Merry Fricken Christmas

Hi Boo,

Well, merry fricken Christmas...

Blah.  The holidays now officially suck.  I'm lucky that our kids are still too young to realize that it is Christmas time, and this is the time of year for happy happy happy, cheery cheery cheery, fa la la la la, and all that crap.

Ugh...

But of course, I don't let on how I feel about the holidays.  On the outside, I've got my "Sarah" mask on, pretending everything is the same as it was, that life is good.  But on the inside, I feel like I'm being ripped to shreds, and I pretty much just want to throw my middle fingers in the air and say "F-ck this holiday."  I did boycott Facebook today though.   I popped on for a few minutes once today, and I couldn't handle everyone's happy pictures and statuses, so I was like, nope.  Peace out Facebook.

I've worked hard to get through this.  I really am seriously trying.  I've been working on another email for a while now to explain to you how I've been trying to get through this.  I've just been so blah on the inside that I can't even find the words to email you.  Although I  have about a million conversations a day with you in my head...

I just wish I could ACTUALLY have a conversation with you.

I made it though our anniversary.  I made it through Halloween.  I made it through Thanksgiving.  I made it through Christmas Eve.  And I'm about to make it through Christmas Day.   I have one more holiday to get through in the next week, and then I'll have a few weeks off before another happy day that will now feel like doom and gloom.

Although I've already started seeing signs of that approaching holiday in the stores... Remember how I used to see that stuff and say "My birthday's coming up!"  Sigh...

Anyways, I actually have a bunch of different emails to you "in progress" right now.  Maybe I'll find the motivation to finish getting my words out soon...

But until then, just know that I miss you.  I love you.  My entire being aches to have you here... (<-- I know, that sounds cheesy, but that is really how it is.  I literally ache all over from missing you so much.)

Love.

IV Months

Hey boo,

How's it going?

So, it's been 4 months now.  I don't even feel like calculating the days, hours, minutes, seconds... Every one of them sucked.

So, Will has now officially been WITHOUT you, longer than he was actually WITH you.  You left us 2 days before his 4 month "birthday."  And the thought of that pretty much makes me want to puke.

Getting him into his car seat before we left the hospital.

Carrying everything while I just rode in a wheelchair. :-)

I struggle every day with how to raise and take care of Will.  You were the one who had to show me how to clean his junk!  I don't know how boys operate!  What am I supposed to do with him??!?!

These 2 pictures just make me laugh... Angry face.

Happy face.

Right now, I'm wondering what you would want to do about his hair.  I love his curls!  But I never take the time to "style" his hair, I just let it fro out all over the place...  But now it's getting in his eyes...  Would you want to cut it, or let it be?!?!  What should I do????

Teaching the girls to hug brother...

We thought he was so BIG!  Now I can't even remember him being that SMALL!

I tell him every day that Daddy loves him.

 I know it's a stereotype, but I still want him to be somewhat tough...  But you know me... always "caution!"  By now you would be throwing him in the air and doing things that make me mad. :-)  He is surrounded by women all. the. time.  Who's going to teach him about "ratchety wrenches"  and how you can tell that it's a "blitz!"?  (Seriously, you explained what blitzing looks like to me every time we watched football, and I was just like, "still looks like everyone is doing their standard 'job'"...)

Proof that Will does cry. :-)

"Dad, not in front of my friends!" :-)

I remember after we found out that both of the twins were girls, we came home and you got out your baseball glove and a ball... You sat on the couch throwing the ball into the glove, pouting... But once they were here, you LOVED having girls.  You couldn't imagine it any other way.

But I also remember being in the ultrasound room when I was pregnant with Will.  You were sitting in a chair at the foot of the bed, leaned back with your hands behind your head (kind of like the picture below), watching the the ultrasound on the TV that they have on the wall.  We told the tech we wanted to know the gender, and when she said "It looks like it's a boy..."  Then she wiggled the thingy around on my belly more to get a different view, and said "Yup, it's definitely a boy, can you see that...?" You put both arms up, fist in the air, and looked back at me like "hell yeah!", as if the Bears just scored a touchdown... You were so excited that you got YOUR boy!  Charles Number 5!  Cinco!  V! :-)

So why in the hell don't you get to be here for him?!?!?

The best. feeling. ever.

How you would walk around with him in the evenings to settle him down.

