Men Are From Mars....

This week has been a good one as we continue to settle into the school routine. At about 7:30 each evening, we make a mad dash to get both the kids through the tub, allow them one last snack, brush teeth (we have to ask at least 3 times), and then tuck them in with stories, prayers, and a lullabye. This is quite a challenge for a family who has never been particularly ritualistic at bedtime...and on most nights, was lucky to get the kids to bed before 10:00.

Those days of being relaxed about bedtime are gone, but I must say that Brandon and I are really enjoying the adult time in the evenings now that the kids are in bed by 8:30. We can watch grown-up TV, play around on the computer, or just (gasp) have a CONVERSATION. It's amazing!

I am quickly learning that the differences in communcation styles is inherent in men and women. Every day, I pick Connor up from school and ask him how his day was. The conversation goes something like this:

Me: "How was your day?"

Connor (with a slightly exasperated tone): "Fine."

Me: "What was the best thing you did today?"

Connor (looking wistfully out the car window as if he wishes he could be anywhere but with me): "Recess, Mom. It's ALWAYS recess."

At this point, Kylee decides to tell him all about what she's done throughout the day, during which, he promptly covers up his ears and looks pained. In his defense, Kylee does seem to repeat the same thing about 80 times in a row.

Now, on the days I pick Kylee up from school, here's how it goes:

Me: "How was your day?"

Kylee: "I did a craft, and learned a new song, and we read a story about Max and Ruby. I played outside, AND, I went to the bathroom ALL BY MYSELF!"

Me: "What was your favorite thing?"

Kylee: "Doing a craft. And Daniel got put in time out today because he pushed Marissa in the face. But I played with Melania outside today and I taught my friends patience because I showed them how to take turns out on the slide."

Me: "Really? YOU teaching patience?"

Kylee: "Yes."

Now, mind you, our daughter attends preschool for 3 hours twice a week and my son goes to school for 8 hours a day 5 days a week. I am trying to make peace with the fact that my glimpses into my son's world will be signficiantly smaller than those into our daughter's.

Whether much or little is shared, I am so proud of the way our kiddos have adjusted to their new environments at school. What amazing blessings they are.

First Days...

HOORAY! We survived the first week of school.

Connor started school on Tuesday of last week. He is back at the same school he attended summer school in, and he has the same teacher....it is a huge help that he is familiar with the "lay of the land". We went to Back to School night, and he was completely comfortable and felt right at home in Miss McPherson's (aka "Miss Mac's") classroom. It has been a bit difficult to adjust to the "up and at 'em" routine in the mornings, but he has done very well.

He reports that his first week was "very bummer" because "all they do when we go somewhere is tell us rules and I ALREADY KNOW all those rules from summer school!" We have assured him that next week will be better. Please pray that it is. :)

We continued our tradition of first day of school pictures. Here Connor is in his (second) first day of kindergarten outfit, complete with new shoes:

Here he is walking into school. Parents are allowed to accompany their kids into the classroom for the first three days. I love this picture of him. I think it conveys a sense of purpose and innocence all at the same time.

Here is Connor with his teacher, Miss Mac. This is her fourth year teaching in Liberty. She seems to genuinely love her job, and I think her personality will mesh well with Connor's. They are in front of the "treehouse" that they have in the middle of the classroom. It was closed during summer school, so Connor can't wait to get up in there!

Kylee had her first day of preschool at Second Friends on Wednesday. After watching Connor go to school, she was ready and rearing to go. When we'd ask her if she was excited to make new friends, and she quickly replied "I don't WANT to make new friends". Despite this stellar attitude, she has LOVED her time at preschool. She was very excited about getting to do a craft, color, and learn a new song all in the same day. She thinks she's pretty hot stuff. Here are the first day of school pics, complete with a new dress AND new Dora shoes. In the second picture, you will see the patented Kylee J grin:

We had this same picture taken of us on Connor's first day of school right outside of Second Friends. I decided to wear my glasses just in case my sobbing caused my contacts to get blurry. Thankfully, it wasn't (much of) an issue:

Here our big girl is, sitting at the table in the classroom, diving right into the crayons:

It was a good week for our family. As we sent both our children to school, I was reminded of how precious my time at home with them has been. I am so thankful that I have a career that has allowed me to spend most days with our kids. I am hopeful that that time together will allow them to flourish outside of the house. It has been an easier transition for me than I expected that it would be....after 6 years, a quiet house is almost foreign, but I am learning what to do. :)Kylee is only in school from 9-12, so just about the time that I get a little sad, it's time to go pick her up. It's perfect.

Goodbye, summer. I have mixed emotions about seeing you go....

Here It Is!

I had mentioned posting this for all of you to see about a week ago, and am just now getting around to it.

If you choose to watch this DVD clip, you will get a glimpse of some of our family's most intimate moments. If you've been reading this blog over the last several months, you have already shared some of our family's most intimate times, and I feel it is appropriate to invite you into our sanctuary through this 12 minutes, too. I do not take sharing this lightly. These images were captured about a half hour after Caden was delivered. It was 5:00 in the morning, after a very long day and night of labor.

Please know that posting this is an act of trust and love on our part. We thank you for being interested and for desiring to know our little boy in whatever capacity you can. What makes me most emotional when I watch this is not just seeing our precious son, but also seeing how much love he was surrounded with in his brief time on earth. As you watch his grandparents, aunt, uncle, siblings, and friends gaze at him, I hope you can sense what we have been blessed with as we have grieved our loss.

I hope you will enjoy the music on this clip, too. These are songs created by artists especially for the Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep song bank. They are amazing. The last one, in particular, does a particularly excellent job of putting into words so much of what I have felt in the last 6 months.

It seems strange, and a bit inappropriate, to ask you to enjoy this. Instead, I think I will humbly ask you to approach viewing this reverently....in whatever form that takes for you....saying a prayer, shedding a tear, being thankful for a loved one, holding your baby a little tighter (be they 2 years old or 52) or marveling at the beauty of a newborn....our prayers are with each of you as yours have been with us.

Our Kylee J

Hello!

We have been enjoying the cooler weather here in KC. We ventured out to Adventure Oasis on Monday (courtesy of my wonderful colleagues at William Jewell) and enjoyed the (very cool) water. Connor especially loved the lazy river, which he went on at least 5 times. Kylee was a little hesitant about the waterpark, so she and I enjoyed sunbathing together on the lounge chairs.

Kylee has dealt with the loss of her little brother in her own unique way. When we watch Caden's DVD, she often starts crying. We shared the DVD a couple times this weekend, and it was rough for her. We believe that part of this is she doesn't like to see her Mommy being upset...and the tears still roll when I watch the DVD. So, I have tried to keep it together when she's around because it breaks my heart to see her hurting.

Our printed pictures arrived yesterday, one of which was an 8X10 of the 5 of us together (it is the same one I posted previously for you all to see). I put the picture in the "family photo spot of honor" in our entry way. Kylee looked at it and screamed "I don't like that picture! I don't want to see myself be a big sister! I HATE being a big sister!" I was caught off guard by her reaction and pulled her up on my lap. She started crying. I tried to get her to verbalize her feelings, which, of course, is difficult in this situation. "Does it bother you to look at pictures of Caden?" I asked. She nodded. "Is it because it reminds you of a sad day?" She nodded again.

God was with me in this moment, because I was able to speak to her without crying myself. I gently explained that it's important for us to remember Caden, and having pictures up will help us do that. I also acknowledged that it is hard for all of us to look at pictures of him, but reminded her that she has a special angel up in heaven watching over her. I also told her that when she felt sad, she could pray about it. That seemed to calm her down a bit. I asked if we could leave the family picture up for awhile and she could see how things go. She decided that would be okay. She then helped me pick some other spots around the house where we could put pictures of her little brother up.

Bless her heart.

Please pray for little Miss Kylee...that God would protect her heart and bolster her spirit. She was so excited to be a big sister and I think the blow of not getting to bring her baby brother home has hit her a bit harder than we imagined it would. While it is painful to see this, I also feel so blessed to have a daughter that feels things so deeply. Even though she is unable to verbalize her feelings completely, her love for Caden is so evident.

Caden is truly loved and missed...by all of us.

Another Week...

Good Morning.

