Baby On Your Six

Dear Aaron, Hi baby boy! Happy 26 Week Heaven Day Aaron. Well, Daddy and I made it through Thanksgiving and we did the parade. I need to get the pictures developed. They were on a disposable camera...it stinks when you can't have a digital camera with you. We had a nice Thanksgiving day and we had your candle lit all day. Last weekend your Grammy and PopPop Young picked up a lamb that they ordered for the memorial garden at Tabor. It is beautiful. I saw it tonight when I went to choir. It was very neat underneath a tree that is all lit up for Christmas. I need to get a picture of that before we move. For the past two days your Grandma, Grammy and I packed and packed and scrubbed and got most of this house cleaned out and packed up! Your daddy still doesn't quite believe we're moving half the time I think. This new house would have been great to watch you grow up in. Based on the fact that I have about a box and a half worth of your things not to mention all th...

...if you're one of the many who have offered to help us move on the 9th - thank you. But I have bad news. I saw on the news that they're calling for sub-freezing weather next week. I hate to break it to you all, but since you're helping *us* move, that means that it's going to snow. And I don't just mean a few flurries so that everyone goes "Oh, look! It's snowing! How nice!" I mean, a full-blown, catch-the-Northeast-by-surprise, end-of-the-world Nor'Easter. Now, bear in mind, no formal weather-man announcement has been made telling us there will be even a hint of precipitation. But it's US. It's going to snow. And it's going to be hellacious. Good luck. You've been warned. :)

And to mark the passing of the holiday, DrummerWife and I are both recovering from two of the most destructive colds, ever. I contend that we got these demon-colds by standing in the cold, freezing, windy rain Thanksgiving morning as we held onto the ropes attached to Hello Kitty's giant balloon avatar. Thankfully, these colds really only blasted us Saturday night and all day Sunday. Today, I'm back at work, and it seems that the cold has moved into my chest, so at least I don't feel like someone stuffed my head with cotton balls anymore. It's a step in the right direction. Also, we're on for the December 9th move. That means DrummerWife is going to be packing while she's at home this week (with DrummerMother and DrummerMother-in-Law assisting). Weeeeeee.

Well, it's not quite Thanksgiving and I know now I am pushing the letter down a bit, but we need to get up in the middle of the night to get to the parade to do our Hello Kitty Balloon duties. The picture is the balloons we let go for Aaron tonight and here is what the attached notes said... Dear Aaron, Happy Thanksgiving peanut! We miss you so much and I wish you were here. I hope that you get to eat lots of turkey tomorrow. I thought this turkey balloon would make you laigh. Watch over us tomorrow so your spirit can still be with us. I love you Aaron. XOXO, Mommy Dear Aaron, Happy Thanksgiving weiner-kid. Your mom and I had a lot of plans for the holidays, and most of them won't be happening. But that's ok. We still have a lot to be thankful for, like the fact that we did get 33 beautiful days with you. You willbe missed this Thanksgiving. Try to have a good Turkey Day without us up in heaven. Love, Dad So thank you to everyone for everything this past year a...

Dear Aaron, Hi peanut! Happy 25 week heaven day and Happy Thanksgiving sweetheart. There is nothing in this whole world that I am more thankful for than the 33 days we had with you. Tonight you daddy and I are going to let some Thanksgiving balloons go for you. I'm hoping we can do it before the rain...Speaking of the rain...tomorrow is the parade. If you have ANY pull up there or can put in any requests get this rain OUT OF HERE. See if it rains during the parade your daddy will NEVER let me hear the end of it :-) Last night I was so sad...starting to think of what Thanksgiving would be like without you here. I told your daddy that I can't even imagine sitting down to dinner and you not being there. Things should have been SO different this year. I really wanted to cuddle and play in the morning while watching the parade and then get you dressed is a cute little outfit. Watching everyone ohh and ahh over you and passing you around - cuddling and kissing you. Tomorr...

...whaddaya say we pack all of our stuff up, and move again, babe?" YES. Yeah, it's official. We're moving. We've got a place lined up in Elizabethtown (back in DrummerWife's native Amish Country). It's a cute 3BR townhouse for rent. The only thing we have to nail down is the date we move in. We're leaning towards the first 2nd Saturday in December. So yeah, we even get to move in December! And right before Christmas! Wish us luck.

Dear Aaron, Hi sweetheart! Happy 24 week Heaven Day! It's still just kind of crazy around here. I am off work for a couple weeks until I start my new job, but I guess it's busy doing not working. So much to do and only a couple weeks to do it in. Yesterday you became a star. I was at the NICU for a day of gratitude and 2 television stations were there to interview me and of course they wanted to see pictures of you :) The toy drive is underway. Your daddy put the word out and we got a lot of responses quickly for people that want to donate toys in your memory. So many people are still thinking of you all the time. I have a very funny story for you peanut. Over a month ago, Mommy decided that it would be fun to be in the Thanksgiving day parade and I asked your daddy if he would do it. I wanted to do something fun on Thanksgiving that I thought you would think was funny and I couldn't think of anything better that being a balloon handler in the Thanksgiving day p...

