I’m positive you guys are tired of hearing me talk about sickness. Trust me, I’m sick of talking about it. Its just the biggest thing going on in our days :/ Who is barfing? Can it be contained? Who is going to barf next? What should they eat? Can they eat? When is bedtime?? Today, I feel pretty disgusting, but nothing has come of it, and it seems to come and go, so its liveable. No one has really thrown up yet today. Solly chucked a bit of his lunch, I suppose, and Dekker’s been gagging since school, but thank goodness, thats it so far.

Some fun things about today! We set up our new bike trailer!

Ro and Laela loved it so much, which is really great 🙂 I was a bit worried, after all of the searching for the best value for the best price, they wouldn’t much care for it, but sure enough, it was a win.

Also, today was a Mother’s Day celebration with Dekker’s class. I went for about an hour, and together we made a scrapbook with pictures of us, with lots of stickers and sequins, and messages that we wrote together. It was adorable.

Ice cream followed, and the sugar seemed to hit Dekker instantly, hahaha! He was thrilled 😀

I took him out to recess a bit early with the other kindergarten kids, and played with him until the bell actually rang any everyone else joined the party. It was timed a bit funny, because I went home for maybe 40 minutes and then came back to get him. He was so so tired when I came him, though. It had been a big day.

I had to duck back to the city to grab a missed piece of decking, and I had a new experience. Someone actually opened their office window from a couple of floors up in their building and bellowed “What kind of van is that?” I shouted back the make and model. He just stared at me, so I called “Its a 12 passenger!” He thanked me and closed his window. Wasn’t sure what to make of it. The guy who loaded the material into my van got a good kick out it as well. He asked me what I needed such a big van for, and seemed VERY surprised when I told him it was for our hopefully soon to be growing family. But I just laughed and reassured him that I loved having a big family, and he was really friendly about it. So I got my stuff and headed home.

I’m feeling pretty crappy as the day is winding up. I think I’ll wash makeup brushes and maybe watch a movie this evening, while Brady is hanging out with a friend tonight. And then he’s back to the grindstone after a nice chunk of time off this week 🙂 I wish he could just stay home, but I’m very thankful for the time he’s had here at home. The deck is getting closer to being done everyday, which is exciting to see. I’m so ready to have it finished so I can invite all of you lovely people over for a drink and a chat on it. I anticipate it’ll be a bit of a haven.

But for today, I’m ready to pack it in. Good night, all!

Solly threw up pretty impressively last night, around 1:00am. We didn’t know right away, as we woke up to him crying. Its out of character for him to wake up around that time, so we went to him, and sure enough, he was flapping around in a big puddle of vomit. Brady brought him to our bed where I sat his slimy self on my lap and he proceeded to continue barfing and gagging and barfing and gagging and gagging and gagging into my garbage can. He was SO upset, and SO stinky. Poor dude. Brady snuck down into Laela’s room and sniped a handful of fresh sleepers and blankets, so we were officially ready for anything. Thankfully, that bout was his last. For the night, anyway.

I felt pretty nauseous overnight, but nothing came of it, thank goodness. But Dekker woke Brady and I up this morning to tell us that Rowan had barfed. Sure enough, he had. He had contained it to his bed, thankfully, but his hair and body were coated. Morning baths did the trick and everyone was in better spirits. Our kids are a bit tricky, because they seem to be 100% fine, and then they’ll barf out of nowhere. Except they’re more tired, I suppose. Rowan was so shot that he traded in his lunch for a nap before he was even finished his food. Let’s just hope he wakes up clean and healthy.

Once lunch was done for everyone else, Brady wrapped Solly up to put him to bed, and I followed him up a minute later to get a hair elastic. Before I even got up the stairs, though, I heard Brady calling for him. Sure enough, Solly was throwing up his lunch and then some. Just givin’ ‘er. I held his little burrito-bodied self over the tub and he just let fly, over and over again. When it appeared that he was done for the moment, I lay him down on our bath mat and started to take him out of his soggy sleeper and blanket. He was all smiles and giggles. Weird.

Currently, the little boys are napping, the big kids are up and playing Lego, and I was finishing up a job I started on the deck build yesterday. Now I’m in with the kids and Brady is outside working on the stairs. SUCH a tedious part of the build! But soon they’ll be done, and then there will be more fun to be had!! Woot!

I’m pretty disappointed I haven’t had a chance to run into Saskatoon and run the errands I’ve been needing to run all week, but plans change when children puke. They just do. We’ll get there eventually. These days are just home days.

Of course we’re trapped at home with Starbucks is offering frappy hour 😒 Color me annoyed.

As a fun surprise, Laela joined the barf brigade last night. However, she didn’t tell us :/ So we got her up in the morning and plucked her out of the pile of wet pieces. This messes up my theory about food poisoning, though I’m not convinced it wasn’t that. Still working on my theory there.

We were going to try to run a few errands this morning. It timed out well enough with taking Dekker to school, the kids napping in the early afternoon, and giving the ground enough time to dry after the rain. However, Laela wasn’t feeling well enough to go, so we didn’t. None of it was time sensitive, so we figured we’d try again tomorrow. Instead, Laela got cozy on the couch and Brady went out to get started on some deck stuff.

In the meantime, my mom called! She’s been gone visiting all of last week and she just made it home last night. She was over just a few minutes later, and made the morning just that much sweeter <3 I love her. She stuck around through lunch and putting the kids down for a nap. Because Laela was sick in the night, she very clearly hadn’t slept well and didn’t object to going down for a nap, even though she almost never ever does.

Once it was just the adults left, my mom bowed out and headed home so Brady and I could get some deck stuff done together. She gets us 🙂 We love to work together. So we did!

It didn’t last too long before I had to go pick Dekker up from school. He seemed a tad off his game, but was smiling while he reassured me that he was ok. As we walked to the van, I told him we were going on a date, just me and him! He wasn’t as enthusiastic about it as I expected, but he was happy.

Just moments after we left town, he had a big weird gagging cough. I looked at him in the mirror and asked him if he was ok. He seemed a bit zoned, but responded “ya.” I asked if he was going to throw up. He said he thought he would. No urgency in the statement. Just “I sink so, yup…” So I turned our van around and booked it home. As much as you can book it through school zones, anyway. So not at all quickly. But he seemed fine, honestly. Just a bit out of it.

When I got him out of the van at home, he seemed so sluggish and off. I asked him if something had happened at school. He said he had thrown up. WHAT?! I asked if he told his teacher, and he said he didn’t because he was able to clean it up himself. I was so sad for him, and scooped him up and carried him in. Once he was tucked in on the couch, I unpacked his backpack a bit and found a good chunk of his lunch was leftover, too. He also just forgot to take out a library book. Thats not normal for him. Poor dude was so so zoned. He seemed happy to be plopped down on the couch to rest.

Sadly, that was not the last bout of vomit today, but Dekker managed to get the vast majority of it in the barf bucket nearest to him. They’re all just floating around the house at this point. So I’m thankful for that. Small victories, right?

Supper is on the horizon, and I’m not exactly looking forward to it. The kids will very likely eat toast and bananas for supper. A friend of ours offered to come help Brady with some deck stuff after work today, and pulled pork on a bun is on the menu for us adults, anyway. Hopefully this silly illness blows over soon, whether its just that food poisoning, overeating, flu, whatever else. Something always surfaces when Brady is home, which is good and bad. We’d far rather be productive and have the kids playing outside while we built the deck. But alas, no dice.

We WILL get this sucker done! But the barfing children come first.

