I'm Back

Full disclosure: I was cleaning the sink Saturday night when I decided that I would start writing again.  Cleaning the sink always reminds me of my Nanny.  When I was in college and lived with Ashley and Jenilee on Mallard Ln, Mom and Nanny came to visit us one weekend.  Nanny hadn’t been there 5 minutes before she went to wash her hands in the kitchen and just had a fit over our kitchen sink.  Apparently, it wasn’t very clean.  Apparently, none of us had been taught the proper way to clean a sink. Apparently, the proper way to clean a stainless steel kitchen sink is with a little bit of Comet a whole lot of elbow grease. Before they headed back down the mountain, I had my own little cylinder of Comet and a sink that anyone would’ve eaten out of.  That is just one of countless memories I have of things my Nanny taught me.  And, when I put into practice things I learned from her, I feel as close to her as if she were sitting in my kitchen critiquing my efforts.  So, when I was cleaning Saturday night (because I am just that cool!) I thought about her and lessons I’ve learned from her and how I used to write about things I learned but stopped some time ago when my life got crazy busy and crazy happy and there just wasn’t anytime to breathe much less write for writing’s sake. 

I’ve thought a lot since my last blog (6 months ago) about how I would start writing again and if I would start writing again and how I could bridge the gap between then and now.  And, I can’t.  That’s a whole lotta life to cover in one blog or several.  If I tried, I think it’d take away from where I am now and things have gotten so good that I don’t want to miss a second of now looking back on then (although then wasn’t half bad itself).  There are some popular versions of Shakespeare plays floating around the internet called “60 second Shakespeare.” So, here’s a 60 second version of the last 6 months of our lives.

Christmas with two babies was insanely entertaining and exhausting.  Major drama with Amoura’s mom allowed us to have her on Christmas Day but also got the ball rolling towards her leaving us.  She moved to SC to be with her mom on January 21^st. It’s hard to pick the worst tragedy in one’s life so I’ll call “losing” our first baby girl 16 months after losing our first baby boy a cruel tie in level of difficulty.

Christmas also marked the start of Layla’s colic and for the next 8 weeks, I spent hours a night pacing the floor trying to console a miserable-but so so adorable- baby girl.

In February, after a ridiculous amount of discussion, Skip moved his office out of the house and 2 miles away to a little studio/office of his own.  I was pretty against it, but must admit, it’s been a good change for him and the business.

In March, Layla finally decided the world was a happy place to be and we celebrated with road trips to Georgia and to Lynchburg.  We started cloth diapering and I joined a natural parenting page on FB where the moms never cease to amaze me with their natural remedies and drug free (sometimes at home) births! 

I did two online diet bets between March and early May and by the time Layla hit six months, I was back to pre-Layla (although not pre-Levi) weight and got $28 richer. 

School is rapidly coming to a close and I am preparing to teach 10^th grade next year, a course I’ve never taught that’s full of texts I’ve never read.  I'm oddly excited. 

We’ve started Layla on solid foods using a method called “baby led weaning.”  We skipped the mushy rice cereal and, for the most part, don’t give her purees.  She eats whole, soft foods she can “chew” with her gums.  It’s awesome to watch.  I am still breast feeding, and after a painful start, it’s going well and will hopefully last until after her first birthday.

Possibly the best thing to happen in the last 6 months is that my dear friend Kimberly realized her dream of becoming a mom.  In one of those “I will always remember where I was when I got the news” texts, she sent me a picture of her and baby Quinn and I was almost as happy as I was finding out my own babies were on the way.  Our mom walks and talks have become some of the best hours in my week.    

The next best thing that happened is that after three months without seeing Amoura, we were invited to visit her in SC for the day to welcome home her new baby sister.  She remembered us and for the first time in a long time, I felt whole again.  We are working on our relationship with her mom and are hopeful that we will get to have a steady presence in their lives moving forward.            

That might’ve been a tad more than 60 seconds, but barely scratched the surface of the past 6 months.  I hope to write more about the present.  My blogger friend/baby loss mom hero/idol Brooke says she writes sometimes just so she can remember the mundane, everyday happenings her life.  I wanna do that, too.  I hope I will stick with it. And if I do, I hope you’ll read it. It feels good to be back.

Better late than Never

I said I was going to write about resolutions right after New Year’s, but I never got around to it-until now.  I love resolutions, so I set a few each year.  I ask Skip every year to set some with me and he just flat out refuses.  I am so very goal oriented that having an excuse to reflect and set new goals is just exciting to me.  What I realized this year, however, is that I could not remember even one resolution from last year (except to lose weight, which has been a daily resolution of mind since around 1990).  This is partly why I want to share them (even three weeks late).  At least next year I can look back at this and see how I did.   I set five goals really doable goals: 1) get up before school for quiet time reading and praying 2) memorize a verse a week 3) be intentional-especially in my interaction with those who are grieving 4) eat cleaner/healthier foods 5) get pregnant. 

So far, I’ve had no luck with numbers one and five.  I want so badly to get up before school to spend some quiet time reading and in prayer, but I just can’t  won’t make it a priority.  I’ve been getting it in after school or before bed most days, and I even enlisted a friend for accountability after our pastor suggested we do so in a sermon recently.  So, it’s not a total fail, but it’s not something I feel like I’ve got a handle on yet either.  As far as pregnancy goes, yes, we’ve tried “that.”  Whatever “that” you’re tempted to suggest, we’ve tried it.  I think a few guys actually read some of these posts, so I won’t go into detail with all we’ve tried.  Let’s just say my husband is a trooper!  In all seriousness, if you’d add this one to your prayer list, we’d be grateful.

Numbers two and three have been a real source of joy for me.  I’ve chosen verses that really speak to my circumstances right now and memorizing them has come fairly easy.  I put them on our fridge, in my bathroom, and on my file cabinet at school.  So far, I’ve memorized Psalm 9:10, Proverbs 31: 25-26, and Isaiah 40:28-29.  Funny enough, memorizing the verses has helped me with being intentional.  I’ve been able to share these verses with a few people who I thought could use them for various reasons. 

Just this week, Skip and I got serious about improving our eating habits.  I have been trying to lose the baby weight for a while now and was very successful before the holidays.  After Christmas, I had to re-lose a few pounds and just when I got those off, we went to Disney, so this week was our week to jump in with both feet.  Skip has been complaining about needing to lose a few pounds for a while, and I am still up about ten pounds from my pre-pregnancy weight.  I got really interested in Dr. Oz’s two week plan, but did not think it sounded realistic for Skip.  No meat and no grain (other than a ½ cup of rice which Skip does not enjoy) sounded too restrictive and I didn’t think he’d stick with it.  So, we’re following a lot of Dr. Oz’s suggestions and the Weight Watcher “kick start” plan.  We’re eating very little sugar and processed foods and lots of fruit and veggies.  Skip has been swamped with work and church stuff this week, but he’s really gotten into the plan.  He’s lost 6lbs already and says he feels better already.  The more I read, the more I know that we need to cut the crap out of our diet.  I don’t ever want to be so strict that I can’t indulge (in coffee. and creamer. every morning.), but I do want to make better choices and be less stupid when it comes to what I put in my mouth. 

All in all, the resolutions are going well. Second semester started today, and I even set some goals for my new classes.  Having goals to work towards gives me something to focus on and keeps my mind busy.  It makes me feel more like my old self, and that’s good, too.   

Everything's Different

I got pretty obsessed over the extra post-partum weight quickly after we came home.  Friends and family were bringing meals and I didn’t care whether I ate them or not, but I was calculating weight watcher points and reading labels like nobody’s business.  It gave me something to fixate my attention upon and something (I thought) I could control.  And after the first week and a few pounds lost, the number on the scale stopped moving.  I got back in the gym, we started Couch to 5K, and I didn’t lose an ounce.  My OB wasn’t concerned and everyone that I mentioned it to told me the same thing they told me about my grief, “give it time.”  For someone like me who has always been in total control of herself and almost every facet of her life, this was yet another thing that I had lost control over. 

The numbers on the scales are finally moving in the right direction again, and I went to my 4^th Weight Watcher meeting tonight.  While I enjoy the meeting as much as I enjoy anything these days, they (like everything else) are not like they used to be.  I used to speak up in the meeting about what worked for me that week.  I used to offer advice to others about their weight loss struggles.  Now, I sit pretty quietly and rarely speak up. I am thankful that no one in the meeting knows that I’m there to lose the baby weight that is here even though the baby is gone.  And, I’m mostly glad I don’t have to worry about talking to virtual strangers and having a total meltdown.

But, I also have this desire to scream, “this is not my fault!  I didn’t get to breast feed!” (Everyone assured me that the weight would just fall off if I would only breast feed.)  I want to tell perfect strangers that I did not just get fat, but that I was so deliriously happy during my pregnancy that I ate whatever I wanted.  And, it would’ve been totally worth having 25 pounds to lose if only I had Levi in my arms.  If the weight was coming off slowly because I’d rather snuggle a powder scented newborn than go to the gym.  If I didn’t have to buy pants two sizes bigger to wear to work because I wasn’t back at work yet.  If my reality was not the train wreck that it is, everything, EVERYTHING would be different.  The meeting tonight was yet another reminder that nothing in my life will ever be the same.  Even when things get easier to bear, and I am clinging to the hope that they do, nothing will ever be the same as it was before I lost my baby.