Frozen

"Let it goooooooooo! Let it GOOOOOO! I am one with the wind and skyyyyyyyyyyy!!!"

That is a literal writing of my five year old jamming out to youtube for the thousandth time. I can laugh and belt it out with both boys so loud that the neighbors probably know the words to Let It Go regardless whether they saw Frozen or not.

But not that long ago I did all I could to avoid that movie like it was the sole reason I for every single one of my problems.

You see the day after we lost our baby I was still determined to keep our visit to our hometown as normal as possible and we promised that we would go see the movie Frozen to Theo long before our miscarriage. So I plastered on my scary happy face and went with along.

It was a beautiful and hilarious movie. The problem wasn’t the movie, it was me. I was so sad and lost that I had reached crazy land. I was laughing at the not funny parts of the movie. And psycho pants laughing at the hilarious parts. I reached a breaking point, I was in a bad place, I had lost my touch on reality, how ever you want to put it.

So we left the movie and I didn’t think of how sad I was in that exact moment again until Theo asked to watch a YouTube bit of the movie. Let It Go began to play and I was ambushed by feelings.

I shouldn’t feel this way anymore, empty, lost overwhelmingly sad. Especially since I have two beautiful souls dancing in front of me. But still every time I hear the opening chorus and ice song I am reminded that right now I should be around 14 weeks into a pregnancy. I should be feeling tiny kicks and swirls.

But really what I feel is a little empty, only for a while. That emptiness is still there.

I still sang along and danced with my babies, but by the end of the song I was singing from my heart and then crying from there too.

My boys let the song end holding me. I told them I was sad our baby wasn’t in my belly any more. Theo nodded his head in agreement understanding my words.

“I miss her too mama.”

We got up again and belted out more Let It Go, listen to Olaf’s summer song and laughed.

I’m still healing, but I am better.

At least not crazy pants anymore.

Secret ingredients

I made brownies for the boys yesterday, and this morning I woke up to a nearly empty pan of brownies. 

AND I FELT NO GUILT.

Okay so maybe letting my kids munch on brownies all day was a bad choice but I wasn't feeling as guilty as I probably would have been had these particular brownies not included a nice helping of kale, spinach and carrots. 

Yup, you read that right. KALE, SPINACH AND CARROTS. 

I have since then figured out how to add any of the above ingredients to most chocolate sweets. Pancake's birthday cupcakes? Full cup of spinach! I add the liquid ingredients to the badass Vitamix I have with the cup of raw veggie I choose and boom veggie chocolate surprise. I know there are probably some flaws in that madness but I'm okay since it has worked so far.

Without further waiting…

I altered this recipe to what I used below:

·      1/2 c sugar


·      1/4 c butter melted


·      1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate, melted 


·      1 cup of pureed spinach, kale and carrots


·      2 tsp vanilla extract


·      1 egg, beaten


·      3/4 c flour


·      1/4 c unsweetened cocoa powder

·      1/2 tsp baking powder

·      1/2 tsp salt (if using unsalted butter)

Pre heat oven to 350! 

1.) Melt your butter and chocolate chips in a saucepan over low heat.

2.) Add melted butter and chocolate to Vitamix with veggies. (You can steam them to make them easier to blend, or add a tad of water to the mix).

3.) Pour liquid mix in bowl with sugar egg and vanilla then set aside (I chose to skip this and just add them all together in Vitamix).

4.) Combine the dry ingredients, and then pour into wet ingredients bowl. 

5.) Bake for 40-45 minutes.

My tip is letting these treats cool before serving them; I think I might even freeze them next time since they were delicious cold. When researching these it was told that the veggie taste is gone once cold but I didn't notice a huge difference in the taste mostly that they just taste better in their chilly state!

Let me know how yours turn out!

Sleepless Mama

Why are the mornings such a bitch?

This morning I woke up early, took Hubs to work. It sounds like a simple procedure when I phrase it like that I know. In reality though, it is a multi-step process that can go horribly wrong at any moment. That moment being when the babies wake up before I am ready for them to.

First, I have to manage to get out of bed without waking either child, it involves the nursing yoga (please see #10 here) on an extreme level since both children are extraordinarily clingy in the morning. If they wake up with me then I have to find a way to hold/comfort both while also getting everything I need to leave the house. Because Lord and Heaven both forbid that we make it half way to Papa's work and one or both of them realize they are hungry, then in turn become hangry. That is just a miserable path for everyone, an apple sliced, granola bar of some sort, or some version of food has to be brought with us.

If I do manage to make it out of my loving bed without a baby, then I have my usual program of dressing, brushing and searching for the lost one shoe I would like to wear. After that its hopefully looking at the clock to see if I have enough time to start a pot of coffee, or make a shake. Which I usually don't. Move on to starting the car, and loading the snacks, shoes and blankets; because they both stay asleep with a blanket draped over their laps for some weird reason that I just don't question. Finally, grab my lost shoe I found in the front yard and load up (hopefully) sleeping babies.

Make it to David's work before traffic hits horribly then once reentering said traffic on the return home it become like a trip to Mordor. When we are stuck in the tunnel and I'm trying not to imagine the walls caving in and water crushing us all, my kids like to keep me distracted by informing me they either need to poop, dropped their breakfast snack and need it five seconds ago, or just want to ask life changing questions like,"What would happen if the water were to get in the tunnel?" and "How do they keep the water out of the tunnel?" and "What happens when it rains?"

By the time we get home both babies are up and bouncing happy to be out of their carseats, and have had a full twelve hours of rest like any normal night. I on the other hand am dragging ass having stayed up until one writing here, or watching some mindless non-child show just for the sake of it.

I am sure that later this will be hilarious to look back on, but right now I am just really fucking tired.

How does everyone else deal with no sleep and bouncing children?

Materialistic Items

This is a trigger warning for loss, if you are unfamiliar with them it is used to alert people when an internet post, book, article, picture, video, audio clip, or some other media could potentially cause extremely negative reactions (such as post-traumatic flashbacks) due to its content (Urban Dictionary).

Just don't look and pretend its not there. Just don't look and pretend its not there. Just don't look and pretend its not there. Just don't look and pretend its not there…

This happened to be my mantra the first day we returned home after a trip to see family over the holidays. A trip I won't every forget. I rode on the airplane down to the SouthWest pregnant elated to share the news with our loved ones. I rode the airplane back up to the East Coast desperately trying to distract my brain from the pain of the miscarriage so I wouldn't be openly crying in public.

Walking into our home was bitter sweet, I was very ready to be able to be in a private sanctuary where I could deal with my emotions. I also was dreading the small reminders of our lost babe every where.  A tiny stocking, a ornament, and then of course the three posative pee sticks I still had were like bombs randomly placed throughout the house.

Less than twenty four hours into being home and I was acting like a nut avoiding my sight from those bombs. I avoided them like they might detonate if I thought about them. Of course when the boys fell asleep and I was alone with them and realized I was acting ridiculous. I also realized that I wasn't looking forward to Theo asking about the baby when he saw them.

Placing his hand on my belly, "Why isn't she in there any more Mama? Why did she leave? Where did our baby go?"
Tears streaming from my eyes, "I don't really know and I don't understand either. But I know that her body is back in the earth and her soul is with God. Maybe the baby will come back to us when it is ready this time."
Wiping my tears, "I miss her too."

We had that conversation, or something like it, almost everyday since I started bleeding. I just wasn't ready to discuss it again with him, especially without David home to help me.

Swallowing my crazy I gathered the only materialistic items I had left that represented our lost baby. Once I had them I realized I wasn't really crazy I was just still grieving.

I couldn't throw any of it away, so I hid it in a drawer. Maybe one day I will be able to look at them and not cry but today or tomorrow aren't those days.

Labyrinth

This is a trigger warning for loss, if you are unfamiliar with them it is used to alert people when an internet post, book, article, picture, video, audio clip, or some other media could potentially cause extremely negative reactions (such as post-traumatic flashbacks) due to its content (Urban Dictionary).

Two weeks of knowing I was pregnant, I thought that it still hadn’t sunk in yet. I assumed that my mind hadn’t had enough time to adjust to the knowledge I was carrying life. That was until I started bleeding, then I realized just how acutely aware I was of the life I was losing.

I have started and restarted this post about ten times. I always get tripped up on the simplest things. What point of view should I write this from? Should I mention that I think my oldest knew all along and was worried? Should I share in depth details, the things that haunt me when I’m alone in my head? Or do I just simply write it out and hope that the bare bones of a story will help heal me?

The words of grief are beyond me right now. I guess the real question is am I ready to write about this? I am hoping that by putting my story of loss into words will help ease my pain. I tend to internalize most of the negative emotions I feel. I bundle those bad boys up and shove them in a drawer in the back of my mind like I would with candy I was hiding from my kids. I realize that this isn’t the healthiest way to handle things I don’t want to face.

I also have realized that grief makes me crazy. Not the kind of crazy you might be thinking about with rolling eyeballs and asylum worthy actions. I mean I was doing things that I never thought I would. I would get up get dressed make sure my kids were safe with someone and crawl back in bed fully clothed. There I would either sleep, or stare off into oblivion for god knows how long and then not even remember why or what I was thinking about.  Those first horrible days I felt stuck in my head, I couldn’t really cry and all I wanted to do was just cry until the tears washed me out of the labyrinth I made in my mind.

One day at a time I am working my way thru this maze, and I realized that hacking thru the walls is more damaging then navigating around them. And I still have moments where I am suddenly drowning in pain, overwhelmed by the reality of loosing a baby.

But if I am trying to show my children everyday the natural cycle of life then I have to be able to accept it myself too. Death and loss are the same thing is this situation. They also are a normal part of life. I trust in my body, I know that for whatever reason this baby wasn’t meant to be, and with that I am inching towards healing.

Beauty of Innocence

I know that many people have seen beautiful Luiz explaining to his mother why he wouldn't eat octopus. But if you haven't please go watch it now. And if you are emotional like I am grab a box of Kleenex too, because its going to make you cry.

I cried while watching this mostly because I should sleep more and have wild hormones but the other reason is because Theo and I have very similar conversations all the time. 