Remember how yesterday was all springy and productive? When the wind and rain started up, Brady and I decided to have a bit of a home date night. Once the kids went to bed, we played some cards, had a soak, and snuggled in to watch one of our favorite shows together. It was around 10:00pm when we heard some weird sounds in the house. We paused our show and just kind of regarded each other, trying to figure out what the sound was. Seconds later, we heard a watery cough, followed by the click of our door opening.

Brady jumped out of bed and met our poor Dekker at the door as he puked all down our wall and on our floor. I stayed in bed, but urged him over to my bedside and hung onto him as he threw up in my garbage can over and over. I didn’t even know what to do next, honestly. He was positively covered in puke. He had managed to throw up on our blanket too. It was just a massive mess.

Brady ran to grab Dekker some fresh jammies and some cleaning supplies to begin the job ahead. I peeled Dekker out of his sopping wet jammies and used some wipes to clean off his hands and face. When Brady reappeared, he had the supplies, as well as information. Apparently Rowan had slept through the whole thing, thank goodness, but there was vomit everywhere. We’ve never had to do a late-night clean up to this extent, so we both felt pretty overwhelmed. I tucked Dekker into our bed and put Clifford on for him very quietly, and went to join the fun. But fun, I mean the enormous clean ahead.

We started in the boys room, where vomit was in Dekker’s bed, on the floor beside it, in the doorway, and on the door. Brady had begun cleaning the floors so I headed for his bed and stripped it of everything barfy. Which was everything. The pillow was salvageable but nothing else. His stuffed puppy had a vomit mohawk. I scooped everything into the fitted sheet and hauled it out of their room. On my way out, I snuck over to Rowan’s crib. I was SO amazed that he had slept through everything so soundly.

Rowan was covered, head to toe, in vomit. Chunks of disgusting, stinky, thick vomit. He was fast asleep, but wet and crusted over. I was completely floor. Brady and I had played cards at the table as the kids fell asleep. Rowan never got up, or cried, or fussed, or even really talked. We could see by his position that he likely vomited up a storm, rolled over, and kept sleeping. It was literally head to toe. His hair was completely crusted over (vomit helmet-ish) down to his socks that took real work to peel off. And everything in between was adequately soaked. I tried to undress him really gently while he slept, so I didn’t wake him too abruptly, but the moment he lulled, he was justifiably upset. He was instantly shivering and squirming and wailing “No! Nooooo!” Try to reason with a two year old :/ He was so so upset. There was no way I could just surface clean him with a cloth, either. So Ro had a late night bath. Praise the Lord, he likes the bath, and once he warmed up a bit, he was on board. He just held a single bath toy and allowed me to wash his hair and body. There were chunks floating around in the tub. It was so vile, guys. But he was such a good sport about it.

We checked on Dekker on and off, and he was dozing in and out, but content, which we were grateful for. If he were needing extra hands-on help, the whole clean up process would have taken so much longer. When I went to get him to put him back in his bed, he was fine with it. I carried him, so he wouldn’t accidentally step in all of the vomit spots in our room and outside his own room that we hadn’t had a chance to clean yet. I put him on his bed and informed him that he was going to sleep with a different blanket, and that his puppy was out of commission as well. He was so accepting of the situation at hand. Rowan was surprisingly on board as well. As many of you know, Rowan’s chewing got pretty nuts a while back, and he only has a pillow in his bed now. No more blanket, and no more foxy. When I put him down in his bed and told him his pillow was too soaked with barf, and he couldn’t have a pillow tonight, he smiled just fine and said “ok” and lay down, ready for sleep. I felt so so bad about it, though, so I gave him one of my pillows. All of our extra pillows that no one uses are too tall/firm for him. He was SO happy when I brought in a pillow for him 🙂 Totally worth it.

Once both boys were tucked in, we continued the mad clean around the house. It REEKED. Just minutes later, I walked past the kids rooms, and heard coughing. I stuck my head into the boys room and asked if everyone was ok. Both boys answered “yup!” really chipper. So I left. But less than two minutes later, I heard more coughing. I ducked in once again and asked who was barfing. “Rowan,” Dekker told me. I quickly went to his crib as he lifted his head.

