for those of you who don't know about natural stone v. porcelain/ceramic.) Anyway, long story short I was able to match up his tile for him and get it to him rather quickly. While I was working on completing the order the man stepped closer to me and told me I had made his day. Well since it was Friday I kind of made a joke about it to a colleague of mine and kept on typing. When the man stepped closer and said, "No, when I said you truly made my day what I meant was I lost my 8 month old daughter yesterday. I own my own company so I couldn't afford to not work today. Because you helped me find this so quickly I can now go back to the hospital to be with my wife." He then proceeded to tell me that he had anticipated an afternoon full of driving from store to store until he found his match. I don't know about you but I am guessing he was still in shock which is how and why he was still working when he so obviously should have been with his family.
I'm not quite sure why he felt comfortable telling me about his lose. I mean, he and I were complete strangers. If anything it made me realize that there might be some comfort in telling my story- to either a friend or a stranger. While I would never wish my misfortune on anyone else at the very least maybe I could give someone comfort in knowing they are not alone in their troubles.
I posted this for many reasons but pity is not one of them. Please don't comment on how sorry you are for me. Obviously by my postw there are many other situations out there that are equal or worse to mine. This is an outlet for me and I don't wish to have people take pity on me. I only want for people to be able to relate to me in one way or another.
This is truly a heartbreaking thing to face and I have unfortunately done it somewhat publicly. When I say "publicly" it is because we had just started telling people about our little bundle of joy. We were careful in the beginning and thought that by keeping it a secret we would be protecting ourselves and our feelings from becoming something that others feel they could be a part of. Having a baby, of course, is usually such a wonderful experience that originally people truly want to be a part of it. Well in our case we are now 1 for 3 so it hasn't proven to be such a great thing quite yet for our family.
While many people tend to loose their babies early on I seem to loose mine rather late in the first trimester. Because of this I am now considered "High Risk" by my doctor. For example in this case I had already gone in 4 times and had 2 sonograms done before I found out my baby was no longer living. (To those who may not know, I lost this one and the other one around 11 weeks). In fact, we had already seen our baby's heartbeat and confirmed that it was alive and healthy. I had no indications that anything was wrong in the beginning and neither did my doctor. I was still incredibly tired and very very nauseous more days than not. I don't know about you but I have always heard that it is a good sign when you have these symptoms so of course I had no idea anything was wrong.
Since this is a public blog I don't want to go into too much detail about the things that happened to me in the last two and a half weeks. They are still personal and incredibly heartbreaking and because of that I cannot bring myself to talk about them. What I can share with everyone is a couple of experiences that came out of no where but will never be forgotten.
To start I must explain that my husband and I were in a store shopping recently with my son. We had just decided on a gift and were making our way to the front when we stopped to look at a display. While we were both discussing whether or not we should buy this particular product I got a tap on my shoulder. When I turned around there was an older woman standing there. When I looked at her she simply pointed her finger at my son and said, "Good job", then walked away. Now I know that to most people this is nothing; but to me- at this time in my life-it was everything. How is it that this stranger who knows nothing about me can come up to me at such a time in my life and tell me the one thing I needed to hear? Was she an angel sent from above? I will never know. All I do know is that she came just in time. She didn't try to talk to me about her own life or try to delve into mine she simply stated what she wanted to then went about with her shopping. I was able to hold my composure until I left the store and when I got to the car I started crying so so hard.
These are things I deal with daily. I know that each day will get easier as it usually does for most people and I find comfort in the normal parts of my life. I like being able to go places where people don't feel awkward around me and no one asks me how I am feeling (FYI- this is quite possibly the worst thing you could do). In fact, when I was at work last Friday I got a huge shock from a random customer who came into my store. This man came in 2o minutes before we close and asked me to match up a listello (an intricate tile border) from a picture he had in his phone. Well as you can guess there are tons and tons of different designs for tiles out there and matching up this exact one was going to be very diffucult. He had no information to help me with regarding where the original tile had come from or what it was made out of. The only thing he could tell me was that he thought it was a natural stone. (This clue in itself really wasn't that great for those of you who don't know about natural stone v. porcelain/ceramic.) Anyway, long story short I was able to match up his tile for him and get it to him rather quickly. While I was working on completing the order the man stepped closer to me and told me I had made his day. Well since it was Friday I kind of made a joke about it to a colleague of mine and kept on typing. When the man stepped closer and said, "No, when I said you truly made my day what I meant was I lost my 8 month old daughter yesterday. I own my own company so I couldn't afford to not work today. Because you helped me find this so quickly I can now go back to the hospital to be with my wife." He then proceeded to tell me that he had anticipated an afternoon full of driving from store to store until he found his match. I don't know about you but I am guessing he was still in shock which is how and why he was still working when he so obviously should have been with his family.
I'm not quite sure why he felt comfortable telling me about his lose. I mean, he and I were complete strangers. If anything it made me realize that there might be some comfort in telling my story- to either a friend or a stranger. While I would never wish my misfortune on anyone else at the very least maybe I could give someone comfort in knowing they are not alone in their troubles.
I posted this for many reasons but pity is not one of them. Please don't comment on how sorry you are for me. Obviously by my postw there are many other situations out there that are equal or worse to mine. This is an outlet for me and I don't wish to have people take pity on me. I only want for people to be able to relate to me in one way or another.
Ahh...the glory of potty training
has only just begun.
While this is something we have started and stopped and started and stopped I am hoping we are starting again. C seems to go in and out of interest when it comes to potty training. We bought a potty a couple of months ago when he started telling us when his diaper was wet or dirty. We were taking him in the bathroom after he would eat and drink but we had no success and he actually acted a little freaked out by this. Since he isn't even 2 yet we decided not to push it. We want this to be something he is ready for and not forced into doing. We do offer him M&Ms as an incentive to use the potty even though I am in training to be a teacher and everything I have read about extrinsic rewards turns me off. Anyway, this weekend we had some success with the potty and made sure to let him know that we were really really proud of his accomplishment.
Jay told me it was weird that I took a picture of his pee pee but I needed proof!
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
Sometimes we don't have all the answers...
and after several days of looking I decided I don't need them. I have been home the last couple of days looking through old pictures of Caiden in fact, it seems weird to say "old" pictures. He is only 1 and a half! What an incredible journey it has been so far. He has truly changed my life and I can't even express in words how much I love him. His laugh is absolutely contagious and his little grin, well it makes my heart melt just a little every time. I am so so blessed to be able to wake up to his little voice every single day and for that I am so thankful. Here are some pictures of our journey together...and it's only the beginning!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)