Cerulean Blue

It used to be my favorite color in the crayon box. It was too deep a shade of blue to be aquamarine, and not green enough to be considered teal, but it was the most calming and surprising blue in the box.

That's all I could think when I walked into the Emergency Room and saw you there, looking so small, not in your clothes, but the t-shirt and scrub pants they issued you. Like the color of the ocean, you were certainly swimming in the cerulean blue tee, because it was way too big for your diminutive frame. Just like your emotions.

I watched you crack, and held you to keep you from drowning in your tears. As tiny as you are, you were much bigger than the little baby I used to hold when she cried because the day had been overwhelming. In the Emergency Room, you had to fold yourself into me to try to fit on my lap as I wrapped my arms around you and held you as you struggled against the void that threatened to swallow you.  I struggled to be your anchor and held on to love you as much and as best I could in the moment.

While we waited for them to find you somewhere to go that was safe, that wasn't home, that wasn't school, that wasn't the ER, but that would keep you here -- the room they held you in seemed to enlarge the void that you were struggling against. Nothing but gray and green walls and your thoughts to keep you company.

You were locked behind a door, tucked away. I couldn't leave you there alone for very long, and I wanted to make sure I was there to keep you company, to distract you from the cuts of your thoughts, the sharp shards of pain and loneliness that were ripping you into shreds, leaving you full of tears, and empty of everything else.

I stroked your hair and remembered how I used to hold you and sing to you when nothing else seemed to work. Silent tears wet my cheeks as I looked back on all the times I should have held you when you began to grow and I thought you didn't need me as much, or I was too busy to stop and see YOU, to HOLD you, to acknowledge that you were there, and I was there for you. 

I knew it wasn't all the time, but it was enough to make you feel adrift and lost, leaving us to dance like boxers in the ring when we had forgotten just how often we had held onto one another when the tides of our lives shifted and the seas were tough.

And when I had to leave you, to let you heal, to work with those who were more objective and better qualified to help you find your own True North-- I sang to you a snippet of Marley's "Three Little Birds," and I hoped and prayed to whoever might be listening that every little thing would truly be alright, with you, and me and the rest of us.

In a short period of time, it has gotten better. I know there will be storms and I hope with all hopes that there will be no more perfect storms, and I pray that if there are, the rescue plans we have in place will see you through, that you will become your own beacon, and I can stand on the cliffs knowing you will safely arrive to calmer shores.

I love you more than you will ever know, and cerulean blue will always remind me just how precious and fragile our hearts and lives can be.

Alexa- First written on your eighth birthday, printed for you on your fourteenth.

The day I found out I was pregnant, I was scared to death.

I was afraid I wouldnt be a good mom, I was too young.

I had all of these fears, until I ended up in the emergency room because I was in danger of miscarrying.

When we realized you would stay with us, and my prayers fervently spoken were answered- all of my fears were quieted. To me, children are a gift, and they arent really ours, they are given to us to shape and mold, and borrow for a few years. The day my daughter was born, I fell in love, forever.

Dear Daughter, I am watching you grow and it is bittersweet.

When you were born and I brought you home, I cried, because I had never known such beauty and love for a person.

I asked myself, how will I EVER love another child as much as I love her?

The love I felt from you and for you when you arrived, opened my soul to the knowledge of unconditional love.

You made my world more complete.
You bring joy and wonder every day to my existence.
My heart still swells with love for you, every day.

I miss you when you are not here with me, and I think of you all of the time. You are interesting, funny, fun, full of joy, full of verve and life.

You have wisdom that makes me wonder, and bring laughter into my shadows. Words cannot express the love I feel for you...the life you have given me when you came into my life.

I do not live through you, but I revel in the life you are living, because I am able to be a part of it.

I fear for you in this world and I want to shelter you and give you the world without hurt, and danger.
I know I cannot, because it will cheat you and leave you unprepared for the real world.
I will always love you, my child, no matter what you do. You will always be MY baby, no matter how old you get.
When you hurt, I hurt, when you feel joy, I feel joy.
The choices I have made for you, I do not regret.
Because the day you were born, I knew it was my job to put you first for a while.

