2011 April « Gemini Girl

Archive for April, 2011

Colors Blur

April 20, 2011 at 9:25 am · Filed under Me

I wrote this post 2 months ago and I have yet to post…

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Last week I took a trip to New York.

It was a business trip, and the first time since the girls were born that I have left them alone with their father for over a week.

Of course, they are super lucky to have an amazing daddy who is just the best father in the world.

Instead of staying at a hotel, I decided to save my company the moolah, and stayed by my parents house.

I thought it was going to be disastrous as my mother and I are like oil and water, but turns out when I’m on my happy pills, she doesn’t really piss me off as often- go figure!

I worked during the days, and spent my evenings and nights with friends who I hadn’t seen since I left in May. It was so so nice.

In addition, I was super lucky as New York was experiencing nice weather! I only took a few shots of my trip…

As an added bonus, one of my BFF’s who you may know as Heather from The Spohrs Are Multiplying decided to come and see me while I was in New York. She did this right before I moved to Israel as well, but I never got a chance to post about it because I had a really bad week after we parted (miscarriage and all)…

May 2010:

I know that I’ve written about it before, but I adore Heather. We have been friends now for 3 years- yet I feel like I’ve known her my whole life. Blogging is what brought us together. We shared common experiences. We laugh, and cried. We’ve been through so much these past few years.

I find it difficult to make friends as I get older. Most of my close friends I have known since I was either in elementary school or high school. Is it just me or is it just harder for adults to make friends?

I always love hanging out with the Spohr’s because they don’t make me feel like a freak for being a vault of useless facts (when it comes to TV/ Movie/ Celebrity entertainment that is).

On Valentines Day Heather took me to a Champagne Bar- which was such a nice place. I think we had a bit too much champagne. I may or may not have fallen asleep on the bar countertop.

February 2011:

drunky

It’s strange when colors blur…

I still find it surreal that I have been blogging for 4 years now this month!! I think it began when I was googling IVF information and stumbled across blogs dealing with the issue. I decided to start my own then. It was a diary. Nothing more. Just a way to sort out my feelings through the rough road I was facing ahead .

Once people started coming to my blog and commenting… it made me feel like I was part of a very loving community. Women who had been through it, wrapped their arms around me with love, kindness and guidance. Some of those very first commenters happen to be some of my very best friends today “In Real Life”… although I strongly believe that the line between blogger friends/ real life friends has vanished. I spill my guts on this blog. I don’t often do that in person- so an intimacy forms very quickly.

No facade.

I truly believe that if I didn’t have a “mask” on my blog, and people in my day-to-day life knew about my blog (which they don’t, or they don’t know my blog name)- I would have to censor myself and my feelings. Blogging is my therapy. I need it. I write-through good times and bad. There have been some brave bloggers who have ripped their masks off.. and told the world that they blog- I just can’t do that.

It’s crazy to me that I have to hide.

I am so profoundly proud of this space.. of my personal growth these past 4 years.. and yet I can’t share it with those closest to me.

If I did, I would have to hide parts of who I am.. the good, the bad and the terribly ugly.

I can’t be a blogger that paints in pastels.

There’s black in my painting as well.

I pray that I will continue to write and grow in this space…

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9 years

April 14, 2011 at 5:07 am · Filed under The Man I Married

So my husband and I have been together for 9 years now.

It’s so crazy to think about that.

I’ts kinda like 1/3 of my life.

9 years ago this week, we kissed.

I was on Spring Break in Israel.

I was 20 going on 21.

I had known him my whole life, and had a crush on him since I was 10.

So to kiss him was like crossing an item off of my bucket list.

We had an amazing 2 weeks together, but then I had to fly home to New York.

I thought about him a lot.

I felt that we had a deep connection and that the only reason that we weren’t together was because of the distance.

I guess I was right- my intuition is usually spot on.

I made arrangements to fly back to Israel that summer.

Within my first week back to Israel, we were living together.

We’ve been together ever since.

2005

Sometimes I hate him.

Sometimes he HATES me.

Like HATE HATE.

Though we love each other with the same passion.

At first, I thought I had made a mistake marrying him.

I mean, I was so young(23) and he was only my second boyfriend.

2006

I never did the things that I thought I would do:

Live in an apartment with friends

Be single in Manhattan

Go abroad with friends

Go out with more guys

But at the end of the day- that doesn’t really matter.

2008

I found my husband early on in life.

That means I found my partner in crime at a younger age.

He keeps me grounded.

I help him dream.

So what if he doesn’t acknowledge my birthday or buy me a present -he will on the other hand be watching our kids this year for 4 days while mommy is off to Paris with her friends- celebrating her 30th birthday!

2010

The other day i was laying on the couch and he caressed my hair- which btw never happens- we never have the time, or energy.

He told me that when he drops me off every morning at the train station- he looks at me while I walk away and is so proud that I am his wife.

