Happy 8th Birthday, Brady!

It has been 2,902 days since we lost Brady.  8 years.  In those 2,902 days - not one has past without me having a thought of the baby boy that I never had a chance to raise. Not one.

It is the evening of Father's Day and I am reflecting on the fact that 8 years ago I was about 30 hours into labor.  I knew going into labor that we had lost Brady (see the entire story here) so after 30 hours I was just ready for it to be over.  I was in pain - both emotionally and physically - and I wanted the nightmare to end.  It was the Friday before Father's Day that year.

Tonight, after a wonderful Father's Day, I am thankful. I am thankful for the amazing and blessed life that Mike and I have today and for our two beautiful girls.  I'm thankful that after a close call, I lived through the delivery and I'm here to enjoy our life. I am also thankful for all that Brady has given me.  But I am also sad.  I'm sad that Brady is not part of our family and that we didn't get a chance to raise him.

8 years is a long time.  Memories begin to fade.  The smell of his memory box has morphed - it no longer smells like his sweet little body, but instead smells just like the rest of our house.  Time....it has a way.  A way of healing, a way of changing, a....way.

I've said everything I have needed to say over the years.  But somehow it helps to write it down and really reflect.  While I think about him every day, on his birthday I truly sit and take the time to think it through, think about him and listen to my heart.

I've just pulled out his memory box and stared at the two polaroid pictures I have of all 7 pounds, 6 ounces of him.  If I didn't know better, I'd think he was simply sleeping. If I didn't know better, I'd think I was looking at Brooke's baby picture - they look exactly the same.

I could ramble on and on about the thoughts in my head and how much this little boy changed my life forever.  But instead I'll just say...Happy Birthday, son! In my heart, you are alive and I forever love you.  Happy 8th Birthday, Brady.

More about Brady

A letter to my son

I can't believe Reilly is about to turn 6!! We are getting ready to head out of town, and school just ended - so we had her party before all that started. It was a great water party!

Swim Lessons

As usual, I'm catching up on blog posts. Here are a couple cute pictures from last month of the girls at swim lessons!

Brooke's Swim Lessons

Brooke did a fantastic job this Spring with her swim lessons. She started out on day one and she wasn't interested at all - cried the entire time. Each lesson got better.

At the end of 4 weeks, she was able to get herself safely to the side of the pool. Take a look!

Brooke Loves Soccer

Brooke is just loving her new soccer team! She gets out there and really runs and kicks the ball. We do have to work on the "no hands on the ball" rule, she likes to reposition it for the perfect kick. But she gets very excited every time the ball goes into the goal.

She also loves that daddy is the coach!

Here is a little video of her setting the ball up for the goal.

Spring Break, Beach Style

During spring break, we took the kids to the beach for a couple days. We had a great time playing at the beach and in the pool. The beach was just perfect. It was on the gulf, so the water was calm, and the beach was very small so the kids couldn't go far - it was perfect.

Besides the beach, Reilly's favorite activity was the Claw Game in the game room - she seemed to win an animal with each token. I'm pretty sure I've never won anything, I'm not sure how she did it!

Reilly gave Brooke one of the animals, an orange monkey, and Brooke enjoyed taking it all around the resort.

Reilly's Smile Mile

Reilly ran her second road race today! Her first was about three years ago, and was just a quick "dash." This one was a MILE! And she did fantastic. Here she is at the start with her friends from school - All ready to go!

Daddy and Brooke wait for Reilly about .25 miles in.

Annnnnd they are off!

Here she is at .25 miles!

Daddy jumped in at .75 miles to help cheer her along - she was doing great!!

The girls finished in about 14 minutes - they did FANTASTIC!!

Last weekend, Mike and I decided to do some one-on-one time with the girls. He took Reilly out, and I took Brooke. When Brooke heard this she got SOOO excited and gave me a huge hug. It made me realize that we don't do enough of this. I asked her if she wanted to go to the zoo or the movies. She said "The Zoo!....AND the movies!" We chose the zoo. :-) I was really excited, I thought she would love to see all the animals and I figured we would spend a good portion of the day there.

Upon arriving at the ticket counter, Brooke saw the carousel. From that moment on, the carousel was all she talked about. I would say, Brooke, do you want to go see the snakes. "No. I want to go on the carousel." We managed to make our way around the entire zoo, but she wasn't so interested. She just amused me.

We did manage to stop at every 25 cent ride, playground and climbing structure though :-)

Here she is on the dragon!

She was really into feeding the animals at the petting zoo - here she is with the sheep

And FINALLY, she got to ride the carousel - she was SOOOO happy!

And here she is happy on the train!

And finally, a self portrait of mommy and Brookie! We had a blast!

I'm Baaaaaack!

WOW - It has been way too long since I have posted a blog. Every morning I open my web browser and the blog is one of the tabs that comes up. Every day I think, gee - I really need to update. But when evening rolls around, there just doesn't seem to be the time. I really underestimated the amount of time it takes to do homework every night. As most of you know, I know work a very early schedule so that I can pick up the kids from school and do afternoons together. But I find that by the time we are home with homework done, we have just enough time to get through bath, teeth and books. And once they are down...my computer opens back up to work. But I am going to start making time for this blog again. This blog is their living baby book. Something they'll look back and be able to read - so I am going to do my best to post regularly again - for my two sweet girls!

Edgewater HS Homecoming Parade

Nope...we didn't go to High School there and we don't live by it. But we had friends going, and it sounded like a fun outing. And it was! The kids enjoyed watching the high school kids and getting candy, and the adults enjoyed a beverage and watching.

