In lieu of blogging...

...you can catch up with me on Instagram by searching "fourlittlelions"

I've been extremely busy juggling work, taming "four" little lions, and a very heavy workload of crafting. Needless to say blogging has been put on the back burner once again.

Also? In case you haven't heard, I'm pregnant with another cubby! Baby Blaise will be joining our den in January 2013.

God is good.

I've Negelected You, Blogger.

Ah, here we are again - another blog post where I'm apologizing for not blogging.

Empty apologies? No.

I really DO mean it when I promise that I'll be better about blogging.  It's just that I've got so much going on that I have to put blogging on the back burner. Quite frankly, I miss utilizing writing as therapy! However, it also takes a lot of time to write a post and there aren't enough hours in the day.These days I rely on Instagram & Twitter to document our lives because it's just so much easier.

But....never fear, I'll be back soon! I've just got to survive this round of events to craft for and I'll be back.

Till next time...

Grown Up?

I'm turning 30 this June.

Thirty.

Soon I'll be the "old woman" that I always dreaded I'd become.

For the record, I never thought of being thirty as a good thing. When I was in grade school, I thought thirty-year-olds were just a few years from retirement -- practically senior citizens as far as I was concerned. As a teenager, I perceived thirty-year-olds as basically "hella old." In my teenage eyes, 30-somethings lacked any desire to have a life or do anything remotely close to fun. And in my early 20s? To simply put it, thirty-year-olds "had no business in the club."

To me, turning thirty automatically ordained you as a financially established and emotionally mature member of adulthood. Thirty meant you had a college degree, a career, married with kids, voted, cared about current affairs, invested in stocks, had a retirement plan, owned a house with white picket fence, and so forth. The age almost has an air of stateliness to it. Thirty is important. Thirty means you're done with irresponsibility. Thirty means you don't want go to the club. Thirty means you have your shit together.

Reaching this age feels like a rite of passage. Now here I am, wiping my feet at the threshold of thirty's door, and I don't think I'm ready guys.

Don't get me wrong -- I'm not afraid of getting older. I've accepted that my white hairs have reached a point where they aren't manageable by simply plucking them out. I've even embraced the worry lines on my forehead. As far as I'm concerned they're badges of honor -- I earned those bad boys fair and square. Hell, I've even gotten over the fact that my boobs really aren't going to get any bigger! (I blame this ignorance on my pediatrician. She gave me false hope that I'd "bloom more" after I had kids and started lactating. Ha! Wrong.)

The physical changes associated with aging don't bother me. Though I'm not beyond buying myself boobies and a tummy tuck if my 40s push my "insecurity button." (Or if I win the lotto. Whichever comes first.) No, what bothers me is that I don't feel like I deserve to be thirty yet.

I still feel like I'm fifteen inside.

Sure I have a job, I'm responsible for the lives of four little lions, and I pay my bills on time just like the next guy, but can I be honest for a minute? Most days I want to lay in bed, watch crappy reality shows, craft, and eat Coco Puffs. I haven't even been summoned for jury duty yet, and I'm supposedly going to be thirty soon? I'm starting to think that even the people at the courthouse know I'm not emotionally mature enough for that level of responsibility.

The reality is, I'm turning thirty, but I feel like a little girl playing pretend in a big girl's world.

Ironically though, things happened to me in this lifetime that actually make me emotionally older than thirty. Too much heartache. Too much responsibility too soon. Too many medical problems. Too much loss. Frankly, all of those things have aged me about a thousand years. It would age you too, my friend.

So, although I'm capable of making decisions like a thirty-year-old, I'm still far from caring about my contribution to my retirement. Yes, I said it, I haven't started a 401k.

I'm still trying to figure out what I want to do with my future let alone trying to figure out how to retire from it! I never had a chance to peruse though the "aisles of possibility" in my early adulthood. Having kids at a young age forces you to grow up, you know? "Real" thirty-year-olds probably followed a college-marriage-house-kids plan of action whereas I followed a  kid-kid-some college-kid-kid-kid-worklikeadoguntilthedayIday succession. So, I often feel like I'm playing catch up with my emotional development.

Like really, I'm turning thirty and I'm STILL not done with school?! Like really, I'm turning thirty and I don't even know where to begin when it comes to the stock market?! Like really, I'm turning THIRTY and I still want to spend my days water-coloring like I did back in high school?! Like really, I'm turning thirty, have FIVE kids, and I'm still not married?

While the rest of my friends spent their 20s being free and finding themselves, I spent most of my 20s living in the "right now." The "now" commanded my decision making and emotional development. There was no time for dreaming. No time for fun. No time for Coco Puffs. I was busy working two jobs, going to school, grieving, procreating, and raising kids while trying to raise myself. And now I desperately want to regain all of the "possibility" that I lost in my 20s.

