Arland

Through all this time at the hospital I have a lot of thinking time. Some of the questions that I ask my self on daily basis revolve around what happened, why did this happen, why Porter, why do I have to be away from Arland at this time, is he happy? Every mother hopes and prays that their child is safe and protected over, and I pray for that every day, for both of my boys. What I worry most about is not about what I am going to do to make the time go by fastest ( i do think about that alot) it is more about Arland and is he happy? When I first got here it was so hard to see Arland cry and yell out mommy and daddy. I felt like I abandoned him, and I know in his two year old mind he felt abandoned. No matter how many times our families said "he is fine, don't worry about Arland," I WORRIED! I would get angry at my self for missing out on so many things. I can't help that we are in the situation we are in, and that was the hardest. I went from being a mommy that got her little boy out of bed at 7 am to put him in bed with me to snuggle and laugh, make breakfast and hope that he would cooperate and eat some of it, fill bubble baths and watch my little boy run to the tub so excited that I couldn't get his clothes off fast enough to splash around in the soapy water, he would love to splash hard enough to get mommy wet and then we would laugh until he would say "DONE!" I would get him out of the tub and his naked little body would run away from me because he loved being free without the diaper on. We would play with his cars and watch Toy Stoy over and over again, I would watch him take Buzz Lightyear and fly him all around the room, in his little mind I know that he is flying just like Buzz. We would let Pazely inside to play for a while and he would just smother her with loves, he would climb on her like a horse and ride her until she got sick of it
and stand up, he would fall off and laugh. Arland loves to go to the park and go down slides, he
always looks at me before going down the slide and yells " mom!" Like he is saying watch me! Then we clap and praise him for overcoming a big fear. I was that mom, I was the mom that was so tired at the end of the day because we laughed, explored and played all day and I would watch Arland late at night after he was asleep in his crib. He amazed me as I would watch him. I remember a book that was given to me on my first Mother's Day. A mother talked about watching her kids sleep at night and the thought came to her that her kids would never be this little ever again. They are a baby once, a toddler once, a child on their first day of kindergarten once and they will never be that little person again. So as she watched her child sleep that night she thought about what a blessing it is to be their mother at that exact moment. I did that with Arland.
When we first came here I had a visitor that had a baby that was born at 25 weeks, the baby was 1.5 lbs. and was still at Primary Children's, she had been there for over 100 days and the mom came to talk to us about what to expect with Porter. Something she said stuck to me. She said that there are a lot of parents out there that wonder, why? She told me that although she doesn't have and answer she does know that everything that happens in our lives happens for a reason and it may be a lesson that we need to learn. She said that she has learned patience more than anything through all of this. When she left Heath and I talk about some of the things that we could learn from this. I think that we are learning to slow down and be patient as well. Nothing makes you slow down like 10 weeks on bed rest! But I am sure there are a lot of other things that we will learn through this process. Life use to be busy, crazy and hectic with work, finishing school, house work and many other things, sometimes all that matters are the small things like making time to snuggle in bed with your hubby and baby just a little bit longer in the morning, making pancakes with your two year old so they feel included in creating a mess rather then just a piece of toast in the morning, getting on the floor and playing cars, reading books to your kids while they snuggle on your lap.
I miss all of those things and more, I miss the past month that I have missed out on with Arland. The days that I do get to see him I love because he is so happy. I know that he is happy with his grandma and that makes me happy, I pray everyday that he is happy. There are lessons in everything and I try to remember everyday that it is a gift to have been here for as long as I have. I can't wait to see Porter as a baby, toddler, kindergartener. I can't wait to see Arland as a brother.