To my blogging friends

In February I had mentioned that I wanted to do a butterfly release for Cora's birthday. Unfortunately spending $150 on live butterflies is not something we can actually afford right now. A girl on my stillbirth support forum suggested doing a "online" release. So on the forums I have all the ladies I know adding a special blinkie graphic to their signatures this Saturday in honor of Cora's 3rd birthday.

Would you also do this for me? If you do a blog post on Saturday would you put this little graphic in it for me?


Also, if you do, would you tell me in a comment that you have?

Fun for lunch

I bought Erin a box of sidewalk chalk today, so we had a picnic lunch outside and colored on the ground. She had fun not only coloring, but lining up the chalks too.

When Sister takes pictures

Does anyone live near a beach?

If you do, an online friend of mine would like a little help. Go here: 2 feet on Earth, 1 in the stars

Beer please!

She cracks me up!

And he's 2 months old today.

Where did the time go?

Patrick's 2 month appointment

So Patrick had his appointment today at 11am. I was up, showered, breakfasted and ready to go by 10am. With that hour (well, 45 minutes really) of downtime, I got curious about Erin's stats at 2 months. 22.5" and 10lbs10oz. She was 75% for height and 25% for weight.

So, since Patrick started out 12oz heavier at birth, if he grew at the same rate, he'd be 11lbs6oz (adding 12oz to Erin's 2m weight).

A month ago, he was 10lbs even. 1lb6oz in a month sounds like a good gain.

He's 23.25" (97%) and 13lbs2oz!! That's off the growth chart, by the way. He gained 3lbs2oz in a month!! >_< So he's officially a chunk.

He also got his first shots today, so he doesn't feel too hot.


And, since I have to share, how cute is Erin's hair?

For the grandparents

I'm looking through my scrapbook with Erin and pointing out Grandma and Grandpa. She says "Memma" and "Pa-pai."

Hopefully soon she'll be able to identify you on her own.

ETA: I also got her to whisper "Tim" very quietly. Sorry Kim, she just renamed you.

edited again: Adrienne is "Ayn"

The better part of my day...

So, my small trauma this morning (see previous post) put a new slant on my day. Today I have been loving every small moment I've had.

From watching Erin read a book and Patrick grin at me while I fold laundry...



To taking a walk with my babies... (Erin was wearing my kitty headband I got for Halloween and she kept saying "MOW!")

To the flower in my angel pot that bloomed today.

I know that tomorrow is never guaranteed, and this morning reminded me of it. How grateful I am to my Heavenly Father to give me the moments that He has!

What did I do to deserve this?

Okay, so this isn't really a sad post. Not for me anyway. As I've mentioned before, I belong to a stillbirth support forum. We are very close on the board, as I think you can imagine. Lately, we've had a pregnancy boom, and it's been very exciting.

But today has been devastating. We've had two losses, and for some reason it's really hitting me hard. One is Natalie. Her Devin (whom she conceived via IVF) was stillborn last March at 36 weeks. After 2 more failed IVF attempts, she got pregnant though FET (frozen embryo transfer). Today she found out it's ectopic. She's having surgery to remove her right fallopian tube this afternoon.

The second is Heather. She lost her Marshall last March too, at nearly 20 weeks. She's nearly 20 weeks now, and today found out her baby has anencephaly (note, if you click on the anencephaly link...there are pictures). She now has to make the heartbreaking decision of whether to terminate the pregnancy now, or wait until the baby dies on its own. I can't imagine how heartbreaking that decision must be.



So...why do I deserve to have two flawless pregnancies after Cora? How do I deserve to get pregnant so easily? What did I do to become so blessed?

How can the world be that unfair?

So glad I listened...

So, Matt's key is the expensive one. It's the key that has the remote lock/unlock attached to it. We've looked into it, an replacing it would be somewhere around $300. I use this key when I'm out running around during the day because a) Matt leaves it home during the day because he doesn't use the car, and b) because there's no keyhole in the passenger side door, and it's too much of a hassle to go to the driver's side, unlock the door, and then go around to the back passenger side to put Patrick in.

