There are just some days where I need to come here and say I miss her. Nothing has changed. Everything is still the same and I still miss her so incredibly much. I want to know who you could have been. I want to hold your hand and kiss your face. I want to rock you to sleep. I want you here. I love you.

I feel so weird writing. I feel like it’s been so long since I’ve blogged about Kenley. My friend Christine and I were just talking about this last night; about how we feel so far away from our babies. We feel like there is just no time to grieve them properly. It’s not that we want to sit in the grief and spend a full day sobbing crying over losing our children, it’s not that at all, it’s simply that life rushes ahead and you just don’t have time to dedicate to the child you lost in the same way as the children you have that are living.

It’s not fair at all. Sure, the living children require more attention, and time and brain space…but, Kenley deserves that too. I picked up her picture on my bedside yesterday and it was dusty. I brushed off the dust and just sat there holding it, looking at her…looking at the woman holding her in her arms. I don’t know that woman anymore. I don’t know who she is. Who was I then? Who am I now? I am two different people- actually, three. The before me, the after me, and the after me “mom”.

And honestly? I don’t feel like I know ANY of those people anymore.

I don’t know who I am as a person. I don’t know who I am as a wife, or a mother, or a sister, or a daughter. I feel like I’m in a dark room, fumbling around trying to find my way to the other side…but it just keeps going, and going…sometimes the light creeps in from a crack in the wall, or a window…but it’s never enough to help me right my path.

My anxiety has been pretty intense lately. We have a lot of stress hovering over our family currently. We are looking for a bigger house or to build but there is nothing available. There are things that need to get done in our home to make listing our home possible even, so those things will cost money. We thought a problem was fixed with our roof, and well…lets just say it isn’t…and might force us to replace our roof. We just bought a new furnace for $6k, and now a new roof will be close to $8k. Everything somehow comes full circle to Kenley.

The roof was fixed when she was a live inside of me. When she died, I didn’t go in the room for a long time…had she lived, would I have noticed the issue earlier because I would have been in there with her? Then when we had it fixed, we had it painted for Alden’s arrival…and turns out it’s still not fixed…so it just feels like we’re dragging it all through the mud and somehow Kenley’s death feels so fresh because of it. I don’t know. Every time I write about her death, and the feelings I have, I feel as if it makes no sense to the outside world–and I know that some of the things don’t make sense and people don’t understand why I feel the way I do, or why I can’t do things (attend parties, showers, see new babies etc…) but that’s just how it is. My reality is just that…every single day of my life and I get to choose how I handle things that make me hurt and uncomfortable.

It’s almost June. Last year I started collecting donations for Kenley’s Care Packages in June! I can’t believe it, yet I’m kind of excited because doing things in her memory makes me feel so close to her. I miss her so incredibly much but I’m so thankful that we can help other families in her name. I’m still very surprised that no one has ever reached out to me after they received a care pack from the hospital. I guess it took me 2 years to reach out to someone about something we used at the hospital when Kenley died so I get it.

I can’t wait to get another amazon wish list going, and see what we can do in honor of our sweet girl this year!

**If you (or someone you know) are interested in knitting, or crocheting a hat, blanket, or burial gown of some sort for our donations this year please contact me or leave a comment! I’m trying to get a rough estimate of who would like to help create handmade items this year!!**

It’s safe to say that having to take care of 3 living children is kicking my ass. One wakes up from a nap, and the other goes down for a nap. One wants to eat, the other wants to take a crap and needs a diaper change. Then…there’s Landon. The extremely smart 7 year old who is CONSTANTLY bored and needs stimulation which turns into him getting into trouble or playing his iPad for way too long. But honestly, we’re all still adjusting to having 2 babies in our home, and some days it feels like it’s going to swallow me up, but others feel manageable.

I’m pretty much living by this motto currently…

Do whatever the fuck you need to survive.

Landon has started baseball and I swear it’s like he has practice so often, but they keep getting canceled. We bought him a new bat the other day and I can’t wait to watch him play, even though I’m super stressed about taking 2 babies to the ball park in the middle of summer…

Alden took her first steps yesterday. She walked 2 steps to me, then again to me she took 4 steps. After Landon came home she walked to him a bunch of times. She stood up randomly by herself in the middle of the room today. I give her to the end of the week and she will be fully walking around…probably.

I had my dad down this weekend and it’s such a big help to have that extra set of hands to just do whatever else I need to be doing. I was able to wash 3 loads of laundry, put two of those loads away, and put another 2 loads of laundry away that I had done previously. I also was able to clean out Landon’s dresser drawers and packed the items up that don’t fit him. I felt like all I did this weekend was feed one kid, change the other, put the other down for a nap….. repeat. Ugh.

I’ve been so extremely tired the past two days and I can tell that I’m getting worn down. I love being a mom, but some days I really wish I was able to take a 30 minute lunch break, or was “off work” at 5 p.m. I’ve taken a shower the past 2 days, so I’m gonna say that’s a win…Thanks for keeping the kids while I showered, Dad!

On Friday I got a call from Landon’s school and they said that Landon was involved in an incident at school. He was choked on the play ground. I knew exactly who it was that did it before Landon even told me. There is a kid who is in his class (he’s 7 remember…) who is allowed to play Call of Duty, watch scary movies (like IT, Friday the 13th, etc etc) and plays guns at school all the time…we’ve had to listen to Landon tell us about him all year, and I’m pretty much over the shit he has been filling my sons head with.

