Just Checking...

So...I learned today that the "subscribe" function on this blog hasn't been sending out emails to alert people of new posts.  When we moved last week our email address changed, and I'm wondering if that little change threw things off some how.  Anyway, I've been fiddling around a little bit (I fully admit that I have no clue what I'm doing...hence calling it "fiddling.")  I hope that its straightened out now and that emails start going out.  For those of you who only check in when you get an email, you have likely missed out on 2 or 3 posts over the past week.

Thanks Mama for pointing that out to me!

And since I can't have a totally boring "Chuck-less" post, here's a picture of the little lady.  Its one of my favorites ever.  LOOK AT THOSE EYES AND LASHES!!!

Something for Bear...

I have a predisposition to being over-emotional (let’s blame it on genetics)…It has never really taken much to make me cry.

Heck, I cried one year watching a team celebrate after winning the College World Series. I hadn’t seen a single tournament game that year and I knew nothing about any of the teams involved, but they looked so incredibly excited as they were celebrating. How could that NOT bring me to tears!? Right?!

I cry happy tears.

I cry sad tears.

I cry gut-wrenching tears that make me feel dehydrated by the time they stop falling.

Lately the latter seem to be the ones I shed the most. Sad. Gut-wrenching. I guess that is what happens when you have a constant BLAH feeling that accompanies you 24 hours a day. Now don’t get me wrong…I don’t mope around every day. I’m at a point where I can smile, laugh, have normal conversations and such, but below the surface the sad is always there. I fully expect that it always will be.

While I seem to be functional these days, there is always the potential that something will come along and push those “sads” to the surface for all to see. I never know when that something will come along or what it will be, which makes it that much harder to be “normal.”

Today’s something was delivered courtesy of one of my favorite websites.

I love the website Etsy.com. For those of you who are unfamiliar with this site, Etsy is a self-described “hand-made marketplace" where you can find almost ANYTHING! For me, it was the perfect place to find all things adorable for my little girlie.

You might remember when my crazy beagle-dog Maybe modeled this headband before Charlotte was born….I got it from Etsy.

Here is my little Chuck at 2 and 1/2 months all girl’d-out in the same headband.

Then there was this AWESOME zipper heart shirt. The woman who makes these has a little girl that was born with a congenital heart defect. The minute I saw them I HAD to get one for little miss. Another Etsy score!

Another example? Here’s a look at the stickers that were DONATED by a wonderful Etsy vendor to help us with “Books for Charley.” As if I needed any more proof that Etsy and the vendors who sell there are awesome!

Today I logged on to Etsy and this cute little coat immediately caught my eye….

Upon closer inspection I saw the following…

Sigh…a pink and brown bear coat…

I guarantee you that despite its too-expensive-for-a-toddler price tag, Charlotte would have owned this coat. My little Bear in a bear coat? Can you picture anything more perfectly adorable?

Case in point…Bear in her original bear coat!

Again…Sigh…

So yes, today that tear-inducing something was a coat. A silly, silly, silly coat. I can’t stop looking at it and picturing my baby girl’s face peeking out from under that oversized hood with the button eyes.  I can see the big goofy grin on her face and her own sparkling eyes (which were about as big as the bear's button eyes!)  I can see it so clearly and I want so badly to scoop up that little bear and squeeze her with big bear hugs.  Tears, tears and more tears, all from a silly little coat...

I love you, Charley Bear. 

And speaking of that crazy little Bear, here she is with her Daddy cheering on the Packers in last years Super Bowl!  Even her little hat has ears!  Never did I think that a Packer's game to open up the NFL season would push me to tears...

Officially a Sioux Falls "West-sider"

Well it’s official….the papers have been signed, the keys have been exchanged, all of our belongings have been moved across town. We have temporarily left the world of home-ownership and are officially renters again. Weird.

Yesterday was a hard one. I woke up with a sinking feeling and for a majority of the morning I functioned on the verge of tears. Our new landlords seemed so excited to have us in their property, and I think they expected us to be excited as well. They don’t know our story...maybe then they would get that this isn’t our ideal, but rather a step in a “better” direction.

After lots of trips back and forth yesterday we finally got everything moved to the new place. I cannot believe how much STUFF we have accumulated in 4 years. Here’s what it took to move…

-One U-Haul to storage at Matt’s aunt and uncle’s house
-My mom’s full car back to Omaha
-2 U-Haul trips across Sioux Falls
-A full POD sitting in our driveway begging to be unpacked
-Matt’s Escape packed to capacity
-2 full loads in my truck (I hardly had room for the dogs on the last trip!)

