Happy Day After Christmas

I hope your holiday was full of...

hugs with someone who loves you to pieces

treats with a friend who let you sneak just one more

silly faces with a girl who laughs at your giggle

playtime with family who love you to your toes

music with people who sing your song

pictures with cousins who smile your smile

moments with a baby who fills your lap

and the tiny whisper of an angel to warm your heart.

And the winner is...

I was overwhelmed by all of the entries to my giveaway and stories of loss yesterday...  so many families living without their babies this holilday season.

I read each comment and thought of your angels this morning as I wrote each name on a slip of paper and put it in our Santa bag.

And the winner is...

Congratulations Mary, please email me at fourplusanangel(at)gmail(dot)com to let me know where you would like to spend your gift!


Merry Christmas,

The One with the Hole

Tonight was our annual candy making with the girls (and the boy who could not be left out of a sugar-filled event).

We all made our way out in the first of this year's winter storms to spend hours using up the mountains of baking supplies overflowing the kitchen.

My little ones in attendance were strategically placed in the cookie decorating section which was secured with a washable surface, easy to clean chairs and a large tarp over the floor.

My aunts have all done this whole toddler thing before.

The afternoon was warm with tradition and laughter and it was not lost on me that I am lucky to be surrounded by so many amazing women.

(the two down front with no self control in front of sugar belong to me)

Unfortunately, the sameness of tradition seems to be dragging me down this year.  I am fighting off the nagging heartache of one child missing and the reality that life will continue on this way, one tradition after another, rich in bittersweet moments.

Santa sitting on their lap as they try to get on his good side one more time.

At one point in the afternoon the kids were arranging candy dishes their own fancy three year-old way and my eyes found the spot where their sister would have sat, as they always do.  

Parker turned to me, beaming over their creation,

     Look Mommy, there is a heart with a big hole in the middle.

I kissed him on his blonde little head and replied, 

     Yep Parker, there is.

Small Things Saturday

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Today my Small Thing to appreciate is the fact that it is the weekend... not super creative but, as the holiday approaches and our "to do" list gets longer, I am looking forward to a weekend of a few plans here and there but with an added minute or two of sleep and plenty of time with these Crazies and their sister 

with the much needed bonus of an extra set of hands from Daddy.  

One week and counting until Christmas break.

What Small Thing do you appreciate today?  Grab the button and join the blog hop.

Happy Saturday,

Bruce

There is a homeless man in our city that is always perched on his bike somewhere on the main road running through our town.  (Yes one, we are in the burbs and he is the only one I have seen.)

We see him every time we leave the house, he is either bundled up, hunched over his bags and blankets in the winter, or riding up and down the street in the summer.  I suspect trying to catch a little breeze in the heat.

Whenever I see him I feel bad.
I want to bring him a coffee or a water or a blanket or a fan, but I never do.

His name is Bruce.

I only know this because my brother-in-law, being the six and half foot teddy bear that he is, saw him one day on his way to our house, asked his name and why he was sleeping in the field and then gave Bruce the coat off his back and the hat on his head, when he was on his way to help us move... in the freezing cold.

Today, I had a moment of crazy and decided to venture to the mall with the little ones.  As we headed inside we saw the ever-present bell ringers of the holiday season, collecting money for the Salvation Army.

I echoed Merry Christmas to the freezing volunteer but, with full hands, did not put a dime in his bucket.
I told myself I would catch him on the way out but never did.

So this afternoon, while driving home from the mall, frazzled from all the get-back-here's, don't-touch-that's and we-are-leaving-NOW's of our trip, I find myself stuck in the slowing traffic of our two lane road to home, getting aggravated because it is nap time and they need it and I need it.

Sure enough someone decides he MUST cut in front of me and, as I am muttering under my breath about the fact that cutting me off isn't going to get him anywhere, and where exactly does he think he is going, I see that he is pulling his car off the road.