ANYWAY, apparently this kid came up behind Landon and choked him then started dragging him across the concrete. The story I got was that Landon told him he was lying about something and the kid lost his shit apparently. I was SO mad. Honestly, my momma heart is hurt, and I want to go kick someones teeth in. Don’t you dare touch my kid. I will refrain from calling a 7 year old any names on the internet, but I’m sure you can imagine what’s racing through my head.

I’ve been missing Kenley a lot the past few days…I miss her a lot every day, but some days it’s like 10 fold. When I saw Alden take those steps my heart was torn in two directions; happiness for her, and sadness for Kenley. I wonder if I will feel those things for Rowan as well, or if it will just be for Alden because she came directly after Kenley…I don’t know. It’s all uncharted waters for us here. Sigh.

We are actively looking for a new house, and also tossing around the idea of building instead of buying. The only problem is that we literally cannot find anything for sale around here that has 4 bedrooms for less than 450k that’s worth a crap. Building would be very similar to that cost so we just keep spinning our wheels trying to decide what we want to do. Or there is the option to renovate our home and we’ve just not had any lucky with someone who can do what we want done for the price we would like to pay. Adulating is the worst.

Last night I was feeding Rowan at 1:45 am and I looked over at Shane (like I often do…I find myself staring at him a lot during the night time feedings) only to see him looking so incredibly handsome. I just kept looking at him and was taking him in, then I decided I wanted to take a picture of him the way he was at that moment, but he moved. I was bummed. I dunno what it was but just the way he was laying there, asleep, with his arm up and his gorgeous face, his tattoo showing because he was shirtless. Sheeeeeewie. My heart just exploded and I felt so lucky to be married to him. I get to sleep next to THAT my entire life. Hell yes!

I’ve been feeling extremely down on myself lately, and I really hope that it passes soon cus it’s ANNOYING. I have never had much self confidence but couple that with all I’ve been through the past 5 years of my life…I’m just ready for something to give. I need to go get my hair done, but I have zero time/ no baby sitter. I need a pedicure (self care, yo) and once again…no time or sitter. I don’t even think I would trust my kids with anyone other than my parents or my in-laws.

I had my groceries delivered to my house the other day. I bought a TON of food and misc. things and Kroger had a free trial of the delivery so I said why the hell not! It was pretty cool, and the app I used to buy everything was super easy. I really enjoyed not having to lug the kids out, but I didn’t like having to tip the guy who delivered them so I think we will just continue to order them online, and go pick them up at the store. It’s the easiest way for us currently. But…it was sweet having them delivered lol.

Alden and Rowan both had check ups this week! Rowan is 1 month old. She weighs 10lbs 5 oz, and is 22 inches long. Her head is super tiny– in the 25th percentile and I was all freaked out. The doctor told me not to worry and we will see what happens at her 2 month appt.

Alden is 1! She had to get 4 shots (2 in the left leg, and one in the back of each arm) then she had to get a finger poke. Jesus! I mean, she’s one for god sake! Poor sweet girl. I just felt so bad for her and I couldn’t do anything to make her feel better when she was getting poked. UGH. But, she weighs 23lbs 11oz, and she is 31.5 inches tall!

Shane has been working 6 day work weeks since he went back to work (and before Rowan was born too). This week he finally has a 2 day weekend!!! I don’t know what to do with myself! I can’t wait to spend time with him, and hey maybe we will even get our Christmas decorations down off the house…

Yeah. It’s embarrassing, but remember my motto? Yup.

Yesterday I was putting away some clothes that I bought for Alden, when she came crawling into the closet. She crawled over to the window and wanted to look outside. For me to be able to open the shade, I had to stand next to where Kenley’s clothes still hang, untouched.

She kept trying to grab the cord for the shade so I had to put it up. When I looked over at Kenley’s clothes, I noticed that her clothes have dust on the shoulders.

Dust.

A symbol of time standing still and going on all at the same time…

Her beautiful clothing that she never got to wear is still hanging there and I’m pretty sure I will never be able to pack them away. Sure, I could use that space in the closet for the girls clothing, especially since we don’t have a bedroom or closet for Rowan, but I will not take them down– I can’t.

Sometimes I will stand in the closet doorway and just look at them. There are two newborn outfits at the front that I had purchased just a few days before she died because I panicked and realized I had no newborn outfits. There’s one that says “Grandmas’s cutie”, there is also a Valentine’s Day outfit which I’ve written about on here before. That one was given to her for Christmas, just days before she died, and makes me want to die when I see it.

There are a few outfits that I was able to let Alden wear, and now Rowan will wear them, too. There are a bunch of things that I just still can’t see any other baby wearing, except Kenley.

Each Holiday ends up hitting me hard even when I think it’s not going to. Even if I try to ignore the fact that it’s a Holiday and she’s not here it always creeps up on me in some way, shape or form. Seeing three Easter baskets sitting out yesterday morning was sad. I’ve been thinking a lot about how life would be if I had all of my kids here.

Four kids.

I wish I had them all.

I would give anything to have them all here.

No one should have to see dust settling on their child’s unused clothing. Ouch.