I don't feel like I'm 30 yet because I skipped an important phase of my emotional development. I'm stuck in high school -- or Coco Puff-land as I like to call it. I miss living in the unapologetic selfishness and egocentricity associated with being "young."  I love my life, but sometimes I just want these kids and my baby daddy to leave me alone for just one stinking minute!

Maybe it's a Mom thing? Would I even feel this way if I was  "normal" thirty-year-old mother? Shouldn't I be a doting mother and "wife" all the time instead of the overstressed, daydreamer longing for a day off from responsibility? How could I possibly deserve the title of "Being Thirty" when all I truly desire is to consume massive amounts cereal and uninterrupted time for creativity?

I don't know. But I do know this -- 30 isn't the end of the world like I thought it once was.

I'm in no rush to feel my age. I'll get there eventually, but for now I'm OK with being Peter Pan on the inside -- I refuse to grow up. I refuse to let thirty define me. I may sometimes feel self-conscious and uncivilized when I'm in the company of normal, mature thirty-year-old mothers, but I'm learning accept that too. Life is a work in progress and it ain't over until it's over. There is so much that I want to do and tons of time to do it. There is nothing wrong with still believing that possibility is out there. And who said life needed to be done in a specific sequence anyway?

I'm conclusion, Jay-Z was right. 30 is definitely the new 20.

Apologies are in order...

Please excuse my last post. I was debilitated by my own sadness that day.

Moving onward...

He Died in His Daddy's Arms...

We stayed up the night before holding him in our arms for just one last time. We loved him for every second we could. We took pictures. We played music -- the same song that we played as he slipped away. He moved his foot when I sang to him. We cried and prayed for a miracle. We could have sat there with him forever if time wasn't against us. The inevitable was going to happen in a few short hours, and somehow we had to figure out a way to accept that.

I remember that night well...

The NICU arranged for us to sleep in the hospital just in case Ethan decided to leave us sooner than anticipated. We woke up, got ready, and tried our best to keep ourselves together. Today was the day we were going to say goodbye to our baby. How do you prepare for that?

We were on the brink of falling apart.

A friend of mine (who took Ethan's xrays when he was first admitted) came by to visit with us in the NICU. She was the first visit of that morning. Then slowly but surely, family and friends poured in to support us. We met with our social worker and Ethan's doctors. They talked to us about what would happen as he slipped away. He would be given morphine to make him comfortable. It could take minutes or hours before he left us. They advised us that he may appear to gasp as he slipped away, but that it was not him struggling to breathe. It scared me. I was numb.

I couldn't believe this was happening.

The staff arranged for us to have a private room on the 7th floor in Pedatrics. I remember walking up there and passing the nurses station. There was a group of student nurses there in their tell-tale scrubs. I met their eyes and I immediately knew that they knew...

We were the family that was losing their baby today.

We were in the room talking with family, friends, and the social worker making sure that everything in order. We brought his quilt from home and my brother-in-law Jason gave us Ethan's song to play.

Then suddenly he was there.

We thought we were supposed to call to have him brought up so it took us by surprise. We weren't ready to say goodbye, but there Ethan was, being bagged by a nurse. His doctor and social worker were there, too. My brother-in-law Chris later told us that our social worker was tearing. Everything went quickly from there because all I could do was stare at him. I couldn't believe it. He looked so tiny in his bed. The people in the room left. And then it was just us and the NICU team.

The NICU nurse stopped bagging Ethan at 10:06am.

They snapped a picture of him and then placed Ethan in our arms and they left. I was just the three of us in that room together. The last time we were alone with him was the day he was born. It seemed horridly unfair.

It's impossible to describe those last moments with Ethan....

To say what went on in my head as I said goodbye to my baby...
To express the immense pain and fear that John and I were experiencing...
To describe the internal battle I was having with my faith in God for allowing this to happen to Ethan...

There are no words, just emotions.

John is the only other person in the world who knows what it felt like.

Gut-wrenching sobs painfully tore through our bodies until I thought we couldn't take it anymore. We laid in bed with him, trying our best to soothe Ethan as he slipped away. He didn't gasp. If I didn't know any better, I would have fooled myself into thinking he was just sleeping. But I knew better.
The energy in the room shifted, and Ethan died peacefully in his Daddy's arms at 11:00am.

We haven't been the same since. If you're reading this, hug your children tighter than you've ever hugged them before. I will hug mine. And I will pray to God that he gives us the strength to survive another year of this lifetime without our baby. I will miss him until the day I die.

Mommy loves you, my Little Lion in the sky...