You are my legacy, flesh of my flesh, blood of my blood.

I am hoping I am helping you learn to walk on your own in what is now becoming more and more your life, and not OUR life.

You make me want more children, and baby, if our lives were different, I would give you the many brothers and sisters you desperately crave(when I first wrote this, we didn't know it would ever happen again, it looks like now, 6 years later, you will have a baby brother).

The life we have while your Daddy is in the Army is sometimes too hard for children, families and Mommies and Daddies, and I am so glad that you are made of the stuff I am.

You are a little soldier, and carry on with every move.

I know it is hard to make friends and lose them.
I know it is hard to move from a place you love into the unfamiliar.
I know it is hard not to have sibling to relate to, or hate us with when you are angry, or pick on when you are feeling mischievious, or love when you need companionship, or blame things on when there is trouble.
I hope that I can change that for you one day.

I will do my best to protect you from evil, and I would give my life for you.

I love being your mother, and I am grateful for your presence each and every day. You make my life more wonderful than I could ever know otherwise. I love you so very much. Thank you for coming into my life.

I will celebrate this day for you every year I am alive.

Happy Birthday. ~ mom

Fimsical Whuckery in Fashion...

I was minding my own business, just checking my yahoo account, when I log on and see this...

... on my yahoo dot de page.




The German fashion article asked if this "fashion trend" was a modern creative trend or a horrible mistake.
There are so many fashion mistakes on this catwalk feature that they extend beyond the scope of this blog.

What is killing me the worst is the flimsy attempt to repackage the sweater as pants.




I would like to direct the attention of the fashion mavens and trendsetters to posts featured on Regretsy.

Bringing back the 80's has incited enough trauma paired with intrigue. Fashion is now looking to Regretsy for inspiration.


Here's hoping they don't catch wind of some of the more recent Regretsy trends.

72 hours before recovery...

Number 4, I should have known that it would take more than thirty six hours to recover from this last loss.

I can't explain what miscarriage feels like to other women because I am sure there is an individual context that doesn't always embody each person's experience. I can tell you what the fourth one in a row feels like, to me.

There's a sense of isolation that doesn't linger for too long, but long enough to knock a person off their normal stride.

It's ugly and it's messy and embarrassing and private.

It's not a secret but it's not something I want other people discussing with me without my being prepared for it. It's a vulnerability that I just don't want to share with everyone, even though, here I am writing about it.

It's shocking and jarring, leaving me feeling emotionally raw, as if the wound in my core is outwardly manifested throughout my whole being. In the early hours and days, it sneaks up on me, manifested through fatigue, or that odd feeling I don't immediately recognize as a hormonal shift, and even if I do...even if I can rationalize it, there's still no convincing the irrational, emotional, painful side of the feeling of defeat when I just can't control my body.

Like other shocking acute diagnoses, there's really no knowing how the other people in the family are affected by the loss of a hope or a possibility.

In this house, the husband doesn't know how to react or vocalize, and it seems like for him nothing happened aside from a minor disappointment.

While I am trying to cope with the physical, hormonal, emotional response my body will not let me avoid, I wonder if he feels anything other than a mild disappointment because he isn't talking about it. Going to the doctor and having to discuss it, endure the humility of a physical exam and having to examine the miscarriage from the inside out feels like I am a case study or a newscast of a disaster -- my body is the house lifted and disheveled by the earthquake and everyone else is the sympathetic observer, not knowing what to do or say.

In the meantime, I have a sensitive child who survived the hostile environment within my womb who is set to save the world, starting with doling out hugs and big empathetic eyes when I have decided the day has been long enough and I have endured enough.

When I am done stumbling over myself and my emotions into my loved ones; the husband (who seems fine) suffering collateral damage from the aftershocks of what continues to be a waiting game-- I realize that I have to be stronger than I want to be, because I don't want my child to carry my burdens.

I want the partner who helped try and create this life that didn't quite make it to be there, to share and to feel.




I want to be angry with him, but he's just as much at a loss as anyone else.


There's something that momentarily turns me emotionally inside out, that is less shocking than the first miscarriage, but it still doesn't prepare me for the raw emotion that I can't always wall up immediately, and it seeps through the cracks.