Ashlyn's Lynnea Book

Ashlyn's Family

Lynnea's Wagon Ride

Lynnea in the White Crib

This week Ashlyn worked on adding some pictures to her Lynnea Book.  First she drew a picture of her "whole family, before Lynnea died."  This is what she told me to write about the picture: "This is a picture of my whole family.  Daddy is very tall.  He loves me.  Baby Naya liked me, and she was very short.  Ashlyn is big; she would play with Naya and help take care of her.  Mommy is bigger than me.  She likes to do art."

Next she drew a picture of Lynnea going for a wagon ride at the hospital.  This is what she said about her picture: "This is Lynnea going for a wagon ride at the hospital.  She has a smile on her face because she was happy -- she liked riding in the wagon.  She is laying on her pink blankie in the wagon to make her comfortable.  She has a feeding tube in her tummy because that is how she would eat."

The third picture she drew was of Lynnea at home.  This is what she said about it: "This is Lynnea at home in her white crib.  She has two pillows -- one under her head, and one under her feet because she was silly and liked to put her feet on a pillow.  Bear-Bear is in bed with her because that's what she liked to sleep with.  She has  a feeding tube, but that's all -- this was a day when she didn't need any oxygen or the oximeter."

Missing Lynnea

Ashlyn has mentioned several times over the past few days that she misses Lynnea a lot.  Sometimes she mentions it directly, and sometimes it comes up during her play with her toys.  Today at nap time, she told me that Bunny was sad.  So, I asked her why Bunny was sad, and she told me that Bunny missed seeing Lynnea all the time and playing with her.  She doesn't cry about it, she just randomly mentions that she is sad and misses Lynnea.  We look at pictures of Lynnea, and watch some of the videos we have of her, and this seems to help some.  We also draw pictures and talk about things that we used to like to do with Lynnea.

Again with the Dip-Dip

I guess Ashlyn still hasn't outgrown her love of dipping things at meal times.  She no longer specifically asks for "Dip-Dip," but it there is anything dippable, she dunks it into whatever is available.  The recent favorites include: peanut butter and jelly sandwich dipped in blueberry yogurt, chicken nuggets dunked in strawberry yogurt (yes, I know, if I don't want her to dunk stuff in it, maybe I should quit serving yogurt for lunch), fishsticks in applesauce, and carrots in ketchup.

Shafer Corn Maze

On Saturday, Ashlyn and I went to the Shafer Corn Maze with my brother, Chad, my brother-in-law, Jarimia, and my neice, Lexi.  Lexi acted as our navigator through the maze, while Ashlyn insisted on also carrying a map which she spent a lot of time staring at intently.  The girls also enjoyed feeding the goats, and working their way through the tangled web. 

Quiet Goodbyes

In the midst of my newsfeed on Facebook today, among all of the status updates from all of my friends, there was the announcement that Amayah had passed away.  Before and after it in the feed were comments about the nice weather, and what people were planning on making for dinner, etc.  Life continued on while life stopped for one little girl.  But, that's how it always is, isn't it?  Life continues, even in the absence of one, while friends and loved ones say their quiet goodbyes.

Amayah was another heart baby, and her family faced choices similar to the ones we did with Lynnea about when and how things would end.  Please keep her family in your prayers.  Also keep another one of our heart friends in your prayers as well -- baby Aidden had his Glenn surgery more than a week ago, and there have been some unexpected complications.  

Three Months

Three months have gone by now since we lost Lynnea, and even though there have been some very good days since then, I'd be lying if I tried to say that there aren't still plenty of moments when the unexpected reminders hit me out of nowhere, and I miss her like crazy.  I should be busy planning what would have been her second birthday party, but instead I am trying to force myself to finish putting her clothes away in boxes.  But, moving on is necessary, even though it is hard sometimes.

Leaves on the Trampoline

Today Ashlyn had a lot of fun playing on the trampoline at Grandma and Grandpa's house.  The trampoline was covered with leaves, so, rather than sweeping the leaves off from the trampoline, Ashlyn thought it would be a good idea to sweep the leaves into a pile and jump into them.  She worked very hard making herself a pile, and then enjoyed jumping into it.

Playing Football

We took advantage of the nice weather today and played outside for awhile.  Corey worked on teaching Ashlyn how to throw a football.  She throws it with both hands, and still seems to think that it is better to kick it than to throw it.  Catching it will take some work.  We also had a bonfire and roasted hotdogs for supper.

HopeKids Fun

This week we went to two HopeKids events.  On Tuesday, Corey and I went to see a pre-screening of the new movie Legend of the Guardians.  It was a pretty good movie, and it was good to have a night out together.  Date nights are a rare thing, so this was fun.  On Thursday, I went with Ashlyn, my parents, and my brother Tim to see the play Charlotte's Web at Stages Theatre.  This was also fun, though I wasn't sure it would go well because, prior to going, we had let Ashlyn watch the film version and she became very upset when Charlotte died at the end, and she wasn't sure that she really wanted to go see the play.  She did fine though -- she was very happy to see that the person playing the role of Charlotte did not actually die at the end of the play, and this made it all OK for her. 

Recent Artwork

Ashlyn paints with medicine dropper

Ashlyn paints with toothette

We've been doing lots of art again because it's one of Ashlyn's favorite things to do.  I've taken some of the leftover medical supplies that we have around and have been finding ways for Ashlyn to use them for her art projects.  A few days ago I used some of the Hydra-Aid (the beverage thickener that we used to thicken water for Lynnea so that she could handle swallowing it) that we have left to thicken some water with food coloring in it.  This made an interesting kind of paint.  Ashlyn thought it was fun to use medicine droppers and some of the oral syringes that we have left to squirt the paint on to her paper.  She also enjoyed using the toothettes (pink minty sponges that Lynnea liked to use to drink her thickened water) to paint with.  Along with painting, she has also been coloring with markers, crayons, and chalk pastels.