Mommy Musings

It is with a sad heart that I write this post.  This past Thursday heaven gained another puppy angel.  My little sister's beagle, Audrey went to go be with my boy Braddock.   My sis got Audrey when she was 18 and the two have been inseparable ever since.  Truly best friends and partners in crime.  Audrey was much more person-like than dog, and she brought so much joy to my sis, her husband, and our whole family.  Audrey, you will truly be missed by all and we are all so lucky to have met you.

I have to admit, I have been both looking forward to and dreading the holidays this year.  I love this time of year {save for the weather}.  There is just something magical about the time from Thanksgiving to Christmas.  But this is also our first holiday season without both my Grandma and my MIL.  It is going to be a season of mixed emotions for sure. Skip had to work on Thanksgiving, but only from 7-3, so we would have him home for dinner. The girls and I slept in a little, then had some couch snuggles while watching the parade.  Emnmy even made her own little parade.  Here she is being one of the balloon handlers! My parents then took Emmy for a little bit to help them with Thanksgiving cooking.  Charlie and I did a little workout together {here she is squatting and using block she grabbed as weights!} We followed up all the exercise with some good pizza and football!!  After Skip got home we all got scrubbed up and ready to head over to my si...

Between Braddock, Skip's mom, and my grandmother, our family has had to deal with a lot of death in the past year and a half.  And as devastatingly hard as it has all been for Skip and I, it has been even harder for our Emmy.  She is still very young, but sadly not young enough to be shielded from all of this.  I have talked about her experiences with some of this grief here before. When adults grieve, we typically start grieving immediately, and then it lessens a bit over time.  Obviously there will still be moments, days, that rock us with grief, even decades later after the person is gone.  But most of the grieving process begins right when the person dies. I have learned through Emmy, that children grieve very different.  Braddock's death made her very sad in the beginning, as did the death of Skip's mom and my grandma, but as to even understand the concept of death, her grief was not fully realized.  Instead, her grief comes in waves, and has sinc...

One of the hardest things, for me, when grieving someone, is trying to get things back to normal again.  Remembering to laugh, have some fun, and not just cry all the time.  This is easy to do when you have kids though.  They bounce back so much quicker, and have no problem bugging you until you play with them:) So on one of Skip's days off last week, we headed to the local dinosaur park with the girls.  They put it in a few years ago, and really feels like a park filled with dinosaurs.  They roar and move a bit when you stand in front of them.  You can even see them breathing!  Emmy was about ready to burst with excitement, and surprisingly Charlie was as well.  At only just 2, I worried he might get a little scare.  Nope.  My little daredevil just kept wanting to see "more dinosaurs Mommy!"  Most epically awesome picture ever It's hard to push yourself to do normal, fun things after someone dies.  But when you do, it's defin...

I hate that Emmy has had to deal with so much death in the past year.  It's almost too much for Skip and I to handle, and we're adults.  Thankfully though, my sweet girl has handled it with so much grace and understanding. Braddock's death hit her really hard, but since then she has come to such a place of peace when someone dies.  As she said to me last Tuesday, "Mommy, why are you sad?  Grandma the Great is in heaven, watching over us with Mimi".  At the repass at our house after the burial, Emmy was talking with my grandma's neighbor and best friend.  Emmy gave her a big hug and said "I'm sorry your friend died.  But she's can see us because she's a big beautiful angel with wings."  The waterworks among the adults began again. And then Monday morning, Emmy was awake before Skip and I.  She was playing in her room with some old birthday cards and crayons.  She came in to our room to give us the cards she had drawn pictur...

I wanted to write a post on here about my Grandma...about the amazing woman she was.  But every time I typed out one sentence or another, it wasn't quite right.  But my older sister on the other hand, was perfectly able to capture the spirit of my Grandma in her eulogy on Saturday.  So instead of trying to come up with something myself, here are my sister's beautiful words {obviously I changed all the names to initials} Good morning. My name is L, and I’m A’s eldest granddaughter. On behalf of her children, grandchildren and great grandchildren, I’d like to thank all of you so much for being here to celebrate her today. I’ve been struggling with trying to find the right words to share with you this morning to sum up what my grandma meant to all of us. How do you fit 90 years’ worth of love, lessons, and laughs into a few short remarks? But I’ll do my best – by Tuesday night, I already knew that I wanted to be able to honor her today by telling you about who she was. A ...

This past week I've felt like I'm drowning in grief.  For months now, I have been so focused on Skip's grief over losing his mom.  And it was only just recently that I started to mourn her for what I lost. And then we lost my Grandma.  She died peacefully and pain-free from a massive stroke.  She had been sick with various things for the past four years.  We all knew we were on borrowed time with her, but the shock of her actually being gone is overwhelming.  It was not how I thought I was going to spend last week at all. On Friday and Saturday we gathered together, family and friends from all around the country, to mourn and celebrate my Grandma.  Both days were a beautiful tribute to her life and legacy, though immensely harder than I ever thought they would be.  While I am blessed in so many other ways, this year has just been so hard for my little family.  We barely get a chance to grieve one thing before another is thrown right at us....

One year ago today, at 7:42 in the morning, my life was forever changed.  It was the moment our vet called to tell us our poor sweet bulldog, Braddock, had passed away. It's really strange to think that losing a dog could affect your life that much .  But for me it was true.  Nothing has been exactly the same since he was gone.  A piece of me, a piece of my heart, is different. Maybe it's because he was so much more than just a dog to me.  He was my baby, my boy.  We got him when he was only a few weeks old, when I was pregnant with Emmy.  He would wake up every two hours or so to go to the bathroom, and then I'd lay on the couch until he fell asleep on my shoulder and I could put him back in his cage.  He taught me how to be a mother. He was a really great protector {even though he was ridiculously afraid of thunder}.  I never felt unsafe when Skip would work overtime at night, because I knew Mr. B would alert us to any danger. And no one ...