The Before and After

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Bath time on a happy day 🙂
Nathan has been a bit more whiney than usual. Elea has started her I’m on the move- get out of my way- it’s all mine phase. Needless to say, there has been a little bit of clashing but interestingly enough, the clashing has been with mommy- not themselves. Just wait a second, I’ll explain further. 
The melting point
We were hanging out in Nathan’s room and I asked him if he wanted to paint. I pulled out the dry paint book and got him some water. He dips the paintbrush (his finger) in water then rubs the colors off the paper and places the color in the chosen area. Easy. Or so I thought. 
Proof that Nathan can paint on his own
He proceeds to tell me he can’t do it and needs my assistance. So while I hold his finger, we dip and paint. Laughing and enjoying our silly art. This moment of bliss lasts about 5.5 seconds before the big baby (Nathan’s nickname for Elea) comes over and tries to destroy our art. I pull her back and as I do, she begins to cry and call out mama and she crawls towards me for cuddles. As I pick her up Nathan starts to cry and says he still needs help. I offer to give him verbal instructions so he can continue to paint without big baby destroying anything, but he says he can’t paint without my hand and begins to unravel. After failed attempts and trying to get him to calm down,  I let him know it’s bath time and we must move on to our night routine, to which he responds he does not want any company. He chooses to stay in his room and cry it out. I move on to the bath. 25 minutes later he walks into the bathroom with a big smile and red eyes (from crying) and asks if we can paint together in the bath. I welcome the idea and again we begin to paint together laughing and cuddling while our big baby reveled in her bath. This moment of joy comes to a screeching end when the baby signs she is ready for bed. Nate’s crying ensues. 
Nathan
Why can’t the baby get out of the bath by herself?! Why can’t the baby stay in the bath?! Why can’t the baby stop interrupting my mommy and me time?! …why can’t it be like it use to be. Just me and you. 
Bam! 
It hits me like a ton of bricks. Not because they both want me and there isn’t enough of me to go around at the same time. Not because I have to pick and choose sometimes. Not because I have to shush one when the other sleeps. Not because we have to split their scheduling. 
Love
It hits me hard because when it was only Nathan and me, I was different. I didn’t know there would be a version of me before and after. 
After putting Nathan to bed that night, I cried. I cried hard. I felt guilty that I wasn’t able to give him the attention he wanted. Worse yet, I felt guilt for not understanding while it was happening that it wasn’t about the paint, it wasn’t about the baby, it was about him needing more of me. Just a little bit of me and him. Like it use to be. Not for very long, because he can’t live without her. 
A Helping Hand
He can’t. Seriously. 
But he wanted me just a little extra. Just for that moment. A quick flash back of life when it was just me and him, all day. 
I cried some more. 
Anticipation
There are so many moments when I feel like Nathan. I want to go back to the before. To the me without the deepest of grief. Without knowing what it is like to have lost a child. Living freely without anything missing. Feeling complete. But now in the after, although much wiser and stronger than before, it a a difficult journey, to say the least, to move forward. And much like Nathan, it’s ok to want to feel the love and completeness that I felt at one point. Submerse in the past. The joy I felt two years ago today, knowing that I would have a baby girl in my arms the next day, April 5th, 2014. I had a scheduled C-section. I would get to hold her the next day, and so would Nate.  I feared nothing, because loss was not real. It was a distant truth. 
As I hugged it out with him that night and explained why I had to split my time but that I loved him just the same, if not more, then when it was just the two of us, he said he loved his wild birdie and he understood she needed me. He thanked me for explaining it to him and asked me to lay with him for a little while as he dozed off.  Half asleep, he mumbled, “I love wild birdie (Elea)”. 
Love
We are constantly changing. Morphing. Sometimes willingly and sometimes not. What we do with the hurt, pain, or whatever it may be is up to us. It is not easy, but nothing ever is. Every day I try a little harder to smile and to find joy in little things. To be grateful for the blessing I have received, for as short lived as they may have been. On the eve of Emme Sophia’s second birthday, I am forever grateful to my Father for giving me the opportunity of being Emme’s mother and allowing her to teach me an endless amount of valuable lessons in 8 short days. 
Emme’s 2nd Birthday Cake
xoxo

The Month of March

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Nate and Aria on one of many egg hunts 🙂

One of Nate’s favorite time of the year is Spring. He loves flowers and being outside but I’m going to go out on a limb here, and say that a major part of it is the Easter bunny and stuffing eggs with special treats. At one point it didn’t matter what was inside the egg, as long as it was a surprise (and by surprise I mean, just about anything!)  

