A Significant Date in LolaLand

Photo source found here.

Today is a significant date in my life and in the history of LolaLand Creations.  It is part of the reason LolaLand Creations exists.  It is a date that has greatly shaped my life - a date of remembrance of grief and loss and yet a reminder of a bigger hope than this life and of present and future joy.  August 27, 2009 was the estimated due date of my husband's and my first child - a day that came to pass without fulfillment of the promise and hopes it once held - a day robbed by miscarriage.

Miscarriage is like an exclusive club into which you suddenly find yourself forced. Nobody wants to join it, but there is great fellowship in it.  One of the things that makes miscarriage so difficult is that it is often a physically intangible loss.  Sure, it's certainly tangible to your body, but often, you do not get to hold your child in your arms or in some cases the palm of your hand.  I didn't even have an ultrasound picture from my first pregnancy to have as a memorial to my dearly missed child.  I had nothing tangible to hold onto.  It is hard to explain to others the depth of loss from not only the loss of a child but the loss of hopes, dreams, naivety, and all the future joy of getting know and raise your precious little one.  It can be difficult for others to mourn with you through it since there's nothing tangible to them to help them understand.

During the same month but before that pregnancy began, a sweet friend taught me how to chain and single crochet.  Later in my miscarriage journey, my church's miscarriage and infertility ministry blessed me with a memory box.  Amongst other things of encouragement, in the box, was a small hand-knit blanket.  My eyes are watering right now just thinking of how that small blanket and box encouraged me.  For me, it was finally a tangible recognition of my grief.  It was a truly compassionate way for ladies who have walked similar paths to love on me and assure me that my grief was legitimate.  The blanket especially touched my heart since I had learned to crochet and knew first-hand how much love, time, and sacrifice goes into handmade goods.  Oh how I clutched that blanket and wept!  The thought that someone spent time, energy, and financial resources to encourage me through difficult days was a powerful reminder to me of God's great love for me when I found myself struggling to believe I was lovable.

As I walked this path, I found it very difficult to share about my journey and grief with others who had not also experienced miscarriage.  From talking with other friends who have since walked similar paths, I guess it's a way that we try to cope - we try to shove down the pain and fake our idea of 'normalcy' instead of opening ourselves up to community encouragement and help with bearing the burden.  We tell ourselves that those who have not experienced it cannot have the level of compassion for which we so yearn.  Though they may not be able to understand exactly what we're going through, the idea that others cannot have some understanding and cannot truly empathize is such a lie!  Have not others had and lost?  Have not others suffered disappointed hopes and shattered dreams?  Have not others experienced bitter grief at some point?  Oh, ladies, men, families suffering miscarriage - do not give in to the lie!  I beg you!  Find rest and comfort in fellowship - allow others help you carry your heavy burden.  It is a heavy and dark road to walk alone.

And so LolaLand Creations was eventually birthed.  I was given this story for the glory of God, and I feel I must share it.  As Jeremiah 20:9 says, "If I say, 'I will not mention him, or speak any more in his name,' there is in my heart as it were a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I am weary with holding it in, and I cannot." So I craft to worship, I craft because it has been used in the process of healing, I craft to share the story given me for the encouragement of others, I craft to proclaim with tested and increased faith that God is good and does good (and has shown it through the death and resurrection of Christ, exchanging my punishment for unrighteousness for His righteousness), and I craft to love on others by currently giving approximately 10% of the sale price of all LolaLand Creations to the Hopeful Hearts (the miscarriage, infertility, and early infant loss) ministry which gave so much to me.

And so, August 27th for me is a day of both sadness and joy.  Wishing you all faith, hope, and love!  Thanks for reading!

Nursing Rememberance

I feel so incredibly blessed that I was able to nurse my sweet little girl for just over a year.  I know it's a special gift, and I will forever treasure all those sweet moments.  I knew I would be sad when she was ready to wean, but I didn't expect myself to cry.  I just finished nursing this little one for (what is planned to be) the last time, and cry I did...  So in gratitude and remembrance, I will share some of the little moments I loved in nursing with you (don't worry - no graphic pics):

Milk Drunk Baby:

How can you not adore a milk drunk baby???

Sweet Sleepy Can Hardly Or Can't At All Stay Awake To Nurse Baby

Oh how I loved watching her be so comfy and contented that she would start drifting off to sleep!

Playful Nursing Milk Drool Baby:

Nursing is where we first played peekaboo, learned to 'boop' noses, learned many new words - especially parts of the face, giggled heartily, etc.

Adorable (And Sometimes Very Active) Footed Baby:

Nursing was such a wonderful opportunity to admire, dote on, tickle, and all out adore baby feet!  And. I. Am. Addicted. To. Baby. Feet.  Sometimes they were quite active and kicked many things off the nightstand, but oh how sweet are little feet!

 

And finally...

Well-Fed Baby:

For those of you nursing, it can be incredibly challenging, painful, and difficult at times, but enjoy every second of it!  Once it's over, you will likely miss such a sweet and intimate time with your little one.  I hope you enjoyed my little nursing remembrance in pictures.  Do you have a favorite part/memory of nursing?  Please share!