Today I had a great opportunity. I got to go back to the Bryn Mawr NICU to thank the staff there. The March of Dimes sponsored a "Day of Gratitude" and asked me to go and speak to the staff. I still can't say enough good things and as I said several times today, while we did NOT get the outcome that we wanted (obviously we wish Aaron were still here), we were SO thankful for everything the NICU staff did and they were able to give us 33 precious days with our dear sweet Aaron. That means the world to me. Also, our fame is spreading. During the presentation 2 Philly news channels - NBC 10 and Fox Philly were there to cover the story. The NBC 10 story ran this afternoon and it was an EXTREME close up of me - ewwww....nobody wants that...it was short, but they may run something else at 11:00. The Fox news just came on as I type, but Drummer and I are checking that out now to see if they show it. They did both film a photo of Aaron - NBC 10 did not use it, but perhap...

...who have contacted us regarding the toy drive thus far. I've got your emails, and we've seen your comments here. I'll be getting an email out to all of you who have contacted me this week with your email addresses. As for CW who asked about a deadline, I believe we were looking at the middle of December for turning the gifts in to Hershey Medical Center. I'll let DrummerWife correct me on that one, as I know we discussed it, but I honestly couldn't tell you what date, if any, we settled on. I'm smart like that. Okay...not much else to report. So, I'll call this "over and out."

...but I wanted to formally make an announcement... I know I hinted at something being in the works a few weeks back for the holidays. And then DrummerWife lost her job, and we had to sort that mess out, and wait to hear back from some parties regarding our little plan. Everything has fallen into place, though not the way we originally anticipated. I would like to take this opportunity to officially announce that we are going to be operating a small toy drive in Aaron's honor this holiday season. This is something that I have felt called to do for several weeks now, and thanks to DrummerWife's (and others) organization over the last few weeks, it's finally a reality. Initially, we wanted to honor Aaron's memory by gathering toys for hospitalized children at Bryn Mawr Hospital - the same hospital that Aaron spent his entire short life in. But, after contacting Bryn Mawr about making a toy donation to them...they never returned our calls. So...we've decided to donate ...

Dear Aaron, Happy 23 week Heaven Day sweet pea! I hope that you are doing well. So much is going here. Changes everywhere. I am not sure that I needed more changes, but I guess I got them. This week I can't help but remembering that it was this time last year that I got pregnant. That makes me so incredibly sad. I did not even know it yet, but you were already being formed inside of me. Now here we are a year later and yet you are no longer here with us. Also, last night it occurred to me...I have been so hung up on this job thing, being laid off and all - I said to your daddy that it would all be different right now if you were here. I would have taken a layoff with open arms, because it would have meant more time with you. All day with you. But now instead of that I was nervous and worried about what I would do. The good news is that I did get a new job. I will have to take a couple of weeks off, but that will be okay. It gives me some time to get things in order. ...

Dear Aaron, Happy 22 Week Heaven Day Aaron. I think about you all of the time right now. So many things happened over the past week. Saturday was October 28th - you would have been 6 months old - well I suppose 6 months going on 2 months, but none the less. I can't even believe that 6 months ago you entered this world. Yesterday would have been exactly 5 months since you went to heaven. On Friday I found I would be losing my job, which made me NOT realize that Saturday was you 6 month birthday. I realized it Sunday after I got a card from you great uncle and aunt and cousins saying they would be thinking about you on Saturday. I was so happy to get the card and that someone remembered something like that - they even wrote you a little note that said "Dear Aaron, We celebrate that you arrived six months ago to be with us. We miss you very much. You will always hold a special place in our heart." So now here we are 6 months after your birth and 5 months after you...

Or not. Warning! Mini-rant to follow! At what point did the "this house only has candy if the outside light is on" rule go out of style for trick-or-treaters? We got through about half of our session last night with our grief counselor, when trick-or-treaters started ringing her doorbell. Now, I understand there's no way they could have known that we were inside talking about our issues, but the outside light was legitimately off. I was always told as a kid that you only knocked on doors or rang the doorbells of homes with an outside light on while trick-or-treating. Oy. Okay. Back to the business at hand: our grief counselor thinks I might be a *tad* depressed. I can't imagine why that might be. Honestly though...I don't know if I am or not. I don't think I'm moping around...this crap that keeps happening is definitely starting to wear me thin, but I'm not feeling despondent or anything. I don't know - it probably wouldn't hurt to talk to a d...