You know that old saying on Ground Hog Day about “in like a lion, out like lamb” or something to that affect, well, that’s how I felt last week with the start of December. We have had such a beautiful fall here, then bam! winter smacks us in the face with cold, wind and even snow. I have my favorite winter time activities and as I was saying to some of our children, if I could enjoy them winter wouldn’t be so long and unenjoyable (for the most part and is that even a word?) to be. But I am usually pregnant, recovering from a miscarriage, have an infant…that I really haven’t enjoyed winter like I use to do.

This is one of the first Decembers in the past six years I have started without much of a rain cloud over my head. November 30th marked the sixth anniversary of our losing our son Matthew 18 weeks into my pregnancy. It was a shock to go into my appointment expecting to hear a little heart beat only to discover none. Then going through the ordeal of an ultrasound confirming it, the inside of my head screaming “why?!” and then the trip home to share the news with my husband and five young children who were anticipating a new baby. And finally even harder still was the decisions to be made, the very negative experience we had to go through when we opted to get Matthew taken care of as soon as possible so I could heal and get back to taking care of our other children and the grief that was yet to come. Nope, not easy at all. I didn’t know what grief meant until I lost a child that far into a pregnancy. For me grief took on a whole new form and it took me a long time to process it. To this day I avoid looking at the pictures we were given of Matthew because of the sadness it brings to me. They are tucked away in a special box that has been packed away because I cannot go through the emotion of reliving my experience when the children have asked to see the pictures. Pretty sad, eh? And what a way to start off the week! I am serious, reflective and even sad, but this is the first year that I can actually get through writing about Matthew without crying. Now that is
progress.

Writing about Matthew kept coming to my mind throughout the past week and since I really haven’t made this blog a personal, personal blog due to, again, a past experience, I thought maybe sharing this would show all of you another side of me. It isn’t easy to open up to people I don’t know. I use to be an open book and able to hide behind my keyboard. However, age has made me slow to take the chances I once did when I was naive and younger. Printed words are too easily misconstrued, just are a person’s actions, motivations and verbal words.

On a more positive note….

Following up on last week’s Monday Motivation:

~ The ongoing cleaning and purging is…well…ongoing. We were able to get our tree up and decorated much to the pleasure and enjoyment of the children.

~ No business plan finished. We ended up getting sick with colds, so Sunday and Monday, even Tuesday was sluggish, so I was unable to get at it with the rest of life going on.

~ We did get to the Thrift Store after we got our tree on Saturday (that was a great outing!) and found some needed items. But due to being sick we have not got to the YMCA.

~ We have played Christmas music a number of days, but not every day. And we still need to watch a classic Christmas movie.

~ Still no laptop. It’s been a war over our pc for me to get my work done and the children to get their school done, but we are managing somehow. The computer guy has been great, but he’s trying to solve a puzzle he’s never had to solve and each time we talk I end up giving him a missing piece of information. So he’s hopeful and I will remain so as well for now.

This week’s Motivation:Do I have anything new? Just a couple. I’ll be going to my CSA course, worked on my homework this past weekend so I could hand it in. I need to research antifungal diets and figure out how I am going to manage to survive on one, as I need to help get rid of baby’s thrush and the cause of it. First baby to have thrush, unbelievable.