Halloween Games

When I unpacked the Halloween decorations earlier this month, the girls found this witch hat toss game. They thought it was very funny to tie the hat to Brooke's head and toss the rings.

Catching Up on October

We've had a very fun and busy month around the Harris house. I took the time today to download all the pictures from the month. A few weeks ago Reilly and Charlotte were supposed to go swim with the manatees, but it got rained out - so we had an early pumpkin carving party instead.

I'd Give My Kids the Shirt off my Back...

...and I did!!

Brooke falls asleep easily when she has her blankie. She has always been that way. She often puts it over her face and when she does she is out in a couple minutes.

She also falls asleep easily in the car. Sometimes I have been out trying to get her to sleep and she fights it...so I find some kind of shirt and give it to her.

Well this weekend.....I cleaned the car.

Tonight I drove her home from a late dinner, hoping to get her to sleep...and she just kept fighting it. And...NOTHING in the car.

Luckily it was dark. Because I had to give her the shirt...off...my...back.

She fell asleep...I pulled in the driveway...and ran into the house before the neighbors could see.

The sacrifice of a mom.

Life's Lessons

In the weeks and months following Brady's death, Mike and I had multiple conversations about what role Brady would play in the future of our family. That may sound odd, but as our firstborn, our life at that point was much different than we knew life would be down the road. We knew - even in the early moments following his death - that the right thing to do was to have him be part of our family.

Our biggest fear was that we would go on to have this family and that our future kids wouldn't know that Mike and I shared our heart with another child. One they never got to meet or play with. But the truth was, is, that we do share our heart. I love all three of my kids very much, even if Brady isn't with us. And for me to hide that from Reilly and Brooke would have been wrong. I wouldn't have been able to share all of myself with them, and they should know who I am, and why I do some things I do.

Fast forward....

Now that I'm living 7 years in the future, I can say we are exactly at that point where I'd imagine we would have been. We have two healthy and beautiful kids who are growing up more and more every day. They are inquisitive, they ask questions and they want answers. A couple years ago we started making Brady part of the regular conversation. Reilly doesn't remember a time when we didn't talk about Brady. He is her brother who died and she never got to meet. Thankfully, I think we have done a very good job. She happily asks about him, wants to see his picture, wants to understand what happened and thinks about him. As an example...the other day I was picking her up from school and we were riding along in the car talking about our family in California. She said to me, "Mom. I miss my family in California," and then she paused. "But Brady...he holds a special place in my heart."

Moments like that I am confident we made the right decision.

However....

Other moments I cringe. You see...the flip side is that people who we know today don't all know about Brady. We feel very comfortable talking about him, and are happy to do so if asked. But socially, we find it's not a good conversation starter to talk about him. So unless the conversation comes up, many people we know today - don't know. So one fear is that Reilly will be somewhere, like school, talking about her brother, and people will think she is nutty.

So last week we were at Synagogue for the Rosh Hashanah Family Service. We were in the Chapel, sitting with about...oh, I'm guessing....100, 150 people? The Rabbi was doing a great job getting the kids involved. He kept asking questions to prompt the kids and then he would let them answer using the microphone. He was asking things like, is G-d at your school, is G-d in your home...you know, standard thought provoking questions to get kids to think about religion. I kept trying to get Reilly to answer his questions, but she couldn't quite get up the courage.

That is until the Rabbi asked this question. "Have any of you had somebody you love die?"

Bless her heart...Reilly got up the courage. She was sitting on my lap and it happened in slow motion. Her arm jolted into the air, like she had just been asked if she wanted to go to Disneyworld and eat candy all day long! And as if it was scripted, the Rabbi was looking right at her and smiled. Immediately he started walking towards her with that microphone. I couldn't stop it....

The Rabbi said, "who did you lose?"

Reilly answered without hesitation and with a proud voice into that microphone, "My brother."

I'm pretty sure the Rabbi was expecting, my Grandma, my dog - you know, the ones you would expect. He seemed a little caught off guard, as did the other 149 people in the room. He asked her a couple follow-on questions and she answered proudly.

So I guess the moral of my post is that we did good. While at times it may make people uncomfortable...she knows her brother, she loves her brother, and his death is natural to her. She will never be caught off guard to hear the story. He is in her heart and lives on because our family loves him and thinks of him every day.

And as later this week is Infant and Pregnancy Loss Remembrance Day...we remember our angel, Brady through this funny story. And his cousin, our other angel - Alexis.

We've lost a 2nd tooth!

Just days after losing her first tooth...Reilly has lost her second. I'm pretty sure this one was being held in by the other. Because as soon as the other one was lost, this quickly loosened up. And once again, Mommy came in and pulled it out very easily! I'm getting so good at pulling that I'm thinking about charging for my services! Anybody need a tooth pulled?

Ouch

Poor Brookie had a bad fall in the parking lot at school, she hurt her chin. She cried and cried...and earned herself a yummy Starbucks! Would you believe that she fell again later in the night on the coffee table and hit the exact same spot?? Poor girl!

High Tech

Me: I need to remember to ask your teacher to send that form home. Reilly: She has a phone...just text her!

Secret Agent Buzz

Reilly said to me today... "Do you think Buzz is like Perry the Platypus?" Me: "What do you mean?" Reilly: "Do you think he is a secret agent and leaves the house?: HAHAHA

We still have the tooth!

In case you were wondering...the tooth is still hanging on!

Reilly's First Loose Tooth

Reilly's tooth has been loose for a couple of weeks. I don't remember teeth taking this long! But now it is REALLY loose.