Tuesday, December 30, 2014

In Celebration of Life

We're going on a family trip to Mexico in February (oh my goodness!!!), so we realized we needed to get our passports in order. Dusk and I needed to renew ours, and we needed to get the kids passports. In the hustle and bustle of pulling everything together for that process,

 (on a side note, have you ever had to renew or apply for a passport? Holy Toledo, they do NOT make the process easy. Pages and pages of application, but hey that's government for you. But I digress…)

I realized we didn't have a birth certificate for Bodie. As in, we had never gotten one. We had a certificate of live birth from the hospital, but not an authorized certificate from the county. 

I don't know how other states do it, but in California, it's not an automatic thing. You actually have to apply for the certificate. It's usually done in the hospital after birth, but, yeah, well, we had other things on our minds at the time.

Dusk said to me "What do you mean, we don't have it? How did we miss that?"

I just stared at him blankly.
 Was he kidding? Was he not there when Bodie was born?

He paused for long moment, and then quietly said "Yeah, I guess when you don't know if your child is going to live a week, you don't exactly worry about things like a birth certificate."

Yeah.

Boy did that ever throw me back to how awful things were with Bodie in the early days, and how touch and go things were for so long. (and if you haven't been following our journey for very long, let me just say, things were very rough for a good 7 months or so). 

He's so robust now, so amazing and full of life. If it weren't for the purple tinge his lips get on colder days, or the scars that mark his chest, I could almost forget everything he went through. 
It could almost be someone else's story.

Almost.

So, to pick up his birth certificate today was, just, so. So. So everything. 
The 45 minute wait at the courthouse couldn't even take the joy out of the moment.

To us, this is so much more than a birth certificate. 

It is a celebration of birth, yes. 
But also a celebration of fight, of endurance, of tenacity beyond measure. 

What a great way to end 2014, with such a symbol of celebration.

2014, you have not been altogether kind to us. 
But even so, you have blessed us.

Happy New Year's Eve.
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Sunday, December 28, 2014

Christmas Blessings

It is so true, what they tell you when you're first diagnosed with HLHS - "Be careful reading blogs. A large majority of the people who blog are the ones whose kids are struggling. The ones who are doing well - they don't blog. They're out there living life." 

Yep, that's us. Living life. We're still here and Bodie is doing great. We're so blessed. Just haven't had a free second to blog. Life has been crazy!!!

First off, WE MOVED BACK HOME last month! Praise God! And things have been moving at lightning speed since then!

Here's what we've been up to:

Kicking butt at cardiology appointments. 
Everything looks great, we weaned off his middle of the day med, and we don't have to go back for 3 months. Yay!
Bodie with his beloved Dr. Kim:

Losing a front tooth 
(and, in true Bennett fashion, she wouldn't pull it out herself, but her bestie, Anna, accidentally head butted her at Bodie's school Christmas pageant and that thing popped right out! We didn't exactly expect to be dealing with blood and a brand new Christmas dress, but hey, at the least the tooth was out!)
Oh wait, no - losing BOTH of our front teeth.
(I think those things popped out within 5 days of each other!)

Trimming our tree 
- with "Engine Turtle" (as Bodie calls them) ornaments. ;-) 

Spreading Christmas love with our besties.
Sierra with Anna and McKenzie at their school Christmas play.
Bodie and one of his favorite preschool teachers, Miss Missy. (Miss Missy also heads up the children's choir that Bodie is a part of. The last time the choir sang in front of the church, Bodie got up there, turned his back to us and stood that way for the whole dang thing. Dusk and I were fairly well mortified. This time, he got up there, looked right at me and sang his little heart out - I was SO SO SO stinking proud!)
 The kiddos with Cameron and McKenzie. Could they be any cuter???

Getting some pretty cool gifts.
Sierra got her first SEWING MACHINE!!!
Can you handle this excitement???
And her first project was an adorable skirt for her American Girl doll, Caroline.

Impressing the pants off of everyone at church.
Sierra read a particularly long Bible passage at the Christmas Eve service at church. I cannot begin to tell you how proud we were of her! We had so many people telling us afterwards what a great job she did! (We also had people talking about Bodie - that he was busy, that he was a bruiser, that he had "so much energy," that he reminded them of Dennis the Menace (true story), etc. etc. - I know I'm not supposed to say this, but it's just the truth - we were a little more proud of child #1 than #2 that night!) 

Whew! Like I said, we've been busy! 
It is blowing my mind how "normal" our holidays were this year, after everything we have been through. We have so many friends who are sitting in the hospital with children recovering from open-heart surgery. Or home with empty arms, wishing their child was still here to fight. So many, many hurting hearts this holiday season. They are never far from my hearts and prayers. 

So I am feeling so profoundly grateful for where we are today. My heart is full and my cup runneth over indeed. 

Hope you and yours had a wonderful Christmas season!

Blessings from our home to yours,
Dusk, Amy & the kiddos
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