Milestones (Or Things that Happen in the Blink of an Eye)

Today is the last day of school for my 3rd grader. The year has been quite an adventure! On the first day of school, I was pregnant. For lack of a better description, that's pretty normal for me. Of the 4 "first day of school" days that my oldest has experienced, I have been pregnant for 3 of them.
This is the first time, however, that I got to take my baby with me to the bus stop on the last day of school!

One week until K turns 9 and 13 days until C turns 5.

It has been a month of milestones for our little family. My oldest informed me last month that she couldn't see the board from her desk, so a quick trip to the eye doctor and a few weeks later Viola! Glasses. Complete with BYU blue frames and a salmon colored case that she will eventually learn not to pinch her fingers with when she closes it.

Today was also the last school day where my middle daughter is not a student.  At the end of August, she'll start kindergarten. She's never attended preschool or any other formal educational program, but she is making quite a bit of progress in her reading. She can now sound out many words and is beginning to spell phonetically on her artwork.

We celebrated both of their birthdays with local family a few days ago. My middle one had her very first birthday in this home, just 11 days after we moved in.

K's 5th birthday and one week before C turned 1

Time sometimes feels like it's flying by. The same holds true with Dash. On Friday, my husband and I took a walk along the W&OD Trail near our home. It was a hot, muggy day but the morning wasn't too gross so we managed 5 miles with the double stroller, carrying both of our younger daughters while the oldest was in school.

After we finished, we left straight for Costco, forgetting that I didn't have my Ergo carrier with me or the single stroller. Either Dash was going to have to be held or we could try buckling her into the cart.

The cart won. She was such a happy camper up there, too!

The milestones didn't stop there. On Sunday she was doing her usual "wake-up the second you put me down" routine and I was trying rather unsuccessfully to let her cry. When the cry changed urgency, I went in and found her on her stomach with her face smashed against the side of the crib.

*This is why you don't use crib bumpers. My daughter could have suffocated in that position if there had been a padded bumper in her crib!*

She's 4 months old, which is right on the normal "roll-over" curve but I figured it was probably a fluke.

This morning I put her on her back in the middle of the crib as usual. When she later woke up, this is what I found: 

Her face wasn't crammed into the front of the crib, but she still did some sort of magical rolling over and scooting to get there.  She was pretty pleased with herself, too!

That's the tail end of a smile.

Now What?

You may have noticed a little thing in her crib that I've written about before.

BINKY!

That was my last ditch effort to help fix her latch. This pacifier is made by Munchkin and is called LATCH and although she only sucks on it for a few seconds at a time, she is trying to figure out how to keep it in her mouth and that effort is paying off for both of us. In order to keep it in, she has to make sure that she doesn't lose suction and she's taking that skill and applying it to nursing. My milk blister, which has been there since February, is slowly healing. More importantly to me, it is no longer painful. She's nursing quite comfortably all the time now, even when she is losing suction.

The exception is when she decides to yank on me. That doesn't feel comfortable at all!! Dash also likes to push away from me with her arm, even as she's eating ravenously. I'm not entirely sure why, so I find myself holding her hand out of the way to keep her still.

If you compare the Costco picture with the crib pictures, you might detect a bit of a difference, or maybe you won't. Dash also got quite a haircut on Sunday. Her hair is finally thinning where she's rubbing it on her sheets and as it has grown, it's lopsided. I took some time while nursing her and gave her a trim along everything, but especially the ears.

Hair on the ears drives me bonkers!

In a couple short hours, I will have a 4th grader, a kindergartener, and a semi-mobile baby. Please Time, slow down a little!

