We're off!

Tom and I have been planning the mother of all vacations for a few months--I think since a couple of weeks after we lost Nate. So today, we're leaving for....Rome! We'll be there for four days, then we're getting on a ship for a 14-day cruise. Hooray!!

I'd like to be able to post pictures as we go, but I have a feeling that I won't be able to until we get on the ship. So take care, everyone! Arrivederci!

Sending a Message

Last night was the annual balloon release for our chapter of The Compassionate Friends.

These are our balloons--one for Nate and one for his friends.

There they go!

This was my first balloon release, and it took me by surprise how powerful and emotional it was. Letting go of those balloons and watching them go higher and higher until they were just pin pricks against the sky and then nothing--it was almost like letting go of Nate again. I hope he got our message. I hope that he is a good boy and shares his balloons with his new friends. Oh God, I miss my baby so much.

A Birthday

Happy 1st birthday, Kate, you beautiful baby girl :)

Sarah, I'm thinking of you and Steve today and sending you many, many hugs.

Kids Say the Darndest Things

This from my stepdaughter:

"I wish that Nate was still safe in your tummy so that you would be happy again."

Yeah, me too.

I guess that I'm not hiding things as well as I thought.

Moron

My period started with a vengeance this morning--5 days late. Enough time to make me wonder, get me excited and take a pregnancy test. And of course it was negative. Of course. We haven't been trying, in fact we've been super careful. But I thought, since I had my baby taken away from me, wouldn't it be great if I just turned up pregnant? No effort, no worry, just pregnant. Like I had some kind of cosmic coupon--sorry about that last one, Laura. This one is on us. Why can't I just behave normally anymore?

This whole thing is such a bitch. A big, heaving, snarling bitch, and I didn't sign up for this.

Favorites

I was looking at my pull down list of bookmarked websites and realized that it was a perfect timeline of this last year.

Blue Man Group (the show we saw on our honeymoon)
Bravado Nursing Bras, Maya Wrap slings and breastfeeding accessories
Babywit.com
My Punk Baby--your alternative to the pink and powder blue baby
Bobux Baby Shoes
Knitting Pattern Central--Free Baby Hat Patterns
Cool Onsies
Bumbo Seat

and then...

Remembering Our Babies
National Share Office
Child Miscarriage Support and Child Death Support website
First Child -- stillborn Mothering.com forums
First Child -- stillborn--pregnant with second child Mothering.com forums
Miscarriage and Infant Loss Memorial Jewlery
Tips for creating a memorial garden
Ovulation Calendar and Ovulation Chart--Fertilityfriend.com

I never imagined in a million years that I would have Remembering Our Babies and Tips for a Memorial Garden in my favorites. Hmmm, I really wanted that Bumbo Seat.

All About Lala

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and when it comes to blogs, I'm the biggest copycat ever. I found this questionnaire on a blog that I'd never seen before--her name is Hedda and I found her through Catherine. You could do it, too :)

I'm kind of fluff blogging, I think, because Tom is out of town. I don't want to think too hard, get upset, and be alone in this house.

