i can't imagine heaven's lullabies, and what they must sound like...

Sorry to go sad on you all... but I'm really missing our babies tonight.  I thought I've been doing pretty well, but then there's those times that it just hits you all over again.  Like the fact that....

• baby #1 would be 22 weeks right now [the size of a papaya, 11 inches long!] or baby #2 would be almost 18 weeks [the size of a sweet potato, 5.5 inches long!]
• we'd know the sex of either baby #1 or baby #2 by now (or very, very soon) and I'd be going nuts buying all kinds of cute little outfits and things for him/her- not to mention he/she would surely have their first pair of hockey skates by now.
• and therefore we'd have a name picked out for our sweet little one as well!
• I'd be feeling either of our little peanuts moving by now, and he/she would be able to hear our voices speaking to him/her and telling him/her how much we love them and can't wait to meet them
• We'd only have to wait a few short months to meet our little one, see what he/she looks like, and start learning what kind of little person he/she is. 

But instead, I've got nothing.  Two angel babies looking down on us from heaven.  I guess that's better than none, but I would give anything for our sweet little one(s) to be with me in my belly right now.  It doesn't help that I still get e-mails and phone notifications telling me "Congratuations! You're 17 weeks pregnant today!" or remembering all of the plans that we had made thinking there was a little one on the way, or when somebody [innocently] asks when we're "going to have babies already?!". 

What upsets infuriates me even more is to see others take their pregnancy or child for granted.  Like the lady at our pool who is 20-some weeks pregnant and smokes 5+ cigarettes in the 2.5 hours she's at the pool while munching on a wide variety of junk foods.  Or that freaking Casey Anthony trial (she's soooo guilty).  How could someone kill their sweet, innocent child like that?  

Please give your child (or beautiful baby belly) an extra hug and kiss tonight and make sure to tell them how much you love them.  Don't forget to take time to step back and realize how blessed you truly are! 

As for those of you in situations similar to us, I hope that you will find comfort in knowing that you are not alone... and that surely, there are better days to come ♥

"Glory Baby" by Watermark

[as posted on My Baby Still]

Glory baby, you slipped away as fast as we could say baby…baby..

You were growing, what happened dear?

You disappeared on us baby…baby..

Heaven will hold you before we do

Heaven will keep you safe until we’re home with you…

Until we’re home with you…

And we miss you everyday

Miss you in every way

But we know there’s a

day when we will hold you

We will hold you

You’ll kiss our tears away

When we’re home to stay

Can’t wait for the day when we will see you

We will see you

But baby let sweet Jesus hold you

‘till mom and dad can hold you…

You’ll just have heaven before we do

You’ll just have heaven before we do

Sweet little babies, it’s hard to

understand it ‘cause we’re hurting

We are hurting

But there is healing

And we know we’re stronger people through the growing

And in knowing-

That all things work together for our good

And God works His purposes just like He said He would…

Just like He said He would…

I can’t imagine heaven’s lullabies

and what they must sound like

But I will rest in knowing, heaven is your home

And it’s all you’ll ever know…all you’ll ever know…

"uh, I think our building is on fire"

Well, first off, thank you to everyone for their sweet messages yesterday!  It makes me feel a little less crazy in this world knowing that I'm not the only one that has times like this (wait, does that make me... normal?!)  My time at the spa was a-maz-ing, it really helped me relax and get rid of the extra tension and stress in my body.  A couple of glasses of wine and some time spent with girlfriends later and I'm feeling much better!  All I needed to top it off was a good nights sleep, which looked to be promising.

That is, until 1:30 a.m....

When we were woken up by Maddie who would not quit barking.  I was half asleep, but J eventually got up because she wouldn't stop. He said he smelled something right away, and we could see the flashing lights through the blinds. He sleepishly stumbled over and opened the blinds to look out, and his reaction? "uhhh, babe, I think our building is on fire.  Theres like 5 fire trucks, police cars and ambulances outside and all the firemen are looking up at our building." WTF?!



the lovely circus outside of our building


So, I jump out of bed... He was going to go check it out and turned on the light. I could immediately see all the smoke in the air (of OUR apartment!) and then I was really freaking out.  WHY aren't the firemen getting us out?  WHY hasn't anyone come knock on our door?  WHY is there no fire alarm going off?  ARE we going to have to go to a hotel?  WHAT is going to happen to all our stuff?!  WHY are they just standing there looking up at us, freakin pull your ladder out come rescue us already!  WTF!  As I'm having my mini freak-out, J peeks out to the hallway... and one of the neighbors was doing the same. "I think the building is on fire, better get outside" was their conclusion (gee, ya think?... men!) so I'm grabbing wallet, keys, passports, MADDIE, I even stuffed some stuff in a bag cause if we couldn't get back in that night there was no chance in hell I was walking around anywhere in my pink penguin jammies and no makeup today.  (A lovely habit I've always possesed, like when I was little and I would quickly pack up all of my most important belongings [dolls and hockey trophys] and bring them to the basement in a tornado warning)
We bundled up and headed down the stairs.  We saw a fireman on the way and tried to ask him what was going on and if we needed to go outside. Guy didn't speak English. Figures. You'd think a firefighter in a big city would at least understand the word "OUT!?"

So... we leave, find out that there was a fire in one of the apartments on the first floor (in the door and to the left, thank goodness we're up one floor and to the right or we probably would have gotten a lot more smoke in our place!) The fire was out but we had to wait for the smoke to clear out. (now is when I was feeling like an idiot for carrying around my bag of goodies.... ha!)