Easter Eggs by Nathan: Elea Emme Nathan

This year he colored his eggs with Grosi and made sure both his sisters got an egg (his is the yellow). I love the colors and all the joy that comes with Easter, especially when you have the little ones running around, which is why I have also had a hard time with Easter the past couple years. Emme was expected to arrive right before Easter and I had imagined such a wonderful time with Nathan opening his basket and our little babe in her bassinet, but it all turned out completely different than I had expected. As Easter approached this year, it felt a little better. Elea, full of joy, crawled everywhere and ate everything. Nathan helped her find her basket and fed her ‘baby treats’ because she couldn’t have big boy treats. The house seemed full of joy with love bursting from the seams. And it was, all while Emme was prime on my mind.

Elea eating her basket (literally!)
Earlier this month Eric and I had the honor of attending the Women of the Year Award in downtown Los Angeles, where a group of amazing women were being awarded for different accomplishments in their lives that had had an impact not only in their lives but in those of thousands of others. They ranged from women’s  rights to helping children find homes with loving families. These women made it a priority to ensure they made a difference for someone, and they all did, in amazing ways. While in attendance, I couldn’t help but think about the difference I want to make and the difference I want my children to make in others. The job that I now have as a parent to instill kindness, love, mercy and so many other great characteristics. In a world where we see so much hate and heartbreak, if we can simply show a little more love and kindness, perhaps it can change one persons life. And that’s enough. Even if we can’t do anything else than smile and love, that in itself can change the world. 
Nathan’s joy as he gobbles down strawberries from his garden
Emme taught me to love deeper than I was ever able to. I loved her deeply with every part of my being for the eight days I was blessed to have her. I loved her deeply the 9 months I was able to carry her in my womb, and nourish her while she rolled and kicked. And as her 2 year birthday rolls around next month and I find my arms aching, I embrace Nathan and Elea a little harder, and thank her for the wonderful life lessons she left us with. She made me a better person. All around. So as April comes around this week, you will be bombarded with Emme on my Instagram and will probably read a lot of self reflection posts.

Emme’s Garden

To making a difference.

To Become

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Be an encourager. Be a teacher. Be a learner. Be transparent. Be human. 


There seems to be an overarching theme in my life right now. A couple weeks ago I saw a dear friend of mine. She spoke to me about the difficulty of meeting people for who they really are and how sometimes we are made to feel inadequate (by our toughest critic- ourselves). As human beings, we have a tendency of comparing ourselves to others and or have an insatiable want of things (whatever that thing may be to you).

Elea’s “thing”: food
In my experience, it never is about the someone else or the thing, it is almost always about me. It is about dealing with the cause of my emotion, but often times we try to blanket our emotions with a temporary fix. Embracing the array of emotions that we can feel is wonderful. Being sad or angry isn’t wonderful but allowing yourself to feel that and then dealing with it, is more revolutionary than you may think. 

Emotions by Nathan 

We are not always going to be joyous. 

We are not always going to be sad. 
We are not always going to be angry. 
We are not always going to be jealous.
We are not always going to…I can go on forever.

My point is, embrace the feeling and then find its source. 

Nathan introducing Charlie (the victim) to his classmates 

As February comes to a close, I have felt myself unraveling quite a bit. I have been less patient. I have been easy to anger. I have cried myself to sleep more often. And I’ve been blaming everyone (especially Z) for just about everything. Today I hit rock bottom. I blamed Charlie ( Natey’s turtle) for our tardiness to school, the water spillage in my car and (this one is the best!) my parking ticket. Because it only makes sense that I didn’t look at the street post because we were already late, because I had to bring Charlie to Natey’s pet week. 

Long sigh.

Right.

Poor Charlie.

Emme Sophia Zurbrugg
I can tell you about my long weekend alone with the kids (Z was out of town), how a lot went wrong and how I broke down in the garage only to have my toddler tell me it was going to be ok and walk me through counting to ten while we took deep breathes. And I could tell you about the rest of my day today, after the ticket. But I am going to spare you my sobbing story and save the good laughs for another post. However, I will say that after a series of events I found the culprit. I found my cause. And I am ready to embrace my healing heart. You see, Emme’s birthday is around the corner and lately, my heart has been aching a little deeper. Fear of falling apart has prevented me from going there. But not dealing with my healing heart has me falling apart in a messier kind of way.

