Visit to the Cemetary

We picked a place under this enormous tree.

The flowers and angel are from our moms, the sweet note to "Isic" is from Allie.

Headliners

Do you ever see a news story you just have to read? This headline hooked me today:

How About a Double Scoop of Mama's Milk?

PETA proposes that Ben & Jerry's uses breast milk in its ice cream

Yes, PETA has come up with another hair-brained idea. They claim that "cow's milk is hazardous and milking them is cruel", and customers and cows would "reap the benefits" of using breast milk.

HELLO?

If that isn't the most disgusting thing I've ever heard . . . not to mention, is it NOT cruel to "milk" moms?

Bunch of weirdos.

Not surprisingly, Ben and Jerry's will be sticking with cows.

The "Great Rescue" and a Failed Experiment

Sometimes God works in mysterious ways. One week after we lost our baby Ethan started running again. He is training to run a marathon in Isaac's honor. As he was running beside the canal behind our house, he noticed a dog struggling to get out. It looked half-dead, and the water was moving too fast and the sides of the canal are so steep . . . so Ethan knew he had to act fast. He leaned in and tried to pull the dog out, but since the dog was a 180 lb. St. Bernard it just wasn't happening. Also, we know someone who fell in a couple of years ago and needed several people to help him out. So Ethan sprinted back to our house and grabbed a tow rope from his Jeep. It ended up taking about 20 minutes to pull the dog out. The picture below is Max in our backyard where he waited while we tried to track down his owner. (Don't mind our less-than-stellar landscaping!) The poor thing had cut his foot and was just exhausted. Anyway, we finally got in touch with his owner and she was just overwhelmed with emotion. She was so relieved and thankful and cried on the phone. When she picked Max up we found out that he is a therapy dog and had been abused before she rescued him. It was awesome to be a part of their reunion.

I really feel that God put Ethan there that morning for a reason. I don't know exactly how he felt when we lost Isaac, but I know when he held him before they took him away he kept saying "I'm so sorry, son, I'm so sorry." He's always been such an amazing protecter of our family; I can only imagine that he must have felt like he failed Isaac somehow. (Which obviously he didn't, but the feelings are still there.) It was like God put him there to rescue the dog as a way to heal some of that hurt. Isn't He an amazing God?

Part II of the story . . .

So I mentioned that Max had a hurt foot, right? Well, besides bleeding all over Ethan's running shoes, he also got bloody paw prints on our driveway -- right up to the front door. When I looked for information on getting blood off of cement I found more than one "sworn" testimony that this worked:

That's right. "It's the real thing." Only it's not. Not the "real stain remover thing" anyway. (As a side note, I googled coca cola slogans to see if that's still the slogan and guess what? "The real thing" was current back in 1990! I'm behind the times.) It was great fun pouring Coke all over the driveway, and I'm sure my neighbors wondered what I was up to . . . but in the end I'd have to NOT recommend this strategy. Maybe I did something wrong? Anyone else have any ideas?

For more coke slogans, go here. For more crazy uses for coke, go here.

Random

* Today I took the kids to visit Isaac's grave for the first time. They kept getting confused as to where it was because we don't have a grave marker yet. He would have been one month old today.

* We are going to have a little getaway as a family this weekend, thanks to our kind friends Ryan and Tabitha. They are letting us borrow their family's cabin -- thanks guys!

* Yesterday we looked at the parts of a flower under a magnifying glass for science. Then we played outside. As I was straightening out our garage, I heard this LOUD little voice exclaim, "Mommy! Look how BIG your bottom is!" I quickly turned around to find Emmie about two inches behind me, peering through the magnifying glass with a look of awe on her face. Gotta love that.

* A dear friend told me on Wednesday night that they are expecting again; it's their fourth. They found out they were pregnant three days before Isaac died and have been waiting to tell us. I am happy for them, but I also felt really sad.

* Allison learned to ride without training wheels! I can't wait to go on a family bike ride.

* Found a hilarious site about cakes that are complete disasters from my friend Bobbi. You should check it out!

Good News For a Change

This morning my dear daughter Allie made my day when she started sharing about how she wanted Jesus to be her best friend and that she knew how Jesus lived in people's hearts. I asked her if she wanted to pray with me to ask Jesus into her heart and she said, "I already did at bedtime last night".

What an amazing joy it is to hear that! She had this huge grin on her face and wanted to know if we could tell Daddy. So of course we did.

Another wonderful thing happened today when I finally decided to call the midwife to finally discuss the balance on our bill. I didn't know what she would charge us since we didn't have the baby there at the birthing center. (We had only paid $300 on our bill so far.) Anyway, they decided to dismiss the REST of our bill because they feel it's part of their ministry. What a huge blessing!

It was nice to see some sunshine peeking through the clouds. :)

Life

I don't get it. It has been three and a half weeks since Isaac died, and so far I had been doing a little better each day. Then Ethan went out of town for work and . . . I don't know what happened. I just felt paralyzed by grief. And then as life would have it, the kids just added to the fun. A small example of what was going on . . . Allie got sick in the night and threw up all over her bed and the floor. When I was upstairs cleaning it up in the morning, Ryan somehow broke my favorite vase and was sitting and playing in the broken glass when I found him. He had cuts on his hands and knees but thankfully nowhere else.

Lots of people have said that I am so "strong" in the past couple of weeks. I'm not feeling all that strong right now. I feel like giving up and letting the mess around the house, the stupidly high medical bills, and the daily frustrations win.

For My Ikea People

You have to love that.

Tonight Awana starts and my Emmie is going to be a cubbie. When did she get so big? Allie is going to be a spark this year. Both girls are extremely excited.

The last week has been a little bit easier as far as grieving is concerned. At a moms group I went to Monday night I almost felt like leaving because there were so many little nursing babies there. And then yesterday I was looking for something in the garage and came across a box labeled "baby boy clothing". I was thinking about whether or not we should even hold on to Ryan's old boy stuff. We cleaned all of our baby girl stuff out as soon as we found out that we were having a boy. I don't know. I guess the best thing to do is not make any decisions right now.

Happy Anniversary

Eight years ago today I married my best friend. What a crazy journey it has been! I don't even think we knew what love meant back then, but that has changed.

Today is bittersweet. I'm so happy to be celebrating another anniversary, but I can't help but think about Isaac being two weeks old today. I put on a bracelet this morning that Ethan and the kids got for me for Mother's Day this year. It had four bracelets that went together, and as they explained, there was one each for Allie, Emmie, Ryan, and the new baby. Not too long ago one of the bracelets broke and I didn't wear it for a while. When Allie saw it on me this morning she said, "Oh, yeah, mom. I remember that one of those broke and is gone. Now Isaac is gone too." She said it in a matter-of-fact way, but I could tell she was also sad.

A lot of people have asked me how the kids are doing; how they handled the news. The answer? I'm not sure I really know. The girls started talking in baby voices for a while but seem to be over that. Ryan got really clingy. Emmie seemed the least affected for a while, but she cried about her baby brother yesterday. She patted my stomach and asked "baby Isaac?". When I told her that he wasn't there anymore, she just burst into tears. She was okay after cuddling for a few minutes. It's so strange to see how grief affects the members of our family differently.

I'm not sure how we'll "celebrate" tonight. Probably just dinner out. We had this great plan to go to the waterpark, but I don't think the weather is going to allow it. It seemed like a good idea when it was hot. :)