National Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day

Did you know?  Apparently every October 15th women and families across the country take time to remember the tiny lives with which they were so briefly graced.  Up until last year I, like most people, had no idea a day like this even existed.  Why would I know or need to know?  We were happy and blessed with Maxwell and while my mom was lost to cancer, I never in my wildest dreams though I might lose a baby too.  But we did... sweet girl, and Max's baby sister.  I always thought that if a pregnancy lasted through the first trimester, we in the clear.  How very naive I once was, and wish with my heart I could be again.

So today I am taking the time to write this post and acknowledge not only my daughter, but the lives of nieces and nephews, cousins and friends that we will not know on this earth.  I foolishly thought today that I might be able to look at the pictures my dear friend Rachel took of our baby girl, but just taking the CD off the shelf and seeing the label "Nona's Girl" brought me to tears.  It has been a year and a month since I held her, and my heart still breaks to remember those precious few minutes.  Someday I will be strong enough to put the CD in the computer and look at her face once more.  Someday I will hold the blanket my dear friends lovingly wrapped her in so Curtis and I would not have to look at her disfigured abdomen.  Someday we will return to Florida and release her ashes on the same beach where my mom's ashes were lovingly spread.  Someday, but just not today.

I will acknowledge that much as been learned and I have grown in compassion since losing my daughter.  I have met some wonderful families who have also lost their babies, and while I hate the circumstances that brought us together, I cherish the time spent lifting each other up.  Knowing each of them, I know that Nona's girl is in good company.  Plus she has her Nona to love her... Other than God's love, it doesn't get any better than that!  And while my daughter's body was broken, I know her spirit is perfect and I look forward to the day that I will reunite with and know her.

On a happy note, her baby brother is doing just fine and is due to make his appearance in early December.  I have worked hard to not take this new life, given to me by God, for granted in any way.  Yes, I am big and uncomfortable, but that means he is growing strong.  Yes, I have difficulty sleeping at night because he decides to do fetal aerobics at 4:00 in the morning, but that means his body is able.  And yes I have not been able to do as much with Max as I normally do, but soon he will have a baby brother and best friend for the rest of his life.

I am sorry for the departure from the normal content of my blog, but it is her blog too.  It was designed to chronicle the lives of our children, so she has a place here too.  Just know that if you are reading this and you have lost a baby, the tears I have cried and will cry today are shared with you.

 

Back home in Omaha part 1

Curtis and I lived in Omaha while he was in dental school at Creighton, and I still think of Omaha as our first "home".  We owned our first house there, had school and jobs, and some of the best friends.  An added bonus of living there was going to the College World Series every year.  It was a magical time of year in the city and we loved going to the games and enjoying the atmosphere.  At the time, there was a song that played at the games and on the televised feed that sang about being "Back Home in Omaha".  Well that song plays though my head whenever we get back there, although it is no longer used and Rosenblatt is all but gone.  The city built a new stadium and the Blatt has been reduced to a memorial type attraction.  We did stop by to pay our fondest respects.  Many an afternoon and evening were spent there watching great baseball.

The last time we were in Omaha, I was 6 or 7 weeks pregnant with Maxwell, so it had been a little over 4 years since visiting last.  We always marvel about how much has changed, and yet how familiar it all seems.  We tried to hit all the thing we loved to do while in Omaha, and we added a couple of new things to the list as well.  Our friends Maggie and Scott were sweet to let us stay at their house and their girls Adi and Evie became instant friends for Max.  

   

The Rosenblatt memorial is conveniently located across the parking lot from the Henry Doorly Zoo.  We didn't go there too often when we lived in Omaha, but it was nice to take Max and share in some of the memories we had from our occasional outings there.  It has changed quite a bit from when we left, but some of the attractions are still the same.  The Desert Dome had just been finished right before we left town, but only half of it was opened at the time.  It was neat to go back and see it completed.  We had to cut it a little short as Max was in need of a nap and it was pouring rain in the afternoon.  However, we did get to meet up with Tiffani and her two youngest for a couple of hours.  It was great to see them again.

Max is obsessed with bones so he wanted me to take a picture of the beetles and the skulls they have cleaned.

This ape was showing us his best side.

The gorilla exhibit is huge compared to what it used to be when we were there.  However, in the grand tradition of gorillas they completely ignored everyone that walked by them.

The aquarium is still the same and still awesome.  Always a favorite!

A kid after my own heart... while most kids love the penguins or sharks, Max gravitates towards thinks like the jellies.  I always love the nautilus display, which was no longer there. 

Max and Nola, his "zoo buddy".

That night following a nap, Maggie and Scott hosted a get-together and invited some of out friends that still live in the Omaha area.  I was so excited to see everyone and play catch up on our busy lives.  One of our favorite families there are the Whites.  Jeremy and I worked on our Master's degree at the same time and he met Karrie towards the end of our program.  She was pregnant with their twins on our last visit, and we were due around the same time.  The twins were born a couple of week early, but they are all really close in age.  I have a feeling that if we had more time together Max and Sam would be good buddies.

Jeremy and Marlee

Karrie and Sam

This ended our first full day in Omaha.  It was exhausting, but oh so much fun!  More about or trip to follow soon!

August-September... Busy, busy months

Hello to anyone who might read this after a good month or so of nothingness.  The last couple of months have been busy, but really not too much that is newsworthy.  That has been changing over the last few weeks and we have a lot of events coming up, so I am hoping to have more to blog about soon.