There are things I have learned in my journey, life after loss. There are things I can shed light on. There are many areas where I need growth. I am a student, still. Always will be. I want to learn to be better. I want to encourage others by my actions, not by what I say I do. I want to love deeper. I want to be honest so that if you feel the way I do (at any point in life), you know it’s normal. We are human. 

Natey experiencing love

We can only experience growth, joy, love, success and whatever else you want to experience by trying. Every day, we can try to be better. We can try to be transparent to others, so they too will be encouraged. We can love. The world can always use a little more love.

Be an encourager. Be a teacher. Be a learner. Be transparent. Be human. 

LOVE




Thoughts on Time

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Time flies is an understatement. As the new year begins, it feels like time is going by too fast. I like time. At one point all I wanted was for it to move as sluggishly as possible. Then I wanted it to move fast because I so desperately wanted to feel better. And now, well, I would like it to pause for a second.

Nathan is turning 3 1/2 this month and Elea just turned 8 months. Emme would have been approaching her second birthday. 

On Monday night I cried myself to bed, smiling and crying. A joyful combination. I watched every video of Emme. And re-watched. And re -watched. I watched her come home from the hospital. I watched her talk to me. I watched her nourish herself from the milk that flooded down by breasts. And once those weren’t enough, I replayed all my memories. Over and over again. It never is enough.

Eric held my hand and squeezed in silence. Most of the time, there is nothing to say. I choose to bask in the emotions. Whatever emotions they may be, sad ones, happy ones, ones that can’t be defined, they are emotions that allow me to feel. I, especially, love the emotions that Emme brings forth. It is in those moments that I feel the closest to her.

My little Giant reminds me to take in every second. Even the seconds when Nate is inconsolable because he isn’t tired  ( 😮 ) and naps are only for babies, not big boys! Nate waking up at midnight because he needs to go potty, proceeded  by a million questions of where everyone is (my favorite: why daddy didn’t wake up to take him potty with mommy?! ) followed by Elea waking at 4am to have a snuggle party. They are all moments I probably will not experience the exact same way I did last night 🙂

To midnight potty sessions and crack of dawn snuggle parties 🙂 All are welcomed.

The Missing Ingredient

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Often times I get so excited about doing something, I forget to really take in the moment. Instead, I multitask. 
Yesterday I had my sisters over. My niece and Natey running around. The oven warming up. Girls working on their tutus for the Thanksgiving run they will be doing tomorrow morning. And in the midst of all this warmth and love, I figured why not bake some chocolate cookies, all while trying to set up dinner, putting Elea to sleep, and making sure there were no toddler meltdowns. Well, I probably should have focused on all those other things, BUT I didn’t. I got out my fancy mixer and all my ingredients ( or so I thought). I mixed everything together and slid the baking sheet in the oven. I couldn’t have felt happier as I sipped my warm echinacea tea. 
*warm sigh*
Ten minutes into my baking I checked on the cookies, only to notice there was no rising! I missed an ingredient. A big one, obviously. I ran through my list of ingredients ( not a cookie I was making for the first time), and then it hit me. I was missing the FLOUR!!! Yes, the flour! Lol. 
My sister and I tried to salvage the chocolate but none of it would come off the parchment paper without the paper coming, too.
 Oh boy.
 I tossed the whole thing. 
Thankfully I was able to salvage the second half by adding flour, and they were delicious. 
How did I forget the flour?! I wasn’t paying attention. I WASN’T PAYING aTTENTION.
With the holidays coming about, I think it’s a good reminder for me to focus on the moments. After all, when it’s all set and done, moments are all we have left. Our lives are comprised of thousand of moments, and if all was taken from us, those unforgettable moments would still be ours. 
So on this beautiful chilly Wednesday morning, as I stand outside the DMV ( without an appointment…sigh with a sprinkle of frustration), I remember to take in the cold breeze (and no, I didn’t bring a warm sweater, but my kids were warmer then they should have been when I dropped them off this morning), be thankful I woke up this morning, that it is not raining on me, and that I will not be pulled over for driving with an expired license. 
                                            

Happy Thanks Giving 🙂 

Xoxo 

On Choosing Joy

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JOY at its best
I have been hash tagging #choosejoy since the passing of my little Emme, not because I am experiencing an overabundance of joy, but because I am trying really hard to choose joy when I can so easily cry all day and night. I recently finished reading “Carry on, Warrior” by Glennon Melton, and let me tell you, living to be the best version of you is the hardest thing you can do, but it can be done. I’m not even trying to be the best version of me, yet. Maybe in a couple years. Right now I simply want to see joy, and that’s hard enough.  