I wish we hadn't procrastinated on going back to IL after Will was born... I wanted that damn generational picture so bad. II, III, IV, V.  Not many people can get a picture like that.  And now we can't either.

Please just know that I'll do my best with Will.  I'll show him Bears football, the Lakers and the Bulls basketball, NASCAR, and dirt racing.  And if he ends up liking foo-foo drinks when he's older, I'll make sure he knows that's OK, because his daddy liked them too. :-)

Hearts.

Violet Got Bit

Hey Boo,

FYI, Violet was bitten at school again...  She probably instigated it though... :-P

Miss you.

Beware My Wrath

Hey boo,

How's it going?  I'm horrible.

This morning was particularly exhausting.  Violet was up around 5:30 yelling "Momma!  Momma!  Momma!" from her crib... I tried to ignore her and hope she fell back asleep, but nope.  Well, when I went to go see what the issue was, she had puked everywhere in her crib.  She points to it and says "Barf."  Yeah, sweetie, barf...

So, whatever, I'm overly exhuasted, all of this lack of sleep is really catching up with me.  So, I just grab her taggie, pick her up and lay her in bed with me for another 30 minutes.  But then it's time to get up and get ready for work.

Usually I get ready when they are still asleep, or at least still in their cribs.  So, it is not easy getting ready with Violet awake and following me around.  She needs attention, and she is a chatterbox so she has to talk extremely loudly about everything.  "Make-up.  Momma. Face."  "Down Momma" (because she wants me to sit down on the floor next to her.  "Hurrrr" means 'hair.'  And so on...

Finally I am all ready and I can start the usual routine of getting the kids ready.  I get Violet all dressed and in her chair to eat breakfast.  Then I go get Charlotte.  While I'm trying to get Charlotte ready, Violet is freaking out because of the buttons on her shirt... They are just there for decoration, but she wants them buttoned.  How do I explain that they don't button, they are just for looks?  Then she is complaining about owies, and everything else, and that she wants down.  Well, we are already behind schedule, so I don't feel like dealing with trying to get her to sit and eat, so I just get her out of her chair and let her run free.  And of course, if Violet is running free, then Charlotte needs to be too.  Fine. Whatever.

Then I get Will up and start getting him dressed.  And the girls are fighting over toys.  "Mine." "Mine." Ugh...

So, I'm trying to break up their fight while still trying to get Will dressed.  Then Charlotte has to sit in my lap, which makes it extremely difficult to get Will dressed.

I just had no energy for all of this nonsense...

So basically, as usual, our morning was chaos.  But I didn't even feel like forcing everyone to do what they were supposed to be doing.  So, it was just a free-for-all.  Everyone running all over the place.  It took forever for us to finally get out the door.

Then, I had Violet and Charlotte loaded into the car, and I pick up Will, and of course, he has a poo-splosion going on... ugh... So then I have to change him and his clothes.  Fortunately none of it got on me, because that has also happened before, where I need an outfit change too.

Once we get to school, the girls have to look at the snowman by the door, then the Christmas tree in the lobby, then the other snowman on their way to the classroom, then the "bee-bees" in their classroom... Then I have to take off their hats, mittens, and coats.  Then Violet doesn't want me to leave so she is hanging on me.  The teacher finally had to rip her off of me... Then I drop Will off, and I am just moving slow motion getting his bottles out and stuff.

And finally I'm out and on my way to work.  Then I realize I forgot Will needed diapers at school.  And I never brought them... Ugh... I'm just hoping they have enough there to cover him for today and I'll bring them in next week.

Blah.

I'm exhausted.

Then I get to work, and in order to work on one of these products, I need a little more information from someone.  And the person gives me a really stupid/lazy answer... Ugh... Usually, I would be nice and just try to better explain what I needed and why I needed it, but today, I was just like, whatever!  In my true passive-aggressive nature, I wrote him a snarky email that said fine, I'll do it the lazy way, but I'm just letting you know that it's wrong so you need to add this special little note so that everyone knows it's not my fault that it's wrong.

Yeah, blah.  I'm having a bad attitude today.  Have I mentioned I'm exhausted?

Anyways, everyone needs to beware of my wrath, I'm on a warpath.  I'm just too tired to be nice today.

I miss you.

Hearts.

Divergent

Hey Boo,

How's it going?  I'm just super mega blah lately... It's going to be rough few weeks with the holidays and whatnot...

So anyways, I thought writing an email about nonsense silly stuff would make me feel a little less blue...

So, you know I like to read, and I've been reading a lot lately.  I recently read the Divergent series, which is of course, books meant for "young adults."  Those are my favorite kind of books right?  Because I'm basically a 14-year-old stuck in a 30-year-olds body... :-)

Well, of course they are making the books into movies.  The trailer for the first movie just came out a couple weeks ago.

OMG!

You know my favorite show, Teenage Pregnancy?  (I think it's really called The Secret Life of the American Teenager, but that is just what we called it...)  Well anyways, you know how we thought they were all the most amazing actors ever?!?!  (I hope you can sense my sarcasm through my writing...)  That main girl from the show is the main character in the Divergent movie!!! What!?!?!  Ugh, are you kidding me?!?!  She is not who I pictured at all for this character.  It's another "now I'm depressed" moment seeing that she is in the movie! :-P  Even in the trailer, I'm just like, ugh, I can't stand your voice... Go talk about pregnancy, and babies, and if you are going to get married, and of course, s e x... :-P  But even though I can't stand her, you know I still can't stop watching that show, it's the train wreck that you can't look away from! :-)

So yeah, that's just my sillyness for now.

I am seriously missing you like whoa.  For reals.

Love.

I'm in a Hurry to Get Things Done

Hey Boo,

How's it going?

So, Will start crawling this week!!! Yay!  :-)

But of course the whole thing gives me mixed emotions.  I'm excited that he's crawling and that he reached a major milestone, but I'm so sad that you aren't here to see it...

And then it gets me thinking about all of the things the kids do, and how I feel like you're missing it, and I am missing it too!  I feel like I am always in a hurry, rushing to make sure everything gets done.

We rush in the morning: Hurry up to get myself up and ready, then hurry to get everyone else up, diapers changed, clothes on, breakfast, shoes, coats, get in the car seats.  Then we get to school and it's hurry up and get everyone out of the car, get everyone in to the building, get them into their classrooms and make sure all their "stuff" (like bottles, taggies, coats, hats, mittens) gets in the right spot at school too.

Then it's rush to work - and of course, work in general is just rush, rush, rush.  Everyone wants everything done yesterday...

Then it's rush to school to pick up the kids - Hurry and get their coats, hats, and mittens on.  Make sure they have their taggies.  Try to keep them from running wild while I talk to the teacher.  Hurry to get them in their carseat.

Then it's a rush to get home - Hurry home. Hurry to get them out of their carseats and into the house.  Hurry to get Will's dinner ready.  Hurry to get Violet and Charlotte's dinner ready.  Hurry to get them into their high chairs.  Hurry to get my dinner ready (if I even get a chance to eat, sometimes the girls are just too demanding for me to eat, or they have to eat the food off my plate, or eat with my fork).

Then it's rushing for the rest of our evening routine - Hurry and clean up after dinner.  Hurry and get spas done.  Hurry to do lotion, get diapers on, get jammies on, comb hair, q-tip ears, and brush teeth.  Then it's hurry to get Will's bottle ready.  Hurry and get the girls set up on their pillow pets to settle down.

Then it's rushing to get to bed - Hurry and put Will in his crib.  Then hurry to get the girls upstairs, where they have to point to the "broken books" (which they broke by ripping apart), say "uh-oh" because the light is off and continue to say it until I turn it on, get in their cribs, arrange their purple dog and glow sea-horse and book, then lay down.  Then Charlotte needs to kiss Violet.  Then Charlotte needs to kiss me.  Then Violet needs to kiss me.  Then they both finally lay down and I can cover them up with a blanket and turn their glow sea-horses on.  Then turn off the light and shut the door.

Yeah, it's pretty much rush, rush, rush.  I hardly get to spend time with them.  I feel like most people get to have fun during bath time, splashing around, putting their kids hair in mohawks and whatnot.  But for me, it's always go, go, go, let's get down to business, wash, wash, wash, Ok, we're done.  There is no time for playing...

On my days off, it's not as bad... but there are still certain points in the day where I feel rushed.  Like breakfast, trying to get everyone fed before they freak out.  Lunch, again, trying to get everyone fed before they freak out.  Which leads to nap time, and that can be a headache because the girls don't always go to sleep.  Then I'm trying to eat much lunch while trying to keep Will entertained.  Then dinner time, which leads into our usual  night time routine.