The man, that I am cursing under my breath for disrupting my five minute drive that is taking too long for my worn patience, gets out and walks up to Bruce, who I had not even seen in my world of crabbiness, and hands him the money in his wallet.

I looked back at my windshield through blurry eyes and was ticked.  At myself.

Sometimes I think the bitterness I feel for the hand I have been dealt clouds my view of the fact that there are others who have been dealt a hand a card or two less.

I was reminded today that I need to slow down the carousel, help when I know I should and give when I know I can.

If you need me I will be rehearsing the art of removing money from my purse with my foot, so I can drop some in that little red bucket next time I pass a bell-ringer and my hands are full

 ... after I find Bruce and invite him over for Christmas dinner.

Holiday Memory Making

We had a completely stereotypical weekend-in-December-with-little-ones and I loved every minute.

Since the kids were micro-preemies, this is the first year we are able to break out of the house and enjoy all of those germ infested activities we have avoided like the plague for the last three years.  Now we are free to explore all the holiday hotspots and catch every bug that the kids come within 20 feet of just like the rest of the mommies-with-kids-who-touch-everything world.

Speaking of kids who touch everything, we headed out for our first visit with Santa and, much to the misfortune of every Christmas display in the place, Santa was out feeding his reindeer when we arrived.  We had a twenty minute wait filled with holiday cheer, two 3 year olds, one 18 month old, no stroller and 80 million things they just could not manage to keep their hands off of.

"I'll keep him steady, you remove the horn"

"Let me just see if I can push that nose of yours right into your face.  Don't worry Parker is holding your hand"

That squeeze that they do to their brother, a little bit nice, a little bit not so nice.

For some crazy reason, the on lookers decided to just let us skip right to the front of the line.  We headed to our doom visit with the big red guy, who was surprisingly dad-dressed-up-as-Santa looking for the venue we took them too.  You would think an all Christmas all the time shop could manage an authentic looking Santa.  The moment I saw him coming I knew he would tacky up our pictures.

Parker loving up Santa, Sawyer hanging onto me for dear life to make sure there was no chance I was going to put him on the big guy and McKenna pre-breakdown that left all of the other children after us wondering what exactly was going to happen to them once they got to the front of that line.
Oh and a guy sitting in a big chair not doing a darn Santa-ish thing.

We took the kids and fled, not missing the irony that I could faintly hear Silent Night overhead during the lulls in McKenna's incessant crying.  

Thank God some elf handed us candy canes.  

We may not want to touch Santa with a ten foot pole but you can bribe us with candy any day.

"Can you believe they gave us this after that crazy display?"  

"It was just to shut us up McKenna, just to shut you us up."

So we headed out, one Christmas tradition down, and tried to wrestle everyone into the car to the tunes of a you-let-us-skip-nap-to-see-Santa-so-now-you're-going-to-pay meltdown times two (Sawyer never cries, just relishes in his perfect toddler title).

"Look Mom, almost as tacky as the one inside."

Before we told them it was time to leave, happily strutting their stuff.

McKenna had already figured out it was time to go and therefore could not be picture.

We wrapped up the weekend by decorating the tree and in the crazy, bulbs breaking every second, teenager complaining that no one was hanging anything high, ten ornaments on one branch, take the Christmas stocking off your foot, DO NOT put that in your mouth flurry of activity, it was as clear as my post bedtime wine glass waiting to be filled, that these are the moments, when Mark and I are sitting in front of a perfectly decorated tree in a silent house, many years from now, I would give anything to do all over again.

Notice the triple decker hanging of ornaments, impressive, huh?

Oh and I saved my favorite shot of the holiday frenzied weekend for last...

Black and white seemed to decrease the tacky Santa tone.  Parker has the perfect sitting on Santa's lap look doesn't he?

Merry month of December,

The next 25

I think I have mentioned a time or two or twenty that holidays have not been the easiest since we lost Hadley.

Thanksgiving was no exception.

