First Kiss

March 11, 2012

Sweet Bug,

You are growing up so fast.  You have such a little personality, you amaze me with how smart (and sassy) you are.  One of your favorite new things to do is pack a purse, or a stroller & pretend like you are leaving.  You usually pack a train or a car, a spoon & sometimes a cup.

On Sunday we were playing dress up & you had your bag all packed, I was sitting in the floor in the kitchen sorting through things and you waved bye, I said bye back, and you started to blow me a kiss & then changed your mind and came running at me.  You gave me the sweetest, open mouth kiss right on my mouth.

It was amazing.  I will never, ever forget my first kiss from you.

Asthma

Asthma, truly I can't even spell it. It has the combination of letters that make my dyslexia go crazy. In the past two days I have looked up asthma symptoms & treatment so many times that I should be able to spell it perfectly now.  I still can't


It is the explanation of why you cough so hard.  I hope that you will outgrow it & that you will never ever remember coughing so hard that you broke the blood vessels in your sweet face and couldn't catch your breath.  I will never forget.  For right now you are on a ton of medicine and we go see an allergist next week to see what you are allergic too.  We are going to do our best to try and remove your triggers.  I am looking forward to you being all better.

I love you sweet prince, all the way to the moon & back.

Am I Qualified to Answer That?

I am a fairly intelligent woman, teachers usually are.  (insert laugh here)   But, I never thought I would be answering the questions that I have in the past two weeks.

"Mommy, what is a soul?"

This is when we were in the car.  In my head I am trying to calculate the exact right thing to say to this HUGE question.

A soul is what Jesus put inside of you that makes you special and beautiful.

I think that one was pretty good.

"Mommy, when we go to Heaven can we come back?"

This was when we were getting ready for bed.

Heaven is like our playroom, beautiful and warm with lots of windows so you can see everyone you love.  When you come back you will be an angel.

You did not like the answer to this one, you wanted to know that you would be able to come back and play with your toys.

"Mommy, why do people do bad things?"

Sometimes even big people have days when they aren't very good listeners and they do things that they should not.

"Mommy, did you know that my whole class is going to heaven."

Yes sweet baby.  Then you told me everyone but Issac because he is absent too much.  Then we had a talk about everyone that loves Jesus gets to go to Heaven.



These are all from the past two weeks.  Your little brain must be going in overdrive.  I am not sure that I am qualified to answer all the questions that you will have in your life. But I hope that I do ok.

Love you!

Mommy

Happy Birthday Uncle Jack

Yesterday was your Uncle Jack's Birthday.  Really he is your Great Uncle, but he is such an amazing presence in your life that it makes much more sense for you guys to just call him Uncle Jack.   He was there for both of your births, to help us move, to put up ceiling fans, and most importantly he is always there to be a constant presence in your life.

He loves both of you so much, I love seeing your eyes light up when he calls or comes by.  Last night he brought Holden over.  You both love him too, I love to see you relate to family so well.  At Thanksgiving Holden helped teach you to "play" the guitar.  It wasn't a real guitar, it was some silly thing that your Grandpa has that was made from a beer can.  But the good news  is that when you are old enough I know that Holden can teach you to play the real guitar. 

Elayna, you are quite smitten with Holden too, he is one of the few males in your life that you will let pick you up.  Similarly, Uncle Jack was the first man (other than Daddy) that you cried for when he left.  We were at International Date Night with Nana & co. at Cracker Barrel.  Uncle Jack got up and left the table and your sweet little lip poked right out.

I am so glad that you will have such a positive role model to grow up knowing, and loving.

Thank you Uncle Jack for helping me to Defy Gravity & pass that along to my babies.

Happy Birthday.

Sweet faces

I am in love with this picture.  Your sweet face is so so so funny!  This is right after we came inside from playing out in the snow and you were getting something to eat and warming up.

Look at how stanking beautiful you are bug, you were warming up too.  Your sweet little fingers have paint on them from a project earlier that day.


It is really hard, almost impossible to get you to both look at the camera at the same time.  In this picture Daddy was trying to help me and you guys were laughing at him.

An impromptu playdate

We had a beautiful afternoon, you are both finally feeling better.  It is such a relief!  The weather is getting warmer, so my hope is that I will be able to keep both of you healthy.  Today after nap it was so pretty outside that I decided we should go for a walk.  This is not something I am normally comfortable doing because of all of the stray dogs.  Well, if I am being honest - it is just the two dogs across the street, who are not stray at all.  But today there were enough other people outside that I knew that if something did happen we would be able to get help quickly.

About a minute into our walk you guys spotted our friends down the street.  They have 4 kids!  Twins, Kate & Matthew are almost 3, Jack is 5, and I feel really bad that I do not remember the oldest boys name.  They were already playing with a lady and her 3 kids that live on South Anna.  Before long we all walked down to Ann's house and you guys were playing and having the best time.

Tommy, you climbed a tree!!!  I have never in 32 years climbed a tree, but you did.  The other kids were much more adept and when they quickly decided that it was time to go play in the back yard again you were still in the tree, before I knew it you were hanging by your arms about 4 feet from the ground. I took off running to help you, but by the time I got there you were already down.  Then you and Matthew rode their Monster Truck Power Wheel all over the yard.  Elayna was not too happy about you making a new friend.  She followed you guys pretty closely and tried her hardest to get in on the action.

