Bathtime Bribery

Here is what bathtime was like at our house this evening:

Jacob gets in thebathtub and mommy washes him. Then mommy leaves him to play in the water and draw on the shower walls with his bath marker. About three minutes later, this is what mommy hears from the bathroom-

Jacob: I'M ALL DONE, MOMMY!

Mommy: NO YOU'RE NOT! YOU NEED TO PLAY FOR LONGER!

Jacob: NO! I ALL DONE! I'M GETTING OUT!

Mommy: YOU'D BETTER NOT! MOMMY NEEDS YOU TO PLAY LONGER WHILE SHE CLEANS UP THE LIVING ROOM AND VACUUMS YOUR BEDROOM BEFORE AUNT DEBORAH GETS HERE TO VISIT THIS WEEKEND!

Jacob: NO! I GETTING OUT RIGHT NOW!

Mommy: JACOB, IF YOU STAY IN THE TUB UNTIL MOMMY FINISHES THEN YOU CAN HAVE ICE CREAM AFTER YOUR BATH! ( "Real smart, Sarah. Give him ice cream after he's had his bath," mommy thinks.)

Jacob: OKAY!

Has anyone out there ever done the same?

Snakes and snails and puppy dog tails...

So, this morning, little Jacob comes running in to me while I am in the other room and tells me I need to take a picture (with a big grin). I ask him what I need to take a picture of and he tells me ,"My mess!" I think, "Oh great! What'd he do this time?" So I go to the kitchen table where he was eating breakfast and there is a puddle of dumped out cereal and pieces of watermelon that have been squeezed to death so that juice is running over the end of the table! Again he requests that I take a picture and I tell him the I most definitely will not because I do not want to encourage him. Then, as I am washing him off at the sink, he begins demanding that I use the sprayer to wash him off!

Yesterday, I was sweeping off the porch and Jacob was running around the front yard. I am absorbed in my thoughts when I hear my neighbor calling my name. As I look up, and she is pointing to Jacob who is standing in the driveway with pants down and peeing right in the open. She was laughing so hard and thought it was hilarious.

After watching a "Sesame Street" episode about pets and how much love pets need, Jacob finds an ant in our kitchen which he declares is his pet. So, he picks it up and puts it in a bowl which he then carries around with him everywhere he goes, all the while declaring that it's his baby and he loves it soooooooo much! After a little while, he decides to let the ant go for a swim in daddy's drink which is sitting out on the table. The ant drowns, daddy pours it out while explaining to Jacob that ants can't go swimming, Jacob starts bawling, "My baby is gone. I loved him so much!" Of course there's no shortage of ants around our house so he has had plenty to play with since. As the matter of fact, quite often while I am in my room getting dressed he will come to me with his fingers pinched to show me a new ant he has caught.

I love having a little boy! There are no dull moments, that's for sure!

To My Unborn Baby

I just got back from the SHARE support-group I have been going to and felt inspired to write this. My due date is tomorrow and I am wanting to use this time to further along the healing process from the grief I've experienced over the past 7 months:

To my unborn baby at the time I should be holding you in my arms and caressing your soft skin, I write to you of my grief and sadness for the loss of feeling you grow in my womb, the loss of hearing your first cries as you enter into a whole new world, and the loss of looking into your face for the first time and studying its features while marveling at the miracle of creation.

My arms ache to swaddle you up and hold you as the bundle of joy you were supposed to be.
My breasts ache to feed you the nourishing milk that God had placed in me to provide you with the nutrients to make you strong and healthy.
My heart aches to feel the outpouring of love and devotion to you for the rest of my existence.
My head aches with the knowledge that you were gone before I really knew you and the reality that my life will go on without you here.

Know that I had such hopes and dreams for you- seeing you smile at me for the first time, hearing your first giggle, squeezing your chubby folds of skin and listening to your soft baby sighs as you sleep; watching you grow and learn about God and all of his glorious creations; and reveling in your curiosity about the world.

You will always be a part of me and I will always remember the brief joy I felt at knowing you were growing inside of me- my sweet baby.

Our mourning at the Angel Garden

Many of you know by now that I experienced a miscarriage last October. It has been a very painful experience and the past several months have been the most difficult months of my life. This morning Adam, Jacob, and I were able to attend a remembrance ceremony at the St. Als Angel Garden located at Cloverdale Cemetery. There is a wonderful, tender-hearted gentleman who works in the St. Al's lab who was the driving force in getting the Angel Garden started. St. Al's owns a plot in the cemetery where the remains of miscarried babies under 20 weeks are buried in an unmarked grave. The remains are collected from the lab on a regular basis and taken to the garden in order to provide a place for parents to visit and mourn their loss. There is a beautiful headstone that marks the area.
Once a year, a remembrance ceremony is held for those who have remains buried there, as well as anyone else who has suffered a pregnancy loss. I wish I had known about the garden at the time I miscarried, but since I miscarried naturally at home I had no remains to consider placing in the garden. The ceremony is facilitated by the SHARE support group for early pregnancy loss and infant loss at St. Al's.
The ceremony was beautiful! It started with a prayer and blessing! The following words were so beautifully spoken, "Grant that all who come here may be consoled by the assurance that one day there will be no more sorrow, no more weeping or pain, but only peace and joy."
One of the parents who attends the support group spoke about losing her baby before it was at full-term. She spoke about the "club" she joined when her loss occurred made up of individuals whose new reality is knowing that loss is possible and now a permanent part of life. She also spoke about learning to go on living and finding joy after the loss. The ceremony ended with the release of doves. First, three doves were released to represent the holy trinity. Then three baskets of doves were released to represent the hosts of heaven. Finally, a single dove was released to represent the angel that each of us has lost. It was beautiful watching them all unite as one flock and circle around the cemetery!
At the end of the ceremony, we were each given a seed packet in the shape of an angel to plant in remembrance of the spirit each of us has lost.
We were able to add our own personal touch to the experience. While someone was speaking, Jacob became curious about the baskets of doves. Adam and I watched in horror as he impulsively yanked one of the lids open and the flock began to flap their wings in preparation to fly. One dove managed to escape but we were able to close the lid before the rest could get out. The owner of Breath of Heaven Doves said that it was the first time that had ever happened and that she thought it was kind of funny that it did!
It was a very therapeutic experience for me to attend the ceremony today. I feel more hopeful about recovering from the grief and being able to move on with my life. My due date is coming up next week- June 3rd. I will be happy to move past the date and hopefully feel like some of the emotional load I've been carrying will be lifted.