USPS Woes

At the start of the school year, the bus stop for my neighborhood was moved from the bottom of our neighborhood on an incredibly busy parkway to the top, where the street connects to another neighborhood street. A few parents grumbled because it meant a longer walk, but I was grateful for the change. Car accidents at the other location were frequent enough that they sometimes happened while students were waiting at the bus stop and it seemed like only a matter of time before children there were injured.
The only grumble I had with the location change was that it meant I knew I wouldn't be passing by my mailbox on a daily basis anymore, which would mean finding time to go get the mail; not an easy feat considering the weather and the difficulties involved in taking all my work children with me.
Nine months later I am still struggling with the "getting the mail" issue.
When our mailman can't fit any more mail into our box, he empties the whole thing and returns it to our sorting facility, about 6 miles up the road in a commercial area.
Getting to the mailbox down the street on a daily basis with multiple children? Complicated.
Going to the Post Office with multiple children? Not cool at all.
I'm a pro at taking the children shopping, to the farm, and on walks when the weather is cooperative but standing in line to talk to a USPS employee and then waiting while they retrieve my mail borders on torture.
Last week the mail got sent back for the 3rd time in 9 months. I called the USPS main line and requested that my mail be delivered to my home and was promised it would be there within 48 hours. After no mail (including in my mailbox, in spite of being told delivery would resume immediately) for another 4 days, I called again. I gave the polite and well spoken employee the case number from the previous week and she assured me my mail would be there by the end of the next day.
That was Tuesday, so my mail should have arrived by Thursday. It didn't.
The local office manager (not his title, but you get the idea) called me this morning and chastised me for not getting my mail on a regular basis but said my mailman would deliver my mail to my door this one time but that if this ever happened again, I'd have to go to the post office to retrieve all my mail.
Getting a dressing down from a boss (or a parent!) isn't fun, but from a stranger? Infuriating. I wanted to yell at him that when he's lost his son and been through an emotional pregnancy and 4 months of blistered nipples he can judge me but until then, shut up.
I didn't say that, but politely said I understood and hung up.
Reviews for this particular USPS office are pretty horrid, and unless the person doing the job has changed recently, he has been receiving very bad reviews for awhile for general job incompetence. In addition, he had told someone at 1-800-ASK-USPS (who I had called initially) that he'd called me at home.
No such call ever happened, so he also lied.
Yeah.
Friday I called the local Post Office again and the man on the line said he'd drop it off on his way home from work. I happened to have the early afternoon off, so I decided to swing by and just get it on my own. At that point, it had been 2 weeks since we'd gotten any mail.
After waiting in line, then waiting by their blue door or doom (the one with a bolted window attached that makes me feel a little like Oliver from Oliver Twist), I was informed there was no mail for me.
The driver must have already grabbed it so I went home and waited.
And Waited.
And Waited.
He'd said it would be dropped off around 6pm but 6pm came and went without any knocks on the door or the doorbell ringing.
I was pretty mad and my husband wasn't happy, either.
At 7pm, the doorbell rang.
FINALLY!!!
For two weeks of mail, the bin was not very full, which I guess was a good thing. The most important piece of mail in there was a package I'd ordered for myself as part of my belated birthday present.
It was there and I've used it and it's wonderful!!
But that's for another post. *thspsthsp*

A Letter to My Rainbow Baby

Dear Dash,

Today you turned 4 months old. The last few weeks have been difficult for me as I've watched you grow. You're no longer the tiny little infant I brought home and time is flying by so much faster than I want it to.

Before too much time goes by, I want to share something near and dear to my heart. You see, before you were born, you had a brother. He was born sleeping just a little more than 9 months before you. He was tiny. His little feet were a little shorter than your pinky finger. His lips were shaped just like yours and mine. Like you, his eyebrows were so light they were almost invisible.

Someday, when you are older, I will show you the pictures of your brother.

If you want to know what he felt like, or smelled like, you can ask Grammy. She came to the hospital and held him. She touched his cheek, held his tiny hand, admired his perfect feet.

You can ask your dad, too, but be patient with his response. Daddy lost his son and that is something he has a difficult time talking about. We miss your brother.

Something amazing happened just 9 weeks to the day after your brother was born. We found out you were on the way.

My pregnancy with you was an experience you'll have plenty of time to read about.

Since your birth, our family feels a lot less empty than it did. I don't feel we are complete, but for now we are whole in a way we had not been for quite some time.

You are the sweetest baby I've ever met. I wasn't so sure about that the first 6-8 weeks, but it was all my fault you were a fussy mess! Once I quit eating dairy, you became calm, you stopped waking up with painful gas, and you now sleep 10-11 hours straight each night.

If you have children of your own, you'll understand just how precious that 10 hour sleep truly is!
While you're sleeping, I wake up each and every night to express the milk my body is making for you. You don't need this milk, so I am giving it to another baby because his mother is having a difficult time making enough milk for him.

You love to smile. You smile when your diaper is being changed, when you're nursing, when Daddy smiles at you, and when you hear your oldest sister's voice as she walks in the door from school each day.

You love to laugh. The sounds is infectious and we all stop to listen to the sheer delight you are sharing.

You love to hold on to things. When you are nursing, you always grab my shirt or my bra. I try to get you to hold my finger but you let go and grab my shirt instead.

You love to stand up and you're starting to bounce when we hold you in our laps.