I AM: a wife, a sister, a friend, a music maker, a cake baker & a mommy.
I SAID: I wouldn't eat the brownies that I made yesterday. Famous last words.
I WANT: To plant a beautiful garden.
I WISH: I had gone for my Doctorate and taken more auditions.
I HATE: That I can still go out and do whatever I want. I was through with that time in my life and I want to say, "Well, I'll have to see if Mom can watch the baby."
I MISS: My baby son, Nate. I miss my Nana. I miss Tom's dad. I miss the old me.
I FEAR: Never being a mommy to live children.
I HEAR: Frasier on TV.
I WONDER: If I'll be able to get pregnant again. Will the next baby be as beautiful as Nate?
I REGRET: That I've lost touch with so many friends, that I've become such a hermit. I'm working on it, though.
I AM NOT: a vegetarian
I DANCE: Not often and not very well. Sometimes I wiggle my butt when I'm cooking--makes stuff taste better.
I SING: with much gusto to the Indigo Girls. Or Dixie Chicks. Or showtunes.
I AM NOT ALWAYS: a bitch. But I feel like I am most of the time. I'm tired of feeling bitchy.
I MADE: a knitted apple hat for Nate.
I WRITE: with questionable grammar and lackluster vocabulary. And little or no imagination.
I CONFUSE: Most things, most of the time. I'm a ding-dong.
I NEED: A tummy tuck and a new tattoo.
I SHOULD: have worked out this morning. I should be nicer to my husband--I've been nagging too much. That's the bitch thing.
I START: too many knitting projects.
I FINISH: Umm, I'm still working on that. I guess I finish scarves.
I BELIEVE: In ghosts but not Bigfoot.
I KNOW: That there's a light at the end of my tunnel. I just wish it would hurry up and get here.
I CAN: play a tune with my nose.
I CAN'T: Do a cartwheel.
I SEE: That these walls really need some paint.
I BLOG: So I can have a place to sort our my thoughts and so others can read them and tell me I'm normal and not crazy.
I READ: Cookbooks and knitting recipes. I'm supposed to read The Da Vinci Code so that we can go see the movie.
I AM AROUSED BY: frozen custard
IT PISSES ME OFF: That I see trashy teenagers with dirty babies wearing nothing but a diaper and giving them Dr. Pepper in a baby bottle.
I FIND: my husband to be very cute and brilliant.
I LIKE: Hmm, what do I like? I usually am on either end of the spectrum--I either love something or hate something. Okay, I like my car.
I LOVE: My husband. And my family and friends. I also love pasta.

Slap Yo Momma Coconut Cream Pie!

I'm going to lapse into food blogger for a minute. I made this pie for my Uncle Steve this morning. He and my Uncle Tony (who will also get a pie) moved a sofa into our new place last night. (Tom is in Chicago--that's why he wasn't moving said sofa. I don't want anyone to think my husband is lazy.) I love cooking for my uncles, especially Steve. He thinks I'm Pie Queen and that's fine by me. Everyone needs to be queen of something.

I took the pie to Steve tonight, and he was supposed to call me with a report, but I haven't heard from him yet. I'd like to think it's because he's in a pie induced coma of coconut bliss. I did have a taste (okay, a couple of big-ass spoonfuls) of the filling, and it was so good that you all should make one, too.

coconut cream pie

3 cups half & half

2 eggs

3/4 c. white sugar

1/3 c. + 2 T. cornstarch

1/4 t. salt

1 c. flaked coconut, toasted

1 t. vanilla extract

1t. + some to taste coconut extract

1-9" pie shell, baked

3 oz. semi sweet choc. chips

Topping:

1-8 oz carton whipping cream

1/4 c. powdered sugar

1/2 t. vanilla

1/4 c. toasted coconut

Bake the pie crust according to whatever recipe or frozen crust that you are using. As soon as it comes out of the oven, sprinkle the bottom of the crust with 3 oz. chocolate chips and let melt. Set aside. In a medium saucepan, whisk together the dry ingredients. Beat the eggs into the half & half and gradually add the wet stuff to the dry stuff in the pan. Stir like crazy. Bring to a slooow boil and keep stirring like crazy. Cook and stir until it comes to a boil and begins to have the consistency of pudding. Remove from heat. At this point you may need to pour it through a sieve into a bowl. The cornstarch can make little boogers that would be unsavory in your pie. Now, mix in the vanilla and coconut extracts as well as the toasted coconut. Add more or less coconut extract according to your taste. Pour into pie crust and refrigerate for a couple of hours. For the topping, whip the cream, powdered sugar and vanilla until it forms stiff peaks. Put it on the pie, and sprinkle with coconut.

Hand-Me-Down Gardens

Apparently, the woman who lived here before us really loved flowers. This was a surprise that bloomed before we moved in and there are several of these. Are they star-gazer lilies? They are just so gorgeous! There are flowers all over the place here, and I don't have a clue as to how to take care of them. I'll probably be posting pictures and asking, "what the hell is this, and what do I do with it?" I've been doing a lot of weeding in the shade gardens out front (where the lilies are) and I don't know if I can keep up with it!! They looked so great when we initially looked at the house, but by the time we moved in they were looking pretty shabby. I guess once we made the offer on the house, the owners were like, "ah, fuck it" and didn't pull another weed. I also feel like she should have left me a diagram or something, so I'd know what half this stuff was. Crap.