Another week draws to a close. This one has been fairly uneventful around our house, which is okay. We have enjoyed playing with friends and are trying to soak up what is left of summer. Connor will start school on August 19th, and Kylee on August 20th. I am back at work at Jewell on August 25th. Yikes!

Last night, we attended our first meeting of the infant loss support group that meets at Antioch Bible Baptist church in Gladstone. We were referred there by Tracy, a former student of mine who has also had a very personal experience with infant loss. The group is led by a woman who lost her son over 15 years ago.

Despite all my experience with loss over the last 9 years, I have never attended a grief/loss support group, so this was a first for me. I have to admit that as we drove to the church last night, I was quite nervous. Brandon had agreed to come with me at least once (often times, Moms attend these groups for a much longer period of time than Dads do due to the differences in grief patterns between men and women). So, we pulled into the parking lot, not sure of what to expect.

There were several other new folks attending the group last night, so that was a blessing for us in terms of feeling more comfortable. We all took turns sharing our stories. For some, the grief was very fresh....losing a baby just 3 weeks ago. For others, they were attending the group after realizing they hadn't dealt with a loss that occured 17 years ago. It was the first time I had shared our journey with Caden to complete strangers. There was a collective gasp in the room when I got to the part about continuing the pregnancy despite being advised to terminate. In a strange way, it was reassuring to hear people recognize what a difficult decision that was. It was painful and healing to share our experience.

Brandon said that he'd go with me at least once more, which I take to be a good sign. I think we were both a little fearful that we'd end up chanting the serenity prayer or singing kum-by-ya together holding hands in a circle. We were grateful that this wasn't at all the case.

We left the group meeting and then stood in the parking lot and talked with other folks who had attended for another 30 minutes. It is amazing to me how going through infant loss instantly bonds you. Instantly. There is nothing like a hug from another mother who has told her baby goodbye.

It will be six weeks Monday since Caden was born. I can't believe it has been that long since I held my youngest son. I laid in bed last night, remembering all the nights I laid awake because Caden had the hiccups or was doing gymnastics inside my belly. Although I (obviously) carried him with me 24 hours a day, nighttime was our bonding time together. I miss him and that time we had together.

One foot in front of the other...

A Preview for You...

Our prayers were answered on Friday, when we were able to pick up our Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep pictures and DVD. It was worth the wait. We are planning to post our DVD here for all of you to see, but we want to share it with our families first. Watch for it early next week and break out the Kleenexes! The images of our time with Caden are priceless to us. While it is VERY painful to look at them right now, it also brings us great peace to know that we have this account of his time with us forever. Looking at these pictures is a sharp reminder of what we've lost, so there have been lots of tears over the last few days. But ultimately, we are amazed at how beautiful Caden was, and how much love we, and our families, were able to lavish upon him.

It's Friday!!

Good Morning!

It's hard to believe that another week is drawing to a close. It has been a good week....probably the best we've had so far. I think maybe it's because I have such a beautiful garden to look at outside my kitchen window! :)

Things have been busy around here...in a good way. We spent an evening with Sarah, Cara, and Collin earlier in the week, and then Dana and Aleksander drove down from Springfield to spend some time with us, so we had fun cruising around town with them.

We are preparing for a weekend trip today. Brandon's cousin will be getting married tomorrow night in our hometown, Lindsborg, so we decided to make a weekend of it by driving to Great Bend to see my Grandpa, too. We will go visit him in tomorrow morning after spending tonight in Great Bend, and will then head on to Lindsborg from there. The wedding on Saturday will be the first time we've seen most of Brandon's extended family since Caden was born. This wedding will be in the same church that Brandon and I got married in, so that always brings back warm memories for us.

We have been a bit frustrated because we still have not received our pictures from the NILMDTS photographer. We are supposed to get them at some point this weekend, but after being strung along for so long, we won't believe it until we have them in our hands. We have both gotten nervous, wondering if maybe our pictures have gotten lost....so we are anxious to see them soon. We went and spent sometime with another Alexandra's House family last night and got to see their DVD, and it was amazing...making us want to see ours all the more. We will certainly keep you all posted...

We are finding healing in each and every day, which is such a relief. I still have my muffin top :) and we still shed tears, but the searing, raw sort of pain is diminishing. We know this is, in no small part, because so many continue to lift us up in prayer.

Thank you.