“Are you barfing, Ro?” I asked.

*barfs* “Ya.” And then he lay his head down in it.

Aaaaaaahhhhhh!!!!!

I scooped him out of his bed and sat him up on my lap, where he proceeded to fight me hard, throwing himself around, but taking the occasional break to lean forward and vomit into the garbage can. It finally ceased and we checked out the new damage. It wasn’t as bad at all, and because it didn’t sit and soak, it was all more reasonable to clean up. A fresh pillowcase was all it took. Then he was back in bed, and remained there for the rest of the night.

Our clean went on for a solid hour. The walls and doors took a pretty good hit, and the carpets are the best they can be for the moment, but we’re definitely on the hunt for a carpet cleaner. The last six months have just been nuts around here. I don’t have to tell you guys this. But our carpets would probably appreciate the extra help after all they’ve been through.

No one barfed in the night, but our house smells awful, I’m not going to lie. What we boiled yesterday down to, unfortunately, was our lunch. We had McDonalds. I’m not going to rag on fast food restaurants, because so rarely have we gotten food poisoning, but both Dekker and Rowan had chicken at McDonalds yesterday and WOW was something ever wrong with it!! No one else had chicken. Its now out of them, which is good, and everyone is healthy and well this morning. Exhausted, mind you, but vomit free. Laela is convinced she’s next, because our sicknesses tend to cycle through everyone, so she is insistent on hauling a barf bucket around with her, but I think she’s in the clear.

So as for today, its good that its raining because if it weren’t, we wouldn’t be quite so diligent with the wild amount of laundry we have on our plates! We soaked a few things overnight but we have a couple loads of bedding going, as well as a few things hanging to dry in front of fans.

Just wait until I have a deck to hang laundry out on…..

Brady’s expectation for the first day of the deck build was to hopefully get the posts and beam up and standing. And thanks to friends dropping by unexpectedly TWICE, we got WAY further!!!

At the end of day one, we had posts up, beam built and attached, everything levelled, AAAAAND joists went up!!! Doesn’t it look wonderful?

We slept HARD last night, for obvious reasons, which made our early morning wake up with Solly just a little more painful, haha! But we drank a lot of coffee and made it happen. I headed for the church around 8:30 and Carrie and I practiced music for the morning worship time. It went smoothly enough that we could run through it twice! Win! I went home in between practice and church and we got the kids dressed and ready. Its such a different vibe all of a sudden. Church used to be so much more difficult but the kids actually really anticipate it now! Apparently they’ve been missing it as much as we have been.

Singing went well, and the kids were really good during church. Dekker went to childrens church and for the first time EVER, we had to find him after the service because he didn’t come searching for us right away. We found him downstairs playing hockey with other kids 🙂 Its so good to see him so happy, being busy and playful with other kids, both bigger and smaller than him. Thats a big success for him.

After church, we drove to the city for lunch and to pick up a couple of small things we needed to keep the work rolling this afternoon. I had ice cream and fries. Together. Dipped. It was delicious. But we were eager to get home, get the little boys napping, and head back outside to work some more.

Laela joined us again today, but not Dekker. He just HATES the noise of the saw and the drill, so he prefers to stay in. It was fine by me, though. He played Lego happily, while Laela came out and played with the rocks, passed us screws as needed, etc.

It is now supper time, and the wind has really picked up. I’m thinking the rain is on its way, so we’re going to take a break for the evening. But we are doing well, progress-wise 🙂 We got the joist spacer blocks in, and we got the front of the joists all trimmed evenly and face put on it. We did a couple of little tweaks on yesterday’s work as well. I started the job of covering the entire top of the frame with joist tape, but that is a long tedious job thats going to take more time. At least I started it, right? I feel like we got less done today, but I was happy to be able to get behind the chop saw a time or two. Makes me feel like I’m actually participating. Win for me!

