This has been a crazy few weeks.
Three birthdays in 6 days....Owen, Riley then Shaun.
Three "home" parties and one bounce house combined party for the littles.
I was partied out.
Birthdays are such a milestone for me. I feel like I have accomplished something with every birthday I celebrate for one of my children. It entails loads of memories. Pregnancy, labor, birthing, sleepy newborn days. It's the realization of how much my children have grown.
It's the pain of realizing how much time has passed. Owen has aged 20 months since Chris died. His vocabulary has grown by thousands of words. Though it's far off, in February he will be the age Maya was when Chris died. I have no idea how I will feel then, but I look at him and realize how young Maya truly was.
Owen is such an incredible little boy. He is truly funny, and he knows it. He makes faces Chris did and I wonder how he knows how to make them. Where does he see them...
There is a fourth birthday in all of this.
Chris' 36th birthday is August 11th. We will be camping with friend's that weekend. I told myself THAT would be the day we would celebrate Chris. But then there is the question of how. I wanted to do the floating lanterns, like Rapunzel BUT I'm thinking it's a bad, bad idea in Eastern Wa. I'm thinking it will be a balloon release. Maybe we will write messages to put on or in the balloons.
And then I have a "poor me" moment and wish this wasn't the reality for my kids and me. What did we do...
But truly, even I know in those moments that the universe doesn't work that way. It just is. It's life. It moves like a river and it's just a matter of accepting that and learning how to master its flow.
