Nathaniel Day 26 - A Little Nature Museum

April's Nathaniel Day is Felicity's birthday. I didn't know how that was going to work. I wanted to do something, but not make the day all about Nathaniel. Last year we were in the hospital so we didn't do anything.

Dave was out of town for the week so we didn't really have anything special planned for her actual birthday. I decided that we would check out one of the local nature museums in a town not far from us. We had never been there before, it was small, and it was close so we would be able to do it in the short window of time between Felicity's naps.

Though the museum was small we managed to spend most of the afternoon there. Abby had to check out all the animals several times and then she found a puzzle of the life cycle of a frog to do. I think she did it at least 10 times before we left. Felicity had fun looking at the turtles and  taking all the stuffed birds out of their pretend nest and throwing them on the floor.

Since it was Felicity's birthday we also had a free kid's meal at Red Robin. I decided to brave going out to eat with both girls by myself. We went pretty early and they both did pretty well. I was too busy eating and getting food to Felicity to get any pictures of that part of the day though.

Nathaniel Day 24 - Birthday Packing Party

We decided for Nathaniel's birthday party this year to volunteer with our family at Feed My Starving Children. We spent the afternoon packing meals to send to starving kids around the world. Grandmas and Grandpa and Dave's sister and brother in law and their kids were able to join us for the afternoon. I signed us up as a birthday party so there was even a sign saying happy birthday to Nathaniel. It was a little awkward when they were looking for the birthday people and we said Nathaniel wasn't there. We got there late so didn't have a chance to tell anyone beforehand. But if we had talked to someone about the situation maybe they wouldn't have announced his name.

I think everyone enjoyed the packing. Abby did all the jobs. She scooped and weighed and labeled and helped box. She was one tired girl after the session was done. 

I have no idea how much our little group of me, Dave, and 5 kids packed. We weren't very good about keeping track of how many boxes we did. The whole big group ended up packing 125 boxes which would be enough to feed 74 kids for a year.

After the session we bought Nathaniel a bird and a giraffe at the FMSC shop to decorate his grave. We have been meaning to get him some new decorations, but hadn't found anything we liked yet. This way we got something fun and provided 140 meals for starving kids.

After the packing we picked up some mexican food. Most of us went over to Grandma's house for some dinner and birthday cake. It turned out to be a really fun day.

Two Years

Happy birthday Nathaniel!

Today you would be two. It's hard to believe that it has been two whole years that you have been gone. It really doesn't feel like it most of the time.

We aren't having a big party this year like we did for your 1st birthday, but we are going to celebrate with family and a couple of friends. Abby is so excited for your birthday. When I got up she ran and excitedly told me "It's baby brother's birthday today!". She's been counting down for days. Today she's been asking all day when it was time to go pack meals for kids for your birthday party. We're not going until after lunch. That's a long time for her to wait. The last couple of days she and I have been working on making you a cake. She decided that you would like a chocolate George cake and that she would blow out your candles for you.

A while ago I signed you up for a birthday club so about two weeks ago you got a birthday card from Geoffrey Giraffe. It will probably be the only card you get each year, but that's ok. I considered bringing it into the store to get you the crown and balloon that are part of the gift, but ran out of time. The cake took longer to make than I was expecting and your baby sister is teething and not sleeping well so we have been having a hard time leaving the house lately. I was going to let Nathaniel bear wear the crown and hold the balloon for the party and then bring the balloon to your grave afterwards.

I miss you so so much.

Mommy

P.S.  - You have a new baby cousin. He was born this week. He was born on Great Grandpa's birthday and is named after you. Not many two year olds have a namesake so that's pretty cool.

Happy 1st Birthday Blog

This day last year I started this blog. I wrote and published my first post. I never thought that I would be able to keep it up or have the impact that I am having. I never thought I would have so much to say or that people would actually want to read it. Apparently 1.5 million people do. Craziness.

It was just a suggestion that was made in a seminar about book publishing as a way to get noticed and have a better chance of publishing. I still haven't done much about that. I hope to be able to focus on it again now that Felicity is here.

Nathaniel's 1st Birthday Party

This month has gone by quickly. I just realized that it is going to be March in a couple of days and I haven't posted about the big birthday party yet. So here you go. Sorry for the long wait.

Thank you to everyone who came to the party and celebrated with us, and to those who supported us from far away with messages and donations. We appreciate all of you.

Nathaniel's party had a hot air balloon theme. We invited about 100 people and about 40 showed up on Sunday afternoon for the party. We all had a lot of fun.

We colored balloon pictures, played pin the kid on the balloon, and had a piñata (which got broken accidentally right before we were going to do it, but was luckily able to be fixed with lots of tape). We had snacks, sang happy birthday (Abby blew out the candle on the cake), and had cake and cupcakes.



