Today both assignments were the same.  We were told to watch the sunset and get a photo of it or the night sky.  I love sunset photos even, when trying to snap them around carrying the older kids trick or treating.

Nov 15, On our way home from Sewing Class, Ruth and I spotted a really vibrant rainbow.

For the Photo Challenge we were told to look for a Rainbow.  For Capture Your Grief we were told to look back on the month and reflect on what helped, what brought us joy, and what practices will we take with us going forward.  I'm finishing up these last two post late, though I will back date them.  As always this month is hard.  Grief continues to be a thing that ebbs and flows.  The first week or so of the month, I was really down.  Like stay watch as much tv in bed as possible, do almost no housework, one day we even blew off school, because I just couldn't do it.  I didn't write post 2 through 10 until that second week, slowly catching them up.  Taking time to talk about Abigail still helps all of those feelings.  Counting her, when others ask me how many children I have helps alot.  Hearing her name spoken aloud and knowing that she is remembered by others helps.  Writing about her, so that she is remembered helps.

I'm not sure that I have really started any new practices this month.  Though I have again recommitted to being a more patient mother, I feel continue to feel like one of the best ways to honor her, is to be the very best mother I can to her siblings, to be available to them, to be forgiving and understanding, to pour all the love that I not only have for them, but that I also have for her, but have so few ways of showing, into them.  It's a daily battle.  I still get frustrated with their behavior, I still find myself exhausted at the end of the day.  I still am one of them most impatient people in the world.  But all five of my children have filled my life to overflowing with so much joy and love that I can't help but try harder every day.  I really do think that no matter the outcome of our pregnancies that our children make us better people, and I'm so thankful for mine.

We get Sunday's off for Capture Your Grief, but the Photo Challenge today is a sunrise or sunshine photo.  I wanted to do that today, especially since I missed that challenge for Capture Your Grief at the beginning of the month.  And since I skipped both of yesterday's photo prompts.  This was our view just a minute again on the way to Church.  Honest to goodness, we caught a glimpse of a rainbow after the rain yesterday, and a misty morning today.  I love seeing rainbows, I always have.  They just hold extra meaning now that our very own rainbow is riding in the seat behind me.

I love fall, it's always been my favorite time of the year.  Moving back to S. Florida has meant that I don't have to deal with blasted winter, but it does mean I'm also without fall.  Nevertheless, I have pulled out all the stops inside to make it feel like fall.  Just a couple of days past the official start of fall, the kids and I decided to do something out of the ordinary and head out for some fall decorations first thing in the morning.  We headed to the Dollar Store, where it appears most anything can be located for a dollar.  We scored some wonderful decorations among other things.


First, I pulled out my fall wreath that my cousin made for me a few years back, some of the pumpkins on it have lost their coating, so I touched it up with some paint for now.  I also drug out my fall garland for around the door.  Then off we went to town.  I knew I wanted something for the table, but it needed to be cheap.  I picked out some flowers, a scarecrow and got a piece of styrofoam.  I already had the vase at home and the fake leaves, from previous year's craft projects.  We still had some little fake candles that worked.  But when I saw the pretty fall glasses, I had to get two.  When we got home I let the girls help me assemble the flowers.  Nothing as pretty or fancy as we use to make at Michael's or my talented brother would whip up, but the girls were very proud of their work.  I think I should have added a bit more purple to it though.


In the living room, I had more of the leaves and fake candles, for a couple of dollars I got two bags of pinecones and fake pumpkins for my pottery bowl.  Britt found the squirrel that he thought we couldn't live without, and like that I had some decorations for the entertainment center, where all my beautiful one of a kind pottery sits.

And apparently I need have Rebecca re-dust in here tomorrow, as she obviously did a sub-par job today.

By the front door, I got a candy jar, for $5 from Walmart, my most expensive purchase of all.  Grandmother always had little candy jars around the house and I think their cute, even if I have to ration what's put in it or watch the little heathens like a hawk.  With some of her money Rebecca got a Halloween bug, I think it's creapy, especially since it has lost an eye, but I let her put it by the candy jar as decoration.

By my chair I hung up the wreath I made when we were back in Indiana, and I added a little glitter jack-a-lantern that lights up different colors.  The kids were so excited, when they saw it, that I had to get it.


Near the fireplace, I added a couple of little heavy ceramic pumpkins, and moved my pumpkin pie candle on top of the mantle.  I finally have a picture up of Katherine in her frame now too.  Of course the candle just makes me wish I was home having Mother's pumpkin pie with Daddy, with a generous amount of Cool Whip on top.