Of course I spent plenty of time on Thanksgiving in gratitude for all that I have, I marveled at Sawyer's chunky baby-ness and cemented the memory of three year-old voices saying Happy Thanksgiving into my Mommy brain and took a step back to look at my amazing Ashlyn.

But I also was crabby and bitter and bit my husband's head off one time too many.

For the first hour or two of the day I was trying to figure out what my problem was and then I remembered what I seem to forget EVERY SINGLE holiday.

I can't do them right anymore.

Once we get to wherever we are going I get distracted and do okay but I can not seem to get good at the getting ready and trying to make the day normal and all of that other business.  I spend all of my time trying not to think about the fact that this is not the way Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, Mother's Day, Father's Day, the list goes on and on, is supposed to be.

On the way to my parents for Thanksgiving I told Mark that we need to do something different from now on and, like the husband who knows me like he does, he did not say anything to disagree but just let me continue blabbing on until I came to the conclusion myself that going somewhere different is not going to do a single bit of good because we could go to the moon but we will still be without our daughter.

And you can't get good at living without one of your children.   You can just hope that with time the bitterness will slowly fade and the person you once were will surface here and there.

My long holiday rant was all to say that going through the motions of the holidays is not something you look forward to once you are a loss mom and that is why Tina of Living Without Sofia and Ellie is a GENIUS.  Last year, Tina started 25 days of Giveaways for mom's who have lost a child and the response was overwhelming so she is doing it again this year.

For each day of December a different loss mom will be hosting a giveaway on her blog.  I believe that, aside from the support of all of these great women, this is the only other perk of my lifetime membership into the I-have-lost-a-child club.

So Tina has given us all something to look forward to each of the next 25 days and yours truly gets to host day 23.  I'm SO excited to do it but do not have a creative bone in my body to make something so am still wracking my brain for something to give away (if you have any ideas or create something of your own that you think would be a good idea PLEASE let me know).

Finally, to end my long, rambling post, if you are a loss mom visit Living Without Sofia and Ellie today to enter the first day of giveaways.

Thoughts on Thanksgiving

Holidays have not been my favorite for the last three years or so.  

Hanging six stockings instead of seven and filling one less Easter basket is enough to make me want to sleep through the day all together.  But I have a wonderful husband and four living children who would not dare let me stay in bed during their waking hours so I have learned to face reality and scale holidays back to what I can handle.  I just don't have it in me to manage the craziness of big parties and the hustle and bustle of all the holiday happenings that were our life before.

But Thanksgiving I can do.  Actually I think I'm pretty good at it.

If there is one thing that losing a child has taught me it is to be thankful.  

I struggled with this in the beginning, the thought of being thankful when I was bitter and felt cheated out of a lifetime with my daughter, but her last breath left me with an understanding of the fragility of life that will forever change the way I cherish life around me.

Thanksgiving 2007 in the NICU

I wake up every day thankful down to my toes to have a house full of living, breathing children because I know things could have turned out much differently.  Of course there are days they can push my patience to limits I never realized I had but in every tantrum, mess or sibling argument there is always a moment when my mind quiets and I am reminded that I am lucky for the simple fact that they are alive.  

The gratitude I now have for life is hard to explain.  I have watched life stop when I had no idea that it would, to watch it go on and on each day never ceases to amaze me.

When I put my kids down to sleep at night I am very aware of the fact that there are moms out there who pass by an empty nursery each day that they have never been able to use but can't bear to take down and when my husband is running late from work I immediately run through my head to our last conversation to make sure I told him I loved him and the answer is always yes, because I never forget, and I dish out the I love you's like candy in this house. 

Sometimes I wonder if it is morbid to think this way, to live each day like it could be the last, but it has become the only way to find peace for us.  

I don't think I will ever look back and regret living my days so consciously, reminding myself often that all I have is to be cherished.  