It’ll be a nice restful evening around here, which is probably more needed than I think. Brady and I are both scratching at the door to keep rolling, but the weather and our sore bodies are helping us make our decision to stay in. So a yummy supper after the kids go to bed is in order, followed by some cards and a soak. Yes!! This has been SUCH a good weekend!

Brady and I woke up early this morning. We had coffee in bed and watching some Netflix while the rest of the house slept. I got up about an hour before I had to be in the city, and got myself together. When I left around 8:45am, it was already 16C outside. Windy, yes, but so nice and warm!

Stop #1 was at the Hairstyle Inn at Lawson, where my girl Carlinna did yet another hair tattoo on the buzzed chunk of my head. I always want to say my shaved side, but then that sounds like I shave the sides of my body, which I do not. Sooooo to clarify, I mean my head hair. She hit it out of the park once again, and I left feeling fresh and done.

I didn’t have too much to do while I was out, so I grabbed a bit vanilla sweet cream cold brew at Starbucks and drove to my next place. Rona. For the record, we do almost nothing at Rona, but they had joist tape/seal, and for some reason, neither did Home Depot. So I grabbed a few rolls of that, as well as a tape measure for myself. It was a pretty quick trip in.

My last stop was Costco, where I grabbed a few groceries. I ran into a friend who I haven’t spent time with in a solid 10+ years, and we chatted for a few minutes. It was far too short, though. I’m glad she’s back in town for a little while. I’m very much hoping we get to spend some time together soon! So that was a definite highlight of the morning.

Upon coming home, everyone was playing together before having lunch.

Soon, the little boys were going down for naps, and Dekker was feeling pretty tired and wanted to play Lego in the living room. So, with it being a pretty ideal set up, Brady and I invited Laela to come outside with us, and we started getting the deck going!

 

Laela wanted to help as much as possible, which was super cute. She was out there in a nightie, rubber boots, and a hat, passing us screws, bringing water bottles, and just because she could, filling the little holes in the socket wrenches with dirt. She only bought the job of “putting the rocks in a pile” for a few minutes, haha! Really, she was just so so cute.

I’m kind of laughing at myself now for getting my hair done today, and even putting makeup on, only to be getting dusty and sweaty so soon after. But hey, I felt like a lady for a couple of hours there! Hahaha!

As life with kids would have it, Solly woke up, so I’m inside now. Its good though. While I was checking in on Dekker constantly, when I told him I was coming in to stay, he was so happy, and told me he really missed me. I wasn’t a huge help outside, but I did help some, and conveniently, one of our neighbours came by right as I was thinking I’d go inside and offered to help! So that timed out just about perfectly!! I’m so thankful for the help of willing friends 🙂

Our last deck build was in Radisson. We had one child at the time – Dekker – and he napped a TON. Its a much different dynamic with multiple children to keep track of, but its all going to get done in good time, still. AND more people will enjoy it in the end as well.

I’m feeling so optimistic today. I give credit to God, Carlinna, my friend at Costco, Brady, the kids, our neighbours, and vitamin D! I hope for many more good days like today 🙂

Don’t ask me why the titles. I do not know. It just keeps happening.

In case you couldn’t quite get it from the title, we got our deck piles poured this morning!! Brady stayed home so he could be part of it and make sure things went according to plan before heading off to work. Not only was it nice having him home in the morning so the little ones could sleep a little longer, but it was nice to have him oversee the pouring of the piles as well. I stuck my head out on and off as well, but Solly was up so I was somewhat preoccupied.

Regardless of my participation in the project, it got done!

I’m sorry to say my blog has been fighting me HARD on pictures recently 🙁 I’m going to have to reload my laptop and see if that helps, because for the life of me, I CANNOT load any pictures onto this post. Grrrrr…

As the pour went on, the concrete set up nice and fast! We are allowed to build on it much sooner than we originally thought, so thats super exciting!! I can’t wait to get out there and pull my weight a bit. I LOVE building and doing projects and being handy. I just don’t always have the opportunity, but I hope to have some chances this time 🙂 Yay! The deck!

As I’m typing this, our materials are being unloaded into my garage. The delivery guy is noticeably pissed that he has to actually do physical work rather than just driving the load in, since a chunk of our garage is storing our basement stuff and he doesn’t have the space to drive the long pieces in. I think he’ll survive. I usually really take it upon myself to try to make everyone happy, but in this case, I just want my deck materials. This is the same guy who delivered my frost wall package and asked if I could move the stuff in my garage. Its like, floor to ceiling in some places. Its not possible. So he, once again, suffered under our brutal working conditions.

I’m SO excited to have this in the works! You guys know this. Its really all I’ve talked about. So Brady and I will be out in the yard likely every evening for the next several days. Feel free to drop by and help, or chat, or both, anytime 🙂

Today is the day! The piles for our highly anticipated deck are being built!

To make matters even better, the sun is out, and  beautiful, and HOT, and its just making me that much more ready to stretch out on my deck and relax while my children play outside. So, so ready.

To make matters slightly worse, our pile drilling guy broke one of his bobcats extension bits 😬 So that kind of super sucks. To be fair, we knew the risk was there. We have only heard ridiculous things about how rocky our area of town is, and we did warn him. This is why we didn’t want to hire anyone we knew personally. It would feel SO bad having that happen to a friend on our behalf. Even not knowing our pile guy, we still feel bad, but again, he was forewarned, so we don’t feel quite AS bad.

As I’m writing this, Brady is outside observing the work of the very last hole being dug! Its taken much longer than we expected, and likely longer than they expected as well. But its getting there! The pouring of the concrete is happening tomorrow morning, which I’m SO excited about! Our deck package is also being delivered tomorrow, so after that, its all up to us!! Brady and I are both itching to get out there and build our deck. He randomly has a few days off next week, so we’re hoping to find childcare here and there so we can duck out and work on the deck in the days. But if not, evenings post-bedtime will be fine, too. We’re just SO excited!!

The missing link at the moment is the railing. We haven’t ordered it yet!! Eek! Not ideal, obviously, but I kind of missed the memo that we hadn’t ordered it, and now its behind :/ But we have to run a few things by someone else before ordering it, and that person has an INCREDIBLY busy week ahead, so we haven’t wanted to pester him too much. Hopefully we get over it and willingly pester him soon, haha! I want my deck accessible to everyone! Decksessible! Get it? You get it.

So we wait. But we also don’t wait too long, because the process has FINALLY begun!!! I’ll update more tomorrow, obviously, because POURING PILES!

I never in my wildest dreams would have thought I’d be quite so excited about concrete…

While today wasn’t technically a school day for Dekker, it was the day that the kindergarteners had their assembly. It was open to parents and whoever else opted to come watch, so Brady decided to go to work late in order to come. This way, we could also bring all the kids along a bit easier. My dad also joined us, but my mom is away visiting family. It was nice to be surrounded by other parents, and see other members of their family. I was happy to bring mine along too, and to show them off. Solly was quite enamoured with the woman sitting next to us, but not quite as enamoured as she was with him! It was a cute little bond they formed in the half hour ish that they knew each other.

The kids did a great job. Dekker didn’t do much for actions at all, but he said the poems and sang the song. He was the most amped about a video they put together. He only spilled the beans on that one yesterday. In the video, each kid in the kindergarten grade said what they thought it meant to be a good friend. Dekker was the last one in the video, and closed it off with something along the lines of “Being a good friend means sharing your toys,” which is true 🙂 They all looked super cute and did a great job. I’d post pictures but we were asked not to, which makes sense. Not everyone wants their kids faces on the internet, no judgement from me!

