On the Fifth Day of Christmas

One of the blessings that get pushed to the back these days is our children from Dave's first marriage. Codie and Keagan are amazing blessings, unfortunately blessings we never see anymore. I learned an awful lot during the years that they were an active part of our family. I learned that sometimes no matter how you try you can't make it all okay for the people that you love. Somethings are just out of your control. We could control the life they had over here but we couldn't really change what life was like for them at home. It broke our hearts but we just had to accept that.
I also learned that a child doesn't have to be of your blood or come from your body for you to feel a remarkable love and bond with them. I would walk through fire for those boys still to this day. I used to sit and cradle Keagan in my arms to sing him to sleep at night. Those were some of the most amazing moments in my life. He would relax into me and we would sit in the rocker sometimes until Dave would take him to put him down because it just felt right to hold him. Codie was older so we never got those moments, but with Codie there were those moments when he would come to me with questions that he didn't think he could ask other people in his life. He trusted me, even though that trust was at war with other feelings that he had for me.
Unfortunately we also learned that sometimes we have to let go in order to do the right thing. We fought tooth and nail for those boys. And in the end we had to let them go. It was not a choice that was made lightly. We did not skip to the courthouse because we were going to be free. We went with a heavy heart and laden feet to sign papers that would change our lives forever. That choice made it so that Codie and Keagan have never met their sisters. And won't until they are old enough to make the choice themselves to come and see us. That choice has made it so that we are on an outer fringe of their lives and we cannot be any closer than looking in a window at the boys that we love so much.
Still these young men are blessings. I hope that they know that. We have been blessed Dave and I by their presence in our lives. We hope that as time moves on we will be blessed again by them returning to our lives.

On the Fourth Day of Christmas

And then there was Taryn!! Oh yes oh yes I have been blessed with a little firecracker. Though it has blonded out quite a bit she was born with Red hair and has been living up to the reputation since. On her second night alive she got kicked out of the baby nursery at the hospital because they couldn't console her.... mommy was the only thing that could make her happy and laying in my arms was the only place that she would sleep. She has been a handful who lets EVERYONE know what she wants from day one and despite my feed on demand and baby wearing approach to keeping her happy she still cries... I have come to terms with it and can tell when she is just being vocal or really needs something changed by the tone of her cry. It has been a little bit to get used to after my never cry Ashlynn. I had to learn that this is her personality because the sound of a baby crying tears me in two and creates in me a need to ACT! But sometimes with my T bear there is nothing to do but tune her out. She has a temper ( BOY does she have a temper) and she uses it liberally.!
But she has taught me a few lessons my little firecracker. I spent her entire pregnancy worried about being able to love two babies in the manner I believe they deserve to be loved. I was terrified that I had used up my love allowance on Ashlynn because I love her SO SO much. What if I couldn't love T the same way to the same extent? What if because of Taryn I had to take something away from my Ashlynn bearbie? UNACCEPTABLE! Then along came my Taryn and for a couple of days I was totally involved in her. I was in the hospital for three days and those days were all about mommy and Taryn, but I went home and my beautiful little Bearbie was there and I realized without doubt that my heart had expanded. It had grown and allowed space for Taryn but it had not taken any little bit of the space that my Ashlynn had. My life is fuller and richer with Taryn in it but not because it shoved Ash out of the way but because my heart can get endlessly bigger, somewhat like my belly when I carry them. My heart will expand as many times as I need it to!
Taryn has also taught me a lesson I didn't know I would really need to learn. Before she was born I would look at babies that cry all the time and think that it was because of parents who don't do enough. It is a need that is not fulfilled I would endlessly say. Those parents are not learning the cues or they aren't filling the need. But then my little vocalist was born. She cries no matter what I do. She cries because she just has to let it out. That is a valid need, and it isn't one that I can take care of for her really. Instead it is a need that I have to understand. I can make her as comfortable as I can and I let her get that out. I have had to learn to be patient with it too. There is nothing in this world that I have come across yet that is more frustrating and grating than the sound of that baby crying and screaming. It tightens me up like a spring and I sometimes have to leave the room before that spring snaps. I have come to understand where Shaken Baby Syndrome comes from though I leave the room before it gets to that point. But I have also found that this child while she shares her cries endlessly... as soon as she started smiling and laughing she shared those just as liberally. She smiles and laughs and coos and smiles some more. There is MORE than one side to a baby, even one that cries a lot. She is an incredible child and I have had to look past that prickliness that she first introduced to us and see the rest of her personality. A personality that I love, with a smile that I would turn cartwheels to see. She has taught me to look beyond the cover and actually read the book, as cliche as that is.
Taryn is at that point of separation anxiety where I can barely leave the room without a little bit of fuss. It is truly amazing to be loved to that point. I have been blessed over and over and over again in my life and Taryn Bo Baryn is one of my favorite blessings.

On the Third Day of Christmas

Well I suppose this blessing ( and several that will follow) won't come as any big surprise. My Ashlynn Bearbie... my light and my heart ( or at least half of it she shares it all with her sister now) Yes Ashlynn is a blessing and easily could be counted two or three times when you get right down to it. She taught me the depths that love truly can reach. I was raised in a very loving family. So I thought I knew all there was to know about being a mom... and then I met and married my husband. I found a whole new world of love in the man that I love and married... but then I had my children. THAT was a lesson in love to be sure.
I had been around children before Ashlynn. I had worked at a preschool.. and I had spent the weekends with Codie and Keagan. When my niece Ariah was born I babysat her. I had learned to love being around children. Every parent in the world that I knew would say to me " Just wait until you have your own... It is a whole new world." I used to scoff at that. Because how could I possibly love a child of my own MORE than I loved Codie or Keagan or Ariah. It simply wasn't possible. And then I had my own my little Ashlynn... and I very quickly realized that it has nothing to do with quantity. I didn't love her more that was a silly thought. The difference was the intimacy of how I loved her. The difference was the organic nature of the love. The difference was that this child of my body is a part of me even though she is an entity apart from me. That was what all of those parents had meant. And yes it is different but simply that different.
The process of having Ashlynn taught me that miracles can happen. Ashlynn was pregnancy number five for me. We struggled and struggled to have a baby... and time after time we lost our babies. We sat in chairs at funerals for our children and we wondered if it would ever happen. But Ashlynn taught me that persistence can pay off. Amazement and awe were two words that would describe the moment I first held my daughter... but relief also was mixed in there. After years of trying we had finally succeeded, and victory felt good.
Yes Ashlynn is a blessing in my life for so very very many reasons. This post could go on indefinitely if it weren't for the fact that my little blessing is asking for me to get her a cup of water... and various other lists of things that she wants, which means that she wants my attention. And we fought too damn hard to have the blessing of children in our life to take that blessing for granted so I am going to go play with her... besides she just told me that she needs her diaper changed and if I am not there when she needs that done, she will take it off herself... so very nice to have a two year old in the house. Truly a blessing!

On the Second Day of Christmas

Well I thought long and hard about what should be my second blessing.... do I list my living children, do I list my angel children, do I go strictly by age and list my step-children. The truth is that the number assigned to the blessing in no way reflects how important the blessing is in my life. I have chosen to list My Angels as my second blessing for a very simple reason... there are so many lessons that I have learned due to the loss of my babies, that loss has translated me into a different parent than I would have been with out them. I make choices now that I may not have made if I had not known the agony of the losses of my babies. My WIC counselor told me once when she disagreed with one of my choices the she" understood my need to be a hands on mom having lost babies before." I don't know if that is really accurate... I have a suspicion that I would be the same mom that I am now when push comes to shove.
That is not to say that I have not learned some amazing lessons from the passing of our children. None the least of which is how strong I can be when I need to be. A repeating theme when people would talk to me about my angels was " I don't know how you do it" but the truth that I have recognized is that I didn't have any other choice. What else was I supposed to do? I had no choice but to get through it. That said, Dave and I were able to get through it, and that has made us stronger as individuals and as a couple. As we went through the process we learned that not giving up can indeed pay off. I have also learned that there is nothing in this world that is certain, so I have to remember to take every joy and enjoy every minute with my little ones who I have here. This means that my house is often messy, but my kids are often held and kissed. The trade off is fair I would say.
We have angels now that look over our shoulders. I know that they are there, I feel them every day. I feel so blessed to have my angels. While I would love to have them here in my arms... I know that they have something more important that they need to be doing. And if I had my angels I may not have my Earthly Angels... and I couldn't give them up for a million dollars a day. And while it seems strange to look at those losses as blessing, I cannot see them as anything else. My mother told me shortly after Aidan was born and had passed that one day I would see them as a blessing. I thought she was crazy HOW ON EARTH could I ever see something that had ripped my heart out of my chest and stomped on it a hundred times as a blessing? But now I look at the pictures I have of my Aislynn and my Aidan and I wonder how I could ever think of any of my children (living or spirit ) as anything BUT a blessing?!