There was so much food left over. We still have a couple pieces of cake in our refrigerator now and that is after Dave brought a bunch to work a couple of times and we gave some to friends.

People brought books for us to donate to our local library. We also got some donations of books and money from family and friends that were not able to make it to the party.

Abby had fun unwrapping all of the books. Then she would make us read each one to her three times.







We were also given a few other gifts for Nathaniel's birthday. My sister and her family gave us this angel and child figurine. (We got a similar one for Christmas from my other sister.)

My friend Krystal and her family had some trees planted in a National Forest in Michigan for him.









I brought 42 books over to the library last week along with some cash donations. We have since gotten a few more books so are up to 44 now. The librarians were very excited to get all the new board books. And somehow we only got two duplicates.

After they are processed each one will have a book plate in it that says that they were donated in memory of Nathaniel. I'm excited to possibly be able to check out books for baby sister that were donated for Nathaniel.

Nathaniel Day 12 - a Play and Dinner

You can read about the idea behind Nathaniel Day and the activities of previous months here (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11).

This month for Nathaniel Day Abby and I went to go see some kids from church perform in the play hairspray. We had a good time. Abby was very excited when she saw the kids on stage. "He goes to my church!" She said the play was "like the Wiggles" with the singing and dancing. For some reason she didn't take her coat or hat off the entire hour and a half play and only took her mittens off at the end.

We spent the afternoon doing a little prep work for the birthday party. Abby helped wash all the strawberries, cut some cheese, and put crackers in a bowl.





After the party prep we (maybe just I) took a nap for a while until Dave came home.

Dave had made dinner reservations for us at Buca di Bepo, a fun Italian restaurant not too far from us. It was Abby's first time there. She was convinced they had macaroni and cheese. We weren't so sure, but she was right. They had it on the kid's menu. We all had lots of delicious food and even decided to get some cheesecake for dessert since we were celebrating Nathaniel's birthday. It was gigantic. All three of us shared it and we still brought half home.

Abby's kid's mac n cheese.

Our dinner: Chicken with artichokes and bacon with lemon sauce. 

The other half of our dinner: four different filled pastas

1 Year

Happy birthday baby boy! It's hard to believe that it's been a year since you were born. Today we don't have much planned. Abby and I are going to do something fun this morning and we will go out for dinner as a family tonight. 

On Sunday we are going to have a big birthday party for you. We invited 100 people! Presents have already started coming in from people who are not able to make it. We asked people to give board books that we can donate to the library. I have a feeling that the library is going to have a whole lot of new books next week.

We miss you and wish you were here so we could all celebrate your birthday together.

Mommy

Another Funeral

I have been to more funerals this year than in the whole rest of my life put together. Tomorrow there is another one, but since it is Nathaniel's birthday and I already had plans to go see a play with Abby I am probably not going. I expect to be a mess tomorrow anyway. Going to a funeral would probably not be the best of ideas.

I am planning on going to the wake tonight though. It is for the father of one of my good friends from college. I think I maybe met him once, but I know the rest of his immediate family a bit and want to be there for them.

Passing Tests

This week I had a doctor's appointment. When I got there the receptionist handed me a form to fill out. I was late and was trying to get our coats off so I didn't look at it right away. It turned out to be a questionnaire to determine post-partum depression. I don't know why I was given the questionnaire. Usually it is given to mom's soon after they have given birth. It's been almost a year for me. It had been a hard week so I knew that my answers to questions about how I have been feeling over the past 7 days were not going to be positive. I quickly filled it out.

Here are the questions (The answers are a scale from always to never):

In the past 7 days:

1. I have been able to laugh and see the funny side of things
2. I have looked forward with enjoyment to things
3. I have blamed myself unnecessarily when things went wrong
4. I have been anxious or worried for no good reason
5. I have felt scared or panicky for no very good reason
6. Things have been getting on top of me
7. I have been so unhappy that I have had difficulty sleeping
8. I have felt sad or miserable
9. I have been so unhappy that I have been crying
10. The thought of harming myself has occurred to me

Source: Cox, J.L., Holden, J.M., and Sagovsky, R. 1987. Detection of postnatal depression: Development of the 10-item Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale. British Journal of Psychiatry 150:782-786 .

2Source: K. L. Wisner, B. L. Parry, C. M. Piontek, Postpartum Depression N Engl J Med vol. 347, No 3, July 18, 2002, 194-199

When the doctor came in she told me that I had almost failed. I scored a 9 out of 30. 10 is when they make you do something. She asked if anything was going on. I reminded her that it's been almost a year since Nathaniel died and told her that it's been hard for me lately with that milestone coming up. She was understanding and told me that under the circumstances that a 9 was actually pretty good.

I don't know why this screening tool is used on loss moms. It can't be accurate. Of course I am sad, but I am not depressed. I do not need medication. I am grieving.

Birthdays

I have been thinking a lot about birthdays lately. On Saturday, my friend Krystal just celebrated the first birthday of her twins Conner and Benjamin that she lost last year just a few weeks before we lost Nathaniel. I made these hats to donate to a NICU in memory of them. They were born at 22 weeks so I made the hats really really little. It was hard to find something small enough to model them.

Nathaniel's birthday is coming up in less than a month. We are starting to plan for his party now. We have a theme and two possible dates. I've been working on making decorations for the past couple of days. Now we need to decide on a date, make invitations, and figure out a guest list pretty soon. I want invitations to go out ASAP, preferably this week.

11 Months

Nathaniel,

Today it is 11 months without you. It  snowed over the weekend (and last night) so Abby and I were going to spend the day playing in the snow. It has been really cold so I don't know if we will now, but Abby wants to shovel the driveway, so I will probably let her soon and we can see if we will have fun outside for a while later. If not we might have a tea party inside the house where it is warmer. Those are the best options I can think of on a cold January day. Really I just want to stay home and do nothing today, but that is probably not a good idea. I've been a bit of a mess lately so I really need to do something fun.

I've been thinking about you a lot lately. Your birthday is coming up pretty soon. It's hard to believe that it has almost been a year since we saw you and held you. We are planning on having a party and donating books to the library in memory of you. We might pick some out today.

Mommy

A Christmas Thought

A thought that came to me in church this week:

Feeling Overwhelmed

Abby took this picture of me this morning. This is how I feel right now. Buried.

Christmas is coming soon and I'm feeling overwhelmed. I have so many things to do and don't feel like I can do any of them. I shouldn't have taken on so many things.

Making lots of Christmas presents this year was probably not the best of ideas. I didn't really think much of it when I made the decision, and it probably wouldn't have been a big deal if I had started working on them right away, but I didn't. I started last week on everything besides the ornaments (those were a much bigger job than I original thought too). So now I still have two presents to make that need to be mailed so they really need to be done in the next couple of days and at least one more needs to be bought to be shipped with them.

I made a list this morning of all the things that I need to get done. It was way more than I originally thought. (Since making the list I did cross off 3 things so it is helping, but that doesn't make it any less overwhelming.) I don't think it's going to all get done without me staying up way to late every night and exhausting myself. I'm going to either have to not do some of them until later, get help, or not do them at all.

Dave is going to be home starting Wednesday. That could be helpful except he has a project that he is planning to do while he is off. He is going to replace the tile in the bathroom. That will take days and while he is doing it Abby and I are going to go stay at his parent's house. So really anything that needs to be done needs to be done by Wednesday or Thursday.

On top of all of this Dave wants to do something as a present for Nathaniel. I think it's a great idea. I'm all for it, but I do not have the energy to think about it at all. So if it's going to happen it's up to him and he knows that.

And Nathaniel's birthday is coming up in less than 2 months. I want to have some sort of party. I don't know what, but we need to figure that out soon too. It will have to wait until after Christmas. I just don't have the capacity to think about it now.

Happy Birthday to Me?

It seems that Abby can sense when I'm having a bad day. The days I am extra sad or emotional tend to be when she is extra whiny and doesn't listen at all. Today is one of those days. She was fine this morning until we needed to leave the library to come home and eat lunch. I had to physically remove her from the building and then she wouldn't get in her seat in the car.

After lunch I couldn't stand the whining and crying any more so I told her that she needed to take a rest for a while and that if she listened we would go to the park later. (It's cold and overcast so the pool is not an option.)

I got a little break while she was resting and then we hooked up the trailer to the bike and rode to a park near us. Now I am going to lay on the grass and relax while Abby plays in the sand. She'll have fun and wear herself out. We don't have to worry about when we get home. Dave is making dinner tonight since it's my birthday.

My day is getting better.

Firsts Are Hard

There have been quite a few firsts for us this year without Nathaniel. None of them are new to us. They are all things that we have celebrated before, but this year they are hard days. The days we have to try to get through. The days we miss him the most. The first Valentine's Day, Easter, Mother's Day, and now Father's Day.

My birthday is next week. It will be the first birthday that we have celebrated as a family since February. I am dreading it. I don't want to do anything. I really don't want to celebrate. I'm thinking it is going to be harder than any other day so far this year. I should plan something fun, but we have so many other things going on next week that I think trying to plan something will just stress me out.

The morning is already planned. There is story time at the library. We always go to that. If it's a nice day Abby and I will probably go to the pool in the afternoon. She's been actually playing in the water a lot more this year. That could be distracting and fun. If it rains I don't know what I'll do. Maybe I will pack for our trip the next day. We are only going to be gone for two days so that shouldn't take too long.

I think I'll be praying for sunshine for Thursday.