The month of October has been difficult since Emme. I can’t quite put my finger on why but it seems, for now, to be a combination of things. I have cried almost every night of this past month. I mourn yet another year of life without my little giant. October is the month when Emme would celebrate 18 months of life, and instead I mourn life without her. I mourn celebrating another year of life for me, without my daughter. I mourn with all other mothers, and the precious babies they have all lost and are trying so hard to conceive (Pregnancy and Infant awareness month). I mourn for my beautiful children, who will grow up without their beautiful sister. 
I mourn. 
Joy captured by our amazing friend Hannah Sons
And in between waves, I try my hardest to pull my face above water and choose joy. And because I try so very hard, I see it. Well, it probably isn’t all because I try hard, I know my Father helps me A LOT. 
My little Buffalo
We were at Ralphs a couple weeks ago. It was a horrible morning for me, as I was crying about everything, but about nothing in particular. I was being difficult with Eric simply because I was mourning and could not deal with life. So while we went in and out of every aisle, I knew that I had to breathe and bring myself to choose what kind of vegetables I was going to make myself cook as a side dish for the week ( sigh!). As we are putting the groceries in the trunk, Elea strapped onto my chest, Nathan crying in the cart over a special dinosaur he really needed to have, I was on the verge of a ‘cry it out’ moment, when an older gentleman, white hair, dressed in a crisp white dress shirt, gray dress pants, on a scorching hot morning, approaches us with a sign and asks if we have time to march around the parking lot for world peace, all while we sing “All you need is Love” by The Beatles. And, he so politely asks, if I would be willing to carry the roses I was holding in my hand while we march, as they would add to the beauty of our cause. 
You got it! My initial reactions was, SERIOUSLY! do you know what kind of day I’m having! and you want me to stop what I’m doing with both my kids and march around the parking lot singing to everyone else, while I hold roses in my hands and try to recruit other people, who are clearly busy and will think we are crazy, while we march on this super duper hot day for world peace??!!! 

But we marched. Yes. We marched. No one joined the march. But we sang our hearts out. Elea looked at all of us like we were crazy, and Nathan smiled the whole way ( Nate’s favorite band just so happens to be The Beatles) and the guy made his day by singing his favorite song, Yellow Submarine, so nice and loud, in front of Chase Bank. 
It was at this point that I realized that as hard of a day we are having, in between the waves, there is joy. We can choose joy. We have a choice. And every morning I pray I have the strength to choose joy instead of holding out a white flag for the day, because joy will inundate me, if I allow it…even if it’s just a tiny little taste. 

My Little Giant’s Birthday

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It was exactly a year and a half ago today that I gave birth to my first daughter, Emme. Today she would have been 18 months. She would have been walking. Giggling. Driving Nathan crazy by taking all his favorite toys and sticking them in her mouth. She would have been crawling around and yelling up a storm with my beautiful niece. She would have been completely in love with her baby sister, Elea. 
This picture is my all time favorite. I can feel her on my chest when I look at it. I can feel her heart beating against mine. I can feel the warmth of her body on my chest. I can feel her little hand wrapped around my finger. I can feel her little head being caressed by my hand. I can feel her cheeks and her soft baby skin against my lips. I can smell the pamper-hospital smell if I breath deep enough. I CAN FEEL. 
I like to imagine what my face looks like. I like to think that I have a smile on my face, even if its faint. Reminding myself of her in this moment gives me a version with a smile. But the truth is my eyes were purple and extremely swollen from crying. I remember begging Eric only to capture her beauty and not my sadness. You were able to see heartbreak, at its best, in my eyes. 
As I drove Natey to school today, we drove in silence as we both looked over at the ocean. We love the ocean. He leaned against his car seat as he looked out and I tried to channel all the wonderful memories of our baby. Lately Natey has been talking to Elea about Emme. Telling her where Emme now lives and why they can’t go see her. Hearing Natey explain it to Elea is definitely heart warming. There does not seem to be any sadness. He smiles at Elea and simply tells her, their sister resides in heaven with God and they can’t go there right now. He smiles. I love her, he tells her. Elea smiles joyfully. 