I sound like I'm complaining, but I really love this garden stuff and I'm so excited to learn all about it. In my dreams, people will go out of their way to walk by my flower beds out front because they were so spectacular!! I would also make my own compost, have a huge water feature, win prizes for my roses and become a master gardener. I guess that first I need to figure out what's a weed and what's a flower, right?

Could anyone suggest some good websites or books? Please?

This week and tomorrow and in a little while

A year ago this week I found out that I was pregnant with Nate. Tomorrow it will be a year ago that Tom and I told my mom that I was pregnant. I wanted to tell her on June 3rd because a year before that my Nana, her mom, died. I wanted to give her some happy news that day. I remember that time so vividly. God, how things can change in a year.

Tomorrow it will be exactly four months since Nate died. Have I moved forward in these four months? I think so for the most part. I've decided just to let myself feel whatever I need to feel--just to be a little leaf, floating along in whatever direction I need to go in the moment. I've noticed that my grieving has changed. Lately, I've not been crying for two or three days--but then I'm hit with wailing, heaving fits out of nowhere. So, I'm not even going to try to predict these things--just going to let them happen.

In a little while, July to be exact, we can start trying for another baby. I've been consumed with the thought of being pregnant for four months, and now that we're getting closer to D-day, I'm getting very nervous. I've spent the last four months getting trying to get into shape so that I can have a healthy pregnancy--I've lost 60 pounds (okay, a lot of that was baby and fluid, but still) I've been working out, taking my pre-natals, eating right. I'm just getting scared--I know what can happen. I know that I'm not exempt.

Four months. I should be good at so many baby things by this point, but right now I can't even hold one properly. I don't know how to feed a baby, I don't know how to burp a baby, I don't think that I could change a diaper fast enough to avoid being peed on. I can learn this stuff fast--I just need a chance. Please.

Settling In

Here I am! Yesterday the cable guy finally got here to hook up the internet (and TV, thankfully. Having one channel was starting to get to me.) My computer died a few days before we even moved, so that explains the one crappy post last week. I had to wait for my husband to get home from work with his laptop to do anything. But now I've got a new dealie installed -- thanks to my brilliant husband who can do anything -- and I'm back in bidness, as my daddy would say.

So, yes, we've been moving all weekend and Ilovethishouseitsawesome! We've already met some neighbors -- a 90 year old lady next door named Grace and a very nice young couple across the street. I thought the couple would be our new best neighborhood friends -- but they're moving to Arkansas. Oh well.

Miss Grace is the eyes and ears of the neighborhood. We had been chatting in the driveway for less than five minutes and we heard all kinds of dirt, including stuff about the old dude two houses down that met his new young wife on the internet (which I have nothing against--Tom and I hooked up on Match.com) but we're thinking that she might be a mail order bride. Or not. I don't know, but our version is more interesting, I think. Grace told me that his wife just had a new baby boy who is just so precious and she's home alone all day and would really enjoy some company. Blah, blah. Hmmm, I'll probably pass on that one right now. Which brings me to this -- Grace had met my stepdaughter, Kaitlyn, and then asked if there were any more children. Oh, I've been dreading that question, and I had to think fast. I went with "No" and my husband went with "Not yet", but Kaitlyn said "Yes!" I looked over at her and put my finger to my lips and frowned at her, which I know confused the hell out of her. When we got back inside I thanked her for wanting to include Nate and told her how much that meant to me. I said, if we tell people that the baby died it will make them very sad. And my husband added, "It's a long story." I told her that it hurt my heart to say that we didn't have anymore children, but that I love her for remembering Nate. So, that was my first experience with that question, and I guess that I handled it okay, but it didn't just hurt my heart to say that we didn't have any more children, it ripped my heart out. I should have been standing there chatting with little Nate on my hip. To say that we didn't have any more children made me feel like such a failure. Ugh, I need to shake this off. I've got stuff to do today.

More house stuff and pictures soon :)