And apparently I need to fix Ruth's crooked frame.

After skipping it the last two years due to moving, I put up our thankful tree early.  We normally put it up the day after Halloween and add to it all November.  I thought since we would be going to Alabama for 10 days, we'd start it earlier this time.  I stole the trunk idea from Sis. Lydia, since I was low on brown construction paper.  Its the brown wrapping from an Amazon box.  I stamped the leaves, with some old stencils I got when the Michaels I worked at closed.  I like how it looks so well, I'm debating putting the Christmas tree somewhere else this year, and leaving it up a while longer to keep adding to it. I have a pretty leaf bowl, another Dollar General find, holding all the leaves and things for adding to it, along with one of the candles we got in PA.  Only a few of them are still working, but they still look so pretty.














We also carved a pumpkin.  Miracle of miracles, the kids had already looked through the two books I have, and picked out a single design.  I was anticipating having people upset, because I was only going to carve one pumpkin.  They worked awhile pulling out guts, Daddy worked much more at it, at my insistance, and I carved the pumpkin.  Everyone was thrilled with how it turned out and asked me to add BOO at the top.  I'm taking no chances though, and leaving it in the fridge during the day.  So long as I don't fix up a crock pot meal early this will work just fine.

Today we were asked about what our passions are and today to write a love letter to our angel. I'm not sure what if any passions I have.  I deeply love the Church and my family, but I'm not sure what I'm really passionate about.  There are things I like to do, but I don't know about passionate.  A love letter, well I can always write one of those.



Dear Abigail,

You are a big sister now.  Her name is Katherine Hope.  She has really big bright eyes, and watches everything like a hawk, reminds me of how observant Britt was at this age.  She has a happy and joyful personality.  Ruth things that is just like her.  She's so beautiful, Rebecca says, "She's cuter than me" and it doesn't bother her a bit. Even though she looks mostly like Ruth and your Daddy.  There are times when I almost see a little of me and Rebecca in her.  She's rubbed almost all of her baby hair off this week.  She was already losing it, but it's so thin now.  The new stuff sometimes looks red in the light, it's not red, but perhaps it will have some red highlights to it.  I like to think that in that, she looks like you and me.  When babies are born, everyone in the family is eager to find bits of themselves in them, as they grow they look for the best of themselves in the child.  I sometimes find myself looking for glimpses of you in her.  Though it's impossible to know...

I miss you every day.  I miss you when it's still and quiet.  I miss you in the bustle of our daily life.  Yesterday I found myself in the store with five children, we had a friend along for the trip.  All I could think is that this should be normal.  I didn't mind it one bit, for a bit I could pretend you were here.  It's still hard to see your absence everywhere.  Britt said you could have been Birdo or Yoshi for Halloween, since everyone else is going with the Mario theme.  I have 3 identical dresses hanging in my bathroom for Christmas, two very close in size, with one much smaller, the size that should fit between them is still back in the store.  When I line them up, there is a stair step missing.

It's not that I begrudge you Heaven.  I know it's a wondrously marvelous place.  I know you are your best self, in a way you could have never been here.  I know that you are happy beyond measure.  It's just that I have never felt the eternal longing and depth of emptiness that I feel for you.  I sometimes read the writings of a loss father, a man with deep faith.  Today he described it is a role unrealized.  And that really resounded with me.  It doesn't matter that it's totally ridiculous to want you here with me, I have a great and unrealized desire to be your mother - to do more, to actually get to mother you.  I can bring along your bunny, and decorate your stone, and dust your memory box.  I can year after year write these post hoping some how someone out there will be impacted in a way that has a lasting impact.  But I can't mother you, just guard your memory, and tell others you were here and that you do matter.

I wish I could see you with your little sister.  Wish I could let you have a turn picking out the day's onesie.  Wish I could hear you beg to hold her, and 4.3 seconds later tell me you are done because she's too heavy and squirms too much.  Wish I could watch you discover the world, and beg for school books and complain about chores.  Wish I could watch you sit in your Daddy's lap watching baseball games, sucking your thumb, dragging around a well worn bunny.  I wish I could tell you how much you are loved and missed.  It's a good thing that I don't write too many of these letters to you, they always make me cry, but they say that tears are the language of grief, and great grief is the price we pay for great love.  And oh we do love you, and we all look forward to seeing you again one day.

Love,
Momma

Why did the chicken cross the road?  What do you think?

