Wednesday, January 11, 2012

October 2011

 The next few posts I'm going to be linking up with Robin at Farewell Stranger who writes a beautifully personal PPD blog. She's doing a series of blog posts which look back at the wonderful moments of the past year despite struggling through motherhood and PPD. I'm doing this series along with her because I desperately want to remember the first year of Natalie's life as something positive and beautiful instead of full of pain, frustration, anger, anxiety and darkness.

A month of Fall Fun!
One of the best things that Craig and I did during the month of October was take a full day off from work to go to the State Fair with Natalie.  It was so wonderful to have a relaxing day with our little family.

On a side note....it's amazing to see how much Natalie's hair has grown in just a few months!  It's coming in so dark - what a contrast with her bright, blue eyes!

This moment was one of those *classic* parenting moments.  She had played so hard all day at Ms. Rebecca's house and had refused to take any sort of nap while she was there.  That night Craig was downstairs with her in the bouncer while I was taking care of things upstairs.  He came up and told me to sneak downstairs slowly and quietly and this is the scene that I saw.  I couldn't help but giggle.  What a tired little girl.

Natalie was baptized during October and it was such a special service with all our closest friends and family members.

We've had a pretty mild autumn and winter this year and we took advantage of a great afternoon and took Natalie to the park to swing and look at the ducks.  I'll be honest - the sunglasses didn't last too long, but that's okay.....I got a picture of her in them and that's all that matters.

Oh Halloween.  Before the trick or treaters started I took Natalie and Angie out onto the front porch for some fun pictures but there was this kid across the street loudly bouncing a ball.  I absolutely love this picture of my two girls checking out the scene in their coordinating ladybug costumes.  And yes....believe it or not, my dog enjoys being dressed up.  She bounces off the walls when I pull her clothes (yes, plural) out of the closet for her to wear.

It's become a tradition with our friends the Mannings to celebrate Halloween together and this year was no different.  Well.....there were two big differences actually - Natalie and the Mannings youngest daughter Jacklyn who is ten weeks older than Natalie.  I love this picture because you can sense that they are communicating with each other.  Probably saying "why did our mothers put us in these stupid costumes and hoods."

October was better.  I was definitely on the upward swing of things despite lingering tension with some family members.  Craig and I were keeping my issues close at hand and not really sharing the struggles that we were going through.  There were only a few (I mean, literally like TWO) people in the world that knew what I was going through.  Although I had come to terms with the situation I wasn't quite ready for other people to know - I guess I was still somewhat ashamed about it all.  Not sure why....

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