Well, today, I was out running around. Michael's is having a sale, and they have their Cricut cartridges (reg. $89.99) on sale for $39.99. Well, there's one that I REALLY want. It's called Lyrical Letters and it has six fonts on it. So, of course, I asked Matt if I could buy it. He said yes, and I got all excited, and I got there and they're GONE. None of the Michael's stores in the metro area have them in. *sigh* Well, at this point it was 12:20, lunch time, and I had a Visiting Teaching appointment at 1. So I went through the Burger King drivethrough, and Erin and I ate it on the way to Angie's house. We had a good visit.

So then, when I left, I unlocked the door, and tossed the keys on the passenger seat before I put Patrick in. So when I went to grab the keys after I got Erin and myself situated, they WEREN'T THERE! I looked on the floor and things, and I couldn't find them. So I got out, I looked under the car, on the sidewalk, in the bushes. I concluded that they definitely WEREN'T outside the car, so I would just use my own keys to drive home and then look through the car then.

On the way in, I stopped at the mail boxes, got the mail, and threw away the Burger King bag, and the cup and myriad water bottles that we'd collected. As I was driving back to the back of the complex, I said a little prayer that I would be able to find the keys, because they would be expensive to replace.

And then I had the thought that I should go back to the mailbox garbage can, pull out the Burger King bag, and check inside it to see if they had fallen in there when I tossed them. So I did. I went back to the mailbox and pulled the bag out of the garbage can.

Inside, amid the wrappers of my meal, were Matt's keys.

I nearly cried with relief.

So yeah, I'm so glad I listened. And I'm so glad that Heavenly Father took the time to answer my little prayer over something that maybe didn't affect my salvation, but made my day a whole lot better.

Not much to say

I know it's not like me to go 3 days without blogging. But I don't have much to say lately. Erin's been VERY cranky (I think she's finally decided she needs to get in her canines and second molars) and Patrick has been having rocky nights. He'll sleep for 4 hours, but during that time will grunt and sound generally uncomfortable (from the reflux?) and wake me up.

So I am both physically and emotionally exhausted...

So maternal

Erin never ceases to amaze me. Maybe it's because I was raised by a linguist, but I have been fascinated by her growing vocabulary. She is now adding n's and f's to the ends of her words. And the n is very enunciated (dowNUH). It's really cute, actually. She really likes taking "bafs". She'll walk up to me at bathtime and ask "da baf?" And she's picking up new words like crazy. It's really fun to watch the learning process happen.

He's such a happy little boy.

I do think he smiles more than Erin did. I feel like when he's awake and not hungry or needing a new diaper, he's smiling, and I LOVE it! It's just what I need so often. How can you be upset/frustrated/angry when you've got a baby smiling at you all the time? He's the perfect remedy for the terrible twos.

(please excuse the darkness of the pictures. He didn't like the flash...)

And it starts...

Around the time Erin was 7 weeks old, she started spitting up FOUNTAINS. Every feeding and sometimes hours afterward. It lasted for a few months.

Well, Patrick will be 7 weeks tomorrow, and is starting to do the same thing. Ugh. This morning I was burping him on my shoulder and he spit up. Not only did it go down the burp cloth in front of me, it also hit the back of the chair and went all the way down my back. EWWWWW!!!!

So yeah, I pulled out all of Erin's receiving blanket burp cloths that hold a lot more. *sigh* I'm trying to decide if I should buy some blue ones.


I'm just glad I have a washer/dryer in my apartment now, or I wouldn't have enough tshirts to make it through a week with the rate we're going!

Jealousy

I'm looking at my parents' Easter pictures and I'm so jealous that couldn't be there with everyone. I have to admit, I find the whole peeps contest idea disgusting.

And yes, I did get the Dove bunny on the recommendation from Jared. If I had seen a Lindt one, however, I would have gotten one of those. Before Jared posted that it was the winner.

Oh, and I love how Marcus isn't wearing pants in ANY of the pictures!

Easter

We colored eggs yesterday. Erin had a lot of fun, of course.

They had glue and sand that you could decorate them with.

So then we all got dressed up today

After church we brought out Erin's present, which she was so excited to see. She spent the next hour walking around the room with her baby.

