Simple Joys At Home

This is another one of those, like the " Things They Said " post, that I've just been keeping in a note on my phone all year, of little moments that are, well, awkward, or awesome. Sometimes both, because I do awkward really, really well. Awkward: Walking into a store, and seeing someone you sorta-kinda-halfway know, and accidentally making eye contact before you realize what you're doing. Then, you both just ignore each other, and pretend it never happened. Hearing two people discussing the proper way to pronounce your name: "Ruh-bek-uh" vs. "Ree-bek-uh" When the guy doing housekeeping at your hotel asks why you don't have any kids... Getting done with a big grocery shopping late enough that only the self check registers are still open...and having so much trouble with the register, that checking out takes about as long as the actual shopping did. Messing up near the end and making it where you have to re-scan half the items, doesn't hel

October. It's infant loss awareness month. And today, October 15th specifically, is infant loss awareness day. It's a good day, because for so many, the loss of a baby is a silent pain, one that isn't talked about. In having a day like this, however sad it is, we can maybe allow others into our circle of grief, and at the same time, comfort them in theirs.  For us, October is a month that we should have a birthday, but we don't.  You see, we should be celebrating a first birthday this October.  But we're not.  And furthermore, if we were celebrating that first birthday, we wouldn't have our Mercy girl. Mercy Grace, we joke, since her middle name, Anna, means Grace.  It's strange, this loss. We can't imagine life without her, but in order to have the lives we grieve, we couldn't have her. It's one or the other.  If we had Baby J, who would be one this month, we couldn't have Mercy. And likewise, if we had had Baby A, who would've