Molly Piper

On Sunday, our little Morrow turned TWO!

We celebrated with our family of SIX(!!!) and our friend Wendy Maybury, who just happens to be a professional photographer and just happened to bring her awesome camera and her love for our kids along.

Morrow is in love with all sports that involve a ball. His favorite at this juncture is basketball. So I attempted basketball cupcakes!

Feel free to submit these to Cake Wrecks if you feel you must. I don’t have the steadiest hand, if you couldn’t tell! I went back and forth between thinking that some of them looked cute and thinking that they looked like spiderwebs. You decide.

Regardless, this was how Morrow felt about them:

And this is how Morrow looked when he was eating one:

Pure enjoyment! I’m no Martha Stewart when it comes to how my cupcakes look, but I’ll take that smile over perfect cupcakes any day!

For the occasion, Cadence wore her first dress! Morrow is in love with the twins. He loves to hold them, give them kisses, throw their dirty diapers in the garbage, and get clean diapers out of the diaper basket.

Orison and Morrow shared some sparkling grape juice for the special day. I love how this picture turned out. It looks like stock photography or something (except for the fact that it looks like our 5-year-old is drinking wine).

I can’t believe it’s been two years since Morrow came into our lives! In some ways it feels like yesterday, and in some ways it feels like we’ve always had him in our family. He brings such laughter into our lives every day.

Happy birthday, Johnner. We love you so very much!

A week or so ago, my husband posted this hilarious (and very cute) video of a baby gorilla practicing his chest thumping:

Ever since, Morrow’s been practicing his baby gorilla:

A few weeks ago Orison and Morrow were playing so well together, I just had to get it on video. Morrow loves to copy the things Orison does (for better or for worse).

So if your weekend promises little entertainment, enjoy the Piper Family Circus! (I’m sure Orison would have come up with a much cleverer name, but you’ve got me on a Friday afternoon.)

This little guy is Morrow John. Morrow is 21 months old, and has no idea what’s coming at him in August. He is my major priority right now as I near the home stretch of this pregnancy.

In a way his cluelessness is a blessing, because he’ll never remember his life without his two little sisters. But I also want to do what I can to nurture and care for him in one-on-one ways that make him feel safe and secure as we head into this major change.

Morrow loves to play at the park. Most of the time I’m too tired to take him, so it’s a special treat right now.

Morrow loves his friend “La-la.”

Morrow loves watermelon in a major way.

I’ve mentioned before that Morrow loves babies, and I know he’ll love his sisters. But I also want to cherish these moments with him as my baby. Yesterday I watched his naked behind streak down the dock at our friends’ lake and I just want to hold that memory in my heart forever. It was so beautiful.

So for now, I’m trying to prepare for this major future event but still live in the present of being mom to little Morrow Johnner.

I know it’s kinda late in the week to be posting about Mother’s Day, but I just wanted to share about the weekend. I had a lot of FUN this Mother’s Day!

It started on Friday when Abraham told me he’d been given 2 tickets to the new Target Field (home of the Minnesota Twins) for the Saturday afternoon game. It was supposed to be rainy and cold but we decided to be true Minnesotans and go out to the game anyway! I took my 24-week picture, of course…the twins at the Twins!

By the way, those weren’t our seats. Ours were up in the top deck, but we decided to explore a bit after the game. It was fun to just get to sit together for a couple hours, even if we could see our breath and had to wear winter hats!

Then on Sunday, we had a lovely time at church, went out to lunch with Abraham’s parents and sister, and then went home to lay down!

After naps we went out to Dairy Queen, where I got my favorite Butterfinger Blizzard. Here’s an attempt at a good picture:

After DQ, we went to the cemetery. The kids just run and have fun there, which is kinda cool. I had to bribe them to sit for this one.

I was able to snap a quick one of Morrow while he was on the run:

The only sad part was when we were driving away, Morrow said, completely unprompted, “Bye-bye, dee-dee-dee.” Translation: Bye-bye, Felicity.

Here’s a couple more pictures from recent days, just because I’m crazy about these guys:

I’m so deeply thankful that I get to mother these two characters. And I’m happy to report that this Mother’s Day brought more smiles than tears. That’s a blessed change.

If you jump over to Abraham’s latest post, you’ll see a very short video he edited last night of Morrow doing his latest trick.

Morrow is 20 months tomorrow, which means he’ll be turning two after the twins are born. Lord have mercy…

One of the weird things about expecting twins is not knowing my timetable. When I thought it was a single baby, I was kinda like:

Okay, baby at the end of August. I’ll stop working at the end of May, and then I’ll have the whole summer to hang out with the boys and do fun and productive stuff.

Hmmm…

I get the most stressed out right now by the not knowing. Mostly it’s not knowing when I’m going to be basically incapacitated, or functioning at a very low level.

At my doctor’s appointment last week, she told me to expect to look and feel 40 WEEKS at 28 weeks. WHAT?!?!?

So now the twin-time time crunch is on! In the next couple months I need to:

• Buy a mini-van. We started the process on Saturday, and it was exhausting! I will definitely NOT want to be traipsing waddling around car lots when I feel 40 weeks pregnant.
• Get stuff! We now have our infant car seats, some hand-me-down cribs, and a double Snap & Go stroller (which I hear is an essential for twins).

Little Morrow excitedly checking it all out.

Funny side story: Morrow loves babies. He loves to say baby. He loves to wave his hands in front of babies’ faces and say, “Hi baby!!!” So when he saw Abraham out the back window bringing this loot home, he started yelling, “BABY! BABY!” I think he thought we were actually getting 2 babies, not just 2 car seats.

Anyway, back to my twin-time list:

• Get a bunk bed for the boys’ room. Our friend Phil is going to build one for us! By the way (shameless plug coming), Phil has his own custom woodworking and remodeling company. If you live in the Twin Cities and need anything fix-it related, he’s a trustworthy man who’s great at what he does!
• Transition Morrow and Orison into the same room. This was always the plan (because I don’t think kids need their own rooms), but now the timetable is really moving up!
• Set up the cribs and decorate the girls’ room. My friend Jenna is going to help me make the bedding. These are the fabrics I’m thinking of using:

Right now everything seems kinda moved up on the calendar.

In other news, my stomach issues have improved so much! Thank you for praying for me. I’m able to eat more fatty foods now, though I’m still staying away from pork. I’m able to eat beef, though, and my first cheeseburger over the weekend was glorious! And I can eat regular ice cream, which is simply awesome! I’m very thankful for this change, too, since I actually need a good bit of fat each day to support the development of two babies.

Well, I’m sure this isn’t the last of the news on the preparations we need to make for the twins to come. Thanks for being interested enough to read this!

I thought some of you would like to see the video of Abraham and me telling 5-year-old Orison about his twin sisters. Actually, I know some of you want to see this, because you specifically asked me to film it!

A little background…Orison desperately wanted a sister this time around. He’s been praying for another one for two and a half years! So this was a sweet moment all around.

Enjoy!

Every year around major holidays, there’s a particular sting for a mom missing her only daughter. It comes when I set out to find a decent-looking set of clothes for my sons to wear.

Here’s the criteria I’m usually looking for:

• Nothing with cartoon characters on them (or skulls & crossbones, thank you very much).
• Something affordable (I don’t want to spend more than $20-25 per kid), but still made nicely.
• Something handsome, usually with a tie and collared dress shirt (Orison loves a good clip-on).

You’d be surprised how difficult this quest can be. I try department stores, and then the lesser-expensive department stores (Target, Kohl’s), and then move onto stores like Marshall’s.

What I hoped would be a fun way to buy some cute clothes for my kids usually turns into frustration and anger, though. I spend five minutes just trying to find the boys’ dress clothes amidst the sea of girl dress clothes. Eventually I might find a rack or two, and I’ll think from looking at the front, “Oh, this one looks nice…” and then I turn it over and there’s a HUGE applique on the back that says something like “Little Devil” with a demon face on it. What?!?! Do people buy this stuff???

I’m sure the equivalent for little girls would say something like “Perfect Angel” or something sweet like that. Because we all know that girls are just so sweet and perfect, and boys so…not???

I’m sorry, I know it probably sounds like I’m bitter. I’ll admit it, I get angry. It really sucks to go in the kids’ clothes section at all sometimes. And then to be so poignantly reminded that I have no business shopping on 90% of the racks hurts even more. It’s like there’s a big sign slapped on all those racks:

“You Don’t Belong Here.”

I know there are other women like me, living without their only daughter. There’s a particular hole for a mom, a woman, who loses her chance to raise her little girl. So many hopes and dreams die with that little girl.

One thing I’ve learned on my journey is that if I take the time to listen to what’s going on in my heart, all this anger and frustration, and let God pull me deeper, past the self-protectiveness of the anger, I get down to the pain of it. If I will get honest with God there in my anger, he always shows me just how much I’m hurting. Somehow the wall of anger crumbles and I’m left in the rubble, weeping.

Because underneath the anger is always the pain. I can stay there in the anger and grow bitter and hard (trust me, the temptation is there), but God has helped me see that it’s always better to let myself feel all of the emotions (first the anger) and then search for what’s really going on in my heart. Pretty much 100% of the time, under the anger is pain. More pain to feel, more tears to cry, more aspects of the loss that I need to grieve.

