Growing up

Our Big Girl

This past weekend I took Lexi for a little walk around our town. I took some pictures of her, like a mini photoshoot for an almost two year old. I can't believe she is almost two. It really seems like yesterday Johnny and I were bringing her home from the hospital. She is so full of life. She is so full of attitude. You can tell that she loves life. I don't worry about her being pushed around by anyone. She knows what she wants and she is determined to get it.

 

 

 

^{(so I totally had to put this pic in here... she has such a little sassy attitude, I'm pretty sure this look is trying to say, ummm mom, take the picture already, I feel stupid standing in front of this tree!)}

Lexi really helped Johnny and I work through losing Logan. She continues to do so, daily. She always makes us laugh. She shows us the joys of having a child. She gives us hope that one day we will feel we are ready to try to add another child into our family. But, she also shows us what it means to have patience, to have a parents heart when all you really want to do is run away because she know exactly which buttons to push and how hard to push them!!!

Love you Alexandria Rae Clear. You are the sunshine in our worlds.

Communication - huh?

Why is it so hard to communicate? Why does it take so much effort to clearly say the words you want to say? Especially to the ones that are closest to you?


Johnny and I have had some real eye opening experiences, not just recently, but really our entire life together as a couple. We learned early that we have to stick together in hard times, but that in itself is tough. When we lost Logan, right when it was happening, we were really good about talking to each other, about nothing and everything, our beliefs, where we thought this situation put us on our road of life, but that communication has wavered. I don't think that we are really all that different from most married couples. I honestly believe that everyone has periods in their life that they just can't put the correct words together and get them out of their mouths. Or you think the correct words are coming out of your mouth and it goes terribly wrong, you hurt each others feelings and feel even more flabbergasted than you did before.

I read a book once (don't remember the name of it) but it reminded us that men and women are completely different. Men look at life through blue shaded glasses and hear life through their blue shaded hearing aids, while women have pink glasses and hearing aids and since the opposite sexes are constantly seeing and hearing things differently the messages being sent are constantly being encoded and decoded wrong. That was a huge eye opener for me.

Although it is next to impossible to know how someone may take something you say, you have to have faith that you have encoded it with enough of the other color that it is taken right. You have to have faith that God will show you the words to say and have faith that God will show the other person how to read the signals you've sent.

Johnny and I do not have a perfect marriage, at all, but I do think that we are working on one of the most important parts of a marriage, how to communicate. It's a hard road and yes, feelings have been hurt. But in the end, we'll be able to look back and be thankful that we took to this road. Not just for our marriage, but for Lexi and our future children.

The take away from today's post... remember that everyone deciphers things differently. Be mindful of what you say, be mindful of how you say. Be respectful of each other and know that communication is hard and if at first you don't succeed, try, try again.

Happy Monday!

My husband and his daughter

I was looking through my phone today at all the pictures that have been taken... A majority them have been of my beautiful daughter.. and she really is beautiful.. its not just the mommy in me coming out.. we get stopped constantly to be told how beautiful she is... I hope that she will know how beautiful she is when she's grown.... Anyway other pics are if Mr Clear and Lexi. He loves his daughter... Completely and totally smitten with her might be a better description of his feelings toward her... And she thinks that no one is better than her daddy...  And when the two if them are our playing around their love for each other absolutely radiates!!

It reminds me how blessed I am to be marries to a man who puts his family first.

Right nor Mr Clear is down helping my parents remodel a home for my grandparents to move into. He took off from work to be able to help my parents. It just reminds me how much I love that man...

Faith in others

There are so many days where I am amazed by people.. in a good way.Throughout this entire process of losing Logan, connecting with other babyloss moms, realizing that forming The Logan Clear Foundation was a calling from above and something I feel must happen for me and the Kansas city metro to putting on A Walk to Remember it has been so amazing how open and receptive people have been. How many people want to do help in anyway they can. It really helps to get me through the day. Even right after we lost Logan that was one of the resounding things that Johnny commented on, people were supportive from the very beginning.. giving  of themselves and reminding us that the world is really a good place.

I don't know that this blog is really even read but I wanted to say thank you to everyone who has helped us, supported us, allowed us to vent, allowed us to cry, to be angry... You never expected us to feel a certain way.. we love you.