I don't think my children will look back and be sad that the dishes were piled in the sink while we were all playing hide and seek or that Mommy and Daddy ran to them a little too quickly and smothered them with kisses if they got hurt because we were a tad on the paranoid side.  

I think, at least I hope, that we are building our family with a contagious amount of love and gratitude and a deep appreciation for the fact that Thanksgiving is the one holiday that we have in the bag.

Happy Thanksgiving,

I'm the guest

So today is my first shot at being a guest blogger and I'm very honored to be in two places at once.

If you are visiting from Life is a Spectrum or Multiples and More thanks so much for stopping by, I hope that you are entertained for a minute or two.

If you are a regular visitor, thanks for always visiting and hope you don't mind an extra click or two.  You can read my posts at either of the links above.

To the Amandas... I truly, truly appreciate the features...  if you happen to be a mom to multiples or to a kiddo with autism or lucky enough to be a little of both you have hit the jackpot, these sites are amazing!

The best for last

So I saved the best, actually the only half-way decent, everyone sort-of looking at the camera shot, for Shutterlove Tuesday this week because the theme is "Halloween Costumes."

Here it is....................

To see more entries visit

We had a theme

I have a mild obsession with coordinating outfits so when I was out shopping some time in September and saw a lion and a scarecrow costume my heart started to beat a little bit faster because I knew that I could easily find Dorothy and dress my children in THEME for Halloween.

My mind started wandering to what character I could talk Ashlyn into and Mark could be the Tin Man and I could...

and then I came back to reality, bought the costumes, ordered a Dorothy dress and sparkly red shoes and was completely satisfied with my Halloween plan.

I also had dreams of turning our choo-choo wagon into the yellow brick road but reality hit yet again that I am lucky to get dressed each day so I decided I would just be happy with costumes and move on.

The only glitch in my plan was a last minute missing red bow and a scarecrow who could barely stand (or raise his arms) because he was so tightly packed with winter gear.

The finished product... (these pictures are not the best, no one was interested in standing still)

 The Lion

the Scarecrow

and Dorothy

Oh and here are a few Scarecrow mishaps...

can you find him??

Luckily we counted children and kept digging him out... apparently he was too stuffed to move freely.

It takes dedication to stick to Mommy's theme ;)


We are part of the Halloween costume parade over at SITS, head over for many many more costumes!

The one we missed

A friend of mine has triplets just a few months older than mine and while taking my daily scroll through face.book I noticed she had posted a great look back at pictures of their Halloweens thus far.  I looked through her pictures, mentally checking off what my kids had been each year, and wondered why I was one year of costumes short.

And the moment I remembered I wondered how in the world I could have forgotten.

I'm pretty sure that when your children are in the NICU you are in some type of time warp in which you don't really remember anything other than what kind of day they are having and if it has brought them  closer to or further from coming home.  The fact that the world was still turning outside and that holidays were coming and going was always a shock to me.   I remember heading to their sides at the end of October as I did each day and being caught off guard by the little orange pumpkins taped to their isolettes.  Halloween was our first official holiday in the NICU.

I hated it.

I did not like that someone else decorated my babies' isolettes and that I could not go buy tiny little Halloween costumes.  Nevermind the fact that I had just lost one of my daughters and was still waiting for the day that my little McKenna would even be healthy enough to hold.

But when the nurse took out this bright orange hat, knitted by one of the hospital volunteers, she made my day.  She handed my 2 lb. little man to me and I covered up his shiny bald head and took his picture with my phone because it was all I had (darn it!) and held him for as long as his little body could handle it.

And this was our only Halloween that wasn't.

Watching them now, their faces bursting with excitement of the impending sugar-filled day, you would never know that they had skipped a beat, or a Halloween.

Tonight I dusted off our box of NICU memories and showed Parker his first Halloween costume.  As he held it my mind flashed back to how fragile he truly was and I was reminded that my tiny trick-or-treater is a big, huge miracle.

Parker and his hat and McKenna holding the bow that was in her hair that day