"Hey that's one of my jokes, I tell you.  Because he was going to the doctor office, cause he had got ran over by a car.  Because he crossed the street and the road!  There was two chickens crossing the road when they got run over.  Their names were Daddy and Momma (that was you and Daddy).  You call the Momma chicken Dan-YELL, and the Daddy chicken was called Daddy Boo-key.  If you and Daddy turned into a chicken and got run over you'd be a flat chicken.  Britt and Ruth also turned into a chicken, and they got runned over by a car.  They turned into a flat chicken like you and Daddy, then cause I was alone a bad guy would come and killed me.  The end.  For real."

For the photo challenge we were asked if we had any regrets and for the assignment for Capture Your Grief we were asked to find the beauty, the miraculous in the world around us.  I mostly regret that we didn't go ahead and call "Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep" to take pictures.  We emailed and they were on standby.  But when she arrived, I didn't think that they could get any good pictures of her.  I wish I had tried though.  I wish we had more than one photo that I could share.  Sometimes, I wish I had let the kids see her.  They ask so many questions, Ruth and Britt were mad at me last weekend, when they couldn't tell anyone at the event anything about Abigail, because they hadn't seen her.  I thought that it was good for us to spare them seeing her like that but now, I'm not sure.  I know I'd been livid if someone had tried to keep her from me.  I mostly regret that the doctors didn't notice the test results and she hadn't died in the first place.

But it's easy to see the miraculous these days.  I nurse her and I hold her. I feel her soft, soft skin.  I see her big round eyes and I look at her amazing smile.  Then we sit on the porch and watch the sunset.  We admire the half moon by the trees.  And I marvel all over again that the God that created this entire world, who knits us together in our mothers' wombs, loves us.  There is plenty of wonderful and miraculous things to see in this world, if we only slow down long enough to look around and see it.

One day an elephant followed me home from the circus.  I saw him standing in our front yard...

"I would feed him peanuts and teach him tricks.  I would make my own circus, but I would only have one show an elephant with a really big ball.  Then I would give it a gigantic blanket.  I would have to sew little pieces of cloth together to make it though.  And then I would give it water with Kita's old water bucket.  If the circus wanted it back, hmmm, I would some how have to convince it to go back home.  Actually I would keep it because I like animals.  I would tell them to get a different animal that it likes me.  If they still wouldn't listen, I'd tell the animal to decide who it wanted to be with the circus or me.  And it would pick me because I'd take better care of it.  I would ride and do some tricks with it.  I would name him Hocus Pocus.  The End."

If I were a superhero I would...

"I would be a super hero with an orange cape.  I would have blue and red stars with a giant double sided battle ax.  My power would be super strength.  So I would pick up my battle ax and go "huhhh."  Ruth would be the bad guy, trying to take off my mask and reveal my secret identity.  It would be blue with two eye holes and a mouth hole, but I would stop her every single time.  I would work alone."

10-27, Sunset

The photo challenge for today is "wishlist" and CarlyMarie asked us about our indestructible heart.  I'm going to include her entire writing prompt today:

As bereaved parents we hear things like “You are so strong” all the time. Interesting how many people do not feel it though. The truth is, we are pretty resilient. If you are here to read this, it means you have survived every difficult, horrific, tragic day of your life. That is all kinds of mighty. But we can be more than survivors. Charles R. Swindoll says “Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it.” We have power here and we can change at any time. You are the author of your own story. How are you writing it? You have the power to live a beautiful life. What are you thoughts on this subject?

Today marks 2 years and 2 months to the day that Abigail was born.  My wish list is always the same I wish she was here.  It doesn't matter that she's living in an infinitely better state I wish she was here.  I'm infinitely selfish.  I'd like to wake up from a world post baby loss, and go back to a world where that little test equals a big happy baby  in 9 months.  It's quite impossible though, but sometimes you can't help but dwell on it.  In lieu of that, I'd like some really scientific research on a large scale into what causes loss, and ways to prevent it.  I'd like to see knowledge of PAIL month as big as breast cancer awareness month.  I'd like to see research dollars poured into this, and some really prevention as a result.  Most people I talk to in the community have no idea what happened.  How in 2017, can we be content to say who knows what happened oh well.

I don't feel strong, but one of the verses on the bracelet I have is 2 Corinthians 12:9 "And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me."  In what has been without a doubt the hardest times in our life.  Harder than all the unemployment harder than the cross country moves, harder than leaving home when I got married.  When I have continually felt at my lowest, at my most pathetic, without even the ability some days to crawl out of the bed except to refil the cups of small kids and change the dvd.  In the days where I function at top notch, but feel numb and detached.  In all of these aweful times, the strength that people have apparently seen, can not be explained as anything other than the power of Christ.

