Category Archives: snow day

See You In My Dreams

I dreamt about my beautiful Christian last night. He was so happy, bouncing around the room like a ping pong with his brothers. The specifics of the dream are blurry but I can recall the most important part, at the end. He came over to me, upon my request, and gave me a hug. His skinny arms reached up, wrapped around my neck and squeezed. It only lasted a second, but it was a second of pure bliss.

Dreaming of Christian is not new. It happens less frequently than I would like but at least it happens. My husband rarely dreams of him. Anthony dreams of him sometimes and Nicky said he never does.

There are so many unfair things about losing someone you love. Does it have to be permanent? Why can’t you get a certain number of dreams a week when you can interact with them? Going from daily interaction to nothing seems cruel. Of course we get signs, and they are beautiful, but I am left wanting more!

I like to think of my dream last night as an early Valentine’s Day gift for me. Hugs and kisses are the best gifts! Young children are so generous with hugs and kisses. They become stingier as they get older. Even with my living children I am always saying, “Come over here and give me a hug and kiss!” Sometimes they do it begrudgingly. Other times they just pretend it is begrudgingly.

My favorite hugs are the ones my boys give to each other spontaneously. If they were a little more savvy they would know that they could ask me for anything they wanted in that moment and get it!

In my last post I wrote about some people that I met at a LiveOnNY workshop over the weekend. As I watched three sisters who lost their only brother my heart truly ached for them. It evoked emotions in me that I knew were there but buried for survival purposes.

  • My familial dream of three boys growing up together began the day I found out Nicky was a boy. Brotherly bonds are not to be underrated. Immediately images of three boys laughing, loving, playing and fighting together emerged. Then my thoughts expanded to graduations and weddings. I lamented the fact that I would never be mother of the bride. At the same time I fell in love with the idea that I would be the most important female in their lives until marriage. So many hopes and dreams sketched out. My favorite ones were always based on their brotherly bond. Thank goodness Anthony and Nicky still have this but it pains me to know that the brother who was going to “guide” them – okay be their leader in mischief – is no longer here to do that.

    • Today, the snow is falling in New York again. We are a few days shy of Valentine’s Day – the holiday of love. I found this beautiful project on Pinterest that I am going to use as a way for my boys to record memories of Christian.

    Using my emotional barometer I will judge whether we can make it all about Christian or if we should include all three boys. If they seem to feel any bit over shadowed by Christian’s memory then I will include memories for all three boys. Either way it is a beautiful dedication to brotherly love.

    My life has not turned out the way I had hoped. There will forever be the question, “what would it be like if you were here?” We will never know. We must relish in the memory of the times with all three of our boys and continue to create new memories with our two living boys. Love to heaven…

    Expectations and Truth

    Yesterday was one of those days. You know what I am talking about. A day where just about all you can handle is sitting on the couch and watching movies. My boys went into school at 10:30 and were home by 1:30, due to the weather. Thank God they made it home safely. While I had hoped for a longer amount of childless time, I am so grateful that the school district made a smart decision.

    It definitely interrupted my movie watching though. Between being asked for snacks, arguing over every little thing and then being told that they really didn’t want the dinner I had cooked I was ready to explode. Then when I said, “I need a break!” It was met with my six year old’s answer, “That’s because you hate us.” Aaah, yes, pile on the mom guilt.

    Being a mom is hard. Being a parent is hard. Being an adult is hard. Anyone who is reading this can probably agree with at least one or all of those statements! How can it be that some days you feel on top of the world like you have it all under control and the next day you are drowning? Some of this is certainly due to my circumstances but I do not believe that only bereaved parents feel this way. I know that is not true.

    Recently I was having a conversation with a friend about how a few nights ago the bedtime routine went splendidly. So much so that Anthony, my eight year old, thanked Nicky for the hug he gave him in school that day. Then Nicky thanked Anthony for being included in a game with his friends. It ended with them both saying, “I love you” to each other. Not sure who those kids were but before becoming a parent I actually thought that there would be way more days like that.

    When we examine what our beliefs or expectations are compared to reality, accepting reality can sometimes be so hard. In the case of raising children, you learn pretty quickly that there is a huge divide between what you expected and the truth. I will never forget a time when Christian threw a screaming fit in an outdoor mall and I had to carry him out. It was humbling. That’s for sure. At the time I felt like the biggest failure as a parent. I was still stuck in the pre-child mindset that my child would never do that. I can actually hear some of you laughing out loud because you know what I mean!

