17. SACRED SPACE| Do you have a special place that you visit to be with your children? A place that you feel connected to? Maybe it is their grave, or a beautiful garden, beach or forest. Maybe it is a special spot dedicated to them in your home, like a shrine or altar. What does this place mean to you? Why that place?
I know some people are not, they do not feel a connection, but I am definitely a "cemetery person". With my mom, my grandparents and now Kayla, going to visit their grave, taking them flowers, bringing little decorations like spinners, or cute things for holidays always makes me feel close to them. I remember when my mom was first buried, the mound of dirt over her grave freaked me out. I didn't know they did that (had never really visited anyone's grave before that and definitely not fresh graves). It creeped me, it felt like her body was in that mound. But then one day I went after about a month or two and the mound was gone. And THAT made me sad. I had grown accustomed to it, and it felt like there was a physical presence of her and it was now gone.
But, I eventually grew used to that as well. Kayla's grave didn't have the mound since it was such a small grave and it isn't very deep. I've had several issues with her cemetery, but the immediate area around her grave is very beautiful. She's near a nice big tree, and just about ten yards away are the mausoleums sponsored by the hospital she was born at, so I feel a comforted with her being surrounded by other kids, in a special place just for the smallest angels. We very rarely come across anyone else when we go, so we have a lot of privacy and peace. Though I know others go because the graves are all decorated as well.
That first week after she was buried we probably went almost every day. Gradually we started going less, but still a few times a month. Now we just go when we need to feel close to her. Usually once a month, sometimes more, sometimes less. We always try to make it out on special holidays like mothers and fathers day, near Christmas, and of course her birthday, we always do a balloon release. It's literally a 5 minute drive from our house, so I love that I can just go whenever I need to. And now that Emily has a general idea that she has a sister and that we go there to visit her, I like to take her. She even asks to go if we drive nearby. Like last week, we were going to the grocery store and we had to drive by the cemetery and Emily said "Keya"! I asked, do you want to go see Keya and she said yeah.
I don't know how Emily will feel about her sister as she gets older...if she will feel sad about it, or just accept it since she never got to meet her....but I like that we're so close to the cemetery that she could walk or ride her bike there anytime she wants to go, if she decided she likes spending time there alone.
*********************************************************************************
I have to write about some accomplishments that I've noticed in Emily lately. It's really fun to see how much she changes over such a short period of time. I've written about how she gets up on the big potty by herself now, I just have to unlock the lid, but I am thinking about just taking that off. We'll see. But just a couple months ago I always had to help her get her pants and underwear down, and now she does it all by herself. Even if she has a diaper on like she just woke up from nap, she can get that off too.
She can mostly dress herself, she has a little troubles with shirts, she often tries putting her arms through the head hole, and she has troubles getting them off. But she can put her socks and shoes on, her pants and underwear and some jackets. Tonight I took her downstairs with me while I walked on the treadmill. When we went back upstairs, she counted each step, 1-10 as we went up. Well, she missed #4, but still I think that's really good for a 2.5 year old. Now if I could just get her potty trained at night, and get her to go potty on commercial toilets. Over the weekend I must have taken her to the potty 6-8 times while we were out and about and she'd sit there for a few seconds and then cry and want to get off, even though I was holding her.
I think partly, she says she has to potty when she is bored, or in a situation she doesn't like. But I think part of it is also the big potties scare her. I have that little travel seat, but I haven't been carrying the diaper bag lately, and I am loving the freedom of not bringing it with me every where (I do keep it in the car) and her seat doesn't fit in my little purse. So I guess I need to get a slightly bigger purse to fit her seat, but not so big that I am tempted to stuff it with things and make it into another diaper bag.
No comments:
Post a Comment