As our items were slowly packed, there was one item that remained a constant in our house until the minute I walked out the door for the last time. A picture of Charlotte. It was the literally the very last thing out of the house, and I intend for it to be the first thing that goes up in the new place.

And speaking of that little angel, I did leave something of her's behind at the house.  The new buyers won't mind...I'm guessing that they won't even notice.  For the past three months I have delighted in seeing Charlotte's perfect little fingerprints on our sliding door to the deck.  I had to have been holding her when she made them because they are right at my eye level.  Most mommys are on a constant mission to clean up the sticky handprints that are an inevitable part of having kids, but in the days after we came home after Charlotte's funeral, it was things like that which I found myself clinging to.  I wash doggy slobber off of that glass constantly, but was never able to bring myself to wipe those prints away. 

Charlotte opened our eyes to what is truly important in this life…Family, friends, faith…and while “possessions” doesn’t fall anywhere near the top of that list of important things, it was still tough to leave that house behind. It was a great house and I will miss it. I can only hope that the buyers love it as much as we did and pray that they have endless happy memories there.

Thank you all for praying extra hard for us yesterday.  I hope that you all have a WONDERFUL Labor Day weekend.  Ours will be filled with lots of unpacking and of course a little Nebraska football! 

Bah, Humbug!

I started my day today with a “doom and gloom” attitude.

I woke up on the living room floor in a house that is 98% empty. The last time I slept on the floor was when we found out about Charlotte’s broken little heart --lying there now I can almost feel the same fear that I felt back then.

I looked out the window and there was such a heavy fog that I could barely see past the end of our porch. GLOOMY.

I walked into work, angry about the very fine mist that was falling from a sky full of gray clouds. Anyone who knows me can vouch to the fact that my hair + any amount of moisture/humidity =

Today is the 31st, and like I have said before, this is always a BLAH day. I’m sad most every day, but the 31st makes my heart ache more than usual. That annoying little box on my calendar marked August 31, 2011, just serves as a painful reminder that it’s been another month since I have snuggled my Bear. Three months down and a lifetime of 31st to go.

So let’s see…

1) Floor sleeping

2) Gloomy fog

3) Roseanne Roseannadanna-esque hair

4) Missing my little lady

What else could we throw into the mix?

Sigh.

Moving.

Tonight will be the last night that Matt, Maybe, Stella and I spend at 908 North Danielle Drive. The closets and cupboards are empty, the furniture is all packed up and ready for a move across town to our new/temporary rental house. I knew it would be hard, but I think that I underestimated my emotional attachment to this place.

Deep breath….It’s just a house. It’s just a house. It’s just a house.

Someday we’ll have a home again.

Tired.

Over the past 3 or 4 weeks I’ve been amazed at the number of times I’ve had people say to me...

“You look tired today.”

Ha! On one hand it makes me laugh while the other part of me gets a little riled up.

I look tired?

Really?

Maybe it’s because I AM tired.

I’m tired of sleeping like crap.

I’m tired of waking up each morning to look at myself in the mirror and realize that I don’t only FEEL tired, but I LOOK tired as well.

I’m tired of packing up our house, our things, Charlotte’s things.

I’m tired of crying.

I’m tired of replying “I’m ok” when people ask how I’m doing. I know that they care, but I also know that most aren’t prepared to hear how I really feel.

I’m tired of wondering “why.” Even though I know that only God knows the answer to that question, it still nags at me almost every single day.

I’m tired of going back and forth with the engraver trying to design the perfect headstone for a one year old angel.

I’m tired of this nightmare and even though it’s been almost three months, I still hope that I wake up one morning to find that my baby is sleeping safely in her crib.

I’m tired of being told how strong I am. I don’t want to be strong, but what other choice do I have?

I’m tired because so much of my energy goes into pretending that things are getting “better.”

I’m tired of being tired.

So each and every day, as tired as I may be, I try to take steps forward. They aren’t always big steps and sometimes they even end up being steps backward, but they are steps none-the-less. I know that I can’t just lie down and give up. I know that I have to keep moving. I know that I have no choice other than to put every ounce of my faith in God and His plan for my family.

I may look tired. I may BE tired. But I’m here…and for now, I think that’s enough.

Drumroll Please!