I'm not sure how I feel about the idea that we are the author of our own story that we can write it.  I think things happen much beyond our control.  The biggest lesson all the months of unemployment taught me, is that even though I wish it were not so, something are simply out of my control.  And sometimes there is nothing to do about how I feel about it.  I have often told Gary I wish he could just "fix me" I hate the seasons of depression.  He has often remarked that there is nothing to fix.  Sometimes you just have to admit this is what you feel and get through it.  I like to think despite all of this, that I have made the best of a bad situation.  I like to think that we have seen beauty from the ashes.  I like to think that we have been able to find positives along with the grief.  And it is true that while I wouldn't volunteer to be here, that I selfishly want her back to cuddle with on the couch, I have grown as a person because of it.

10-24, Five Months old today!

Sweet Katherine,

I finally just laid you down in bed, and your daddy is laying here snoring.  We have almost 40 minutes left in the day, today marked 5 months.  How can it even be possible that you have been with us almost half of the year now?  You are growing so fast, too fast for my liking.  We used the last size 1 diaper on Sunday.  You aren't in the hurry to do everything like Rebecca was, it's just that I want to slow down time.  I'm trying to savor things with you.  Your looks seem to be changing, you look like Ruth at times, but also completely different from everyone.  I'm still trying to figure out where the very round eyes came from.  You have lost alot of your hair this month.  I'm still trying to decide what color is growing in.  It still looks dark, but sometimes in the light it looks red.  Is it brown, auburn, a honey brown like Ruth's, will you turn out to be another blond baby, who knows?

9-30, Tummy time.

This month we finally discovered something that makes you unhappy - teething.  The last part of last week, you were so fussy.  You didn't want to be put down for anything, would stay asleep very long.  However, as long as I held you and you could snuggle against my collar bone you were quite.  That tooth that we have been eyeing for a couple months, finally came through the gum last month, then stopped.  Just yesterday it's come in alot more and you are working on one, maybe two more.  You like the vibrating teether, but most of all you like to chew on the side of my hand.  You have quite often left two tiny teeth prints one on top, one on bottom.  On that subject you have started watching us eat more this month.  You are also mouthing anything you can get near your mouth.  I have found you chewing on all your toys, stuffed animals, the bars on the crib, the side of the high chair, but your fingers and your feet seem to be your favorite thing to stuff in your mouth.  No joke, in the 17 pictures I took today trying to get your 5 month picture, in 12 of them you were shoving something in your mouth.  When your teeth are bothering you though you are very insistent that you don't want your pacifier in your mouth.

10-24, Good thing Fox doesn't mind being chewed on.

10-5, Spa Day.

Another big change is to see you really trying to work at moving around.  You often lay in the living room floor during the morning schooling, or in my bedroom floor during the late afternoon.  You roll around and do your best to lift up off the floor.  You haven't mastered it yet, you merely get your chest up off the floor, and you often push yourself backwards as you work on the skill.  But you are also working those legs, and as a result you spin around, roll over, scoot back, and even occasionally manage to move forward.  Sometimes I doubt that it will take you another two months to begin to crawl, when I see how much you are working at it.

10-1

10-3

We've had to use the bouncer less and less.  You want to not only sit up but sit straight up.  You seem to constantly be throwing yourself up against the straps.  You aren't there yet, but you are doing some tripod sitting when I sit you down that way.  Since you are so insistent on being directly vertical, we are letting you sit in your highchair at supper time, and occasionally during school time.  It's still too big for you, and you have trouble sitting up for the whole meal, but you seem to like sitting there with a teether.  You have started watching us eat, but I still plan to wait another month before adding real food.  You are still nursing.  I have started pumping, and we are having much better luck getting you to take a bottle now.  We give you a bottle of milk or formula probably once or twice a week now.

10-18, Crouses' Fall Festival!

We seem to have a good routine.  You wake up around the time that Daddy leaves for work, you eat and go back to sleep for around an hour.  Somewhere around 8 you wake up for the day, and are awake for a while.  Most of the time you are content to lay in the floor and work at crawling or piddle with some of your toys.  Your favorites are your taggie ball, the baby rattle, your lovey, the fox from Aunt Manna, and the singing giraffe.  You often go down for your morning nap a little after we start school, around 11.  Sometimes you even fall asleep on the quilt in the floor.  You sleep 1.5 to 2 hours, and wake up to eat while I read aloud to everyone around 12:30 or 1.  You are then awake for several hours.  You typically want more attention in the afternoons, and snack off and on then.  When I'm not holding you during lessons, or moving you about the house with me for chores, your brother and sisters are eager to hold you.  Ruth likes to pick you up for too much for my comfort level.  She likes to lift you up under your arms, so that you are standing in her lap looking at her.  She likes to see you smile when she talks to you.  Rebecca loves to wave your toys around you and sing made up songs.  Britt will sit Indian style, sit you in his lap to lean back against his stomach and build block towers for you, to then knock them down.  You seem to get very excited right before he knocks them down, as he builds up the suspense for you.  During supper, or after when I do our Bible reading aloud, you eat again, and then often hang out with Daddy on the bed for a few hours.  He typically gives you a bath around 9:30, and then I feed you around 10:30, and you nurse yourself to sleep.  I have you in bed between 11 and 11:30 most nights.