Leaving the school was a bit confusing, in part because there were just so many people, but also because all of the kindergarten students filed back into their classroom and just started playing and settling in. Dekker seemed pretty convinced that he was staying, but was super happy when I told him he could come home and play with us for the day. It’s a shame that Brady couldn’t stay home today, but its not something we were expecting, so it wasn’t too shocking when he hustled into the house and got his work clothes on. Off he went!

Since I had the pleasure of waking everyone up from a dead sleep this morning, the two little boys have been napping since around 11:30am. They were both trashed and bawling and ready. The big ones are playing in the basement and we’ll soon have lunch and watch some Netflix. They will, anyway. I’m anxiously waiting for the pile digging guy to come!! Digging today, and pouring tomorrow. I’m SO excited for that to go down! Literally.

I am tired, once again, from an earlier than necessary wake up (thanks for that, Solly) that I couldn’t fall back to sleep after. But I feel good about today. And the rest of the week. Positivity, folks! Keep trying!

Good job at your assembly, Dekker!! I’m SO proud of you being so brave up in front of so many people!

I’m sure you’ve noticed how a good nights sleep can greatly improve a persons mental health. Its definitely not a secret. Well this morning, I was awake from 4:30 on. I knew I wasn’t going to make it through the day (not well, anyway) so I changed my alarm and managed to get a quick nap from 7:15-7:40. After that, I quickly got Dekker up and fed and dressed before school. This week, my mom is away. She often comes to my house and sits in it while I take Dekker to and from school, but it obviously isn’t an always type of thing, so I’m not too worried. But after my weirdly early morning, I’ll be honest and say I was feeling pretty low. The day felt bleak. The rest of the week did, too. Not only was I tired this morning, but I had to get all of the kids up early, so they were also tired.

I’ve had a heavy heart the last few days already. So many people I know are losing babies 😞 It is so so sad, and while I don’t want to take away from their pain at all, it is breaking my heart all over for them. So for several days, I’ve found myself feeling quite sorrowful for those around me – people I know currently, or knew a long time ago, or don’t even know at all but have heard about through others. So many people are grieving losses of babies they were carrying, or who have been dreaming of but haven’t been able to carry, or who have already carried their baby and held it and loved on it into its life. So. Much. Sadness.

My heart goes back to the people who shared with me months ago that they too had suffered a miscarriage recently. I haven’t forgotten you ladies, or your families. I wonder about you, still, and I can honestly say I pray for you when you come to mind. I wonder if you’re trying to get pregnant again, or can’t even fathom the thought, or are privately pregnant and aren’t ready (or even planning) to share it with the world. I still ache for you guys. You helped me feel normal in the weird, surreal world of losing a baby. I am thankful I wasn’t alone, but I wish I were the only person who EVER had to feel that pain. I HATE that so many of you feel it.

I feel fairly helpless in the whole mess of things, because I’m just me. I am a single person. And while I do believe that ONE PERSON CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE, I am my own hot mess. I’m in my own struggle. But we can help people when we’re down, right? Right?? I don’t know. Sometimes it doesn’t feel like it.

So I’ve been carrying these feelings around, and this morning just felt like too much. I was pretty nervous for the day. But we all survived drop off this morning, and Solly lasted until his noon nap time without falling asleep, so that was a win! I hauled my kids over to my friends house for the afternoon, so Laela was occupied and played with other kids while the little boys slept. We had a nice girl talk and were eventually joined by another friend and a couple more kids. It was EXACTLY what my heavy heart needed. Some good solid distraction, friends, play, and a change of scenery.

Even just resting my body and mind for a couple of hours has made a drastic difference in the way my heart feels. I’m still sad, and in mourning for myself, my family, and the many many people around me who are sad. But I feel like my day is more doable. I feel like tomorrow will be ok, where as I felt this morning like we’d never make it to Friday. But we will. We have lots to anticipate and be happy about.

This is the day that the Lord has made. Let us REJOICE and be glad in it!