So we're back home, have been for a week. Things are actually pretty good, as far as the peace sticking with us....I go back and read some of my old posts, and the letters I am writing to Sophia, and I am so glad I am recording this, because some of it I actually don't remember. Numbness. In my letters to Sophia book I wrote a letter to her about Mike and I discussing having another baby (and deciding that we both longed for one, know she wouldn't replace Sophia, don't want to mess with a vasetomy reversal, and would be so incredibly paranoid)...anyway, I went back and read all my letters and realized that I had written almost the same letter to her back in October, scary that I didn't remember.
Anyway, life feels more "normal" now, except that Anne Marie is really lonely. At least on long weekends, Mom and Dad just can't compete with the constant stimulation of preschool, and she really feels it when we are busy. Rachel is at her Mom's on the weekend, so that doesn't help. I wish we could give her a sibling, but really even if we got started now, she would be 7 or so by the time a baby was ready to play with her, and then they would be so far apart. We've thought about adopting, maybe a child Sophia's age, but I don't really think our heart is in it. It might somehow seem like trying to replace her, and well....anyway, I think the end result of going through all of this is that Annie, Mike and I will be an exceptionally close family as Annie grows older, and Rachel goes off on her own......
I think about Sophie so much, what it felt like to hold her, how much she would be talking now, how independent she would be, how much crazier our mornings and evenings would be with her in the terrible twos.....I know I would never appreciate that craziness if she were still here, I wouldn't know I should, but I would trade the slower pace of life in an instant to be the harried, overburdened parent of two young children....so if any of you are feeling that overwhelming, work, kids, house, money, spouse--oh it is too much and I don't know if I can handle it....go ahead and feel that way, it's normal, but do this too...after the kids are in bed, sneak in to their room and watch them sleep, and remember that you wouldn't trade one single thing about your life if it meant not being able to watch them, hold them, rock them......That is something I am so happy I did....I always went into the girls rooms before I went to sleep at night, to look at them, to cover them up, to kiss them (to poke them Mike would say!!!) It was harder with Soph because she would always open her eyes and look at me, but I just needed to see them before I went to bed....
A woman joined the Yahoo group who has just now, as an adult, been told she has congenital asplenia....wow....what a lucky lady, although for all we know many of us could be walking around without spleens (I still want to get this checked out for Mike and I). I think if I had heard of her earlier I would have wondered, why Sophia, would it have made a difference if my house was cleaner, I had kept her at Jean's rather than moved her to wooden shoe, etc...but really that ship has sailed, I don't think I could have saved her, for whatever reason she had to go.....I am glad that there are babies who make it safely through childhood....
OK, today's post is kind of random....thoughts all over the place, but mostly good.......