For weeks I had been driving around Sioux Falls with a little over 100 books neatly boxed in the back of my car. It seemed like A LOT of books, and I couldn’t even fathom what TEN TIMES that many would look like! Lucky for me, I got to see first-hand this past Thursday morning when we made our first official ‘Books for Charley’ drop-off at Omaha Children’s Hospital.

I headed back to Omaha bright and early on Thursday morning. I thought I would have to drag myself out of bed when my alarm sounded at 5 AM, but my excitement for the day’s activities made it easier than I imagined. The three hour drive passed quickly and was filled with conversations with my Bear.  I talked to Charlotte a lot and told her about what was going to happen later that morning.  I told her it was just the first of MANY things that we are planning to do in her name and that her story was going to make a difference. As if she was responding back to me, just as I was pulling into town a string of “Charlotte songs” came on my iPod…all back-to-back…just a little reminder that she was along for the ride!

Tara, her adorable little girls and I headed to the hospital where we met my mom, my sister Jill, sister Lindsey and her kids and my mother-in-law, Mary. I was a huge mess of emotions as I pulled up to that building. I had been so excited for this very moment but was equally terrified at the same time. I could feel my heart pounding in my chest as I wondered how I was going to hold it together and walk through those doors. Life is bittersweet. I hated that we were making this donation in MEMORY of my baby girl…but at the same time I felt honored to know that so many people rallied behind us and helped make this tribute an amazing one. And an AMAZING one it was.

Are you ready for this?!?!?

Thursday morning we donated ONE THOUSAND THIRTY NINE books to Children’s Hospital (I think that spelling the number out makes it seem even more impressive!) Can you believe it!?  ONE THOUSAND THIRTY NINE BOOKS!!!!  The 100 books in the back of my car were totally dwarfed in comparison to the 900 occupying the back of Tara’s van.

Here’s a picture of us unloading the last few boxes…

And another of the boxes loaded onto a double-decker cart…the bottom bin was stacked two high!

I mean, really….HOW INCREDIBLE IS THAT!? I wanted to open up all of the boxes and spread the books all over the floor for everyone to see, but I’m guessing that the people who actually needed to walk in the lobby wouldn’t have appreciated that!

Here is a picture of Tara, the kiddos, my mom and myself with our 'Books for Charley' donation...ignore my squinty eyes...I'm pretty sure that they were a little swollen from tears!

And another of my cousin Tara and I...  P.S....Tara is a pretty incredible!!

While at the hospital I also got to see some of my FAVORITE familiar faces.  First up was one of Charlotte's heart buddies, Talia and her mom.  It was a very special day for Talia as she was celebrating being SURGERY-FREE for a whole year!  WOOHOO!!  I also got to see my favorite ladies from the cath lab and a few VERY special nurses.  They spent A LOT of time with our little girl and always took the very best care of her.  Thank you ladies for not only taking care of Charlotte, but also for taking care of ME! You could always make me smile when I thought smiles were impossible to come by and I love you all to pieces.


All in all it was a good day...a hard day, but definitely a good one.  The hospital was SO appreciative of the donation and I think that they got a pretty good idea of the amount of love that surrounded Charlotte during her short time here on Earth.  


Many of you have sent messages letting us know that you still have books that you would like to donate.  Please know that its NEVER too late to get them to us (though I might have you send them to me so that Tara can have her dining room back for awhile!)  Sometime in the next few weeks I will be taking another load of books (yes, we still have LOTS more) to Charlotte's cardiologist's office here in Sioux Falls and will continue to make donations as long as books are rolling in. 


Thank you all for your support of 'Books for Charley.' Keep an eye out for this event to resurface next Spring as we continue to celebrate Charlotte.
  
You heard me right...We're doing it again! 

Books Books and MORE Books!

Well, the BIG day is finally here!

Thursday morning at 11 Tara and I (and our special little helpers, Anna and Caylee) will be taking a MASSIVE load of books to Omaha Children's Hospital.  We'll be sure to get lots of pictures so that you can see just how many books have been donated up to this point.  We have gotten so many that we actually ran out of stickers and are going to have to make a second delivery once we get more.

While this is going to be a very special day and I am so so excited, I'm also somewhat anxious.  It will be hard going back to Children's without Charlotte.  I'm sure that every sound, smell and familiar face will test my strength and composure.  Please pray that God gives me strength and an angel on my shoulder tomorrow morning! 

THANK YOU AGAIN TO ALL OF YOU WHO DONATED!  

THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU!