October is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Month.  As always I will be participating and talking about Abigail.  This year I will be writing on some of the topics for Capture Your Grief by CarlyMarie, and I will also be sharing some photos for a PAILS Photography Challenge.

This morning you woke up with a tail!  What happened?  What will you do?

"Someone put a spell on me, so everyday I would have a piece of a cat.  Today I had a cat tail.  I think it was Sticky Hair (from Mario).  Everyday me turn more into a cat.  Then me go and get me Momma, and tell her, "Momma, Momma, me turn into a cat."  And Momma laughed.  Then she saw it was for real, so she believed me.  I told her it was Sticky Hair, then her didn't laugh anymore.  I would play to (till) Super Momma comed.  Then me runned around and Super Momma stopped me, and got me back to a human.  Then good night.  Good bye.  And the end."

What if your hearing was better than everyone else's.  What could you hear?

If super hearing was my super power, when I was hear at home I could hear Mister at work.  I could even hear Neela "hooooowwwwwwl" at Grumps and Ahna's house.  I would even be able to hear Hannah and Leah in Maryland.  But there's one bad thing about it, even though I could hear them, they couldn't hear me.  It would be better to have telepathic powers, so I could think the thing I want to say to them.  There's also another bad part.  It would be super, super, duper loud when everyone talks.  I could hear the grown ups, and everyone in the Church and it would hurt my ears to be around alot of people.  And there's some good things.  Like I can hear the preacher good.  That's all.  The End."

Imagine you are 20 feet tall.  What would life be like?

"Well it would be really cool if I was like this and all of a sudden was that tall.  It wouldn't be as cool if I was always that tall.  I wouldn't have friends probably, because I was big and people were small.  I'd probably be the only person that big.  But I would be able to beat anyone boxing if I was that big.  I'd knock them down with my pinky.  It would be really hard to fit in my house because it would be so tiny.  There are also some big advantages.  I'd be able to see real, real, real far away, more than what normal people can see.  And that is all."

Sweet Katherine,

You seem to get sweeter by the day.  You have the happiest disposition.  You just watch everything around you with a smile. You seem to like sitting with us in the dining room while we do school.  You have really out grown the rock and play, so we have started sitting you in the bouncer on the table, though you often like to sit in my lap.  You have started laughing this month.  Giving you lots of kisses seems to make you laugh a bit, with your big smile.  But what really gets you going, is when Daddy shakes you.  After your bath, when he is drying you off, he'll peddle your legs, and bounce you on the bed, or reach over and shake your chest, and you just laugh and laugh.  Your tooth is also all the way in now.

9-2

This past week I FINALLY saw you roll over with my own eyes.  You are doing it alot lately.  You also like to push yourself around with your heels when you are on your back and by trying to scrunch up your legs and then push with your toes.  It's not safe to have you on the bed anymore, unless we are literally sitting right there with you.  Your biggest thing right now is attempting to sit up.  Of course you have tried to swing yourself upright for well over a month now, but in the last week you have gotten much more insistent with it.  You swing yourself up when you are reclined and can even balance like that for a short time.  You still detest tummy time, and don't like to lay down flat.


You also got to experience your first hurricane this month.  Though you slept through it.  Seriously.  You might have been awake for 3 hours a day the week of the Hurricane.  Since getting back home, you have settled more back into your routine of wake around 10 for the day, and only cat napping a little in the late afternoon.  There has been one change to your routine though.  You are waking up once during the night to eat again.  I'm, as usual, worried about my supply.  We've even debated giving you a bottle of formula before bed to see if that helps.  However, you really hate the bottle.  We've only managed to get you to take it once in the last month, and Daddy doesn't really want to start that anyway.  I have to admit I don't either.  I have never loved breast feeding, but stopping would be like closing a chapter, I'm not sure I'm ready for either.  Because of the waking during the night, you've only slept in your crib once.  Though you do nap in there sometimes in the afternoon.  More often than not though, you nap in the living room floor on your quilt.

8-28

 You seem to be more interested in toys this month.  You really like the rattles.  Anything that makes noise, you will follow.  Your siblings, sure do love to make you smile and watch them, when they have it.  Playing with your feet is also a big thing.  You found them on the trip to Arkansas and they have been fascinating to you ever since. You also seem to have become attached to your lovey.  You hang on to it, and hold fist fulls of it when you are getting sleepy.  When you see me pick it up, you start wheeling those hands around all over the place, and open your mouth.  Speaking of which, we have no problem getting you to take a pacifier now, even if you still prefer me as your pacifier.  You sometimes try to turn your head back to the pacifier when you drop it at night, which cracks me up.  But you also will chew on your first two fingers, and the side of your fist, if it's not handy.

9-18

You light up our home little rainbow.  And, I know at some point the "honeymoon" will end, and you'll back talk, destroy the house, and be willfully disobedient, but right now you can do no wrong, even if your Daddy is grumbling about the lack of sleep and beginning of celery season.

We love you, more than words can say,
Momma

9-17

Here in our neck of the woods, we went from forecast of little impact as we would be on the west side of the storm, to mandatory evacuations in case of storm surge since the eye would pass directly over us, to ultimately having the storm pass so far east, that sustained winds here only reached 90 mph (of course there were gust here and there that registered higher).















