Kept going

I think I've discovered the portal to hell.... it's our nursery. It was HOT here today in general, but the nursery was by far the hottest room in the house. Now outside it's cooled down nicely, the rest of the house is comfortable.... but step into the nursery and you break into a sweat. Despite the ceiling fan going full speed and the small fan in the window blowing in the cool air. It's so weird. It's so HOT. Poor babies.

We had a really great, busy holiday weekend. On Saturday we went to the the flea market and out to lunch, on Sunday to Fuddruckers for Daddy's birthday dinner, and the Memorial Day Parade and Daddy's birthday party Monday.... phew. It was jam packed. And as usual, the girls were REALLY good. I am so lucky. These babies go anywhere and are happy (except maybe the Cheesecake Factory... that fiasco was brutal).

Some pictures.....

Dinner at Fuddruckers, sitting in high chairs like big girls!



What does every baby want? Why, a stuffed mug of beer!



How awful is that?? It came out of the machine where you win a stuffed toy at Fuddruckers. I was hoping we could win a stuffed cigarette to go with it. Yikes. Of course Katie loved the awful thing.

First Memorial Day parade!! Watching Sparky go by....



And Daddy's birthday party!! Katie with Daddy and Charlotte with Great Grandma-



Playing at the party with our cousin Owen, and Katie is STILL chewing on her stuffed beer:



He wants the beer but no way, Katie's not sharing. Since the party the beer has 'accidentally' been 'lost'....

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I was tagged by Tammie to do a pretty interesting meme....

The Meme originated over an idea that was prompted by the book written by Larry Smith and Rachel Fershleiser, Not Quite What I was Planning: Six Word Memoirs by Writers Famous and Obscure. It's a compilation based on the story that Hemingway once bet ten dollars that he could sum up his life in six words. His words were- For Sale: baby shoes, never worn.

Here are the rules:
1. Write your own six word memoir.
2. Post it on your blog and include a visual illustration if you’d like.
3. Link to the person that tagged you in your post and to this original post if possible so we can track it as it travels across the blogosphere.
4 .Tag five more blogs with links.
5. And don’t forget to leave a comment on the tagged blogs with an invitation to play!


Ok, so.... I thought about this and thought about it. Being the sort of word nerd that I am, I love the idea of this, and had heard of it before. It actually came up on the Nest one day, and I quickly came up with:

Love lives on, no matter what.

Which means Jack, of course. But, as much as the birth of my children, and the death of Jack, is the most defining thing about my life, is it everything? Is that all.... I don't know. It wasn't quite right. I thought maybe:

Never miss a moment of joy.

That is my life now. I am trying not to miss a moment of joy. I am trying to hold on to all of them, appreciate them, even the small ones. I am trying to have joy for Jack, and for my girls, and for me. But that is my life now, not always.

Then I thought that if I can survive losing Jack, I can survive anything. That I stayed strong, held it together, did what I needed to do for my boy. I always tried to convince myself and everyone else I was a delicate flower, in need of rescue... I'm not. And it is completely empowering to realize you can handle it, whatever it is. So -

I was tougher than I thought.

But after much reflection, that's still not right.

So, finally, the best I can do.

Laughed. Cried. Prayed. Loved. Kept going.

Now, I tag five ladies who are hopefully not as OCD as i am and will not waste hours thinking about it.

Jody at The Hyperfertile Infertile
Lisa at Helping Make Sense
Karen at My Perky Ovaries
Pam at Pyjammy.com
Rachael at Little Bites of Heaven

And everyone else... it was hard to pick just five!!