This One and That One

I sit here, on November 18th trying to put my thoughts together for an organized and well written blog post for Michaela's anniversary on the 19th. It's the first one without my mom. The first year that she's not here to write something herself. I feel the need to write something spectacular and heart warming to honor them both, even though I know nothing I come up with would be as good as what my momma would have written. And as with most things I've tried to write over the last few years, I feel it will probably look more like a jumble of thoughts and emotions that could have been put together by an ADHD squirrel. On top of that, what is there new to say, that my mom hasn't already said 1,000 times? Still, I will try.  My family has always known great loss. My whole life (or what I can remember, at least) has always had a shadow of loss hanging over it. But these last few years have REALLY hit us hard. First with the loss of Karina, my older brother's wife at ...

** Trigger warning: This post contains a photo that may be hard to look at, specifically if you knew and loved Jamie. It is a photo from the mortuary, from the last time I saw him before he was cremated. The photo is from a distance but I still wanted to put the warning so you could continue to read at your own risk. I've been sitting on this post for a little while, letting it ruminate in my head for a bit, unsure what direction I even want to go in while writing it. Also... How much sharing is over sharing? Ya know, who cares. I'm an open book. I signed up for online dating a couple weeks ago. For the first couple hours it was exciting and exhilirating. But that shine wore off awful fast and turned into being both over and underwhelming at the same time. Overwhelmed with the quantity of messages and "likes" and underwhelmed with the quality of them. But what I found myself doing, was reading these profiles and looking at these men and trying to look past my first im...

Making sure I hold them enough  Making sure I don’t hold them too much Making sure I hold them equally  Letting them sleep in my bed Not letting them sleep in my bed Are they eating enough Are they eating too much? These good pouches say they’re for 12 months and up Are they getting the same amount of love Do people favor one more than the other? Are they developing at the same pace? Does it actually matter if they develop at the same pace? I should be letting them try to feed themselves with utensils more Cleaning up after them trying to feed themselves with utensils takes so long it cuts into other activities time What if they learn how to take off their poopy diapers? What if they play in it? Will babies get pink eye? When I bathe them together, someone will end up loose in the bathroom. Baby WILL try to lick the toilet.  Should I be giving them more floor time outside of the playpen? If they fall on wood or laminate it’s a lot harder on their lil noggins… Would I be a...