After Anabelle

That time of year again. June approaching. 

Just over a month until my little girls third birthday and torturing myself begins. Torturing myself in John Lewis with my eyes flitting to beautiful summer dresses on display. Mentally deciding which dress I might have bought her for her party. Torturing myself in toy shops, wondering what my three year old girl might have liked for her birthday. 

I'm tired already. 

First birthday was going to be hard. Second birthday hit me harder than maybe I expected it to.

This year I have no expectations that it will be otherwise. This is it. This is June. This time her third birthday. 

I know the pain of June is coming. I know the re-living those dates is coming. The 6th, the 16th, the 21st, the 28th and everything in between. 

I've been a pretty rubbish blogger of late. Two weeks have slipped passed without me even attempting to write a post. Instead I've been trying out earlier nights to bed, being busy in the day and having a weekend away.  

I think its about time I got back into it, so I decided now was as good a time as any for Alexander's 18 month update. Yes my baby boy is a year and a half old! 

Isn't this just a gorgeous age? Yes, the 'terrible' two's have most definitely started early; the little man has perfected 'no' and he gives some Oscar award-winning strop performances. He is clearly learning his limits, boundaries and responding to the new range of frustrations and emotions he is experiencing. His communication ability has reached a tricky phase. He still mainly uses gesture to 'talk' to us, but he has ideas now that exceed his language and gesture capabilities. I think this frustrates him and he resorts to stropping quickly because its get a reaction quicker! He is discovering his sense of self, what he likes happening, doesn't like happening and therefore what he does and doesn't want to do! He is strong willed and determined but mostly easily persuaded with a bit of distraction, care and attention.  

Alexander is such a little sponge right now.  Delightful, beautiful and mesmerised by everything!  He is such fun to spend time with, every day is a new adventure! I love watching him play and discover his world. He is so cheeky and happy! 

He is such a loving little boy and gives the best kisses and cuddles. His word for everything love is 'awww'. For so long he gave kisses by holding out his cheek for you to kiss, but these last few weeks he leans in open mouthed to give proper lip kisses! It is beautifully cute and heart melting. 

He took his first independent steps on the 27th February at 16 and half months old. He was slowly slowly on his feet for a month, only willing to walk between two people for somebody to catch him but suddenly there was no stopping him! Today it is difficult to remember the little boy who didn't walk. He is a proper little toddler now, wanting to walk more and more. Now he wants to walk outside without holding hands too! Just this evening he wanted to wander around the block with Daddy for half an hour.  I love watching him wander around, it is so cute watching him walk with his hands slightly up and to the side as he balances himself!  He is so proud of himself and often coos to himself as he's walking along!

As I said above his communication has reached a tricky phase as he masters the journey between gestures and words. He still only has a few words and doesn't use them often (apart from the word Boo, because that is one of his favourite games!). His current favourite words seem to be Daddy and No! He has said Mumma, Daddy, something that sounds like iszh for Fiz, Bampi, Nana, boo, up, no. He has tried to say down, stop, jump. But he is getting 'chattier' by the day and appears to be saying his own words to himself while imitating the intonation and syllables of  words in some of our language. Today I've watched him 'read' a book to himself and 'count' to ten while watching Show Me Show Me, making his own sound for every number as they counted along on the show.   He is experimenting with his voice. 

His receptive language is way ahead of his expressive. I'm convinced he understands nearly everything and will follow simple instructions within a routine. Give Mummy/Daddy/Fiz a kiss/cuddle Xander is met with "Awww" and leaning in opened mouthed to us.  Tell him its time for bed and going upstairs and he'll walk over to the stairs. Ask him if he wants to go to bed and he'll walk to the stairs. Tell him its time for dinner and to get in his highchair and he'll walk over to his highchair. Tell him we're going out and he'll walk over to the door.  

He also showed us this week that he knows where his hands, feet, tummy, head, hair and very nearly nose are! I'm very proud! 

Talking of Show Me Show Me is it his favourite programme. The only thing he watches from beginning to end with such intense interest. He does the actions in all the right places, he wiggles his worms and waves hello and goodbye, he counts along with the lift, he is very excited and bops along to groovy moves, he tries to copy what they are teaching. This week we watched 'Bubbles' on iPlayer and he quickly caught on pretending to catch bubbles that pop (with a loud clap and shout from him!) He loves the programme so much we took him to watch the Chris and Pui roadshow for his half birthday in the middle of April. He was captivated and didn't take his eyes off the stage the whole time we were in the theatre! 

Xander has developed a love of music even more so than before. He dances along to lots of things now and has even been known to request music time by bringing a CD case over to you to put on. I have been taking him along to an early years music class and he is really enjoying himself and getting really involved with the dancing and exploring bouncy strings, instruments, parachutes and bubbles. I love taking him along to our Mother and Tots groups. We go to a monthly Sands Rainbow Babies group now and we also go swimming on Monday. He is starting to develop such confidence in the water; climbing the steps of the toddler water slide and sometimes trying to throw himself down the otherside, landing in the water with a big splash. He can hold onto the side himself, float around in a noodle, reach out for toys and starting to be brave enough to 'jump' off the side too! 

Alexander's play skills are fab. He completely gets how to use toys 'properly'. He is amazing at puzzles and shape sorters, he knows where all the pieces go. Infact I have a little video to share of him doing one of his puzzles recently! He loves anything he can build with and Duplo will keep him entertained for ages! He also loves books and is very proud of himself turning the pages; although he sometimes turns them too fast. 

Now he can walk properly he is becoming more physical. He is constantly on the move, climbing, crawling and becoming quite the daredevil. Visiting the playpark often has my heart in my mouth! Typical boy you may say?! 

I had always said 18 months was my upper-limit for breastfeeding Xander, but I needn't have worried about the possibility of weaning him myself. Alexander took the decision himself and stopped feeding  of his own accord at 17 months. As much as I loved feeding him there was something rather exciting about buying some nice new underwear and not wearing Mummy-bras! 

We're on tooth nine now. I've been surprised by the pattern of the last few coming through. Up until a month ago he only had the top front four and bottom front two. I expected them to keep coming up next to eachother, but instead his top two first molars have come through and the last week a bottom molar popped through. So now he has his front teeth, a big gap and his back teeth!  

When he isn't teething, sleep wise he is pretty good. Bad nights are fairly sporadic. We seem to go through bad patches that least days/week or so and then he goes back to sleeping through for a while. At the moment (touch wood!) we're in a good patch! He still doesn't self-settle and likes reassurance from us to go off to sleep but once he is asleep mostly sleeps soundly through. I don't mind staying with him until he is asleep, mostly he goes to sleep quickly with our company and the alternative takes so much longer and leaves everyone upset. In reality I feel he is still a baby and I'm still not willing to leave him cry . I just figure, as with everything else, he'll grow out of needing us there for sleep when he is ready. Mostly though he is still falling asleep or at least getting very drowsy with milk, although it is bottle milk rather than me now. We had thought we could change his routine when breastfeeding stopped by he is still so tired by bedtime he is milk and bed kind of boy!  

He has had a massive growth spurt recently and suddenly seems very very tall. We think he is approximately 86cm and the last time we measured him at 14 months he was 82cm. I'm sure its happened overnight though, suddenly over a space of a fortnight all his clothes went from roomy and long on him to needing to go up size! So now he has just this week gone into 18-24 month clothes and they look massive on him!  Currently he is between the 75th and 91st centiles for height and weight so he is perfectly in proportion! 

So I think that is about it. My baby has officially become a toddler and I'm so excited about this next stage with him! I'll be planning his birthday again next! 

This is what my little girl sounded like, alive. 

This, the only recording we have of the sounds Anabelle could make. The beautiful sound of her little heart beating away. She sounds like a train doesn't she!

But then she stopped. She stopped beating and it is never, ever going to be OK.

A heart that should have long out-beat mine. I'm having one of those 'difficult to process this is actually my life' moments. 

Today is the first time I've listened to this since she died. For over two and a half years the recording has been safely stored away. The sound of her alive. A few days ago I got the urge to listen to her, my baby girl, after nearly three years.   

And it is painful. Because this little 34 second clip reminds me she really was alive. Of course I know that, but sometimes wonder if other people forget that she was alive even though she wasn't born. She died. Her little heart stopped and its the deafening silence that haunts me. 

We've been robbed of our daughter, our beautiful baby daughter. Xander has been robbed of his sister who he would have adored and there is a hole in our family forever. 

Driving my own Ferrari

The best way to get around Mothercare

Easter; all about resurrection, new life. 

Over this weekend I read this post by Beth Morey. I'd never thought of God as a bereaved parent before reading Beth's post. Her faith and outlook often challenge me to look at my own, to see things in a better way; but this time I'm struggling to get past that,  after three days Jesus rose from the dead. On a personal level, God had to wait just three days for his son to live.  Being a bereaved parent wasn't quite the same. Even though I know the purpose and bigger picture of Jesus death, I'm struggling to get past, that for us, no-one we love is raised from the dead. That Anabelle cannot be raised from the dead. Just three days of heartbreak wasn't an option for us. Forever. 

Beth, like me is a bereaved parent. Her firstborn, a little girl called Eve, was born asleep, she too has gone on to have a beautiful rainbow son. I often relate so much to Beth's posts, her writing is honest and so brave, and so full of faith. She explore areas of her grief and fears for the future that I know and feel but am not yet brave enough, ready enough to share here. 

And then there is her faith, I admire her faith in God, a faith I fail at daily.  I admire that in the face of her loss she is able to trust so deeply. This part of her post struck a chord with me.

"I couldn't feel God in the midst of all of the confusion and fear and pain, but I trusted that he was there. It was a tenuous, desperate trust, but it was trust all the same." 

That sentence, summed me up. How, over two and a half years later the cycle of anger at God vs. desperate trust in God is always there. Sometimes I'm in better places than others. 

My daughter's death pulled me back to God. After almost seven years of almost completely ignoring that part of my life it took my heart breaking, my daughter dying to go back to church. Most people don't understand this; they don't understand why I would run to a God that put time on my daughter's life before it had even really begun.

To be honest, I didn't completely understand it either, sometimes I still don't understand it when I'm in the midst of another cycle of anger and hurt. 

My trust is the so very desperate kind, I'm not very good at faith. An exemplar Christian I am not. Grief makes believing, makes trusting conflicting. I'm reminded of this post recently at Still Standing magazine, when so much of it rung true. Perfectly summarising the cycles of anger.

"Easy for you to say trust God, if you've never felt betrayed by the heavens themselves."

A glimmer of trust pulled me back to church, to a God I was so angry with, felt betrayed by, because I believed Anabelle to be in heaven. A faint, desperate glimmer of trust almost drowned out by pain, that I either believed that, clung onto that, or had nothing. So I continue to desperately trust, that although she can never be here, I'll hold her there. That God has promised me that. 

But for now, that is enough, a belief in heaven and believing my pain, hurt, grief will slowly be turned into something beautiful, that there is a purpose, that God is there. Desperate trust.

"Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted." Matthew 5 v. 4. 

Xander discovered he could peek under the cubicle walls at the pool!

Another visit to a park!