This One and That One

I was reading my Facebook memories yesterday, as I do most mornings and had this pop up.   Widowhood is more than missing your spouse’s presence. It is adjusting to an alternate life. It is growing around a permanent amputation.   Widowhood is going to bed for the three hundred and sixty fifth time, and still, the loneliness doesn’t feel normal. The empty bed a constant reminder. The night no longer brings intimacy and comfort, but the loudness of silence and the void of connection.    Widowhood is walking around the same house you have lived in for years and it no longer feeling like home. Because “home” incorporated a person. And they’re not there. Homesickness fills your heart and the knowledge that home will never return haunts you.   Widowhood is seeing all your dreams and plans you shared as a couple crumble around you. The painful process of searching for new dreams that include only you amount to climbing Mount Everest. And every small victory of creatin...

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...

  I would like to preface this post by asking for understanding in any typos or autocorrected mistakes. I’m writing this on my phone because my computer is downstairs and I am holding a sleeping baby.   There are the things everyone knows about motherhood, “You won’t get any sleep.” And all the rest of the obvious changes to your life…. But there are things that sprang up at me, unawares. The little things I wasn’t prepared for… like what to do when you have two snoozing babies in your bed and you have to pee. (This one may be specific to us only parents. I prefer this term over ‘single parent’ because that implies a secondary caregiver… which we don’t have.) or how very many different butt creams there are, and you will develop a *preference* on which are acceptable. Note: desitin stinks…. But A&D: the smell makes me gag. You will have to ask the pharmacist which kind of vaginal yeast infection cream is best for diaper rash because you weren’t aware that there was basical...

How to get twins to bed in 2 hours or less! Or maybe a little more… 1. Take babies upstairs to my bed. 2. Change diapers.  3. Turn on soothing bedtime lullabies.  4. Turn on star light machine.  5. Make a bottle for the first baby while making sure neither baby crawls off the side of the bed. 6. Feed first baby on boppy using right hand.  7. Use left hand and/or one or both legs and feet to stop the second baby from: • Diving off the side of the bed • Crawling on or smacking the first baby in the head.  • Attacking the dog at the foot of the bed. 8. Do the above while also making sure not to wake the half asleep feeding baby.  9. Burp and Put first baby into their bed asleep. Be very, VERY careful to not wake baby. 10. Fail because you went too fast because the send baby was making a run for the edge of the bed. 11. Put the second baby in baby jail and try to get the first baby back to sleep. Fail.  12. Repeat steps 5-9 with second baby.  • Pray t...

Coming back from my monthlong trip back home, I expected it to take a little longer for the loneliness and sadness to hit again… but it came on basically right away. It’s led my thoughts back to trying to come to terms with the idea of dating again. I don’t really think I’m ready, but who knows if I’ll ever be ready. Jamie and I actually talked a lot about dating and moving on after one of us passed. Not too long before we got sick my pregnancy hormone’s actually had me crying in the kitchen because I was so upset about what he’d do if I died. I didn’t want him to be lonely or to raise our babies alone but I also didn’t want yo think about him falling in love with someone else. I was totally crazy cakes and he told me he’d never be able to move on from me. Plus he said, he wouldn’t have any time with two babies to take care of. (He didn’t even really know how accurate that statement was.) He made jokes about swerving us off a cliff while driving “If I can’t have you no one will!” Which...