The Clears

Registration is now OPEN

You can now register for A Walk to Remember.

Registration Fee is $20 and includes, 1.5 mile walk, Tshirt to remember the day (If registered by Sept. 20th), refreshments and a balloon to persoalize for your baby or babies that we will release during the Balloon Ceremony.

To Register, visit:
www.awalktoremember.bbnow.org
Paypal, Credit and Debit cards are accepted.
You may register the day of the event starting at 1pm.
After you have registered, please email Heather or Jen and let them know your T-Shirt size.

Emails below:
hippiechick_81@hotmail.com
jhight503@gmail.com
Thank you for your support!!!

A Walk to Remember

Hi all!

Thanks for showing interest in A Walk to Remember.

This walk will bring awareness to the loss of so many babies, due to miscarriage, stillbirth or infant loss. 1 in 4 women experience this type of loss. Many of these women suffer this loss in silence. Baby loss is a subject that no one wants to talk about because it is so sad. However, by not talking about it, a silence is placed on the families that have had to suffer a loss, who are grieving every day of their lives. This walk will allow those of us who have grieved this type of loss to do so openly. You may have lost a child, you may be married to a women who lost a child, your mother, your sister, your aunt, your niece even your next door neighbor may have lost a child. Are you or they suffering in silence. Come join us on Sunday, October 16th 2011 to remember these children and break the silence on baby loss.

The profits of this walk will go to Faces of Loss, Faces of Hope. http://facesofloss.com Faces of Loss was created by a women who lost a baby. She created this website to allow other women who have lost a child to post a face with their story, to connect with other baby loss moms, to help a woman feel that she is not alone in this grief. That she is unfortunately part of a larger group of woman that she ever would have imagined.

We will have several different ways for you to register for the walk. There will be a registration fee of $20.00. This fee will provide you with a shirt commemorating the day that we walked to remember, refreshments after a 1.5 mile walk and a balloon that you can personalize for your baby or babies that we will release at the end of the day.

More to come on how to pay the registration fee

The rambling mind of a babyloss mom

So I hate to think of myself set in this “babyloss world” but the fact is.. I am living if everyday. Not a moment goes by that I don’t have Logan on my mind. He may not be the thing front in center in my mind, but it is amazing how fast he can get there. I know that there are people out there that just don’t get it.. and honestly I thank God that they don’t. I never ever want anyone to have to go through the pain and suffering we have gone through and are still going through. I know that some may think that it is odd that I want to write or talk about my dead son and that’s okay. I have those people that I can talk to about it and although a majority of them don’t truly understand, at least they acknowledge that they don’t understand but they are there for me, whenever I want to talk… and I know that.

Yesterday Robin, the kids and I went to the zoo. I had a great time and I think they did too, but it was still a little bittersweet for me, simply because I should have had a three month in tow along with My 19 month old. I really wonder if the bittersweet taste of everything will ever go away. Alexandria was drinking her Bug Juice and it made the inside of her lips this bright purplish red, the color that I remember Logan’s lips being and BOOM there was a pain that ran deep down inside. I didn’t cry.. I didn’t even bring attention to it to Robin, but wow, something so weird, so simple, so small could have taken me down if I had let it. Part of me was a little afraid that it wasn’t her drink that had made her lips that color. Sounds like silly fear, but since we don’t really know why Logan died I am a little over-protective of things that Lexi does and if she’s okay or not. Something else that I hope will subside sooner rather than later, I’m also sure that Johnny and Lexi hope for this too!

But anyway, back to the zoo, Here are some pics Lexi riding a carousel for the first time (it makes me proud to be a mom of a little girl so independent, but makes me so weepy to think that she’s growing up to be independent). We have pics of Lindsey being her Rockstar self! Wyatt and his cool SpiderMan hat (that is now a permanent resident of the Kansas City Zoo) and a pic of Robin and I!!!

 

So, Tomorrow will be Logan’s seven month Angelversary. Will you all just think of him and do something kind in his honor? Nothing big, something simple, I’ve always thought that sharing a smile with a stranger can mean more and be shared so easily, so I guess your challenge, should you choose to accept it… smile at a stranger tomorrow or the next day or even the next, but when you do, just think of our Logan. Good night all!