That look of peace/happiness on his face is everything to me. 💛
Bryce Canyon Hoodoos
What is this planet?! 😍
Independent Hiker
Shout-out to Dan, who alternated between carrying Lydie on his back for miles & miles and patiently holding her hand when she insisted on getting in on the hiking, herself. 💪🏻 I get tired just thinking about packing a four year old (even a pint-sized one) all over the mountains! We kind of want to make him Kronk & her Yzma in her hiking pack for Halloween. “Kronk, pull over, I’m tired.” 🤣
#am_nationalparks #mangosdobryce
This girl is outdoorsy
Lydie did so well on our trip! The first day was a little rough… sometimes I wonder if it takes her body a minute to adjust to different elevations? But after that it was all smiles & curiosity! In fact, the first time we got in the car after we got home she asked hopefully, “Step step?” In other words, “More hiking?!” I wish we could do this every day, too, Baby Girl. 💛🏔
#am_nationalparks #mangosdobryce
Daring
Yes, I know. This is not how he got hurt, amazingly. It was the unsupervised & substantially more aggressive activity that followed 30 min later. We all learned some things. Forever balancing “let them play” & “no way, Sir.” Tell me you moms understand?
Acrobatics are not for rocks
Me: Why do my kids always get hurt?
My kids:
This isn’t what he was doing when he earned a trip to the instacare yesterday, but those are the steps that took him out ☹️ We try. I swear we try.
Our Own Wild Places
Ours is the destiny to live in suburbia but always find/pretend it’s the wild. 🏕💛
Making Magic
Impromptu Harry Potter session ✨
Dirt + stick + light = MAGIC 🧙🏻
Must Climb
More boyhood adventures. I told him not to rip his pants & he assured me that the chain link is rubber (it’s actually coated, I think). So thanks to the mom who thought of that one 😜
Spring Treasures
Last light & final finds. 🪶 Return of the outdoor adventures this week. Today we stayed outside all day. Spring bringing the recharge.
Boyhood
From my home growing up I could look across the street into my neighbors’ backyard. Their boys were always waging battles with light sabers, etc. and I thought it was the weirdest thing in the world, but fast fwd 25 years and I get it. The boy mom with a yard full of sticks gets it. 🤺
Musings
There are a lot of (heavy) things rolling around in my brain these days. I wrote a poem about it but I was driving at the time so it went the way of many of my artistic musings these days… to the wind… to the wind. Still, I created that art and those unwritten & unspoken thoughts are bouncing around the universe—and my heart—somewhere.
For the What Ifs...
“How do you do it? How do you think about the future for our kids and all they are at risk for?” There we were, both of us T21 & Heart Mamas chatting it up in the hospital hall. Her daughter had just been through a surgery very similar to the one my daughter had a year earlier. I was there to offer moral support & a hug because once you’ve been there, you can’t NOT be there for those who follow. Her very honest, very legitimate question hit me in the heart. Because we all face that quandary at some point. I certainly have. More than once. And although my experience could barely count as any more than hers, being just a few months ahead on the same journey, I tried to offer what I had: “I don’t. I don’t think about the future. I think about today, and let the rest be.” And I meant it.
Please know that I am, by nature, a very anxious person. And that following my own advice above is a constant battle for me. I have often wondered why God would give me a life where instead of being able to tell myself, “Annie, you’re probably over-thinking things and your fears are unfounded, get a grip!” as I always have, now many of my worst fears and OCD approaches to managing situations are actually medically justifiable 😫 So, extreme fear? I get it.
We are all so anxious these days, wondering what is coming and how long it will last. Trying our best to prepare. Walking around in the dark. A therapist once told me that you can’t live in “What ifs” (and I am SOOO good at ‘what ifs!’). And that’s true. What-if land is the fast track to crazy and a thief of any potential for joy in the present.
When Lydia was born, EVERYTHING seemed like a giant question mark. “What is Down Syndrome? What will that look like for us? What obstacles will we face? What about her heart? Will she make it? Will I? What is our future and is there any light in it, at all?”
These are the questions that tore my heart apart, guys. And they all hit me at the same time an innocent baby was placed in my arms that I was charged to love and to help, always.
...