On those days, I am always bummed because I never get one-on-one time with any of the kids.  The girls are always jealous of each other and/or Will.  There is always 2 or 3 kids trying to get my attention.  I feel like I never get to really notice the kids.  I never get to really look at them and see how they are growing and what they are doing.  I feel like I'm just on the "surface" parenting, and I'm not getting into it too "deeply", if that makes sense.

So, that is why I feel like I'm missing out on everything too.

There are times when I remember this, and I try hard to slow down, and really "look" at the kids.  One. At. A. Time.  But it's hard, and the moment still passes by too quickly.

I remember before, when you would be feeding the girls at the table, and I would be nursing brother on the couch, I would stare at you guys.  I was trying to burn that image of the 3 of you at the table in my mind.  Not for your sake, but for the girls sake.  So that I would always remember what it was like when they were little.  Now I'm glad that I did that, because I'll always remember what it was like when you were here.  I need to burn more images into my mind, because time is going by way too quick.

I guess it's just me, and I need to try harder to slow down... Remind me to bring this up in therapy this week, to see if she has any tips on what I can do to work on this...

Anyways, I miss you so much.  Is this real life?

Hearts.

A Ring?!?!?

 Hey boo,

How's it going?  Not too much going on here...

I'm pretty much stuck in a rut... day after day, week after week, it's all the same... but I guess that's how it was before too, so I don't know why it's such a big deal...

Well, I guess something interesting happened this past week...

So, back in August, the Perrigo OTC Marketing Team gave me a gift certificate for this really neat thing called Gift of Time Concierge Service.  I hadn't really been sure how or what I was going to use it for until recently...

On Monday, the van started dinging at me, telling me I had low tire pressure... ugh... I had actually noticed that it looked low for a while, but I was like, eh, it'll be OK... but now, if it's dinging at me, it's probably really low, plus, the dinging and warning lights were just annoying.

Well, I really did attempt to put air in the tire myself after putting gas in the van at a gas station.  And I'm sure you can imagine how that went... There was a reason I always asked you to do that kind of stuff... :-P

So, I did what I usually do nowadays... I posted it on FB... First, a friend suggested I go to an oil change place, and then one of our wonderful neighbors offered and brought over an air compressor to fill up the tires.  Yay!

But the oil change thing got me thinking... hmmm... When was the last time the van had an oil change?!?!

I go out and look at the sticker... Huh, well, I'll be darned, I'm already more than 1000 miles over when I should have gotten one... Oooops!!!

So, then I was racking my brain trying to figure out when I would fit in an oil change when I didn't have the kids with me...?  I was trying to see if there was a place that could pick up my car from work for me and do it, but then I remembered the Gift of Time gift certificate!  I wonder if I could use some of it for that?!?!

I emailed her and asked about an oil change, and she said she could definitely do that!!!  She said she basically acts as a personal assistant to her clients.  And I was like, heck yeah, I totally need a personal assistant!  Now my mind was thinking of all sorts of great things she could do to help me out!

But anyways, back to the oil change...

She had an opening in her schedule to get it done on Wednesday afternoon.  Score!  She was going to come and pick it up from me at work and then bring it back.  Before she got there, I started to think about what a disaster the van is on the inside... receipts, un-used coupons, granola bar wrappers, kids clothes, and a random Bumbo that is always in there for some reason!  So, when she got there, I asked if she had any extra time, if she could also clean out the car a little bit?  She said of course!

So, now is the really awesome part of the story... When she got back, she said, "I found a ring."  And I said, "A ring?!?!?"  She shows me the ring and it is my ORIGINAL WEDDING BAND!!!!  Oh. my. word.  I just looked at it, and I said "Holy crap, I think I'm going to cry!"  And of course I do that crazy hand flapping thing at my face that is somehow supposed to make me not cry... :-P  She said that she knew it was important...  I asked her if she knew about my situation, and she said a little bit.  She must have heard from whoever bought the gift certificate.

So, lets back up the truck here a minute...

First, when did I lose my wedding band???  I know I was pregnant with Will.  And it was still a while before he was born, because I remember walking around preggo for a long time without a wedding ring on, wondering what people were thinking about me...  I thought people would think we were having marital problems or something, but nobody even asked about it.  So anyways, I'm estimating that I lost it almost a year ago!  (That shows how often I clean out my car... :-P)

Next, what about the events following the loss of my wedding band???  Over the summer, I think I started dropping some seriously major hints (IE. telling you flat out) that I wanted a new wedding band for our upcoming anniversary.  I wanted something simple and inexpensive because I didn't want to scratch the babies with it, and of course, just in case I lost it again!