And I didn’t have anything sarcastic to say (which is so unlike me)

It made me smile.

Sometimes I need to remember that we are a couple first, and then parents.

2011

Do you often forget that you are a couple first and foremost? What do you do to nurture your relationships?

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My Daughter the Thief

April 11, 2011 at 8:31 am · Filed under Neve

So I have this daughter, I wont name any names…

This daughter often comes back from Preschool with things that don’t belong to her.

I clean out her back pack every evening.

Day 1:

Day 2:

Rocks? Olive pits?

Day 3:

A hello Kitty tag that was obviously taken off of a classmates backpack

Day 4:

A balloon

Day 5:

A comb- naturally.

Day:6:

so there you have it folks, I’m raising a child who gives me this face when I call her out on her thievery:

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Sometimes I love the Weekend.

April 10, 2011 at 6:18 am · Filed under My daughters

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Two Years

April 7, 2011 at 8:36 am · Filed under Friends of Maddie, Madeline Alice Spohr

It’s been 2 years since Maddie passed, and yet my heart aches as though it happened today. I wrote this post last year… and I am reposting. It’s just too hard to write today.

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I didn’t know if I would have the courage to write today.

I really didn’t.

You get wrapped up in the day-to-day and you forget.

You forget until you see a purple balloon, or a purple flower.

T’wo years ago today, the world lost the most magical little girl who I had ever met.

Madeline Spohr.

I’ve written about her countless times.

I’ve shed tears.

I still do.

For a little girl who will forever be just that..

For years I thought that people who made friends via the internet were “nerds”

HA.

How I would be eating my words.

Heather is one of my best friends.

I have only known her for 3 years, but in that time we have formed a bond like no other. She understands me and gets me – even more so than friends who I have known for 20 years.

We are part of the 500,000 mothers a year who have given birth to premature babies.

UNLESS that has happened to you, unless you were rushed into an emergency room to have your first-born child ripped from your womb before their time… you will not understand.

You will not understand what it is like to not be able to see your child, or hold them for the first few hours or days of their lives.

You wonder if they will know that you aren’t there.

That you can’t be there.

That all you wanted in this world was to give them more time in the warm cocoon of your body.

And it takes EVERYTHING from you to not beat yourself up.

Maybe it was me? You ask yourself.

Was it because I couldn’t stomach the pre- natal vitamins and stopped taking them?

But I am only in my 20′s.

Why me?

Why Them?

Why?

Heather found my blog when our girls were 4 months old. I commented on a blog, and the comment luv under my name said “4 months old” (title of my most current post at the time). Heather who was reading at the time, decided to click on to my blog since Maddie was 4 months old at the time as well.

Little did she know that she was about to read a story similar to hers. About to read a story about 2 little girls across the country that had the same start to their lives as Maddie’s. Girls who were supposed to be born in late January but were born in early November instead….

We laughed and shared daily emails. We used our girls as measuring sticks developmentally. We worried about our girls constantly. Were they out of the woods yet? Would their premature births have long-term effects. We just didn’t know, but we held comfort in one another knowing that we could hold each others hands if and when it got tough.

I remember surprising my husband with a trip to L.A in January of 2009. He thought I was being sweet since he had never been.

Actually, I wanted to go and hug Heather and kiss Maddie. In person. And that’s just what I did. And when we met it was SO STRANGE because here we all were, having dinner at a Mexican restaurant with people who I had just met (in person) but who knew everything about us. Heather asked me if I would be ok if she ordered pork (since she knew that I am kosher and had never eaten pork in my life). Maddie kept dropping her bottle and smiling. It was late, and there were no babies in that restaurant (but we all know just what a night owl Maddie was). It was no surprise that she cooed and batted her long eyelashes at the waiter.

Maddie kept staring at me… but it wasn’t at me.. it was through me. She had an old soul. I felt it. I get chills writing about it. Here was this perfect little porcelain face..with this MAGNIFICENT soul. A soul well beyond her short life.

And although our paths started out the same… they reached a fork in the road. How would our friendship survive? Would she still want me as a friend? Would it hurt too much?

But no, she still wanted me in her life. And for that I am forever grateful. Grateful that I am lucky to have such an amazing person in my life.

Someone who is always there.

I share things with Heather that I dont share with anyone else.

Sometimes I wish I knew why life was so unfair.

Why things happen to some and not others.

I wish Maddie were still here, smiling and hamming it up for the camera.

I wish Heather and Mike never had to know what it felt like to lose a child.

I wish for them happiness and love.

Maddie has taught so many of us, to hug our children just a little tighter.

To love on them.

To enjoy them.

To look into their eyes for just a moment longer.

Because that moment can be taken away.

We love you sweet, sweet little girl.

Forever and Always.

*please go and donate to Friends of Maddie today… you will be helping parents like Heather and I get through the tough & frightening moments of the NICU..*