You still watch everything going on around you, taking it all in. Sometimes you stare off into the distance, or at a wall, and I think you are seeing people we cannot see.

Who do you see? Is it my mother? Is it your brother? Is it a friend you knew in Heaven before you came to be with us?

At 4 months, we are still having some difficulties with your latch and position as you nurse. I have a milk blister that doesn't want to heal and it feels like a fire poker is stabbing me, especially in the half hour after you nurse on that side. You still sometimes make sucking noises because you lose suction. Most babies may make a little noise, but not like you! I nurse you around other people regularly and anyone who can hear sure does get an earful.

When you're super hungry, you seem to keep suction pretty well but if you're just nursing to soothe, it is painful so I frequently just unlatch you and wait a few minutes before trying again.
I have a goal to let you nurse until you are two years old. My mother always said I was the most stubborn of her children and that stubbornness has kept me from giving up on nursing you at the breast. There are times when I can nurse you without any pain at all and I love those times and hope that they will become more frequent as you grow.

The bliss on your face when you are "milk drunk" is worth all of the pain.
The rolls on your thighs and your double chin are worth all of the pain.
Your dimples as your cheeks have filled out are worth all the pain.
Every little bit of weight that you put on comes from me and that is a powerful feeling.

You ran a fever last week so I took you to the doctors' office. They checked your weight and I was pleased to see you've put on over 7 pounds since you left the hospital! Your weight was 13lbs 9oz that day. Woo hoo!!

The last thing I want you to know is about my feelings regarding my Savior and my Heavenly Father. I prayed daily for years to have another child. When we lost your brother, I was devastated. How could my Heavenly Father let me lose my son after all that we had been through to conceive him?
And somewhere along the line I realized that Heavenly Father knew exactly what I was feeling. He had to lose his son, too. That knowledge brought me peace and Heavenly Father let me know that everything was going to be okay. By letting His Son die, it gave me a way to return to Him.
Your brother's death paved the way for you to enter my life in much the same way that my Elder Brother lets me know my Heavenly Parents. If I hadn't lost him, I would never have had you.
So when you see me crying, just put those arms of yours around me and I will hug you back. You are the promise my Heavenly Father gave me.

With love beyond words,
Mommy

Motherless Mothering

It has been quite some time since I posted anything of real relevance regarding my life.

Or perhaps it just feels like an eternity?

I’ve had a few different posts running through my brain but I have been unable to focus on any of them. This has led to a complete absence of posts in general.  Oops!

Tonight there is something weighing on my mind that truly has no solution but I want to talk about it a little anyway because I know that someday my children will read everything I’ve written here.

I am not perfect but I want them to know that I’m trying to be the best mother I can.

My oldest is finishing third grade next month. This was her teacher’s rookie year but the snags from that end have been minimal. Unfortunately, there have been snags.

This is also the year that K was evaluated for the gifted program. Part of the evaluation included a parent survey, where I needed to evaluate K in specific areas, including social behaviors, hobbies, reading, math, etc.  I struggled with the evaluation because I don’t know how she compares to her peers or what is normal for her age group. I only know what she does and whether she is working her hardest or not.

For some time I have thought that K is a smart student who can remember facts and assimilate ideas in meaningful ways. Her ability to extrapolate math concepts is remarkable as well. What I did not know is whether that qualified as being gifted or not.

From a personal perspective, I don’t consider myself to be “gifted”. I consistently scored above 95^th percentile on standardized tests and my teachers called me a model student, but gifted? No. Upon entering junior high I was tested and I honestly don’t remember the results. I believe I fell into the “maybe” category and my mother could have pushed it but she chose not to. I seem to recall a conversation about ten years ago where she told me that she didn’t want me being ostracized further. I was already one of only two 7^th graders in advanced band and 12 students who had tested into the honors Algebra class. I wasn’t popular at church, either, for a wide variety of reasons I’d rather not go into right now. I didn’t fit in well anywhere and Mom didn’t want to make that worse.

For me to try and label my bright child as “gifted” just seems wrong. She’s not average, but I don’t think she’s any more intelligent than I was at that age.

Here is where the conflict comes: she isn’t your standard third grader but she’s not gifted, either.

Where does that leave me? With a child who is bored in school and starting to act out. Whether the acting out is related to being bored, to her new role as Dash’s sister, etc, I don’t know. I wish I did.

