Love Your Babies

I read a couple of other people's blogs and enjoy the idea of peeking into other people's lives. Most of them are women in the same boat as I am, raising young children, trying to find creative outlets, and weathering the ups and downs of being a stay-at-home mom.

One of them I want to tell you about today... and it's awesome. AWESOME.

It is not, however, for the faint of heart.



It is written by Sheye Rosemeyer, a mom and professional photographer living in Australia. She was living her life, taking tons of amazing pictures of her children and tragedy struck their family: their three year old daughter, Ava, died. She went inside the family car in the summer and overheated and passed away from the effects of the heat.

The blog entries that follow this horrible accident are heart breaking.

I found Sheye's website through a series of about five links and the last one linked to her. I at first marvelled at her photography and then realized she was writing about one of her children being gone. I stayed up for another hour reading her blog and just cried. Nothing, nothing, nothing I have ever read is like this.

Sheye does a beautiful job of sharing her joy about Ava's life and her longing for Ava. It is a glimpse inside what it is like to lose a child and live with it everyday. It is a celebration of Ava's life and the love she brought to her family. It is filled with gorgeous pictures and memories of Ava.

Most of all, it makes you want to hug your own babies and never let them go.

I admire Sheye for sharing this gaping hole in her heart. I admire her spare, elegant writing. I admire her enormous talent for taking pictures that are both dream-like and terrifically real at the same time. (Who else could make a picture of their two year old going potty for the first time look so good?) I admire her ability to go on living for her other children after facing unspeakable loss and grief.

Reading her blog makes me desperately want to reach inside my computer and hug her and sit with her and hold her hand.


If you are ready for a life-changing moment, go to: http://www.sheyerosemeyer.blogspot.com/


If this is not for you, just say a prayer for Sheye and her family and go hug and love your children.

Hug and love and kiss them in honor of Ava.

On Playing Babies and Being Cool

Some things I have observed while playing babies with Jenna:
1. Jenna told me the other day to "Teep an eye on my baby, otay?"
2. There is a specific way to hold and pat the baby's back, preferably while saying, "It otay, tweetheart."
3. Babies love to go to the doctor, which is kind of ironic since Jenna does not. Usually they go because they have a tummyache.
4. No matter what the ailment, the baby's yo-tion (aka lotion) saves the day. It's 21st century penicillin, I guess. Slather that baby up and she's good to go.

Meanwhile, this is the exchange I had with Michaela while picking out her clothes for the next day.
Mommy: If you are wearing your jeans, how about wearing this shirt?
Michaela: No, I don't want to wear that.
Mommy: Why not? You look great in this shirt.
Michaela: That shirt is pretty... I want to wear something cool.
Mommy: Oh.
Mommy thinks for a minute and says something she will probably say countless times in the next 15 years:
Mommy: Let's look at the shirts Aunt Jaime bought you!

Problem solved. Coolness reigns. Well, for Michaela at least.

Flashback Friday

I am longing for a sunny, warm summer day, so here are some flashback pics of when we went to Great Escape Amusement Park in June of 2006. It is hard to believe how much the girls have grown up in such a short time. I love them to pieces!

Lil' Gimpy Arm

My sweet little Jenna is doing alright... we had our followup appointment yesterday afternoon (at 2:30pm... right in the middle of naptime) and she does not have a fracture. She has one more followup with the orthopedist in a week to make sure everything is healing correctly. She was issued a little sling which she could wear if she wanted to and has chosen not to. She is mostly leaving her arm hanging at her side and is clearly favoring her left arm to do anything. She was totally pooped out last night and went to sleep at about 8:30pm, which is about an hour earlier than she usually does and about three hours earlier than she was falling asleep two months ago. I am very thankful for that.
I think we are all okay here... ready for the weekend!

I can't handle all this excitement...

Remember how I wrote back on January 14th, "It's good to be in the month of January", somehow implying that the hustle bustle craziness of the holidays was behind us?
That was before we added two Lip Sync practices and gymnastics class every week to our schedule, I added a new monthly meeting for church into my schedule, a new baby was born into our family and Jenna falling and almost breaking her arm last night.
Whew.
Yes, our excitement for yesterday was whisking Jen to the ER (a first for us as parents) after she fell quite awkwardly right in front of me while Michaela was finishing up her gymnastics class. Jenna landed on her own arm onto a concrete floor and immediately started crying. When I tried to calm her down, she started saying to me, "I can't raise my arm!" and started really guarding it with her uninjured arm. We came home and Dan and I immediately brought her to the ER, where she was seen by a PA and got xrays taken which thankfully were negative for a fracture. She was such a trooper- she was stoic through most of it but did ask me, "Can we go home now?" about twenty times. She got a splint for her arm- it appears it is the forearm that bothers her most- and it was wrapped in an Ace bandage. We got home at around 11:30pm and Jenna laid on the couch for a few minutes and then went to sleep in her crib. She slept well last night and played with me a while this morning before settling in for an early nap. We have a followup appointment this afternoon with an orthopedist and are bringing the xrays for him to look at as well.
While I am glad it appears to not be broken, I frankly am shocked that it's not. The way she's holding it and the positions that seem to hurt her the most to me scream that she has a broken bone. But as the whole world loves to say, sometimes a sprain is worse than a break. I am very happy to have the followup today and am so, so, so very thankful that what ever the injury is, it is minor and very fixable.
Please keep Jenna in your prayers for a speedy recovery!