Show and Tell

It's been a while since I've played show and tell and what I'm showing today is kind of cheating because I've showed it in a different format before, but here it is:


We are finally, after months of having a home that wasn't really ours because it was on the market and had to be de-personalized, able to display our Doodles permanently. We got matching frames for their portrait and the names in the sand which Carly was sweet enough to create and email to me. The one holding the portrait is also engraved with "Our Doodles". I love that I can see them from our couch, and that they are in the front hall to greet us when we come home. We had considered framing their footprints from the hospital as well but the actual cards are too clinical and I couldn't bear to cut or alter them, so those remain in their memory boxes.

Today I cried over a pillow. I realized I was nearing the point in pregnancy where I'm not supposed to sleep on my back, which is my natural position, so I told DH I'd need a body pillow to prop me at an angle of some sort. He mentioned that he'd thrown out my old boppy pillow I'd used with the Doodles' pregnancy. I had previously said that I couldn't use it again because it would make me too sad, so he thought having it at all would be too sad and thrown it out when cleaning out the storage room at our old place. Rationally this shouldn't matter to me, but when he told me I couldn't help but start crying - that is the first thing related to the Doodles that we'd thrown out. I've saved everything. The artwork for their walls, the clothes we bought - the first baby items we'd purchased, and not until after 20 weeks though it still made me nervous to buy something that early - I just imagined keeping it all forever in some sort of storage limbo because I don't want to use it for another child, it's our Doodles' stuff, but I also can't get rid of any of it. So this pillow being discarded had a greater meaning than I thought it would. I feel awful that I cried because DH felt so terrible.

I'm lucky that I don't need maternity clothes yet - we also pulled those from storage in anticipation of possibly needing them soon, and of course I cried looking through them, especially seeing the shirt I wore to the hospital the last time I was pregnant. I won't wear that shirt again - all of the clothes make me sad because I remember wearing or shopping for them. But the only time I wore that shirt was the night I wore it to the hospital. I had just bought it the day before, during a shopping trip that may have contributed to whatever caused our loss. I'm kind of hoping I can make it without needing maternity clothes until I go on bedrest and after that just wear pajama pants for a while. Maybe I can make it to 24 weeks without breaking into those bins...

And as always, to cap a depressing post....it's Puddin' Time!


She's doing a lot better - almost back to normal and she's being weaned of her neuro-meds (the heart meds are indefinite). The first pic is actually before she got sick again but it's just too cute. In the second you can sort of see where the back of her head is shaved from her CAT scan - it looks like a flap on the back of her head and DH calls her Puddin' Flaps.

And because he's delicious (we do love Stoli too, but she's less apt to end up in cute picture poses):