The Wood Between the Worlds

Joshua turned 10!  A WHOLE decade old!!  I seriously can't believe that.

Going through 10 years of pictures takes a seriously long time.  It was very hard to narrow it down to 24 pictures.  But it also brought back lots of memories and emotions.  First, the shock of becoming new parents.  Joshua was planned, but I do not think anything could have prepared us for parenthood.  Then the amazing amount of cuteness and fun and laughter that Joshua brought into our lives.  Next, I cannot deny that there was a lot of frustration with him from preschool through early elementary.  He was just a square peg trying to fit into a round hole.  I sure wish we would have done some things differently with his education, instead of trying to do what everyone else was doing.  Those years came to an abrupt end at about the time the Elsa died.  Then there were the years that we grew together as a family, learning together, having fun together, enjoying each other, and supporting each other through our times of grief and sadness.  Then came Ollie and all the fun we've had since then.  I really think a lot of our Joshua.  He is turning into a really great young person!  Most notably he is so kind and thoughtful of others and their feelings.  He is also smart and fun and a big helper.  He is a great son and big brother.

I asked Joshua to share a few things about himself right now:

So I'm obviously WAY behind on blogging (for my own personal benefit).  I'm a month + behind.  So keep on reading, as I've added several new posts today.  And more will be coming soon!  Someday my goal is to be totally caught up so that the current happening are what I'm blogging about.

Why am I so far behind, you ask?



 Well, there's three little reasons.  I had all these great books come to me at the same time.  You know, the kinds that you can't put down and you barely get anything done around the house until you finish.  I finally finished the Fablehaven series last night.  So let's hope that I'll have more blogging time now.

I've been wanting to make some changes to my blog, but I'm not sure what.  So I added a couple new songs.  I am LOVING the band The Paper Raincoat.  We first head them at a Vienna Teng concert, where they were the opening gig.  Oh, they were awesome!  I added the song "Rewind" to my music list, if you want to check it out...in addition to the song "Sympathetic Vibrations" which has been there for a while.  Vienna Teng is also awesome.  We were introduced by her cousin Allen...one of our friends who went to Pharm school with Brent.  Savvy?  Speaking of my music list...I have changed it so that you have to click play to listen to it.  A lot of you have commented on how much you like my music list, so I thought I'd let you know you now have to click play.  I guess that a few people don't like it when music lists play automatically...so I changed it.  I don't really like that either...cause when I'm checking blogs, I'm usually listening to my music!   

A word to the wise, DO NOT pass up the opportunity to see Vienna Teng live in concert.  It is SO good.

Have any of you ever checked out babysteals.com, or totsy.com?  They are deeply discounted baby/kid clothing and gear websites.  I think they are addicting.  I have only bought a very few things...but I see how quickly the items get sold out.  People are shopping vultures.  The thing that gets me is that most days, the things they're selling are things I never knew I *had to have*.  By the way, let me know if you want to join Totsy.  I'll get a $15 credit if I send you an invite.  It's free for you.

When I was out jogging the other day I decided that from now on I'm going to say HI to everyone I pass.  EVERYONE.  No matter what.  I just want to be a friendly person.  So HI!

Ok...I better go to bed.  But I also want to know what is your favorite yummy canned item?  I usually can peaches and pears.  I love to do salsa, but it's a lot of work.  Same with applesauce.  

What's up with all this blogging again suddenly?  I've been quiet for these past three months because I couldn't truly be honest.  But now you all know, and so I return to blog land.

Does this year feel vaguely familiar to any of you?  Probably not...unless you are reading my blog again for the second year in a row and you realize that I am pretty much exactly the same amount of gravida as I was last year at this time.  Sometimes I can't help but wonder if last year WAS just a dream.  Can this really be happening to me?  After I lost Elsa I just wanted to be pregnant again.  My first preference was to go back in time and be pregnant with her again.  Even if it meant being pregnant with her forever...just so she could stay with me.  But since that wasn't a reality, I decided that the next best option would be to carry on with life and start over again with a new baby.  And I KNEW that if I did that, I was NOT going to take one single day of this pregnancy or time with this baby for granted.  The sad truth is that we never really know how long we have with our loved ones.  And so...I am ELATED to be spending my days (sick or well) with little Jefferies baby #4.

But it is a weird sensation knowing that I am due 2 days after Elsa's first birthday.  At least...I am due 10 days before I was due with Elsa...so I am a week and a half ahead of where I was last year.  That counts for something psychologically.  It was not really our intention to have this next baby so close to Elsa's birthday...but I think that Elsa worked it all out for us so that we will have happy times in Augusts to come...and not just sad times.  BUT...I know that this is a different year.  I have already been blessed with many reassurances of that.

In this pregnancy and with this baby, I feel permission to move on from the pain of loosing Elsa.  Not to move on FROM Elsa.  Not that I still don't miss her a lot.  Oh how I miss her!  But I feel that this next baby will be healing.  In the very first week after loosing Elsa, I knew that they key to healing myself would be to have another baby.  During the long summer heatwave we had here, we drove to the beach often and in the car I read all of the birth stories in the book Spiritual Midwifery by Ina May Gaskin out loud to Brent.  We felt that it was groovy to fill our minds with as many natural birth stories as possible.  Well, I remember pausing on the few stories where someone had a stillbirth or a miscarriage and just solemnly letting it register.  So, after I lost Elsa I remembered those stories and knew that I needed to re-read them.  I spent the whole first hectic week trying to find the story where midwife Ina May lost her own baby.  It was hidden within another story.  But when I finally found it, it brought me the peace and comfort that I was seeking.  She said something about how she was filled with grief that didn't really heal until the birth of her next baby.  Right when I read that, I knew that was my path.  And reading Mary's story of her two miscarriages brought me the strength to 'keep it together' in those early days.  After her second miscarriage and third, successful pregnancy she said "I really know in my heart of hearts that choosing to be spiritual instead of depressed was what got me together enough to have a baby."  These words hit me and I knew I had to be spiritual and keep it together so that I could have another baby right away.

And I am so lucky/blessed/grateful/healthy to be able to do this again so quickly.  I know that there are many couples out there that have a harder time with pregnancy and I am now shedding tears and saying a prayer for you.  I cannot imagine the heartache of having to wait and wait (especially after a loss).  It is something I wasn't able to comprehend until I went through 9 months of pregnancy (that's a LONG time!) and then only to unexpectedly loose the baby girl that I had been planning on keeping.  I didn't even realize how long 9 months was with my first two pregnancies...I think afterward I was too absorbed with my newborn to remember how long it was.

And so, I continue to read happy and good birth stories in the hope that my trust in birth and the ability for life to triumph has not been too heartily shaken.   

Joshua is plenty busy with school this year...and it's only second grade.  We were told that second graders would only have 20-30 minutes of homework a night...but most nights he ends up spending 3 hours on his homework!  Part of that time is spent doing extra reading that is not required.  Part of that time is spent whining and procrastinating said homework.  And part of that time is due to the extra homework that he sometimes gets because of his quick advancement in reading and math.  We're really proud of him, but man oh man!  It can be hard work trying to get him to stay focused sometimes.

I have documented some of his recent projects and fun stuff:

 BONE diorama:
  This is a diorama that he made after reading all 10 books in the Bone Series, by Jeff Smith, in lieu of writing a book report for each individual book.  It was lots of fun, but also a lot of work!  The only things that I helped him with were getting proper (modest) clothing for the little polly pocket that he used to portray "Thorn", and I helped him glue and re-glue his little clay "Phone Bone" character together until it was stable enough to survive a day at school.  Now, don't go on getting too impressed with him reading 10 books so quickly.  They are graphic novels...so they are very easy.  The books remind me a little of 'Lord of the Rings'...and they are fun (I read them too).  My only complaint is sometimes too much skin showing in the illustrations (nothing a little permanent marker can't fix...but I don't recommend that action unless you purchase the books first).


RECIPE PROJECT:
  These next set of pictures are Joshua making cookies for his homework.  He had to write down his favorite recipe and then make it and submit a picture of him making it.  Yep.  Yummy homework.  He choose to make POWER COOKIES.  Yum.  I really liked this homework, since he is not a cooking kind of person by choice (unlike Toby).  I've been trying to get him interested in cooking more.  Maybe making cookies will do the trick!

CRAZY HAT DAY:

Grief is a funny thing. I am finding that things I was thinking were going to make me sad are not. And some things that I was not expecting to make me sad are making me sad. Yesterday I was not expecting to be so sad about National Infant Loss Remembrance Day. And I was. Today I thought that I'd be really sad about Elsa's two month birthday. And I'm not so sad. Today I feel more grateful. Maybe it's because thinking about the "LOSS" is sad, and thinking about the "BIRTH" is beautiful. Losing Elsa is a hard thing...but her body and spirit are so beautiful, and I'm so grateful for that.

OF PICTURES
Anyway...I had a thought a few days after Elsa was born. I was looking up at our family picture on our wall of when Toby was not quite two years old...and he was SO cute.  And I was thinking that since Elsa looked a little bit like him, that I could imagine what Elsa might look like by picturing Toby with pigtails. Hahaha!  (And this is the largest I can get this image since this file is a proof emailed from kiddie kandids...back in the day when we went there for our portraits...BT [before Tara]).
So I had this idea that on each of Elsa's milestones I could get a picture of Toby at that age and try to imagine it looking a little more feminine, and maybe get a glimpse of  what Elsa will someday look like.

So after consulting with many good people...especially the very helpful few who have been through loosing a baby, I came to the conclusion that I needed some scheduled projects to help ease me through this time of waiting.  Thank you, you helpful people for all of your suggestions (you all know who you are).

We've got:

I am one who likes good books, but I don't always find them by myself easily. I remember when we lived in University Village, our friends the Lonsdales were trying to convince me to read the Harry Potter series. It took me a while, but I finally did read the Harry Potter series...and by the time I got into it, I only had to wait one year to read the final book. And I loved Harry Potter, so obviously when I heard that several of my friends were loving the Twilight Series it piqued my interest. I looked it up online and read some excerpts from Twilight. It sounded weird (a high school girl falling for a vampire!), and also too high-schoolish. But, I figured what can it hurt to at least be more "culturally literate", to know what everyone is talking about. I put Twilight on hold at the library. I was hold number one hundred and something, so..........................................9 months later (when I had quite forgotten about it) the book became available to me.

I was slow to warm up to Twilight. The first few chapters of exposition were overly full of Bella's self consciousness. But the farther I got into the book, the more I started to relate with the story. OK, I admit...I grew to love the Cullen family, and the sweetness of true love.

Anyway, once again seeing that I jumped on the Twilight boat within a month or two of the release of the final book, I was able to read the series all at once, without having to wait (I don't like waiting!). So I finished Twilight and read New Moon and Eclipse...all the while getting deeper into the Twilight World and more frustrated with the plot. And then I was waiting for Breaking Dawn just like all the rest of the super fans. I likey.

After all is said and done, I really enjoyed the entire series. There were some magical, happy moments of not being able to put the book down. There were definitely parts that I didn't like very much, and parts where I was frustrated. In the end, however I felt that the kinks were worked out of the story and I really liked the ending.

As a disclaimer: although Twilight fits into the Young Adult category, it is my opinion that Eclipse and Breaking Dawn fit more into the adult category. Which ends up being tricky, since young adults will want to finish the series. [Warning: spoilers ahead] I just hope that any teenager reading these books will learn 1) not to tolerate a relationship with a controlling partner (no matter how much you think you're in love), 2) that you can always make good of your life no matter what your situation is (as in the example of the Cullens), and 3) that people can and do wait to have sex until after they are married; and it is better that way.

So... the moral of this blog entry is: The next time you are enjoying a great series of books, wait until the last one is almost out to tell me about it. :-)
I just had to write this blog entry BEFORE I write about visiting Forks.