The first time was when Theo was just a little tyke, and before Maxx was even born.

While shopping in a market that had fresh lobsters for sale Theo (then just 2 years old) asked me, "Why are these Lobsters here Mama?"

To which I responded hesitantly, "Because my love, they are going to be bought by someone who would like to... have them"

"As a pet? Do they have other pets too like a kitty or a dog?"He asked curiously.

"No," I crouched down and held his hand. "To eat, everyone needs to eat and some people eat lobsters."

"No, you can't eat lobsters Mama, they need to live. I like them alive. We can't eat them." His face was now scowling at me to reinforce his point. I picked him up into my arms and told him I loved him. We finished our shopping and Theo remained thoughtful and silent.

Over the next few days I found myself explaining to Theo several times about the cycle of life. I felt like Mufasa in Lion King explaining that life was beautiful because it was balanced in a way that energy is recycled in many different ways through out the earth. 

Then I went home to deliver Maxx and my grandmother was sick. So sick we called hospice and brought her home to be comfortable. Theo and I spent many hours by her side with my sister and mother. Family filtered in and out of the house and what I began to notice was they rarely touched my grandmother. Spoke to her, sat by her side but never created that contact. Theo though had constant contact, you could see the relief on his face when he found her hand. He didn't see sickness, he saw his great grandmother that spoiled him rotten with her love. I didn't want him to be frightened by death, so we spoke about it and I began to explain again the cycle of life. You know the one we all learned in biology 101, that all energy cannot be created only recycled, except in toddler terms.

When she finally passed away, I told him what had happened. He was thoughtful and asked who would eat her. Its a good thing that we were at home and not in public or it might have sounded weirder. But I knew exactly what he was asking, what was going to happen now? I explained that now that grandmas soul had left her body, we would bury her body and that in turn it would feed the ground, to feed the grass, to feed a cow or bunny or some other animal that would be eaten to feed another animal and so on.

Now I realize that in the cemetery my grandmother wished to be buried in there are no free range grass fed cows but there is grass and it helped him to understand that she wasn't entirely "gone". "Gone" is a scary aspect for a toddler, and I knew that it would help him to know that there are other ways for her to still be here. I explained that she was mostly now living in our hearts and memories but that GG's body was playing a large role in keep our lives balanced. 

My now four year old is an advocate for life. He won't step on ants, he screams for me to not hurt the spider if I'm trying to move it back outside, and most of all he understand that death is just a part of living. 

Children are born with this beautiful open clean canvas of a mind. What I would really like to paint for my children is life is beautiful, all parts of it, even the scary ones. So that they can be beautiful people that will change the world. 

How do you deal with death and and heavy conversations like this with your babies? 

<3 

Dan

Beauty Revealed Project

Looking in the mirror I sigh and turn to look at my butt in the new (to me) shorts I just put on. They are my favorite ones. Bright turquoise and black making them look like they are made of lace, and they are the really cute super high waisted (which I love on my body).

But they are really short.
I mean super-duper short singing "we wear short shorts" kind of short.

But they make me feel fun and pretty. I am so torn on wearing them. These are youthful shorts, ones you wear before babies and still are a single entity.

But I love them.

But society has taught me that unless I bought them is a size XXS I can't wear them and pull them off.

BUT I LOVE THEM!

Theo wanders in to ask for my help to put on his shirt and looks at me in my new shorts. "OOOH MAMA! These are cool." He says fingers playing with the hem line on my thigh. His smiling face looks up and me and I know he only sees beauty.

I ask him, "How do I look?"
"Beautiful." Is his reply.

So I've decided to try and view my body through my child's eyes. Not society's. He sees me as strong and beautiful. I didn't wear the shorts that day but I've been learning to put my best effort into finding beauty in my after-babies body.

With this effort I decided to take part of the Beauty Revealed Project. Its a project that was made to highlight and embrace women's bodies after a pregnancy and birth. It shows the beauty of what our society has labeled as flaws. 

Four other mamas and myself stripped down to our undies and embraced our beautiful bodies in front of a camera.

It was scary, surprisingly enthralling, and fun. Our kids played in the sand. We joked and laughed while we took our turns posing in front of the camera wielding goddess Nancy from Daisy Jean Photography.

Here is a sneak peek of my photos and my explanations. (I'm not sharing anyone else's because I don't have their permission to do so here. But go like Daisy Jean and see the other photos from this shoot).

My thighs touch, my boob are real (and look it), and on first sight it is obvious I have grown two children in my womb. But I love this vessel that hold my heart and soul. And the best part is that it held two other hearts and souls in it too. This body is scared. I love it.

I went into my surgery thinking I would never be beautiful anymore. But over the years I realized that my scars are a symbol of my ability to survive and my will to live. I have grown to love them and the person that I am because of them. My stretch marks have a similar story except these marks are each a small piece of my pride. With these scars they symbolize my ability to give life, nourish life, and love life

I'll update more when I get more photos back. Until then, love your body and check out the BRP. Babies or no babies. The female form is so beautiful in so many different figures and shapes. 

Love,

Dan

**UPDATED**

Got this awesome photo back tonight! This night was so much fun, with some wonderful and inspiring women.