Right Where I Am 2014 Edition: 3 Years, 9 Months, 2 Weeks, and 4 Days

this is my fourth year participating in the RWIA project. here are my first, second, and third year entries. every year it seems to sneak up on me, and it's been no different this year. and yet again i find myself wondering how another year has passed without Julius.

a few months ago our family expanded yet again. Julius' baby brother, rainbow #2 (E), was born. life has been busier than ever with a newborn and a toddler at home. but grief is the friend that never goes away. and why should it? after all grief is the price you pay for love.

i have found joy again. my rainbows bring me nothing but happiness, and laughter. don't get me wrong, we still encounter the daily struggles of parenting a toddler who is too grown for her own good, and a newborn. but i'm so thankful to be experiencing those struggles. every single giggle, kiss, hug, meltdown, etc. is a blessing for me. i'm almost in tears thinking about how happy i am to be an earthly parent again. i didn't think i would ever get another chance after Julius passed away. i didn't believe i would ever enjoy life again.

just as i parent my rainbows, i find myself parenting my grief and Julius' legacy. some days grief remains in the background allowing me to breathe a bit easier. but days, like today, it has me by the throat - choking me. all it takes is one trigger to send me down a downward spiral. an article on a popular website that was supposed to be written in jest. and it would have been funny if i were anyone else but myself. planning for the baptism of E, and remembering the baptism of his older brother. or even looking at pics of my boys and realizing that i will never get to compare how they look at months 5-12.

sister is such a great sibling and she continues to be super affectionate with her baby brother, which is also bittersweet. she still doesn't quite understand what has happened. but she has taken more of an interest in the book "Someone Came Before You". she reads it frequently, and asks us to read it to her. she understands the pics in the book, and can point out that the mommy and daddy are "sad" and "crying". but she doesn't really comprehend why. and i know that my grief will take on yet another form when she does get it and begins asking questions about Julius.

so almost 4 years later, grief is still a very real part of my life. but i continue to feel more and more like i am "living" instead of just trying to get from one moment to the next. i continue to live my life focused around love and the love i have for my children. and i continue to take it one day at a time parenting all 3 of my children.

life these days

it's hard to believe that it's been over a month since i last posted here. life has been so incredibly busy these days. i don't know where the month of june went.

our baby girl has hit the six month mark, and has been keeping us on our toes. she amazes us more and more every day. Julius sent us such a perfect gift in her. she is hitting developmental milestones that we never got to with Julius, so it's also been very bittersweet. i tear up constantly when i think about how thankful i am for her presence in my life. she is helping me navigate through life without my son - not replacing, just assisting my heart through this painful journey. i am having more moments where i feel as though i'm living instead of just surviving. where i feel as though i have energy to care about things i once could not.

i don't think i'm any less terrified of losing her now that we've passed the 4.5 month mark. but the fear is not as suffocating as it once was. my heart is more hopeful these days of a future with her. and i continue to take things one step/day/breath at a time. i try to make my moments count with her. i try to relay to her just how much we all love her. and i feel like she is trying to express to us how much she loves us too. she, like her brother, loves to be held and kissed, and we do it often.

her baptism was 2 weekends ago. it was a very different experience than what we had with Julius. our church has baptisms every sunday, so you can potentially have your child's baptism with multiple families. we were lucky with Julius as he was the only child being baptized the day he was baptized. and he had not only the parish pastor baptize him, but the associate pastor was there observing (he was new at the time). it was very intimate, and looking back it was perfect. our baby girl's baptism was much less intimate because there was another family. it was still a very special occasion, of course, just different.

my parents came up for the week, which was nice. and we got a lot of things done around the house (they like to be put to work). we got most of the inside of the house painted. and i finally got to put up the wall decal i had customized for him. i also got a lot of work done in his garden which had gone neglected for some time because of my being pregnant, winter, taking care of baby girl, and intense heat.

i carry your heart in my heart...

the other thing that i've been extrememly busy working on is trying to get our non-profit (In His Name) up and running. i'm so proud to announce that we have finished the state portion, and are an official corporation here in AL. Our official name is "In His Name - The Julius Luciano Torres Foundation." the next step is filling out the paperwork to become a tax exempt non-profit with the federal government. The paperwork is much more tedious, but i'm hopeful that we can get it done in the next few months. it's been very meaningful and rewarding for me to be able to work on this. it brings me closer to him, and makes me feel as though i'm mothering him in my own way.

Giveaway Winner and other ramblings...

well, i'm going to do the important stuff first, and announce the winner of the 2nd giveaway - a blog makeover by franchesca at Small Bird Studio. the winner was chosen, with Juju's help, by the same technical process that the previous giveaway winner was chosen {i liked incorporating Julius in the selection}. and the winner is..............................................

Brigette!

congrats, brigette! i hope that winning this contest has brought you a little bit of sunshine on this valentine's day. and i hope this blog makeover gives you another way to memorialize your dear Kael like it has helped me do with Juju. please send me an email, and i will put you in contact with franchesca.

thank you to everyone that participated. if you didn't win, and would like to have a blog makeover, stop by Small Bird Studio and see the lovely franchesca. she is amazing to work with, is reasonably priced {she even offers a discounted price for baby loss parents}, and a portion of every blog design this month will be donated to march of dimes - team KJ.

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and now for the rambling...

this weekend was a very difficult one for me. saturday was the 4 month anniversary of Julius' passing. and as expected, i woke up with tears in my eyes and an extra heaviness in my heart. i miss my little boy tremendously, and milestone days like that day just amplify all the emotions i'm feeling. since it was saturday, it was zumba day, and so i decided to teach my class. zumba has been an outlet for me, and i always leave class feeling so loved and happy {i've got some amazing people in my class}.

well for a few days leading up to saturday, i had been thinking of buying a storage bin and packing some of Julius' things away. so after class, i headed over to target {which was a nightmare itself because it seemed like every.single.baby in this freaking city was there that day} and bought one. i was a bit wounded when i arrived home, but was still feeling brave enough to tackle the task. and so, i walked over to the glider that since his death has been filled with sympathy cards, and packed them away. i walked over to our dresser, which we kept his clothes in, and which had not been opened since his death, opened his drawers, and packed his clothes away. and as i did all of this packing away of my son's life, i cried, and i cried, and i smelled and held his things, and cried some more. i moved onto the closet and his changing table and packed some more of his things away. i didn't sort through anything - and don't plan to for a while. but i just wanted to put everything of his together, in a safe place. and on the side of the storage bin, i wrote a little message to him: "i carry your heart, i carry it in my heart."

since i didn't get a chance to share a pic of him yesterday. i will share a series of pics of him today. one of the hardest set of pics for me to look at are the pics from his baptism. i even turned off our digital picture frame because it seemed like every time i looked at it, it was on these pics. that day was very special/stressful for me. besides the obvious of my son being baptized, i was stressed about how he would react {most babies tend to cry during their baptisms}. and then while at mass, which we went to right before, he decided to that he was not going to take a bottle. at all. {and i was not in a breastfeeding-friendly dress}. so in order to get him to stop being fussy, i bounced him to sleep. and asleep he stayed... 

until the pouring of water on his head...

and then he was awake...

but instead of  crying, he actually thought the whole thing was really funny...

yep, my son smiled at Father the entire time. he was a charmer, who could melt your heart with his bright smile.

Juju,

Happy Valentine's Day, baby! I wish you were here to celebrate with us. I wish I could shower you with extra kisses and hugs today. Daddy and I miss and love you so very very much. We carry your heart, we carry it in our hearts. ♥

-mommy