10-21, At Marco Island with Momma.

You continue to bring us great joy.  I hope you never doubt just how much you are loved.  I tell you every day, "Momma loves you.  Daddy loves you.  You are so loved!"

Love,
Momma

Today we were asked to share our child's handprints or foot prints.  I wish I had some to share.  Then we were encouraged to capture this moment. We were asked about our day.  How we felt, reminded that good or bad, it passes quickly, but to save a snapshot of today.  I thought I'd share a snap shot of one afternoon last week.  A couple of minutes before Gary got home, I went out and sat on the front porch in my chairs for the ball park  It was actually not sweltering hot.  There was a bit of a breeze.  Kate and I just sat out there and chilled, admired the trees, I could hear the other kids playing in the back yard.  And I wondered, why don't we do this more often.  For once I wasn't even sitting there feeling guilty about everything that I wasn't getting done.  Why don't I take a few minutes to do nothing more often?

Today in the photo challenge, we were asked to share an ultrasound photo, so I chose the first photo we got of her.  For CaptureYourGrief, we were told to perform a Random Act of Kindness.  I always struggle with these sorts of things, I want to do something big and meaningful, but I suppose small acts of kindness day to day are most important.  Today, we received a letter in the mail from the kids elves.  After a rough uncooperative sort of day.  They got some encouragement in a secretive sort of way from me.

We have the day off in the Capture Your Grief list, but for the photo challenge we were asked to share a photo of our child's memorial or burial site.  For me the two are the same, and here's the photo I took there today.

Today, we went to the Heart Release on Marco Island organized by StillBirthday.  I have long wanted to attend such an event to honor Abigail's memory.  To be with others who have experienced what we've been through.  To see her name along others, to know that there are many who though unseen are still loved.  Along those lines, today's assignment in CarlyMarie's list, we were encouraged to do something healthy, something to nourish our physical self.  We were also asked to share a photo of supportive family and friends in the photo challenge.


Me and the kids got there early enough to pull out our blanket, and have a picnic lunch next to the graveyard.  We checked out the Angel of Hope, a statue for all parents who have lost a child.  There were probably around 100 bricks around it sharing the names of children, dates, and messages from family.  Britt told me, I never know other people had their brother or sister die.











We met a few other families who were there.  When we met inside the chapel there, we talked about our children.  It was different.  I have written a lot about Abigail, but I've not really told our story out loud.  I have talked about bits and pieces here and there, but this was different.  It was also good to hear others share their stories.  The emotion in their voices, the striking similarities, it made me feel less alone.  There were the names of 10,000 babies written on the little hearts.  That was heart breaking, to think of so many babies lost, so many lives not lived.  There were also more blank hearts.  We were encouraged to hope on line and share this, to ask for anyone else who wanted their names added.  We released some there at the duck pond, most where carried out on a boat to the 10,000 Island near Marco, and released there.





Looking at these 10,000 hearts, some holding the name of more than one child in a family who had been lost.  I also felt frustrated.  I wonder how many other children here died of preventable causes?  I wondered how many other children here could be saved, if only someone out there was studying stillbirth and finding ways to make a difference.  I wondered why in the world people seem to think this isn't a real loss, that it isn't a real death, just the loss of possibility.  I wonder how it is that the whole world doesn't know about and grieve child loss?  We crusade for obscure animals, and argue endlessly about the economy, why can't people get fired up about preventing child loss, why is there no dialogue about this?  I wish I knew of some way to make it a real conversation on a national level, and I wish I knew of a way to change the silence and lack of study around stillbirth.

Today we were asked to show the projects in our life that have been inspired by our loss.  This past year and a half I have slowly been coloring through a book with all the words to "It is Well."  We were also reminded of the healing of laughter, and asked, if we could, to share something that makes us laugh.  Tonight, I found myself laughing along with the kids as we introduced them to "Hocus Pocus" for the first time.  Watching the one witch riding a vacuum cleaner made them all laugh as much as me and my brothers use to.