We had portions of 5 trees down in our yard, plus a whole host of branches.  Our two massive banyan trees in the front yard, had the tops break out of them.  We have two palm trees completely down in the back. And the top of our nearly dead mulberry tree broke out, but it's not in the yard, so we don't know where it went.  We also have 5 Norfolk Pines next to the house, some of which are missing half their branches or more.  Gary warned me that they resembled telephone poles, but it's not quite that drastic.  Our neighbor to the east also has small trees and bushes planted down his property line, and several of those either broke off or completely came down along our yard.  It's strange now we can actually see neighbors on both side of us, that we couldn't before.  And, there are so many leaves down we can't see mulch stone, or even some of the low plants in the kids' garden spaces.  We also had two small leaks, one in our bedroom over my desk, and another in the back porch.

Before

After

It's straight up miraculous though that none of the trees fell on the house.  I'm not sure that there is 2 yards between the Norfolk Pines which are apparently very brittle trees and Britt's bedroom wall.  Those massive Banyan trees could have EASILY ended up on the girls' bedroom, and gone through the roof.  After the initial reports we expected to lose our shed and the carport, but everything was fine.  It was shocking to see all the trees down though.  The yard's going to look really different.  I suppose it might speed up when we get the tree work down that we've been talking about doing since January.



This year has been one of those weather cycles, for big Hurricanes.  They expect to have 19 named storms this year that would put us up to the letter S.  Harvey, Irma, and now Maria have been strong storms, one a rain maker, the other a wind maker, and Maria and strong fast developing storm.  We have friends who have been affected by all three.  I especially feel for those on the Caribbean islands.  Many of the houses aren't built to the requirements that homes in Florida are built for, and being barely above sea level they have trouble with storm surge, that we don't have inland here.  But most of all they are on the path for storm after storm.

Dear Ahna,

Me miss you Ahna and Grumps and you Neela.  And Neela you are cute and me miss you.  Me like when you lick me in the nose, cause it tickles.  Me miss you, and me hope me see you again.  And when me come back again, me will bring my two best books me love.  And they both has a bear on it.  One of them has two bears, a little bear and a big bear.  One of them Grumps says, "I love when you quiet and when you loud."

The end,
Me love you.

What do you think the world will be like when you are a grown up?

Imagine if you were 12 inches tall. What would life be like.

"Things that were small, would actually be kinda giant for me if I was only a foot tall.  A bomb would be like a really giant explosion.  Many things would be different.  A house would be more like a mansion.  Scary houses would be even scarier.  If you had to run away from someone trying to kill you, it's be really hard if you were that small.  I wouldn't really like it.  But then some parts would be fun.  Little grass, could be like a corn maze.  Life would be an adventure.  If you played a video game, it'd be really hard, but you'd have to jump on the buttons and stuff.  Life wouldn't be as awesome, but it would be different."

School is very good.  I have learned to write F and E and I have practiced writing Rebecca.  I have practiced number 1, 2, 3, and 4.  My favorite part is cutting and gluing.  I have 4 of my own books, one is big and the others is little.  Me get to play on the computer, but I didn't do any today.  I get to play ABC Mouse and I get to blog.  I like school.

So far I think 3rd grade is not as fun as 2nd grade, because it was easier and funner.  I don't like the new way of doing school.  Because we have more jobs and we are only watching one show on Netflicks a day.

The parts I do like though are being in GEMS and learning how to sew.  GEMS is a club where I get together and learn things, and only girls can go.  We got to try to put toothpaste back in the bottle, and it was like when you say something wrong or mean you cant take it back.  Sewing Sisters are part of 4H, and we are going to sew our own little skirt.  I really want to use my purple sewing machine.  They had one just like it but white.  I am excited too that we will learn to bake on Fridays with Momma.  I'm going to use my new apron and sometimes my Easy Bake Oven.  I got some more stuff for it for my birthday.  I like baking in my little oven, it is fun.  I'm going to paint this year too.

My favorite part of school this year is history.  Right now we are still studying on Egypt.  There is a lot of cutting and gluing to make cool stuff, but it's not just that.  It's not like reading or like writing, but it is like an adventure, like a nature walk but through time.  I really liked how they were very good at making symbols and paintings on the walls.  They were also good at building things like the pyramids and sphinx.  There were bad parts like they didn't worship the true God, they didn't have cars or machines.  They built everything by hand, not machines, I think it's kinda cool.

Third grade has some better stuff than the other grades.  We aren't cramping everything in to one space.  I also get some Nintendo time.  We didn't do history till second grade, so I like doing it better.  I think 3rd grade math is very interesting, more fun.  We have done measuring and perimeter, and used it today on the windows to know what size plywood Daddy should get in case there is a hurricane.  We definitely have some new stuff.  Momma is going to count our read alouds as school, not just fun time.  We are memorizing Bible verses again, and I really like that.  I'm also learning the song for Micah 6:8.  The phonic lessons are pretty easy and short, I can get use to them.  Spelling is new but it's pretty good.  Handwriting is very good.  After we say the Bible verse a few times, we have to write it.  I don't really like practicing shaping my letters, because sometimes that's not the way I want to shape it.  But maybe I like it a bit better.  Reading is ok I guess.  I have to read a book, sometimes I copy the way Momma reads it to work on the way language flows when I read.