This is gonna be a long one....

I know this is going to be a long post and I'm really a little scatter-brained tonight, so just hold on...

It's been almost a week since I last posted. Almost every day I've started to write a post, but then I just can't seem to make sense of all that's going on in my heart and mind. Friday was hands down, the WORST day I've had at work. It was really busy (seriously, 95% of Rockdale County must have come to the bank on Friday!) and it didn't help that we were very short handed and my mind was filled with thoughts of Noah (mostly because I had a lot of customers ask about him on Friday) and well, it just confirmed to me that it's time for a change (as if I needed anymore convincing)! Only one more week and I will be starting my new job.

I visited Noah's grave just about every day last week. David and I bought a solar powered light for Noah's grave. We've noticed other graves nearby that have them and we really wanted one. The one we bought matches perfectly. We also took Ethan to buy some little tiny pumpkins to put on the grave. We told Ethan he could give one to Noah and keep the other, but he said he wanted to give both of them to his brother.


I dreaded Saturday. I had such a bad day on Friday...including a really bad breakdown on the phone with David after work. I was NOT looking forward to this first holiday without one of my sons. I started crying as soon as I woke up Saturday morning...."God, please don't let it always feel like this every holiday...please." I got up and told David I just needed us to spend the morning together as a family. Friday had been too hard and I needed "us" time. So David, Ethan, and I went yard sale shopping. This was difficult since it was pouring down rain, but we managed to find a few indoor yard sales. I got Ethan 2 Thomas the Train t-shirts (both in excellent condition) for 25 cents each. Then I got him a pair of Ralph Lauren jeans for $1.00, a 58-piece foam floor puzzle for 25 cents, a pair of shorts for 25 cents, and a cute ceramic candle holder which looked brand new for 75 cents (easily $15.00-$20.00 in a store). After the yard sales we drove to Noah's grave just to tell him we missed him on this first holiday without him. There were a lot of tears shed over the next few hours.

Saturday afternoon we drove to my best friend's house to take pictures of her daughter, Sarah. Angela had this great idea she found online of cutting 2 holes in a pumpkin and sitting a baby in the pumkin with their legs through the holes. Then I found another photo with another great idea....so inspired by these 2 photos we found on google images...




We came up with these for Sarah.....

Ethan kissing Sarah...

There are a lot more and I'll try to post those soon on my photography site. I had a great time taking photos of her. Angela and Sandra both said to me throughout the afternoon how they wished Noah could have been there to celebrate his first Halloween. I'm so thankful that I have friends and family who remember him on days like these.

We always go trick-or-treating in Angela's neighborhood. Sandra lives in our neighborhood...and ours is just way too hilly and not very big, so we like to raid the candy in Angela's hood! :o) Last year we did a "Star Wars" theme with all the kids. This year we decided on a "Super Hero" theme, but Ethan was NOT going to compromise...he wanted to be a conductor and wear Thomas the Train, so that's what he did. (Thomas is a super hero too, right???)



He wore this to daycare on Friday and forgot to bring the "conductor" hat home, so he had to wear the hat that came with the costume on Saturday. We gathered all the little super heroes up to take a group picture.


After pics, we realized it was starting to rain and that walking around the neighborhood with all these kids in the rain was NOT going to be fun, so we took the seats out of the back of my van and piled them all in....don't worry...we were only driving about 5 miles an hour through the neighborhood...no seatbelts needed.




This is Hayden...Ethan loves to hold her hand and sure thinks she's cute! :o) And Hayden apparently told her mom on the way to Angela's house that she couldn't wait for Ethan to see her costume, "Ethan will think I'm cute" she said. And he did...he gave her a big hug when he saw her and told her that her costume was cool. I knew that Ethan wasn't going to walk around in the rain (and try to get in and out of the van) with the big Thomas costume on....so he just wore the hat...

How would you like to see that mob at your doorstep???

Ethan had a great time and his bucket was filled with candy....though the kids weren't too happy with the last house we stopped at...they gave out pens and pencils!!! I'm glad Ethan enjoyed his 4th Halloween. I went back through old photos of Halloweens past....

Ethan's 1st Halloween (6 months old)
Chili Pepper

Ethan's 2nd Halloween (18 months old)

The Giraffe
Ethan's 3rd Halloween (2 and 1/2 years old)
R2D2 (The Star Wars Theme)

I told David tonight that I really want to enjoy our holidays with Ethan. I don't want our focus to be so much on the son we've lost while missing out on the joy of our son that's alive. That's a tough one. It seems simple, but it's not. It's really hard to focus on the joy when sometimes all I really want to do is crawl in my bed and cry or sleep away the days.

I've gone through some tough things in my life. One of the worst times in my life was when I was in college and I took my focus from Christ and placed it on a boyfriend. My whole little world revolved around him and the relationship. Thankfully God granted us peace with each other in later years and I consider him a dear brother in Christ now. But during that time, when things were falling apart, I took it out on myself and ended up with a severe eating disorder. But even in my darkest hours during that time, I had the hope that it wouldn't be like that forever. That one day I would break free from the addiction. It was a battle I had to fight, but I knew there was a way out. It's frustrating that this battle - grief - has no way out (at least not while living on this earth)...it's just something I have to live with until I die. I know I have the hope of Heaven and I will see Noah again, but I wish it was something I could break free from while here on earth. I hate this grief that clouds everything in my life. It's like a sick panic that won't leave. Like even now....Heart pounding, mind racing, "my child is dead...he's not here...I can't get to him...but I need to care for him....I'm supposed to protect him..." These thoughts overwhelm me on a daily basis and it just becomes exhausting. It's hard to stay focused on the here and now. But I HAVE to be here for David, I HAVE to be here for Ethan and I cannot let this grief consume me.

I know better days are ahead. God has blessed me with a new job and I'm so thankful for this. I really think the change is going to help. For now, I'm going to try to focus on this cute little boy...