There was an incident on the playground last week that absolutely mortified me. I think she was trying to tease some of her friends, but it got out of hand. She was giving two students bunny ears and one of them, her closest male friend, took offense. I don’t know how quickly it escalated, but he pushed her down. She got up and for reasons I don’t even begin to understand, gave him bunny ears again. He repeated the pushing. I don’t know how many times she hit the ground, but the boy was given a referral to the principal and K got off scot-free, even though she was clearly antagonizing her friend.

To me, that behavior (doing something to someone they don’t like) is bullying. And I don’t like it.

When I asked her about her day when she came home, she didn’t mention a thing; she acted like everything was perfect. She was so hesitant to say what had happened and I know in my mommy heart it’s because she knew she had done something wrong. It took some serious patience on my part, knowing that how I handled the situation would set a tone for any future discussions related to K doing things she shouldn’t and/or me disapproving of her actions.

If the playground incident was a stand-alone incident, I wouldn’t be quite so worried, but it’s just another step in a pattern I’ve been noticing at home. K has become pretty aggressive with her 4 year old sister. She has smacked her face, pinched her cheeks, yells at her, trips her on purpose, etc. I feel like she’s trying to prove she’s bigger and better than others, and I don’t understand why.

I guess the moral of the story is that I’m feeling like a rather big fat failure as a mom. 

I wonder if my mother ever felt the same way?  Like me, she couldn’t call her mother and ask for advice, since her mother had passed away when my older brother was only 4. Her maternal support was her mother-in-law, who had raised 5 boys—a very different dynamic than the four children Mom had.

 Motherless mothering is hard. I knew it would be, but experiencing the reality as my children grow really drives that home. Sometimes, a mommy just wants her mother, too.

I have the option of appealing the decision regarding the gifted program but time is quite short and I’m not entirely sure I want to open that bag of worms. The process wouldn’t be very easy on K and a second rejection may be more than she can take right now . . .

But here is something cute to cheer everyone up. 

Three Months New

Have you ever taken a look at your life and wondered where time has gone?

Today I did just that.

My little Dash is 3 months old today. She's growing like a weed, too. In the last couple of weeks she's started laughing and holding on to nearby objects, like my shirt or the straps on my ergobaby carrier.

Her head control is still coming along nicely and she now spends a good half an hour in the exersaucer each day, sometimes more.

I keep forgetting to place her on her tummy to develop those necessary muscles and to help with the curvature of her spine and for that I feel like a "bad mommy". I had a similar problem with my other 2 children. It seems like I'm in a constant battle between the baby just eating and not wanting to put pressure on her tummy while she's got a full stomach and waiting too long, so she's tired and doesn't want to be anywhere but in her bed.

Perhaps tomorrow I will remember?

At her 2 month well baby visit, I asked the doctor if I could get Dash tested for the MTHFR gene mutation. I knew through my repeat pregnancy testing that I was negative for the mutation but my desire to know if Dash had it, inherited through her father, was enough for me to subject her to a blood draw.

Yes, the mutation is that important to me. I have learned so much about what MTHFR can do and the impact that it might have on vaccinations that I simply needed to know. In short, the mutation alters how a specific enzyme works in the body. That enzyme has some very important roles in the body and when it's mutated, certain processes in the body don't work.

Here you can learn what that a decent list of health problems are associated with MTHFR, including depression, ADHD, autism, migraines with aura, certain cancers, early miscarriage, and bi-polar disorder.  It's an important gene mutation and the medical community seems to be picking up on that slowly but surely.

According to this site, 98% of those with autism spectrum disorder have at least one of the MTHFR gene mutations. Roughly 40% of the American population has one of the mutations. The difference between those two populations (MTHFR mutations vs no mutation) is huge.

Can you see why it was important for me to know??

The results from Dash's test came in a few days ago: Negative for MTHFR gene mutations.

Phew!

With this in mind, I will soon be pursuing the immunizations I had skipped before. It will be a slow process, and there will be vaccines along the way that I will skip, but at least now I am less concerned about adding stress to her body in a manner she may not have been able to handle before.

I have no scientific studies to back it up, but I believe that immunizations are a link in the chain that causes autism. I also think that additives such as folic acid (which those with the mutation do not handle well) and high levels of heavy metals are other links in the chain. When the body can't process things, they build up to toxic levels, causing damage to the brain.

Am I right? I don't know! But I have known a few mothers who have reversed their children's ASD diagnosis through dietary and lifestyle changes in conjunction with therapy.

But without the gene, this is one less thing for me to worry about (but still something I am keeping my ear on because it matters).

Wherever You Are

Board books and I do not get along very well and it's entirely my fault. Perhaps it says something about me more than anything else, but I tend to find the abbreviated stories in most of them to be pretty watered down. Others are too congested with pictures of objects filling every tiny little space, leaving no white space whatsoever.

They're cluttered and nonsensical.

In the 9 years I've been a parent, there have been a very select few that I like.

And only two that I love.

One of these two precious books was a gift for our baby from my husband's baby sister. The book is titled Wherever You Are my love will find you. It's written by Nancy Tillman.

I've never cried reading a board book and I certainly wouldn't have guessed that such a benign looking book would leave me sobbing as I attempted to read it to my 11 week old don't-want-to-stop-crying baby last night.

The book opens with the line, "I wanted you more than you ever will know, so I sent love to follow wherever you go." I should have known with that opening line that my emotions would surface quickly, but I was still caught off guard.

The rhyming continues as I, the reader, told my daughter just how many feats my love can accomplish. With each new way that I told her how my love will find her, my emotions bubbled up until tears were flowing freely down my face.

In many ways, it felt like I was bearing testimony of my love for my daughter to her. The words, though not mine, rung with truth and I know she's young, but she was absolutely paying attention to me. Her crying turned to a whimper then to a quiet, wide-eyed calm and she tried to make sense of what was going on.

Through my tears I kept reading until the very last line, a phrase I've held close to my heart since childhood, "you're never alone".

The drawings are simple and elegant, easy for a young baby to focus on with animals and nature scenes that match the poetry. They were just what I love to see in a children's book.

So if you need a good cry, or a simple gift to share with another, here is a good place to start . . .

And thank you, sweet S, for such a wonderful gift.

Honoring Our Past

I typed this yesterday, but didn't get it posted:

Three hundred sixty five days ago, my husband and I had the worst 36 hours of our lives. In that time, our son passed away, we received medical confirmation of his death, we told his sisters, and then we went to the hospital so that I could give birth to him.

It was an experience many families have had and for each of us, it is a painful reminder that pregnancy and birth are truly amazing.

If I had known that day what the following year had in store for me, I would have wanted to believe it so very badly but I would have been incredibly skeptical.

But here I am. A mother with 3 living daughters. My dear little Dash has brought peace to my heart and I can't imagine my life without her.

She was always meant to be a part of our family. I know this with every fiber of my being.

Even knowing that, I couldn't let Jackson's birthday pass without taking some time to remember him. And so it was that with 6 children in tow, I walked across the street to Giant (our local grocery store) and purchased 4 balloons with the intent of releasing them in the park and watching them drift into the sky. I wasn't sure what colors I wanted at first. . .

Blue & black?

Blue & white?

Pink & blue?

Pink & black? 

Looking at my daughters I chose 3 pink balloons and one blue, one for each of the children I'd given birth to.

The weather decided not to cooperate today. Winds are gusting over 30mph with steady winds around 12mph.

Have you ever tried to push a triple stroller with an infant in a carrier on your chest, while holding 4 balloons in gusting wind?

It isn't easy!

 . . . But it was so much easier than losing our child.

My absolutely amazing mother-in-law drove to the park to take pictures. I probably have the best mother-in-law anyone could ask for. My husband definitely got his awesomeness from his parents.

She is also the only family member who held our son after his birth. Jackson was her grandson and she has acknowledged his presence in her life in many small ways. . .and today she came to take pictures.

As with many things in my life, even this couldn't go smoothly.  We were about to let the balloons go when I realized they'd blow right into a nearby tree, so we moved back so the wind would blow them up and over the tennis courts instead.

Right as we let go, the wind switched directions and the balloons tangled in the tree! It's not the kind of tree that can be climbed, so unfortunately, those ribbons will be stuck there for quite some time.

Over the next hour, as the children ate some lunch and played at the park, each balloon popped as it was blown into the budding branches. Jackson's blue balloon was the first to go, followed by each of the pink ones.

The entire event felt little too much like my life's allegory.

******************

The reason for the delay in the post was that another thing went wonky with my day. I couldn't get either the desktop or laptop computers to recognize my 9 year old SLR or its memory card. I have a lot of pictures of our balloon release, but currently no way to upload them.

Isn't that just fitting?

I went to the mailbox this afternoon and was surprised to see cards from two friends, one local and one who lives 3,000 miles away. Each has a very heartfelt message inside that put me in tears.

Thank you, to both of you, for your amazing thoughtfulness. And to each of you who shared your candles for my son once again, I thank you, too.