The morning after I gave birth to Lydia; the morning after the longest, most painful, zero sleep & 100% anguish night of my life. I decided to let go of the “what ifs” for a second and just go be with my baby. As we sat in a rocking chair in the very back of the NICU, me broken & recovering in every sense of the word and her inert and covered in tubes and wires, I looked at that little face and with tears in my eyes, thought: “This is you, this is me, and this is today. We can do today.”
And that’s what we’ve been doing ever since. Through six months of quarantine while my boys lived with their grandparents. Through two heart surgeries and the recovery. Through 18 months on oxygen support and two more winters of ‘social distancing.’ Through dr appointments and sleep studies and RSV and sleepless nights and starting a new job and buying a house and missing weddings/church/outings and COVID-19 and homeschooling and ALL THE THINGS. One day, at a time.
I am a normal person. I am an anxious person. 50% of the week I am a barely functioning person 😅 But we go on. One day at a time.
Remember how the Lord gave the children of Israel enough mana for one day at a time? He still does that. And that’s how we survive.
In your anxious faces and words I see so much of myself. Both where I have been and where I am now. And although I am scarcely qualified to give any advice, I offer you what I have: Don’t think about the what-ifs. Prepare, but live in the moment. Trust God, and just do today. “Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness... For I the Lord thy God will hold thy right hand, saying unto thee, Fear not; I will help thee.” And you know what? Alongside all the crazy, I’ve seen a lot of really beautiful todays. I think they even shine a little brighter. 💛
Happy World Down Syndrome Day!
Happy World Down Syndrome Day!!! 💛💙 Today we ✨celebrate✨ everyone blessed with an extra 21st chromosome, and all the light & joy they bring to this world. To my Lydie girl, thank you for being my greatest joy & teacher. Love you to the moon!
When life repeats
Flash-way-back 😄 This week v. 7 years ago. They were so little 🥺 I was just starting to learn photography back then & would practice every time we took the boys to a teeny little park by our townhouse in Colorado. Seems like lifetimes ago, but tire swings and brother friends endure 😄
#am_twoboys
Wonder
Nothing in the world beats watching your child joyfully discover life. ✨ #misslydiefaith
Peek into your world
We’re coming to the season where I can just watch their imaginative play in the backyard unobtrusively from my kitchen window; my favorite kind of spying.
Busy Boys
They had an early-out school day today and I swear to you those have increased 300 fold since this pandemic started or maybe I’m just still catching up on keeping them entertained for 2 years straight 😵💫 TWO YEARS, my friends! Aren’t we glad we didn’t know that going in?!
Talents
We do a lot of therapies for this girl: speech, occupational, gross motor, & feeding. The post-therapy activity feels run the gamut for both of us. I don’t have access to Lydie’s thoughts on the subject, just observations on her temperament & naps. As for my own emotional responses, they go something like this: “Hey, that went pretty well!” or on other days, “Just another day in the books.” Some days there’s compassion mixed with pride, “You worked so hard.” There’s the rare, sparkling unicorn days of, “I didn’t even know you knew that! You killed it!!!” celebrations; but, far more often, it’s, “This is hard. This is really, really hard.” Yesterday was one of the latter for me, reflecting more of my mental state than anything she did or did not do in therapy. All the same, the “did or did not” checklist often weighs heavily on my mind and heart. I worry about her place in society, in public school in the next couple years, in life with her peers. I count abilities and struggles and the space we have yet to make up in oh so many tasks and milestones. There is so much we both struggle to do. I was having this discouraged and worry-fraught conversation with myself in my head on our way home from therapy, yesterday, completely overwhelmed. It was a dreary snowy day so I’m sure that didn’t help. I pulled into our garage, got out of the car, & walked to Lydia’s passenger side to get her out. As I opened her door and looked at her in her car seat, her face erupted into smiles and she just BEAMED light at me as she started happily jabbering away like she does. That moment a thought hit me as hard as her brilliant joy: “But Annie, she is SO GOOD at LOVING.”
Time stopped.
I thought of Ukraine and the deepest problems of our world and I realized that, while she has many challenges, my girl has the most important things right. She is an expert on love. She is a teacher of the weightier matters; something the whole world needs.
#misslydiefaith
Run
And run, like you'd run from the law
Darling, let's run
Run from it all
We can go where our eyes can take us
Go where no one else is, run
So you laugh like a child
And I'll sing like no one cares
No one to be, no one to tell
Run
-Taylor Swift