Max has started pre-school, and he is attending two different programs.  It is a little confusing for him and every morning he asks me, "Momma, which school am I going to today?".  Poor kiddo.  However there are things that he loves about both programs and seems very happy attending them.  I do think Montessori has an edge over Harris Creek.  He loves doing "Challenging Works" because he gets to ring the bell and invite his friends to all come and look at his work.  Montessori also stresses independence which is great for us, especially with the big changes coming in a few weeks.  He always whines a little about PDO at Harris Creek because they lay down and have quiet time for about 15 minutes after lunch.  Sounds pleasant to me, but he does not like to slow down!  Here is a random assortment of pictures from the last couple of months.

Hmmm... I'm not exactly sure what to say about this look.

We bought a baseball glove and ball so Max can learn to catch.  He does pretty well, but his fingers are too short to really work the glove yet.  It takes more skill on our part to toss the ball directly in the glove.

Great Catch!

First day of Montessori and all smiles!

Max and Eli on the first morning.  I couldn't get both of them to look at the same time... too much distraction.

I heard that Roger Federer began his tennis career in the exact same way.  I WISH!

Taking apart an old computer of ours.  He reminds me of his Papa here.

Drive-Through Safari

On Friday of our San Antonio adventure, we went to the Texas style safari that was only a few minutes away from Ross and Stephanie's house.  I am sure glad they had the minivan (I've gotta get me one of those) that could accommodate all of us so we could share this experience.  Sadly, I am not up on my african animals so I'm not sure what all of these animals are, but we had a really great time... better than I expected.  I always wanted my first safari to be, you know, in Africa but sometimes we make sacrifices for the kids.  Max really loved it, up until the zebras.  There was a sign that warned us that they can bite, and they were waaaaay more aggressive than the other animals in the park.  You will hear a little of that fear in one of the videos below.

  

 These were the first animals that would come near the car.  It was hot-ish so most of them were in the shade.  We also went mid-day so they may have been full from all the cars that came through before us.

 Wildebeest

 Ibex, which I have seen before.  They actually captured and released a few in White Sands National Park for recreational hunting.  

 Food pellets!

 Not sure what this guy is, but he is sure pretty.

 Ah, my favorite!  I loved the ostriches!  I have always wanted to ride one since I saw Swiss Family Robinson as a kid.  Look at Max's face in the side mirror as Curtis feeds him.

 Baby Hudson Max was awake... for some of it.

Uh oh, it's one of those notorious zebras.  Please keep your hands and fingers away from the snappy mouthes daddy.  Especially the right hand!  I doubt disability insurance would cover loss of fingers to a zebra!

This zebra has the right idea!

Oh how I wished this ostrich would have reached into their car and scared them! 

Happy 4th of July, part II

As we were driving to Kiddie Park, we happened to drive past the Witte Museum and with giant dinosaurs out front, the science nerds in us knew we had to stop on the way back and check it out.  It was A-MAZE-ING!  Obviously the main attraction is the dinosaurs, but there were a lot of other activities that we enjoyed during out 2 hours of fun.  Max was not so sure about the dinosaurs since many of them were animatronic and moved a little from time to time, but once we explained that they were just "robot dinosaurs" he quickly became a fan.  It was all so high tech with iPads at each of the stations that gave additional info and activities.  I could have spent hours in there, but Max's attentions span (along with our not-so-sciency friends) kept us moving along.

Can you see Max in this picture?  That is one GIANT animal!

There were skeletons mixed in with the animatronic figures.  You could scan the skeletons with the iPads to see the dinosaur in the whole.

A simulated dinosaur dig.  Max looks at this picture and talks about how he was a paleontologist.

After the dinosaurs we moved into the 4 story science treehouse.  In this picture Max, Ross and Daddy were learning about how the angles of propellers cause a machine to move.  Baby Hudson Max supervised through his eyelids.

Well we thoroughly wore Max out by skipping a nap and doing so many fun activities.  He was really great all day.  We woke him up so we could eat dinner (once again, amazing food!) and he wasn't quite so chipper then.  We decided against trying to find fireworks since he really needed to go to bed early!

Here is our science nerd kiddo playing with a Bernoulli demonstration.

Future member of Stomp?

Happy 4th of July!

So our good friends Ross and Stephanie moved back to Texas (yay!) after a 2 year stint in Louisiana.  We had been wanting to go down for a visit and see their new baby, Hudson (according to Max his name is Baby Hudson Max and we can only call him by his full name!), but it has been difficult coordinating schedules.  Finally we were able to make the trip over the long 4th of July weekend.  They moved just outside of San Antonio and there are so many fun family activities there!  This trip we decided to avoid the main attractions (i.e. the Riverwalk, Sea World, the zoo, etc.) and tried for a few other attractions that were off the beaten path.  So, following a delicious lunch and a quick trip through Trader Joe's (hey, it's my vacation too!) we headed for Kiddie Park.  It is a small amusement park that is really for Toddlers only and after some warm up Max had a fun time on the rides.  There were only around 8 rides, but that was just enough to spend a fun hour or so.  Plus it wasn't crowded and fortunately not too hot so it was the perfect activity for us.  All the rides were basically the same... sit on something and go around in a circle, but he loved it.

Front entrance to the park.

Max's first ride was on the boats.

Max really liked the airplanes, but insisted he had one with a machine gun.

Happy 4th of July!

 Carousel rides are always a favorite, and this one is a classic.

 Fun day... so far, but we had one more awesome stop just up the road.  Stay tuned!

Miscellaneous Summer Fun

The following pictures have really no rhyme or reason, just some cute shots of Max doing his funny things.

 He made a giant spider at MDO!

 He still loves all of his puppies.

 Owl banding with Fred and Nancy.  Eli and Mr. Ben went with us too.

 Max and Daddy playing at Carson's birthday party.

Sadie and Max at the zoo.  He says she's the mommy and he's the baby.