Misadventures of a Work At Home Mom

A week ago, I promised my Facebook fans a tale of my misadventures of the week.  So without further ado, here is my little account of some of my ordinary every day life misadventures:

Mondays are my grocery shopping days.  I spent time in the morning meal planning for the week, writing out my grocery list, and browsing the local ads for good deals.  As I'm sure you readers know, this type of plan-ahead shopping can be quite a bit of work!  Sweet baby girl and I get ourselves loaded into the car and head out to the store.  I'm a bit of a germ-a-phobe (ask my friends about my disgust at the thought of sharing a can of soda - I swear the purpose of the indent ring is solely to collect spit and germs) and 'green' where I can be, so I get out of the car and grab baby girl, my shopping cart cover for baby girl, and my two reusable grocery bags.

After lugging my haul into the store and getting everything settled in my cart, I reach in my pocket to pull out my carefully created list...  It's. not. there!  Ugh!  Rather than going back out to search the car or track it down, I opted to do the best I could by memory.  One of the items on my list was a plastic storage container for my inventory.  My husband really is incredibly gracious to put up with my crafts multiplying all about the house.  I thought it might be nice to try to wrangle some of my crafts and supplies into their own little storage bin homes.  Plus, I wanted something I could carry inventory in when I go to craft fairs.

If you are a horrible decision maker like I am, then you understand that having multiple choices of brands, colors, sizes, and styles of storage bins was completely overwhelming to me.  After not very little time was spent making a decision, I decided upon a green what I thought was a medium sized storage bin.  Of course, they stack them all together and cram them into the shelves so you can't just take the one off the top.  So I struggled to pull the whole stack out far enough to get the top bin out but not too far where it fell off the bottom lip of the shelf which would require me to heave the whole stack back onto the shelf.  The bin took up all the space in the body of my cart.  I figured I would put the groceries in the bin, so I wouldn't use so many plastic bags.

Groceries were acquired, and we proceeded to check out.  The cashier ended up putting the groceries in plastic bags before placing them in the bin and put only about three items per plastic bag.  My attempt at being green?  Fail.  It turns out that was a pretty good thing though as you will soon read.

I placed the lid halfway on the tub so the lady at the exit could see the bags and know that I wasn't a rebellious mom headed out of the store with stolen goods.  Apparently, it was pretty windy that day.  As soon as I stepped outside the door, a huge gust of wind blew the lid right off the top and sent it flying down the main street at the front of the parking lot.  So there I went pushing my cart after it down parking lot, praying it wouldn't keep moving just out of reach and that a car wouldn't reach it before I did.  Baby girl had herself a grand old time laughing at mama's expense.  :)

The lid was obtained and latched onto the bin.  We headed to the car.  It was then that I realized how massive this bin truly was!  It looked medium sized in the store, but it wasn't about to fit in the trunk of my car (not with the stroller back there and whatnot anyway).  So after opening the trunk and discovering that it's not going to fit, I opened the back side door to put it in there.  That's when I figured out I couldn't lift the thing with all the groceries in it - too heavy!

So what did I do?  I unlatched the lid of course.  My jokester friend, the wind, gusted again just in time to throw the lid up to smack me square in the face.  But the wind was blowing so hard I had a hard time getting it off my face!  So I'm wrestling with the stupid thing that I already chased down in the parking lot.  Fun times, right?  It's at moments like that that you really hope nobody is watching.  But low and behold, I saw a lady in the driver's seat in the car parked right in front of mine.  Wonderful...  I managed to wedge the lid in the cart, opened the trunk again, and removed most of the contents from the bin to trunk.  I went back to the side door to put the bin and lid in there and almost got whapped in the face by the lid again!

The groceries were in my car, the bin was in my car, baby girl was in the car, and I got in the car.  I took a deep breath and removed the sunshade from my windshield just on time to see that not only was there one woman in the vehicle in front of me...  She was driving a minivan with a whole family of like seven people.  They all witnessed the whole thing.  Fun times!

I got home, put baby girl down for a nap, unloaded the groceries, and showed the bin to my husband.  I shared my tale of misadventure with him, and we laughed heartily.  The funniest part...  we decided the bin was too big and that I needed to return it AND discovered I forgot some important groceries on my lost list.  Sigh.  Oh well!  Grateful to have bin drama behind me, I prepared to get back to a normal day.  Unfortunately for me, more misadventure was to be had!

Our family has chosen to cloth diaper.  If you cloth diaper, then you know you remove the solid waste before it hits your washing machine.  Yeah...  So somehow a diaper must have skipped this step in the process.  I went to move the diapers from the washer to the dryer and discovered post-processed mixed veggies and raisins all. over. my. washer.  ICK!!!  I had to pick them all out with a paper towel and kept finding them in the next few washes.

So lest anyone think I have a normal every day life or think I don't have a normal every day life, I have shared my daily life misadventures that you may judge for yourself.  All I could do at the end of the day was laugh (and treat myself to some ice cream).