The poor girl has had a rough month too. She went from being massively excited for her little brother, to trying to understand what death meant. She is a smarty pants for her age, but how does an almost three year old begin to comprehend that her baby brother had an owie too big to fix? How do I explain to her someday that really, it was my body's fault? Carter didn't have a single thing wrong with him. And how do you explain it all in a way that she isn't terrified of owies?
Livie has asked numerous times why the doctors couldn't fix Carter's owie. Afterall, they fixed daddy's owie and we have promised that they will help mommy get better. When you are three, how do you know what owies send you to heaven, and what ones don't?
It isn't fair that she has to grieve with us at such a young age. And it isn't fair that she has to watch her mom cry, and have to hear me say, "I am sorry, I can't _______" (pick you up, go outside, etc). Lots of things aren't fair.
But yesterday Livie had a good day. I can honestly say that it was probably her first good day in a month. I might actually go as far as to say that it was probably the best day I have had in a month too.
Livie's preschool teacher is getting married in March, and our bird has the privilege of being the flower girl. Livie is quite excited and in preparation, looks through our wedding scrapbook almost daily. This has led to her own scrapbook being pulled out too (and I will admit that it goes as far as her first month of life). The first time she opened it up, she saw a picture of herself on the baby scale, and pointed to it, asking me if that was Carter. Looking over her first page, I realized that we had some of the same pictures of Carter as we did of Olivia. At that moment, I resolved to finish Livie's first year in her book, AND make one for Carter.
On Friday, Livie and I chose 200 of our favorite pictures (after sorting through 11,926 photos from the last three years) and sent them to Target for printing. Yesterday morning we picked up the pictures and a new album. And thus began our good day.
Scrapbooking is definitely not my forte. It always sounds like such a great idea - and then I sit down and try to do it and remember that I don't have patience for things like that. As a result I have tons of pretty paper that will probably never get used. But I was determined to make Carter a book, and Livie was excited for a "mother daughter activity"
We chose pictures and paper together, and Livie became an expert gluer. She alternated between working on pages for her book and pages for Carter's book. The pages that she made for Carter were done with such care - she used her favorite stickers and each page had its own story. (I should write down Livie's thoughts behind each page before I forget) It was the first time in a month that I have had the energy to do something with her that didn't result in one or both of us in tears and frustrated.
A good friend had arranged for a playdate yesterday, and she arrived at our house with her daughter just as Livie's interest in scrapbooking was about done. Liv needed a chance to play and have fun. The girls played for over four hours straight. This gave me a chance to relax and talk. I don't think I realized how much I needed that until afterwards.
I have no idea how long I have known her (we tend to say preschool) and we haven't always loved each other (I remember some boy-drama during middle school summer orchestra) but this friend (who I have no doubt is reading this right now) always seems to know what I need. So thank you. We need to do that again soon.
Our good day ended with some more scrapbooking and an easy bedtime. Carter's book is started - we will finish it when we get the rest of our NILMDTS pictures back. And even though most pages consist only of pictures glued onto pretty paper, Olivia's first year is done as well.
A sampling of Olivia's hard work (clickable)
And the first pages of the kids scrapbooks
I love the scrapbooks. I think it's a great project and they look fantastic. Glad you have such a great friend there to help you out as well.
ReplyDelete