Barking Mad

22

 

last name Photoshopped out for privacy reasons

"Love is stronger than death even though it can't stop death from happening, but no matter how hard death tries it can't separate people from love.  It can't take away our memories either.  In the end, life is stronger than death."

~Unknown~

Happy 22nd Birthday, Joshua! 

I have a hard time believing you'd be 22 today, if you were still here on earth.  I hope you're having a great day with your Heavenly family and your Heavenly Father. 

I know that you already know this, but things are so much better here on mortal ground than they were this time last year.  That's despite the fact that your littlest sister is laying on the floor, tossing a ball into the air and just watching it come straight back down, right at her face.  Luckily, for her, it hasn't hit her in the nose yet. I told her to knock it off or she'd regret it and she just laughed.  It seems that the daring, rebellious spirit runs through all of my children! 

Watching Gaby play, especially the times she plays with her guitar reminds me so much of you.  She has such a love of music, just like you did!  

 

Two years, three months and 10 days seems like such a short time to get to know someone, especially when that someone was the child who grew in my womb and took me on the first step of the journey from teenager to mother. 

I've not felt your embrace, or gazed into those gorgeous brown eyes of yours for close to twenty years now...but hardly a day goes by when I don't feel your presence near me almost all the time.  Maybe it was because your time here on earth with me left such a huge impression that the energy from your life still resonates around me.  Perhaps that's more of a scientific explanation for it, but I prefer to believe that your spirit still lingers nearby.

I haven't dreamed about you again, since last year.  It took some time for the dream to sink in and for me to fully feel the impact of the words exchanged between you and I that night, but I have...I finally have.  Since that sleepy morning, when I sat staring at the words I'd written immediately after waking from that dream, I've come to a point in my life where I have, once and for all decided to stop killing myself and start living...really start living!

I still have moments where the memory of your death feels like a punch in the gut and takes my breath away.  Being that I didn't really let the grief process run it's course, and instead, I ate and ate and ate to insulate myself from the pain of your loss, sometimes the fresh pain is like having daggers if ice plunged deep into my heart and the most tender places in my soul...the places of a mothers soul where she tends her garden of sorrows.  During those times I take a deep breath and become still and allow myself to feel the pain and let the grief wash over me anew.  I submit to ache of missing you and let my tears rain down on those blossoms of sorrow and agony.  

After being exhausted by the tears and longing to see you again, I let myself journey to the other side of this mother's soul...the place where I tend my garden of happy, fun, lovely and cherished memories.  I sit in this springtime garden of my soul and let the warmth of all the wonderful memories of you - your smile, your laugh, your love for your little brother and sister, embrace my soul and warm my heart.  I feel the petals of healing and peace blossom inside of me like a field of awakening poppies; opening their faces to the sun. 

 

 

   

 

So, I'll allow myself these showers of grief and heartache and hours where I wallow in the misery of missing you because I know they'll give way to the warm breezes of hope and healing. 

 

Beautiful beautiful boy of mine, on what would be your 22nd birthday I want you to know that I miss your smile so very much...

 

...but I love you so much more.  Death can never take away the precious gift your place in my life gave me.   Maybe through finally grieving your death, I am starting to learn how to live.   It's in your memory that I begin to take the steps towards living the life I was meant to live.

"The question is not whether we will die, but how we will live." 

~Joan Borysenko~

Mommy

It's Just a Boob! Part I - The Polls

 

"Nursing does not diminish the beauty of a woman's breasts; it enhances their charm by making them look lived in and happy."  ~Robert A. Heinlein

I'm not trying to stir anything up (hence the reason I refuse to link to any of the blow-ups that have taken place in Bloggywood recently.)...I know that the topics of breastfeeding, breastfeeding in public, and extended nursing are red hot and tend to get people pretty vocal and defensive!   The thing is, I really want to know what you think about this topic and more importantly, why?

For those of you that have been reading me for a while, you already know that I am very zealous about breastfeeding.  I'm not sure if you could call me a "lactivist" but hey, if the shoe fits, I'll wear it.  So, before I launch into my tirade, I thought I'd just test the waters to see what the general consensus among my few readers is, about the topic.  I've embedded a couple of polls in this post to get an idea of what you guys think.  Next Wednesday I'll post Part II, It's Just a Boob...Stop Acting Like One!

If you want to leave a comment (Come on!  You already know I'm a total comment whore!), feel free to leave statistics or links to studies that support your opinion.  I try to reply to comments as much as I can and really wish TypePad had an option that made replying to individual comments with the comments themselves, easier.  I really enjoy my posts where there is a lot of community discussion!  Anyhow, feel free to extrapolate and go back and forth...as always though, try not to flame your fellow commenters.  In other words, play nice kiddies!

"Breast Feeding should not be attempted by fathers with hairy chests, since they can make the baby sneeze and give it wind."  ~Mike Harding, The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac, 1981

Never Let a Four Year Old Be Your Personal Trainer

Some days I don't have the sense God gave a gnat!

Other days I have even less.  Today was one of those days.

 

Every day, Gaby and I exercise together, or at least that's what I call it.  Sometimes it's just dancing along to Yo Gabba Gabba, (hush!), others it's working out to a DVD, and occasionally we run around the house, up and down the stairs, like total lunatics.   Yeah, OK maybe that happens more than "occasionally."

Today was different.  I don't know why.  Maybe it was the gloomy weather outside, the fact that I overdosed on flax seed...again, or perhaps the planets were in some bizarre planetary alignment.  I don't know.  All I do know is that all vestiges of common sense left the building and I let Gaby, a FOUR YEAR OLD, dictate my exercise today.  As a result. I am walking with a slight limp, have a bruised ass, and think I might very well have broke one side of our sofa...one of the sides that reclines.  Sorry honey.

So, do you see how Gaby is situated on the sofa in the above picture?  She wanted me to do the exact same thing and then slam my legs into the back of the sofa, bring them over my head and then rinse, repeat.  And do you know what?  I did it.  Hell, it was fun...at first. 

I had quite the momentum going and we were giggling away at one another and then all of a sudden, I launched my legs into the back of the sofa with such force that the backward bounce off the sofa caused me to go completely ass-over-teakettle!  Meaning, I completely did a back-flip off of the sofa and landed all of my largess onto the floor with such intensity that something cracked...at this point I'm not certain if it was my ass or the hardwood floor underneath the small area rug I landed on. 

I think, from now on, I'm going to stick to exercising with Elmo!