Sometimes I don’t want to go there. Sometimes I just want to rant and rail against my situation. Sometimes I just want to buy clothes for my sons. It’s hard and frustrating. Sometimes it feels like there’s nowhere to go from the pain–it can rise up anytime or anywhere. Grief is not just for grieving places, like the cemetery. It happens in other stranger places–you know, places like Kohl’s.

I suppose the other option would be to pretend like I don’t feel the anger. “No, no, no…it’s bad to be angry. God took Felicity away and I have to be happy and content with that.” If I decide on this option, I also miss the chance to grieve, just like I would have if I would’ve stayed hard and angry and bitter.

But Jesus doesn’t turn away the grievers. “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.” I am called blessed. And I’m promised His comfort.

This is blessed assurance. It’s like a great big sign at the foot of the Cross that say:

“You Belong Here.”

Last week I wrote about the fear that kept me from blogging about being pregnant. This is another post written during my post-Felicity pregnancy, the one that brought the blessed arrival of Morrow. Morrow is now 17-months-old. So this post is old.

The first reason was fear; the second reason I didn’t post about my pregancy was time.

*               *               *

Aside from the fear of telling people about our upcoming arrival, I also had a deep longing during this unique season to focus on my daughter.

From the time this pregnancy started, I’ve felt this desire to protect her place in my life and heart, not ever wanting to feel like I was trying to replace her.

I’ve also known that these months where I could focus my energies more on her and her memory were limited. Especially as we got closer to having our second son, I kind of wished that I could be pregnant longer, just so I could keep focusing on Felicity.

I knew that the instant he arrived, my affections and heart would be different, because I would have so much love for him. But what would happen to the feelings I still want to have for Felicity? Will there be room enough for all of them? I almost felt like her territory was being encroached upon. Not that this would be the fault of our next child AT ALL; I just felt like her little spot in my life would get even smaller. And as her mother, I dreaded that.

I never, ever want to leave her behind. And in some ways, I know I won’t. But in other ways it’s inevitable that our life will move on. And I’ve wanted to hope so badly that it will be good when it did.

I just finished an excellent book by Jerry Sittser called A Grace Disguised. A dear sister gave it to me. Her full-term daughter Addie died due to complications during birth just over a year ago. Anyway, if you have ever experienced any kind of loss, this is an excellent book. One of the closing statements really shed light on what I just described.

The accident remains now, as it always has been, a horrible experience that did great damage to us and to so many others. It was and will remain a very bad chapter. But the whole of my life is becoming what appears to be a very good book.

Since I’m writing this before the arrival of this child, I don’t know how all that is going to shake out. I suppose you’ll hear more about it in the coming months. I’m thankful for the book that God is writing. I never thought it would include a chapter like Felicity’s, but it has. By no means is the chapter finished, but now there is another chapter called “Morrow.”

*          *          *

Reading this post again after so much time has passed is very interesting. I thought that having another child would be so healing for me. And ultimately, it was. But I was expecting it to be healing in the short run, too, and it wasn’t. In reality, having another child sent me into a new wave of grief after his birth.

It was after his birth that I finally came to terms with my depression and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). It was after his birth that I got the most counseling (professional and non-professional). His birth didn’t remove me from the pain of losing Felicity, it blew the lid off of it.

I thought I was focusing on Felicity in the year after her death when I was pregnant with Morrow. Looking back on it, what I can remember at least, I was still in shock. I was pregnant (And happy to be!) 3 months after her death, but it caused me to focus on the pregnancy and what was ahead more than focusing on healing from the wounds of the past. So much so that when we got through the pregnancy with the hoped-for result (a living baby), all the pain of the pregnancy with the unhoped-for result forced its way to the top.

And that had to happen. I had to come to terms with the deep pain and loss. And I did that with a new baby at my breast.

In some ways, he saved my life. He ushered me into the darkest, most painful places I’ve ever been, where I wrestled and struggled and thought for sure I would die. He was my constant companion through those dark, dark days—grunting, smiling, filling his diaper. It was like his presence and the regularity of his need for me kept me alive, kept me waking up every morning, forced me to go to my counseling appointments (since I only had a small window until he’d need me again), and gave me a reason to want to get to the other side.

He was God’s little catalyst for my healing, ultimately.

So there I was, my whole pregnancy with Morrow, worrying about having enough time to grieve. Turns out, God had hardly begun the mega-process I was in. He gave me just the right time, with just the right people, and one very special baby who remained a mystery to all of you while God knit him together.