We finally got to go back in, most of the smoke was gone but it still SMELLS, even this morning. I was convinced I was going to suffer from smoke inhalation (dramatic? haha) and thought we needed to go to the nearest hotel.  All J wanted to do at that point was go back to bed, he had practice in 7 hours.

So now I'm sitting here with our windows open (it's -16 out, yipee) and the stove fan on, hoping to clear the rest of the nasty smell out :(   I looked the story up online to read about it since there were several reporters out last night.  They think the cause was electrical, still invesigating.  The people obviously got out but they had 2 cats that both died.  I'm no cat lover, but that alone could make me cry.  I'm the one that cries freaking bawls every time that Sara Evans ASPCA commercial comes on. RIP, kitties :(

Freaks me out a little that there are clearly no fire alarms in the building.  Is that even legal?  Surely wouldn't be in the U.S.!  Good thing we have such a good guard dog with her keen ears and nose!!  Extra treats for her today.

Maybe I can make another attempt at a good nights sleep tonight...

that's it.

...I'm going to the spa.  I need some severe de-stressing and relaxation.  I've been in a terrible funk for over a week now and can't seem to shake it. 

I was hesitant to make any sort of blog posts about my little self-pity party, in fear that friends, family, and anyone else reading would think that I had gone off the deep end and put me in a psych ward.  But if it's any consolation, over the past couple weeks, I have found that I'm not alone.  Fellow hockey wife bloggers KY , Hockey Wife and Life of a Hockey Widow have recently blogged about similar feelings.  KY has dubbed it "hockey season-al depression", and it is just that. 

It's January.  It's cold.  It's dark.  The new-ness of the hockey season and excitement of being in a new place is totally gone.  It's the second half of the season, yet the off-season seems so far away.   The holidays have come and gone.  It's been almost 5 months since I've seen friends or family back home.  The day-to-day struggles of living in a foreign country, though a little easier now, are still very present and real.  (this is where I could go on and on forever... but I'll spare us both)

I think know J has come scar-ily close to booking me on the next flight home the past few days.  I haven't been able to shake things, even with all of his love and support.  I've realized this is something that no one is going to be able to fix but me. 

As a friend (and fellow hockey wife in Europe)'s facebook status said today: 

"We may not be able to control events, but we can control our attitude toward them."

It is so right.  I need an attitude adjustment. 

So today I called J while he was on the bus to an away game.  Short and sweet, "I'm going to the spa.  I need a massage.  I love you, I'm sorry.  Bye"

Time to shift the negativity into positivity.  What better way to start than with a trip to the spa, follwed by a girls night while the guys are gone?  Ahhhhh, I can feel the stress shedding from my body already....

lazy day

Well, today was just that!  I'm officially a bum today.  I woke up early to say goodbye to J- he and the guys from the team went to Amsterdam for the weekend- and then fell back asleep until just before noon!  Yikes.  I've been exhausted lately, so it did feel good.  My back has been sore last night/today, which has made things fairly unpleasant :(  Standing up, sitting down, walking, running... no matter what I do I feel like an old lady!  Good thing there was nothing on my calendar for today.

I was planning to head downtown and pick up a book that I've been looking for, but when I headed to dragged my butt to the gym, I made the executive decison that it was too cold and I knew that once I got back home there was no way I'd want to go back out.  The temperature is -12 Celsius (10F) but the wind is what is the killer!  Maybe tomorrow I'll get my book... :)

I've decided now that I'm starting (key word: starting) to get the hang of this blogging thing, I need to spice up my page a bit.  Keep an eye out for some changes in the next week or two :)  And if any of you bloggers have any tips for me- feel free to help a sister out! :)

Sorry for the short post today- I need to get back to nursing my poor back!

♥

One week until Christmas!

♥

teddy bears!!

Well, today was just one of those days.  Argg. 

On the bright side, the highlight of my day was a trip to Finnish Toys R Us.  Yes, seriously!  The team is having a "teddy bear toss" at tomorrow nights game, so we went in search of some cute little bears.  I'm assuming most of you from North America know what a teddy bear toss is, but for those of you who don't know it is all about, it's where the team has fans bring a new teddy bear and/or stuffed animal(s) to the game, and when the team scores their first goal, you throw the bear onto the ice.  The bears are then collected and given to children's charities (i.e. children's hospital, foster care, homeless shelters, etc.)  J's junior hockey team used to do this and they would collect thousands of bears and stuffed animals.  There would be all kinds- I even recall seeing some that were the size of a small child being lugged around and eventually thrown onto the ice.  Here is a picture that I took at J's junor game way back when...

I know a lot of other teams in the U.S. and Canada love the Teddy Bear Toss tradition also, and I think it's great that they're bringing it to Finland.  We picked out a cute brown bear with a bow around his neck, and a monkey with really long, goofy arms because he was too cute to resist. 

I would have bought all the stuffed animals that Toys R Us had if I were able to carry them all... 2 will have to do for this year.  It's important to remember, especially at this time of the year, the children and families who are less fortunate than we are.  It's so easy to get caught up in making Christmas lists and shopping for our loved ones (don't get me wrong, I plan to do both of those as well!) but even something small can make a big difference in someone's life.  I was lucky enough as a child to wake up on Christmas morning with presents overflowing from under the tree.  I wouldn't trade those memories for anything in the world, and I get great pleasure in knowing I can help a child have some of those same special memories.  It may only have been 2 bears this year (we are still trying to figure out if they do "giving trees" in Finland so hopefully we can do more!), but as long as they bring a smile to a child's face this holiday season, that's good enough for me!!