And then I brought out the candy. She's never had so much candy before (not even at Christmas). She loved it. I'm going to have to make sure her teeth get brushed really well tonight!

He looks like Nano

Don't you think?




((for those of you who don't know, Nano [Nathanael] is my older brother))

Is she stuttering?

So, lately I have been wondering if maybe Erin stutters. How do you tell in a child this young?

Right now I'm sharing a bowl of Lipton Teriyaki Noodles with her. Her word for noodle is "noonoe," thought she never just says noonoe. She says "Na-na-noonoe. Na-na-na-noonoe. Noonoe, peese"

She does it when talking about her bears too, or other such things. "Da-da-da beyoh. Da-da-da-da beyoh. Da beyoh." Actually, any time she's using "the" she does it. And with "down" although with down it's not every time. With the other two it is.

Anybody have any thoughts on that? Dad? Audrei?

Erin loves her baby

Sometimes a little bit too much. We're still working on teaching her to not squish Brother when she hugs him!


And a bonus pic!

That the works of God should be made manifest (2 posts in 1)

A couple of times I have mentioned Angie (I follow her blog). Yesterday would have been her Audrey's first birthday.

The night before last (3am yesterday, really) I spent my time nursing Patrick trying to decide what I would say in a comment left on the post I knew she was going to make. I'm glad I did that because reading the post brought back so much emotion that I'm sure if I hadn't thought about it beforehand, it would have just been babbling.

Anyway, I found myself saying a prayer as I was thinking about it. I was remembering all the things I felt on Cora's first birthday, all those things she would surely be feeling, and I just wanted to take the pain away from her. I wanted to say something that would make her feel better. I feel such a sisterhood for her. But what could I say? Nothing. None of my words would make one lick of a difference.

But then the Spirit whispered to me, and I remembered whose words can and will and do take the pain and grief away.

As I was thinking about what I felt, I remembered wondering a lot what I "did" to bring out this tragedy in my life. I think it's normal for a grieving mother, and I couldn't put into words how to reassure her that it's not her fault.

And then I remembered that Jesus was once asked, in reference to a man who had been blind all his life, whether it was his own sin, or the sin of his parents that had caused the trial. Whose fault was it that this man had to suffer? I admit, I had to look it up to get His exact answer.

"Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him." (John 9:3)

This trial was not a punishment, but rather the opportunity to experience the miracle of being healed.

That piggybacked on the talks of Conference struck me really hard. And it made me think of all the ways my trials have made the works of God manifest in my life. And I am so grateful for all those small miracles.

I don't know who I would be today if Cora were still here. But I can see all the ways I am better now than I was then, and I am so grateful for a loving Father who has molded me. Who let me experience the pain that I may know greater joy, and that I may grow into the person only He can see. I know my Father and my Savior so much better now than I did then. My relationship with Them is very real, and very powerful in my life.

I am not perfect. But I am better.







And now I'm going to switch gears. Pretend that this is a different post (I'm too lazy to do two separate ones)

Yesterday was fun. Erin really really really wanted to go outside (don't worry, the window was shut and latched). The leg warmers she's wearing are giraffe printed Baby Legs which were a gift from Aunt Jenny.

So I decided I was going to take a walk down to the farmer's market, taking the biking path that follows the freeway. I decided I'd wear Patrick, and take Erin in the umbrella stroller (not such a good idea. The umbrella stroller's handles are a bit too low for a long trip, especially if you've got 11ish pounds strapped onto the front of you. My back hurt pretty badly when I got home). Halfway home she decided she wanted to get out and walk. She was grinning SO cute just half a second before this picture, I promise. *sigh*

So I let her out, and she took off...

And then came back and decided to take the stroller away from me. She loves strollers. That's why she's getting a toy one from the Easter Bunny.
And because I don't want to leave Patrick out, since he's 6 weeks old today, here's a couple of him (in the outfit a got when I exchanged the outfit my Mom sent that was a duplicate) I call this expression his "Spock face" since he's raising one eyebrow. He does it a lot. And he even switches off eyebrows.

And the whole outfit.



Okay, I'm exhausted. Enough blogging for one day!