Sweet Kate started picking daffodils and giving them to everyone.  You guys both thought that was pretty awesome and we came home with a beautiful bouquet.  Of course, they were all stemless since sweet Katie picked them at their heads, but lovely none the less.

It was hard to convince you guys to leave, but it was dinnertime and time to get home.  Once you guys finished dinner Tommy went outside to help Daddy with the boat.  Tommy drilled some holes all by himself.  Elayna, you stayed inside with me and we did some chores and watched some Blues Clues.

One of the most special moments of the day was when I was tucking you in T-Bird.  You turned to me with your sweetest eyes, and told me that you were going to Heaven.  We talked for awhile about it and you told me that your whole class was going to go to Heaven because you love Jesus in your heart.

Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss

Here is a secret for you, when I was little I didn't like Dr. Seuss.  I don't know why I didn't, but now that I read it to you guys I love it.  Love love love.  It is so much fun to hear you mimicking the words and wanting to see what comes next.

But there is another, much bigger reason why I love to celebrate Dr. Seuss' birthday.  It marks the anniversary of the glorious day that we found out we were pregnant with my sweet bug, Elayna.

Princess, you have no idea how much you were wanted.  And how very very hard we worked to get you here.  As Tommy approached that magical age of two I knew that I wanted to have another baby - so you could be constant companions and friends.  Both Daddy and I have several years separating our birth and the birth of our siblings.  I wanted to be sure that we did not have that with you and Tommy, I wanted to make sure that you grew up together.

We tried for 7 months.  In retrospect, 7 months does not seem like that long of a time.  But holy cow, when we were going through it it was like forever.  Every month that I got I period I would morn, so worried that my rough pregnancy with Tommy had prevented me from getting pregnant with you.

I had finally decided to meet with a fertility expert.  I called and made an appointment for a Friday, and the Monday before - on Dr. Seuss' Birthday I finally got what I had been dreaming for.  A positive pregnancy test.  Words can never describe how happy I was.  I actually tested twice, by then we had spent so much money on home pregnancy tests that I had started buying them in bulk at the dollar tree. 

Your Daddy was downstairs getting ready for work & Tommy was still asleep.  I had purchased a shirt months before & not told anyone, afraid that we would never get to use it.  I went downstairs, shirt in hand, eyes all glassy and told daddy that I wanted Tommy to wear this:

We both cried, and held each other for a little while.  Then we had to get ready for work, it was soooooo hard not to tell anyone, since we wanted to tell our family first.  We decided to tell everyone on the Jones/Forney side of the family at Savannah's baby shower.  I showed them all the shirt & they were so excited.

We went the next day to Nonnie & Papa's Tommy wore the shirt, but they did not notice at all.  Daddy finally told Papa to read the shirt.  Every one was so excited that you were coming little bug!!

My students were so happy too, they threw me a shower & made me a diaper cake.  It was the sweetest thing.

Elayna, you were like a rockstar inside of me, you got to listen to all of the greats, Chaucer, Beowulf, Shakespeare.  You would move all around, and get so excited.  Sometimes during IEP meetings you would literally be doing flips, it was so hard to stay focused all I could think about was you.  What you would look like, what your name would be, how much fun we would have, the list went on and on.

Before we found out your gender, I knew.  I had a dream while we were still living in Chesterfield.  Before we even found our forever home in Rockville.  In the dream Tommy was running around and playing in a giant field, but I was siting on a picnic blanket with a beautiful little girl with dark hair.  I knew it was you.  A woman that I worked with, named Minnie, also dreamt of you.  Beautiful dark hair & creamy skin.  She left Varina before you were born, I wish I could find her to let her know she was right.

The summer of 2010 I got so sick, so horribly, horribly sick.  I had something called c-diff.  It was awful, suddenly a pregnancy that had gone so smoothly was in serious risk.  The medicine that they prescribed me was questionable for you (it was Flagyl), I resisted taking it until they told me that without treatment I would undoubtedly die.  It took 2 and a half months to rid my body of the disease.  And it was not until you were born that I finally believed that you were ok.  It was a true miracle that you were not affected by the disease, or by the medicine.  We are so lucky!

Meanwhile, school started.  I was so big, and you were so big.  I was working at Varina High School, and they were under construction.  There were many times that I would venture across campus and have Braxton Hicks pains that were so intense that I was positive that you were going to come right then.

I worked RIGHT up until the day before you were born.  I remember walking through the parking lot & a bus driver hollering to me asking me when you were due, her face was priceless when I replied, "tomorrow morning."

You are so beautiful, and sweet.  So snuggly and perfect from the second that I first held you.

These are the PJs that earned you your nickname, Bug.  I was holding you and loving on you, chanting your name - My little Elayna.  When Tommy came up and noticed your Lady Bugs on your feet.  He called you Lana Bug, and it stuck.

And now, look at how big you are little Bug.  I love you so much, I cannot wait to meet the woman that I know you are destined to become.

Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss!