Author: BleuBird Mama

To: Little Person

Published by BleuBird Mama

Dear Sweet Little Person, That’s what I call you most of the time. Little Person. It just seems to suit you. You sure are adorable. I look forward to starting every day with you, to dressing you in fashionable little outfits, to nursing you, laughing with you, dancing with you, getting you up from a nap. You smile all day long, it seems, and even when I’ve been out of sorts about something you’re still happy. What a blessing you have been to your grieving parents. We didn’t know we needed you, but God knew we needed you. I often wonder who you will be and what you will show me about life. I’m almost certain you’ll be a charmer and flirter (much to your father’s chagrin! 😉 ). I have so many ideas of things you could do and things you might love. Will you love playing with dolls like I did? Would you enjoy doing martial arts? What about horse-back riding (we really want you take lessons!)? Will you care for every fuzzy …

Keeping Calm: Coloring On

Published by BleuBird Mama

This morning my dogs and my baby woke me at 6am and neither party had any interest in sleeping past o-dark-thirty. I flopped about on my pillow, trying to ignore the whimper at the door and the gurgling coos from the bassinet. I thought to myself, “If I get up with these hooligans now, how many cups of coffee will I need to survive?” Alas, I knew better than to give into the desire for loads of caffeine, since it makes my mind race and gives me heart palpitations. I opted for waking up on the right side of the bed – determined to start the day fresh and with that good ol’ verse of purpose – “This is the day the Lord has made. I will rejoice and be glad in it!” I made the bed for starters; for some reason if I take the time to just do that then I gain momentum to keep going. I dressed the Little Person, made myself breakfast, took care of the animals, baked bread, tidied up …

Blizzard :: Blogging

Published by BleuBird Mama

You should see the blizzard conditions outside the windows of this old farmhouse. Fields and fields of white! It’s a pretty impressive whiteout right now. Well, maybe you’re like me, cozied up in a nordic knit with a side of bacon and a hot drink. (Don’t add too much rum to it, now? 😉 I have some time to think and to write. Unlike recently. I can’t remember when I last posted something. To be honest – which I assume is what you expect as the reader of a blog – I’ve hit a whole new level of grief. The truth is – which you can’t relate to unless you’ve experienced some level of grief in your life – I’ve been locked up in my own fears and doubts and anger. I’ve been trapped in my fear of the next worst possible scenario, trapped in my doubt that God isn’t compassionate, trapped in my anger that Heidi isn’t here. That’s the gist of it. There’s a whole lot more ugly, but I’m sparing you and …

Friday: Junk Food

Published by BleuBird Mama

TGIF! So that means: be lazy, don’t sweep, eat junk food, cruise through Costco. FTW! Manly will be tied down for the next week, so we took advantage of this crazy fog and celebrated despite the freeze. For a mother who literally got four hours of sleep the night before, I didn’t feel too shabby today! Little Hiccup sleeps pretty well except for when her apnea monitor alarms constantly for three hours straight. Then nobody sleeps well and we’re all pins and needles! Like last night…. Since Baby E was in the NICU for six weeks after she was born, we requested a home monitor so that we would be aware of a slow heart rate or episodes of apnea. Fortunately, she doesn’t often stop breathing for twenty seconds at a time, but when she has she self recovers without needing physical stimulation. Likewise with the slower heart rate. Well…. Last night her heart dropped below 70 beats per minute multiple times in succession. I fell asleep around 10:30, woke up to her first alarm at 11:00, …

Pottery: First Fruits

Published by BleuBird Mama

Well, I’m still dreaming of a white Christmas, so I thought I’d post some pictures of snow 😉 These are actually pictures of the first fruits of my pottery from winter 2014. After Heidi passed, I needed to work with my hands. I love to work with my hands. I especially needed to work when my hands were empty. Kneading, pulling, pressing, shaping clay became my therapy. It was work I could throw myself into in order to understand myself better, understand my Maker better. …O Lord, you are our Father; we are the clay, and you are the Potter; we are all the work of your hand. -Isaiah 64:8 For years I’d claimed as a life motto that I was clay in God’s hands, that I was being shaped by Him for a good purpose, that I was vessel of His own design. I’d never needed more to have tangible interaction with that deep spiritual meaning than when my identity as a mother changed in an instant. Instead of feeling abandoned by the Divine …

Tomorrow :: Hope

Published by BleuBird Mama

Here I sit late at night, when I should be in bed, by the native pine that’s now drooping with the weight of homemade, wooden and yarn ornaments of memories from the past four Christmases. In the dim light of the twinkling tree I hear the quiet of the countryside and the chimes from the wind blowing by. And I’m thinking about “2016”, “Happy New Year, ” and “Hope for Tomorrow”…. You may say, “2014 was horrible because your daughter died. But 2015 was beautiful because your second daughter lived.” And then you might wonder, “So aren’t you happy about the future?” It’s difficult to explain, and if you’ve never lost like I have, you just won’t understand. But try to understand, just a little. We who suffer every day the devastating truth that our loved one is gone and is not coming back to us here look on to the future in a very different light. We are hopeful yet burdened, we are grateful yet bitter, we are healing yet wounded, we are blooming …

New :: Year

Published by BleuBird Mama

Maybe I’m like you, or you’re like me, or however it goes. Maybe you and I both get oober excited about the new things and New Year’s Resolutions! True confessions: every year I make a list of projects I want to accomplish, places I want to go, events I want to plan, and I always get a planner book so that I stay on track and stick to the calendar. You see, I love to have fun, all-year-long, so sometimes I get just a little carried away with having fun. If I keep a ledger for myself then I’ll remember that in the Spring I need to clean the house and not travel every weekend, or I’ll remember that I have to save money for my beach trip and not spend that money on a new seasonal wardrobe. The calendar keeps me structured and focused. Otherwise, I might end up on a cruise to the Bahamas in February on a whim ;P As Baby E gets older and a set routine suits her better, I …

Christmas: My Miracle

Published by BleuBird Mama

We all look for some little miracle during the Christmas season. Even if it’s the miracle of our spouse remembering what we really wanted under the tree, or just remembering again the miracle of Jesus’s birth in a stable manger. We want to see a miracle. It’s the season for miracles. Well, would you like to hear about my Christmas miracle this year? It’s quite a story of brokenness and redemption. The gift of miracles when it seemed all hope was lost. As I’ve reminisced and revisited memories of this past year in two letters written to two different women who have also tragically lost, I’ve shared my heart about the events of 2015 and how we ended up surviving & arriving at Christmas this year. In these excerpts you’ll see the miracle of this Christmas….   A few days or weeks, time was a blur, after Heidi’s sudden death I was able to visualize the whole event in my mind. For a while I blocked it, which is a common response to trauma. I …

Giving: Gifts for the Grieving

Published by BleuBird Mama

My love language is certainly gift giving; I find much joy in receiving a simple well intentioned gift from a loved one, and I thrill in thinking up what sorts of gifts to give someone for any occasion. Naturally, it meant a great deal to receive meaningful gifts our first Christmas without our daughter Heidi. Since she was born in November and we had anticipated sharing those nostalgic winter holidays with her, we barely made it through the season. But many friends, and others we don’t even know, reached out to us with presents for our pain. We’ve decided to use Heidi’s stocking to fill each Christmas with gifts for those we know are suffering. Since we’re in the midst of the twelve days of Christmas, here’s a list of twelve gift ideas for the grieving: I received a crocheted purple prayer shawl, which I loved curling up with while reading and contemplating on those dark somber winter days. Obviously I love to read and a childhood friend saw that I was pinning many books …

Gratitude: Moment by Moment

Published by BleuBird Mama

Holidays like Thanksgiving, Christmas and Independence Day are my favorites. Any excuse to have a party, I always say. This is why I love Pinterest! Tons of  ideas for decorations and festive creations. Like that cover photo I snagged from my board Festive | Holiday : perfect little place setting for a farm house Thanksgiving dinner! But I didn’t even pull off small bits of holiday style this year. My hands are so full with my new bundle of joy and my brain is so sleep deprived that late night pinning does not transform into tomorrow’s crafty project. Alas, most of my holiday inspirations are unachievable this year and I will have to settle for instant mashed potatoes, one partially dead pumpkin on the front porch, and our plain old unfestive farm house. Don’t get me wrong. Even though I’m not capable of being Pioneer Woman this year, I am still enjoying this holiday season. Last year my husband and I barely survived the holiday season. Heidibird, our firstborn, passed away unexpectedly, so we didn’t want to …