My life is full. I am blessed to have an incredible husband, a wonderful family and two AMAZING living children. Natey and Elea definitely keep me busy and full of joy. I am lucky enough to be able to stay home and enjoy every single moment of their life, tantrums included 🙂 It is completely normal for me to feel the emptiness left behind by my Little Giant. Mourning is like the morning waves. Natey likes to tell me whether the waves are average, small or too big everyday on our morning drive to school. Today they were overwhelming.

On a Sunday morning…

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On Sunday morning I was getting a nice gift, I was getting some pampering with my hairstylist. I was on my way, happy as can be, and the light turned red. I came to a complete stop, looked around my very familiar surroundings and BAM, to my right there it was, the mortuary that I have driven by a thousand times. And the waterworks began. The day Emme passed began to play like a movie, and there I was, in the dreaded room where my life paused. I cried all the way to my hairstylist, thankfully she was running a little late and I took the time to compose myself only to start crying again while my hair was being washed. 

I started this post, a long with the previous post, in July but never got around to finishing them. And as I stand here, rocking back and forth, as my little rainbow baby sleeps on my chest and my little ray of sunshine enjoys pre preschool down the street, I finally have time to start writing again. As I read these unfinished posts that I intended to delete and start fresh, I can’t. They were raw moments that needed to be written down and although unfinished, I will publish. 

You didn’t lose a thing

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A very strong statement for a mourning parent to take in. I read an article yesterday where the author describes the way she has been able to cope with the death of her second child and how raising her subsequent baby and first son has been different, yet very beautiful, as her second child sends her what I like to call heavenly kisses. 

The author has obviously come a long way to be able to make such a statement . At this moment in my journey, I don’t think that I will ever be able to say that. We lost A LOT in losing Emme, and I don’t think her loss will ever be described as not losing a thing. 
I remember the day it truly hit me. The day I was no longer numb. When Emme’s absence became overwhelming. The day we picked up her ashes. 

I remember having to choose Emme’s urn and how obsessive I became about finding the perfect one. Eric wanted to make things easy for me and pick it out himself but I very much wanted to plan all the details of her memorial. I chose how much of her ashes we would spread and how much we would keep. The word ashes has an entire new meaning to me now. 
I remember picking up her ashes (I demanded to go with Eric, he didn’t think it would be a good idea). I remember sobbing in the car as we left the funeral home, thinking, how is this little bag I now hold in my hands, all I had left of my little girl. It all seemed surreal. Eric placed his hand over mine and simply squeezed. I cried all the way home. It wasn’t fair. 
In all the crying I did, her ashes made me the angriest. I think life was redefined for me that day. I went from holding my living baby, to holding a little bag of ashes that now was all I physically had left of her. But her presence, like the author also says, after her death has been clear and comforting. Her heavenly kisses make it bearable when it feels like it’s not. She makes us smile in the gifts she gives us from up above. So although our loss was great, so much so that words come short, we still very much feel her love every day. 

The First Embrace

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The first embrace: Elea
Elea Mackenzie Zurbrugg was born two weeks ago. As we begin to adjust to our life with Elea, I finally have the time to look at the pictures of her birth. For some reason, the picture above makes me break out in tears. All the kids look exactly alike. This picture definitely takes me back to Natey’s birth, Emme’s first embrace and Elea’s magical arrival (I say magical because the delivery could not have been more relaxing!) where we both understood the meaning of her birth, the wonderfulness of it and the feelings of a mourning mother that were bound to arise at the birth of a subsequent child. 
Clockwise: Nathan, Emme and Elea
Elea has brought renewed joy into our lives, even Natey finds himself completely in love when he is not smacking her over the head 😉 However, it is completely normal for me to have feelings and thoughts of how it should have been, because in all honesty, I should have three children driving me crazy and making me want to pull out my hair. I know I can’t change anything but it is comforting to sync into each of my children. I will always be a mother of 3, I nourished 3 babies and birthed 3 children. 
The other day I had to run to the bank with Z and while there we bumped into an old friend. We struck up a conversation about our children and it was like music to my ears when she said, “so is three it or do you guys want anymore?” I seriously wanted to drop everything we were doing in that second, sob my sleepless eyes out while embracing her. I hope she reads this at some point and realizes that she not only made my day, she probably made my year (V, in my virtual reality I totally put the baby down, hugged you and cried). In my zombied out reality though, time simply moved forward. 
My Mother’s Day card
Life isn’t fair, someone recently reminded me this week. And while these three words struck a chord with me, I realize, although true, many are the times we can make a bad situation better if we so choose to. It really comes down to the way we choose to see it and the way we choose to react.
xoxo