On the first day of christmas

I have been having a little bit of trouble getting myself into the Christmas spirit this year. I suppose there are a lot of things that have been getting in the way... none of them are what this post is about so we are not going to talk about it. Instead in the hopes of getting myself into the true spirit of Christmas I am going to do the twelve days of Christmas my way. You see I have so so many people and things that bless my life: I am sure that once I start actually counting they will be so abundant I will have trouble limiting them to twelve. I will say this at the beginning I am going to try very very hard to post every day... but well with two kids I cannot make any guarantees except for one.... you never know what your day will look like. The best laid plans of mice and men and all that.
So let's plunge right in... On the first day of Christmas the blessing I recognize that God has given to me is my wonderful husband and the daddy of my children. Dave is a man who I am proud to stand beside. We have laughed and cried and fought together over the 81/2 years that we have been together. He has helped me to see the lighter side of things. He has helped to carry the burdens of life and the shoulder the responsibility. He has cried with me and held me when he had no tears left to shed over the loss of our children. This is a man who works everyday so that I can stay home with our two children. A man who is as passionate about breastfeeding our children as I am. A man who shares his bed with not just me but our two children with no complaint. He is a goof and a bit of a kid at heart. He is a man who is serious about the protection of his family, and who is willing to do what it takes to keep them safe. He is a man who will do any job outside of the house to keep food in his babies mouths.
This is the most important blessing for me to recognize and thank God for... because he is the partner that has helped me to bring several other blessings into this world. Also though because he is the one that is most take for granted. The things that he does can be forgotten when I get irritated because he has forgotten to take the garbage out or he hands me the baby with the poopy diaper. He is the one that the frustrations from a day of toddler hi jinx and baby fuss can cause, is often directed at. Not because he deserves all of it, but because he is the adult. Our lives are wonderfully happy, but can also be terribly stressful, and he gets the brunt of it.
And so this wonderful man who I love as much as I can love anyone on the earth is my first blessing. A blessing I truly thank God for.

The Blizzard of the century...

Or at least Ash thought so.... We had SO much fun today.... until it was time to come inside and then we weren't really in the mood to have fun anymore. Ashlynn's Uncle Brenden came out and helped her to have her first ever snow ball fight. Ashlynn caught snowflakes on her tongue and found out that your hands can get so cold that they hurt. She kept saying " It's incredible Mom! It's incredible."
Now the house is quiet as she sleeps off the exhaustion that comes with playing in the snow and Dave has left early due to having to drive slow. Taryn is up and in the swing ( they relay nap now tagging off to each other. I think that it is the first sign of them ganging up on mommy. ;P ) I don't have a lot of time before our T monster gets tired of the swing and wonders why the heck she isn't in mommy's arms. So I am going to post some of the pics that I got of Ash out in the snow. (no I didn't get one of the snowball fight... I was too busy lobbing snow at my brother in defense of Ashlynn! It was great fun)

O Christmas Tree

This Sunday we decorated our family Christmas tree... In fact it was quite a weekend because Ashlynn spent the night on Saturday with her Gran and Gramps... and Mom and Dad went out for their anniversary and Christmas shopping. Then on Sunday when Ash woke up from her nap at Gran and Gramps' house she came home and we put up our tree. We bought a fake tree when I was pregnant with Aislynn. Last year was the first year that it was put up in our house.
We are finding that Ashlynn is as drawn to the tree as last year and she is having as much trouble keeping her hands off. We have lost a few ornaments due to that difficulty already. We are also thinking that it might cut down on our electric bill... because the lights in the house are now supposed to be off while the tree lights up the house. Fine by me. Our tree is leaning to the side now... because there is a Belle ornament that Ash particularly likes and it is stubborn and won't come down... she has tugged a few times and the tree sits now at an angle. I have threatened that I will take the whole tree down if she doesn't stop pulling and tugging at the ornaments. Though Dave has said that he won't let me. ( and I wouldn't do it anyways. ) Our house is just too small to put a baby gate around it ... and she is tall enough now that it wouldn't help much anyways. So I am resigned to the fact that I am going to lose some of my ornaments and at some point we will have to correct the angle of the tree... PUNK KID : )
We are getting prepared for the blizzard of the season here. They say that tomorrow it will be nearly impossible to drive. But we have a new coat and new boots for Ash so we are set to go out and explore what snow is all about. She is already looking out the window and asking if she can go out and play in the snow. One of us will take her out tomorrow or the next day. One of us will have to stay in with Taryn as she has a little cold going on again. Poor baby.
Taryn has officially moved into 6-9months in clothes. Such a big girl... and she is following the same pattern as her sister and hitting the size as she hits the suggested age for it. My two are the ONLY two kids I know who have done that... and Ash is STILL doing it... although we can still cram her into some big 18 months and smaller 2Ts. Every other kid I have known has been in much larger sizes than the suggested age or much smaller. My niece was in an 18 months when she was 9 months old for crying loud. But my girls go right along with the suggestions that the manufacturer offers. Makes it easier to buy for them. ( Although Ash's Christmas dress is a 4T and it fits her perfectly in the body though it is way longer than intended. It is BEAUTIFUL!) My mother opted for buying dresses for her girls this year. There just isn't enough time to make them. And she found she could buy all three girls a store bought velvet dress for less than she would spend on the velvet for one.
Ash will be an integral part of the baking that we do for Christmas this year. Each year ( since I was in high school) my mother and I have baked and made cookies breads and candies for christmas. We have taken a break for the last couple of years due to those before mentioned dresses. But now that she isn't sewing all night for a month before Christmas my mother intends to pull out the cookie sheets again. I can't wait to decorate sugar cookies with Ash I am betting it is going to be a ton of fun.... although I am also betting that we will lose half of it to her tummy. But then that is half the fun. My mother and I have realized that we very quickly lose any interest in the items that we make maybe Ash will too. Although we will have to be careful of dairy this year for her. I am so looking forward to it.

Taryn is singing my song though... gotta go.