What I didn't know was that the Wednesday before you died (ugh, hate that word), you had gone to see one of our friends that works at Talsma Jewelers and picked out a new wedding band for me!  But you didn't buy it that day because you weren't feeling good.  I had no idea that you did this, I had assumed that we would pick one out together.  Well, during the crazy time between the day you died and when the visitations started, I received a note from our friend explaining what you had done, and the most incredible gift...  She had told her bosses about what happened, and they gave me the ring you had picked out!  Of course, I cried!  It was basically like the last gift you would ever give to me, and it showed just what an amazing husband you were.  For real, it was such a wonderful and sad thing at the same time.  After that, I was pretty much an obsessive freak about not losing this ring...

The replacement wedding band you picked out...

So, now lets get back to what happened this week...

So, as I was saying, the "concierge" found my ORIGINAL WEDDING BAND in the van.  I emailed her right after I got back inside to tell her thanks again and asking where she found it.  She said it was nestled in the receipts and coupons in the center console...

My original wedding band...  And, I'm getting 'grandma' hands, I need to moisturize more! :-)

Well, of course I told my family this whole story, and also, my therapist.  And my therapist got me thinking a little differently about this whole thing... My original thoughts were, "Wow!  This is amazing!  I am so happy to have my original ring back!  But also so sad that you aren't here to share in this awesomeness..."  And pretty much every emotion in between...

But my therapist brought up something we had talked about in the past, something similar to this other email I wrote you back in September about Bugs & Signs.  We had talked about some kind of sign/message or something important that would make me feel some way connected to you now...  So, the more we talked about this whole "ring" thing, the more I started to think that "hmmm... maybe this is it."

Basically, I was 99.99% sure that I lost the ring INSIDE THE HOUSE, more specifically, IN THE KITCHEN, even more specifically, ON THE CORNER OF THE ISLAND RIGHT BY THE FRIDGE.  That is where I ALWAYS took off and put my jewelry when I got home from work.  I know, not the safest spot, but it's what I did.  I was 99.99% sure that the ring must have been knocked off the counter, on to the ground, and either under an appliance, or swept/vacuumed up and now in the trash.  There was .01% of me that thought I may have lost it at work, when I took it off at my desk to put lotion on my hands (which I now never take my ring(s) off to put lotion on...), and forgot to put it back on, and it got knocked to the ground or something...

So, HOW COULD I HAVE LOST IT IN THE VAN?!?!  I am 100% sure that I have never taken my jewelry off in the van.  Also, the center console is on my RIGHT side when I'm driving, and the ring is obviously on my LEFT hand.  So, it couldn't have just slipped off and fell in there... And I know I lost it on a "school" night because I couldn't find it when I was heading out the door for work the next morning, but I had had it on the day before...

And as we talked, I started to remember you when you were driving the van, and holding your hand out over the center console, waiting for me to hold your hand...  You would always rub my ring finger and pretend to be mad/jealous that I wasn't wearing a ring so it was like we weren't married... :-P

So, was this whole thing, like "a thing?"

The skeptic in me says "no."  Why would you "put" the ring in the van's center console?  Why would somebody else find it, not me?  Why wouldn't you just "put" it in a drawer in the kitchen, where I would find it, and it would make more sense.

The 'crazy missing you' in me says "maybe..."  The ring was in the van's center console because it was a place where it should NOT have been at all (like how I refer to in the other email "a rainbow in the middle of the night.").  Someone else found it because I would never thoroughly clean out the van, or really do anything out of our new routine that would make me look somewhere "weird."...

So anyways, of course, I'm not completely convinced, and I probably never will be.  But for right now, it is still pretty wonderful to have my ORIGINAL wedding band back.  It's something for me to show the kids and have them wear at their weddings someday...

Now, if my ENGAGEMENT RING shows up, which you know I lost at least a bazillion years ago (like sometime before the girls were 9 months old, because it was before we found out we were preggo with Will), that would probably convince me... :-)

Two wedding bands with two different meanings to me...

LOVEBUCKETS!!!