TGIF!

It's been a rough week folks. You may have noticed (or maybe not - I know a lot of you have some tough shit going on in your own lives right now) that I've been MIA since last week. Well, my Gram passed Friday morning. We knew it was coming. She had been on a steady decline for a few days and the doctors said it could happen anytime. We were prepared, warned, but that didn't make it any easier. I was heartbroken that I hadn't gotten the Monster up to see her before she went. I've been feeling a lot of guilt over that. We were supposed to go up the weekend before she died but had stuff going on and I put it off. We were going to go this past weekend, but she died Friday so we were too late. We left Sunday to head up for the funeral and all that. It was nice to see my family and it was obvious that having Logan around was a good distraction for everyone. He kept things from getting too heavy. He was even uncharacteristically well behaved. Gram didn't want a big fuss - typical of her - so we had a family only viewing before she was cremated, an immediate family only burial, and a public memorial service at her church. We took Logan to the viewing where he said goodbye to his Gigi and even gave her a flower. That was always a thing with them - giving each other flowers. He told everyone there that she was in heaven with God and she wasn't sick anymore so she could run and play. It was a beautiful moment for me as a parent.

I have squinty drunk eyes, but she looks beautiful.

The very hardest part of this week for me was having to accept that she'll never meet our second child. I had hoped that she would be able to hang on a few more months - I was even planning on spending a few days of my maternity leave up there, just me and Gram and the baby. It hurts to know that will never happen but we've found a way to deal. We've decided that if we ARE having a girl, and we'll find out on Tuesday, we'll name her Vivienne Jane. Jane is my Gram's middle name. At first I thought it was a little too plain - Kyle said he felt the same - but we now agree that the more we hear it in our heads, the more we love it. It's perfect actually. Now I'll be even more heartbroken if it's a boy. Not that we'll love a boy less, obviously we'll be happy either way, we've just gotten our hopes up about having a girl. Now that we have such a beautiful, meaningful name picked out, I would just be devastated to not be able to use it. (Cross your fingers and think pink for us for just a few more days please!)

I may still be absent for a few days. I rarely blog on the weekends anyway, so I guess that really won't be much of a change from the usual. Like I said at the beginning, I've noticed that some of you are dealing with some tough times yourselves and I'm going to try to touch base with you. The nice thing about having only a handful of followers is that it's easier to stay up to date on all your lives. I appreciate all the support you've all given me the last few months and I hope you know that I'm here when you need support in return.

Logan and his Gigi

Logan's 1st Birthday party

Watching the Christmas parade on Logan's 1st birthday

Reading after a bath

 Napping together during our 4th of July trip

 4th of July