Fear, Focus, and Moving Forward.

Yesterday was hard. Not in the "I can't do this  because I might die" sort of hard, but the "remain in the moment and be OK" kind of hard. Infant and Pregnancy Loss Remembered day is never easy and it brings the flood of emotions I am never really prepared to handle. Adding into that a few of my dear friends have just lost babies as well, and I am pregnant now so I was a wreck yesterday. Sammy had a rough day, Nate had a rough day and baby was like velcro on a wool sock. My guess is that they felt my stress and emotions.

Sammy also had his bake sale yesterday for kids with cancer. he sold out in just 2 hours and made 36$. I have never seen that boy glow like he did yesterday. He went over to people at the football game to tell them about his fundraiser. Daddy went and helped him get the right words but he did it himself.

So we have been trying to figure out where to send the money and I think we have it figured out. Just a little more checking into things first.

I ended my day with a candle burning for Emma, for my friends, and family. I ended the day with dry eyes and full arms. I ended my day blessed beyond belief , peaceful but sad because I know my sweet girl would have fit in this family perfectly and I will miss her forever. I ended my day cuddled between my three youngest kids with Squish dancing inside my belly and all I could think was "how blessed I am to know, that even the end is not really the end. That what lies beyond me is more powerful than anything I could wrap my head around. I am blessed with all I have. I am surrounded by light and love."

I am going to let that be my focus as I move forward.

Tipping Point

I have been quiet because I would rather not write then bore you all with the darkness that seems to have taken over here lately. People that know me , know I tend to pull in when it's hard. October is infant and pregnancy loss month (along with a ton of other causes). October 15th is a difficult day for me. I find this  year that I am needing release somewhow. I need to put meaning into who Emma was, I just can't figure out how just yet. I need to find some sort of solace in this pain before Squish is born.

 To add to it, I am nursing an injured hand after a few out of control moments with Sam the other night. He has been a mess off and on. One minute he is wonderful and better than ever, the next, forget it. He hasn't swung at me in ages and this week it has happened numerous times.

So please bear with me as I pull myself together. I promise I will get back to posting normally soon. I have even recieved some kind of cool fun award thing. Tomorrow I will tackle I promise.

Until tomorrow...

laughter

Some days are just chaos here. With five children running around it's crazy enough, but adding a toddler, a hyper 5 year old, and a child like Sam into the mix and it's a recipe for disaster. Some nights it ends it tears and once in a while it actually ends in laughter. Today since I am trying to be more content and happy it ended in laughter. Mostly.

We had dinner and Sam was desperately on edge. Grace was done before we even sat down and Nate was freaking out over his green beans. Then I left the table and the boys let Grace loose covered in fish, quinoa, and green beans and gave her a handful of chocolate candy. Her onsie was soaked and she was smeared with food. Sticky hands and a sticky face  contaminating everything within reach. So Daniel took off her onsie and cleaned her up a little. She then took off her diaper and began to play with it covering herself in poop. Nate went running by and stepped in it, panicked, and continued to run around the house screaming rather than sit down where he was. Meanwhile Sam was upstairs screaming about needing help with something.

My choices at that point were to either completely loose my crap

or

Laugh and deal with it.

I admit I was cranky at first, but within minutes I began to giggle at the entire situation. Nate found that funny so he began to laugh. At that point Sam came down and seconds later was wearing nothing but a plastic bag.

I am blessed to have the children I do. Not despite the chaos but because of the chaos. These children are mine because God feels I have something I can impart to these children, and in the mean time they impart plenty on me.

I use to write

I use to write poetry...

Many moons ago when I still felt like a whole person. Before my life was consumed by the fire of my children, I would write pages and pages of stories and poetry. I used it to express the disappointment in my life and the fear I felt every waking moment. It's been 8 years since I have written any real poetry. I just don't FEEL the same level of sadness and desperation I did back then. I never learned how to write happy poems.

So much has changed in the last 8 years. So many things are so far from where they started.

I still don't know if it is mostly good or mostly bad.

In My Power

As a mother parent you do whatever you have to to protect your children. You walk through fire, across broken glass, and leap tall buildings in a single bound (OK so maybe that's Superman), but you get the picture. It's our job to take care of it, to make it happen, and to fight what needs to be fought. What happens when the person hurting your child, IS YOUR CHILD? What am I supposed to do with that?

This time of year is hard for Sam. On the plus side he did get a behavior report from last week telling me he was doing fantastic. He was working hard and redirecting well. Then Friday is began to fall apart, by Saturday it was a disaster. I began to rethink everything. By Sunday he had hurt himself. His little arm bruised and his nail bed raw from picking and chewing. It was still escalating and I knew it would get worse before it got better. Monday night we had to restrain him in order to keep him from really hurting himself or someone else.A year ago I would have felt like this was the end of the world, but thanks to "My Ponytail" I have been keeping data on Sam for years. (It's normal ...for him. Every year we struggle from the week after his birthday until Christmas, then it gets really bad until after April Vacation. After that it is great until about June, and then we fall apart again until school is done. )

He went to school today, he had a rough day and would not redirect. I hate homework time but I was able to get him to do some of it. He seems a bit better tonight so we may have turned the corner for this run of bad things. I can hope.

As I watched him tonight nibbling the apple crisp I made for desert I couldn't help but think about how far we have come just to get here. I look at the remains of the last four or five days, the bruises, the broken toys,   and the fluttering of his fingers in his lap and all I can think is that I would do anything to protect him, but I just can't protect him from himself.