    The me of today knows that the exact opposite was true. I was doing a great job as a parent that day. Christian was doing a great job of being a kid. We were both doing exactly what we were supposed to be doing. (Don’t even get me started on the supposed to’s.) Nonetheless, it took time, experience and multiple children to learn this.

    Expectations are the measure by which we define where we want to be. If we set them too low, we are not accomplishing what we are capable of. If they are too high we experience failure. There are some areas of my life where I am in tune with where my expectations need to be. Other areas I am still learning. The saying, “Patience is a virtue” is a mantra that I repeat quite often. It takes patience, time and experience to first learn where to set your expectations, then how to reach them, then to actually reach them. It is certainly not a linear process. We must experience some days on top of the world and others when we are drowning.

    Today I am right in between. I’m not exactly on top and I’m not exactly drowning. After all that madness yesterday I couldn’t bear to even deal with the bedtime routine. I collapsed into bed and asked my husband to put both boys to sleep. Even though he had a long day dealing with the snow, important meetings at work and coming home to a crazy wife who was still the pajamas he left her in, he did. Thank God. Right before Nicky went to bed he came to me and gave me a huge hug and kissed me tenderly on the top of my head. Just like that I melted. It was a kind of nourishment for the next day, a kind of payment for parenting being so difficult. Never in my imagination could I have known just how hard it would be to parent children. I also could have never imagined just how much I would love these children. Love to heaven…

    Quick Thought: Humor Is A Lifesaver

    We just got the call here in New York that today is a snow day. I couldn’t resist writing a little something to go with this humorous meme. Give me an hour or two after my kids are awake and my disposition might not be as light! For now though everyone is still sleeping in their own beds. That means no one is smushed so close up against me that I have to get out and walk to the other side of the bed so I don’t fall out! That means no one is rubbing my earlobe. That means creepy baby’s shell of a leg is not sprawled across my face – don’t ask. That means no one has peed on me overnight. That means I have glorious time to myself! Sure it’s way earlier than I want it to be but these may be the only moments I get to myself!

    These moments, these times when they cuddle with me in bed, and use me as their body pillow, will be something I miss. I know I will. It’s just hard to miss something when it is part of a regular routine. I can remember with Christian being so paranoid when I got frustrated with him because I wasn’t enjoying him enough. How many times do people say,

    “You will miss these days.”

    Each and every time I heard that or thought that, I became stressed. That stress caused me to be even more short tempered. In the end that reminder may not be the best. Keeping the idea that I will miss this someday in the back of my head seems a much better option for me than dwelling on it.

  • It’s easy to think about how much I will miss this time when my kids are grown. For the most part I am successful at staying present and enjoying my children. Even before losing Christian I feel that this was my approach to parenting. However, after hearing the “poopy song” 56 times in an hour my excitement about being present dims. Then comes the nerf to the butt. Throw in a little fighting and I am looking to lock myself in the bathroom!
  • It goes without saying that every parent has been there. It also goes without saying that we all love these little antagonizers more than anything. It took me a long time after losing Christian to be okay with these feelings. My heart was plagued with such pain. I would give anything to get him back, even at his toughest moments. A friend of mine taught me the power of the word “and”. This changed a lot for me.

  • I can be a grieving mother who would do anything to get her son back AND still be a person who gets frustrated with her living children. In no way does this mean I don’t love them more than anything. It just means I am a human.

  • The love I have for my children is unmeasurable. I will miss when my boys don’t cuddle with me. Hearing “mommy” in their little voices melts me every time, unless they are whining or screaming. There is so much to be missed but it makes it so hard to enjoy if we think that way.
  • Parenting is hard. Sometimes it makes your heart swell a hundred times. Other times it makes you feel like sticking a fork in your eye. Such is life. Humor will get us through those moments that make us want to pick up the fork. One thing I have learned is that humor heals. If it weren’t for the nerf to the butt what would we miss in twenty years?
  • Today parents of children waking up to find out that school is closed, find humor. When you have refereed the 73rd fight and can’t take it anymore, find something humorous. When you have dressed and undressed them for snow for the tenth time, when you have cleaned pee off the floor for the thousandth time, find humor. If you can’t find that, find wine! Both will get us through. Sending good vibes and hopes for humor to all of you today! Love to heaven…