Carry on Castle: Living with Grief

                                                   Me laying on the couch with morning sickness when I was pregnant There was no school today. We had big plans to drive to the coast with Justin and his kids and go the aquarium. We didn't do that. We sat, and we sat, and we sat some more. We did the exact same thing yesterday. Well I suppose technically I sat and Baby Girl laid down. She caught herself one nasty cold Saturday night and has been down ever since. So she watched her favorite TV shows that we've both seen a thousand times and I sat. I sat with her, I sat next to her, I got her food, I got her medicine. Several times she said "I'm sorry I got sick mommy" and "I don't want you to catch my sick bugs mommy" I don't really know where she gets that from, I've never gotten mad at her for gett...

I know I know I haven't blogged in forever. I have so much to write about I may never catch up but just to give you a teaser here is a list of things I've left you all out in the cold about that I plan to write about soon. Christmas How things are going with the boyfriend (good is the short answer) The 4 year anniversery of Dans death Things my therapist said Things Baby Girls therapist said This solo parenting thing uggg dang it I had another one and now I can't remember Also this is a friendly widow reminder; the grief is still there. It hasn't gone away because it's been four years. It hasn't gone away because I started dating, It hasn't gone away for Baby Girl. It hasn't gone away and so I have stopped writing about it. No unlike Dan the grief is still alive and well. I'll blog about it sometime I wrote a book about my grief, you can read it here:   Carry on Castle

"You need to blog about this!" my bestie said immediately, when I told her what happened. "Yeah, I will, but why do you think I should?"  "Because, Jenn, you have a unique perspective for this kind of stuff."  Well, hooray for me. Our unique perspective is, of course, all things death. It's just what I wanted to do when I grew up, just what I wanted for my child, and after all, isn't that everyone's dream? To know death? It was around five o clock on Thursday night. I was in my room putting laundry away while Baby Girl watched TV. She came running into my room. "Mommy, mommy, mommy!" in her "I'm scared," voice, not the "I want you to think I'm scared so you will come faster" voice, but the actual "something is wrong" voice. "Mommy Nuggie isn't moving." Nuggie or Nugget for a proper name is her pet hamster.  She lives in a cage in the living room, I cleaned that cage out jus...

Baby Girl and I went to MTD (That's short for Magic Therapy Dude aka Baby Girls therapist)  I sit in on the sessions with her. Today she was schooling MTD on math, quite frankly it was over my head, but they were having a good time. In about five seconds everything escalated into ya that was intense. Lets back up. Last week was Thanksgiving. Nearly everyone I have seen since then has said "Hey Jenny how did your Thanksgiving go? Justin was there right?" Basically they wanted to know if it was awkward having my boyfriend at Thanksgiving and not my dead husband, although technically my dead husband was there also.  My response is; Thanksgiving was really really good. I actually don't think it could have gone any smoother. It was just about perfect. Justin cooked our turkey and Baby Girl helped him prep it, they pulled out the guts and washed it. Baby Girl played with its body parts and named it Fredrick.  They tied up its legs and gave it a bath in boiling oil.  They...

Almost three and a half years after Dan died I decided to maybe try this dating thing out. I thought it was going to be awful. One terrible date after another, never finding anyone 1/4 as good as Dan. That is what I was in for,why was I even trying. One of my besties said "No Jenny, dating is going to be easy for you, It has to be, you've been through way to much crap, God has to give this one to you." I laughed at her. Ha thats exactly why it's going to be awful, life isn't exactly going smoothly these days, there is no way this will.  Lucky for me my bestie was right and I was wrong. The first real date I went on I met the most amazing man. You can read all about that here  my first date  . A couple weeks later I messaged my Dad and my siblings "No body freak out!!!!! I may have started dating someone" Most of them freaked out despite my warning. Especially my dad. He wanted to know how we met "Uh my bestie Stacie might have made me sign up for ...

We were at a party for a friend the other day, Baby Girl, John Smith, and myself. (Side note yes I am still dating John Smith things are going very well, I'll catch you up later.)  At the party were a bunch of helium balloons.  John Smith and I were talking about the balloons, they reminded him of Winnie the Pooh. He was extremely sweet as he pulled a red balloon off the bunch and tied it to my wrist. Somehow we ended up walking out of the party with that red balloon in Baby Girl's hand. Go figure. Out the front doors and into a big open parking lot Baby Girl hung tight to her balloon. It was abnormally warm for a November night in Oregon. Baby Girl started running around the parking lot, red balloon following closely behind. She would run, stop for a minute, look up into the beautiful starry sky like she was inspecting it for something, and then run to a new spot. Jumping, skipping, running in circles with her red balloon. I laughed at her as John Smith and I held hands. ...

So remember about two years ago when I put my 9 year old on antidepressants because her daddy died when she was 7 and her anxiety was so bad neither of us could even catch a breathe. I do. I was there. It was awful. If you don't remember feel free to read about it here   I put baby girl on antidepressants Slowly, very slowly she started to come out of it. I started seeing glimpses of her becoming a kid again. Laughing and playing with her friends. Not being terrified when mommy left the room. It was a big deal. She continued to get better. She went from having a grief tantrum every day to me saying "hmmmmm I don't remember the last time she had one" I talked to her therapist and psychiatrist about how great she was doing. We all thought maybe she didn't need the antidepressants anymore. She was handling life so well. So about a month ago we decided to take her off them. You can read about that here  I took Baby Girl off antidepressants Yup, well that experimen...