The Wood Between the Worlds

I am aware that Elsa would have been 11 months old two days ago.  I am aware that Elsa and her brother will probably be Irish twins (born less than a year apart).  I hope that will be a bond they'll share.

I have a favorite song that I recently became aware of in a new way.
One of my favorite bands from the 1990's: October Project wrote a haunting song called "Eyes of Mercy".

If I remember correctly it was written as a lullaby for the children of war-torn Bosnia.
It is meant to be sung by an adult to a child.
But recently I became aware that it is being sung to me by my daughter.  I believe that during my months of grief, my angel daughter has been ministering to me.  And the awareness of that swept over me one day as my ipod randomly shuffled to this song, and I listened to the lyrics with a new perspective.

Letting go.
It's been a while since I've done that.  Just let go and have fun and be carefree.  I know I've dealt with grief and sadness and anxiety and depression in the last year.  I've finally come to a point where I am feeling happy most of the time again.  I thought I was there at 2 months postpartum last year (hahaha).  And I was.  For a while.  But I had forgotten how grief can take more than one cycle.  And it does.  Viciously.

But that's not what this post is about.  This post is about happy celebrations of brand new life.

I have some friends here in Oregon who are like sister friends.  They are friends who are like sisters to me.  They were great friends before I lost Elsa, but in the time since I have lost her they are the ones who have given me regular support.  No judgment.  They have continued to call me and invite me over knowing full-well that I might talk about my grief the whole time...that I might talk about the same things that I have talked about before...that I may cry.  On days like April Fool's Day (which was perhaps the worst day of grief thus far) Tara brought me flowers or ice cream or something along those lines.  I will never forget.

Well, these girls really wanted to throw me a baby shower for this baby...but I really didn't want one.  So Tara, my natural-birthy minded friend insisted that we would have a blessingway instead.  A blessingway is a more spiritual, mother-centered type of baby celebration where the guests give positive thoughts for the mama, the baby and the birth.  Baby gifts are not involved.  (I just did not want more people expected to bring me baby gifts, considering that I still have many unused gifts...sitting in a box, waiting, hoping for 'someday'...that were given to me a year ago.)

Enter in the beach retreat.  Tara decided that we were going to rent a condo overnight at the beach, have a blessingway for me, a birthday celebration for another friend, and do a maternity photo shoot at the beach.

Joshua ran into the room to tattle on Toby.  He said "mama, Toby said the F-word"!

Oh gasp!  I thought: where did my boys learn the F-word???  Where did Toby learn it??  He hasn't been to school yet.  We do not have any movies with the F-word!  We block all television above a PG rating!

Joshua interrupts my frantic thoughts to let me know that the "F-word" is "F-A-R-T".

Hahahahaha!  That Toby is going through a potty mouth phase.

Whew!  Crisis averted.

In preparing for the summer madness, I had crafted up a plan to keep the summer from being all unsupervised and boring for the boys.  I had plans each day for them to:
1) do a chore
2) read for 30 minutes or longer
3) practice piano (Joshua)
4) work on a goal
5) exercise
6) play at park/pool/library/etc.

I have to admit it has been hard to stick to our plan since Brent is usually home 2 days during the week.  Those days throw things off because we don't stick to our routine.  We usually go places and do fun things together.  But the boys have been learning how to do a lot of various chores like folding and putting away their own clean clothes, picking up and vacuuming different rooms, cleaning off the kitchen table, cleaning up the backyard toys and helping to mow the lawn, cleaning the bathroom sinks and toilets...and my very favorite of all is the DISHES!  (I DO NOT love dishes.)

Anyway, sweet Joshua boy one day proclaimed that he WANTED to learn how to do the dishes (up until now he had only unloaded the dishwasher).  So we worked on it together and I showed him how to do it.  Well guess what?  He LOVED it!  He said (and I quote) "I want to do the dishes every day!  I love the dishes.  Mama, you will NEVER do the dishes again!".  Oh, I just love him so much for saying that!  So almost every day since then, he has been rinsing and stacking all the dishes for me...clearing out the sink.  I still load and unload the dishwasher, but that's the easy part.

We bought a State Park Pass this year...so let's see how many State Parks can we visit?
Let's try Milo McIver's.

pill bug

Right after school was out, our awesome friends took a cabin camping trip to Silver Falls State Park.  We went down to hang out with them one of the days...ride bikes, hike, play and cook out!  Sounds great, right?  Well, it was...but it would've been even better if June wasn't so rainy this year, rendering any outdoor excursion a total mud fest!

Before the pictures of our fun, here are some nice 'after' pictures of the mud:
Toby with his best buddy: