August.

Well friends, it's the end of July and August is quickly approaching.  Depending on where you are in life, that could mean a lot of things.  School's starting back soon for some of you which means early morning fights with sleepy kids and late night projects with grumpy ones!  For others of you August means more traffic and earlier trips to Starbucks to start your day.  Maybe August brings you to your vacation FINALLY, and you have been wishing away July waiting for it!  Whatever August brings to you, I pray that it comes with ease and blessings. 

Unfortunately for us, August is not bringing what life promised us 9 months ago.  I sit here and I type with a heavy heart and a small belly reminded that we will not be holding our baby boy anytime soon.  I told my Doc just the other night, that even though I realize he's gone, there is still a part of me that keeps thinking that it was all a very bad dream and we will in fact wake up with our Bennett sometime in the next two weeks.  But then I realize that it was actually a very harsh reality, and he will never be here on this earth with us.  I have my babies at home, it is hard and truthfully you don't wish for labor when you have natural childbirth instead you just take it when it comes.  But I assure you that I would take days of labor as hard as it could come if I knew that at the end of it I would get to hold that sweet boy.

Sometimes I find myself frustrated with God, arguing with Him to help me to understand why we could not keep our Bennett.  I mean we are good parents, we love having babies and we try our best to take good care of them and raise them right.  I don't really understand why good parents have to lose babies when so many bad ones get to keep them.  But then I am reminded of my friends that have not even had the joy of having one healthy baby, much less two.  I am reminded of the women I know that have struggled years to get pregnant and have never seen that little blue plus sign that makes the rest of us SO HAPPY!  I think of how blessed I am, and I realize that feeling anything less than grateful seems very selfish.  Knowing that is the easy part, actually feeling that way is a different story.  Trust me when I tell you that if you lose a child, early, late, or after birth no matter how many have come before or after, you still feel like you got gypped.  You still feel like something was taken from you that was yours and  you always want it back, no matter how long it has been. 

So to be completely honest with you today I feel gypped.  I am not ungrateful for what I have, but I am not walking around blissfully happy having forgotten that I should be having a little boy any day now.  I am pissed at someone but I have no idea who. I am sad and I am a little lonely to tell you the truth. I am missing my little guy that I love so much, my big belly that I should be rubbing, restless nights of uncomfortable sleep, huge boobs filled with milk, anxiety over the labor that awaits me, missing all of it. 

So today I ask you for prayers.  Prayers for peace, for understanding and for joy to combat the sorrow that I imagine will hang with me over the next few weeks, months and years.  Thank you my sweet friends for listening and for allowing me to share with you.

Love and Blessings,
Melanie

Rollin' Down The River!

There is no way to really appreciate what it takes to grocery shop with toddlers until you have done it, by yourself, for at least ten items.  I have to grocery shop today, and when I say have too I mean that if I don't we are pretty much going to eat eggs and turkey bacon for the next three days.  Since we had that last night, I think I better go.  There are days that I am up for the challenge and there are days that it would be a lot easier to just hire a babysitter for two hours and get it over with.  Today I am not up for the challenge, but I don't have a babysitter, so Trader Joe's here we come like it or not. 

I look outside and notice the overcast skies that offer the possibility of rain and it takes me back to the last time that I grocery shopped with both girls in the middle of a day full of cloudy skies.  We went to Kroger.  I was in the truck and had strategically parked it out in the parking lot all by itself, willing to brave the sprinkles as we got out to avoid a ding in the side.  I put both girls in the buggy,  Scooter in the back, Presley up front and made a light jog into the Kroger through the misty rain.  In hindsight, a ding may have been the better option. 

We quickly strolled through the store, picking up all necessary items and anything that I was reminded we needed as we walked up and down the aisles (again, not a list maker so there was no list).  Right before we left I had a huge AH HA moment and remembered toilet paper and paper towels.  Now this may not sound like a miracle to you, but I kid you not when I say that since I have been married I have bought these types of household goods about 5 times.  Seriously, I don't even know what kind of paper towels we buy and that was made apparent by the cheap and useless ones that we lived with for two weeks after this shopping spree. 

I digress, back to the story. So there I am on the paper goods aisle buying TP and the world's most useless paper towels, and trying to figure out where to put them in a buggy that is holding a 2 year old.  I did what any mother would do, I put the paper towels in her lap and the TP on the bottom (of course tearing a hole in the side of it trying to stuff in under there).  Did she complain, yes, did I care, nope we were almost done and they were not heavy. 

Off to the check out aisle. We checked out, I paid, and we walked out having made a pretty calm and uneventful trip to Kroger, or so I thought.  I get to the doors and as they open what do we see, buckets. Buckets and buckets of water falling out of the sky.  I kid you not, the parking lot was already so deep in water that it was running like a river.  I know what you are thinking, wait it out.  Yeah sure that's a brilliant idea except for the fact that I have two year old in the back of the buggy under 5 bags of groceries and a 12 pack of paper towels and a one year old in the front holding the eggs.  Did I mention that there were black clouds as far as the eye could see?! 

So there I stood, looking at the people around me with umbrellas, kids that can run and cars parked up front with disgust.  I said to Scooter, "what do you think Scooter!?  Run for it!?" well of course she said yes, she's two and loves the rain.  So I rolled up my jeans and prayed for my sandals and ran.  Now this was no light jog like the one on the way in, this more like the 100 yard dash with two kids, a buggy full of groceries and heeled sandals (or you could call it a train wreck, whatever works).  As I am running I think of my dear friend Billy (aka Missy), I remember that she told me one of the BEST things about having a truck was throwing the boys in the back and climbing in when it rains.  BRILLIANT! 

Finally, I get to the truck.  I open the back, unload the groceries and soaking wet Scooter who has laughed the entire time and toss Presley in with her.  I close the hatch and quickly look around to find the closest buggy return available (I HAVE to return my buggy to the right place, I have a deep disgust for those who do not).  And then I see it, floating down the river that was once a parking lot is my 24 pack of Cottonelle with the hole in the side.  Unbelievable.  Now I am the spectacle, I am the woman who left two babies in the back of a truck in the pouring rain and chased an open pack of Cottonelle through the flooded parking lot of Kroger in heeled sandals. 

I rescued the TP, got the buggy in it's proper place and took myself, jeans soaked, hair slicked back, contacts floating, back to my ding-less truck and my babies that were parked 100 yards away.  I went home defeated by that which is mother nature and a God that has an absurd sense of humor.  With me I took two delighted toddlers that enjoyed every second of their adventure in the rain. 

I stand by my earlier statement that if you have not grocery shopped with two kids, alone, for more than ten items, you have no idea how hard it is.  But if you have and it has rained, well I hope yours had as much fun as mine did!!  I am off to Trader Joe's, and assure you that I will get my groceries rain or shine!  I hope you enjoy your Monday. 

Love and Blessing,
Melanie