Diaper Wars

I don't know if it's just our family, but we have never been able to find a specific brand of diaper that works for us. Ryker and Skyler are both still in diapers full time and we have several in diapers over night, I know I know we're terrible parents. Regardless, this means we go through diapers and need a brand that is going to not only work, but also be affordable. We found out the hard way however that cheap diapers are often cheap for a reason. I think at this point we have tried every brand of diaper out there and it's too the point I am more than willing to spend extra money on the brand we actually like. We had been using the Target "Up and Up" brand when Skyler was first born, but when Ryker was adopted we tried them on him and he broke out-okay so not that brand! As much as we loved the price they weren't going to cut it! So we moved onto Pampers, my sister had a box left after switching brands, Ryker was still breaking out and Skyler had several blowouts! I was dying here! Then I bought a small package of Huggies, I figured why not! They were on sale, there were only a few in the package so it wasn't too bad if my kids couldn't use them and I'm so glad we only bought a small package they leaked and Ryker was still breaking out. I finally swallowed my pride and went and tried a more expensive brand, we got a sample pack of the Honest Company Diapers and they have been amazing! I have always thought that the Honest Company had the cutest designs, they are actually known for being more adorable than other diapers or at least that's the reason moms as Target have given me for buying them. Once we started using them within a week we realized that Ryker's rash was FINALLY going away! As much as I would love to save money, because I'm going to be "Honest" here, they are a little pricey they are worth the money. They also have kept everything in the diaper, we haven't had a major blowout or any leakage it's been a glorious few weeks of having diapers that work. I will say this, they should offer some kind of like "twin package" where they have the boy and girl prints in the box split evenly. Not that I really care what the diaper looks like, but it's 90+ degrees out and our air doesn't work so they should look cute while they walk around in diapers. Overall, Honest is the best brand we've tried and it will be the last brand we try.

Dealing with bullies

As the school year gets closer, I have more and more meetings with teachers, principals, and administrators. It's exhausting, but when you have a transgender child this is your life! We need a game plan, things that I took for granted are now the hardest decisions for the school and myself to make. Simple little things like, which dress code does she follow, what name should they call her by, bathroom issues(no longer a huge issue THANK YOU OBAMA!!!) and so much more have been asked, but Jason and I still have one huge worry. How will they deal with bullying? I plan on asking them this at our next meeting, but honestly I'm upset this hasn't come up already. How will she deal with this? She'll only be five! She will have JUST turned five the day she starts kindergarten! She shouldn't have to worry about the bullies, but we've already had to prep her for it when we do anything. When we go out we remind Callie, and all our other kids to be honest, that they are beautiful and God made them in a special way and sometimes people just can't see that yet. We've told Callie that she can't be sensitive. She can't be a little kid about this and it sucks, she's had to grow up so fast. She's already had people at the pool ask why she wears shorts over her bathing suit, so many that all of the girls and myself started doing the same to help her feel better about it. It's no secret that we love Jazz Jennings and her family and watching her show has shown me how bad the bullying can get. That's our fear, another fear is that the school won't handle the bullying correctly. When I was bullied in 9th grade the teachers and principal insisted that there was no bullying because they hadn't seen anything! I don't want that for our girl, I want to know that she is beyond protected. 110% protected and kept safe by her teachers, I am hoping that they agree to keep her safe and promise me they will inform me of any issues that go on. This bullying thing is something she will have to deal with for the rest of her life, but I think kindergarten should be a fun time not a scary time. Here's to hoping it goes smoothly!

She's not gay!

It seems like one of the biggest misconceptions with being transgender is that people assume you're gay. We get it all the time, "oh he's just gay!" or even backlash from the LGBTQ community saying that "transgender" is just a cover up for being gay. I don't get why people have a hard time grasping the concept that they are actually two entirely different things. My daughter is four, so I guess I can't really say she's not gay, but I can say she is in-fact transgender which doesn't equal gay. She has stated in the past that she is a girl and likes boys, she identifies as a girl and that's perfectly fine with me. Being transgender is 100% different, transgender is a gender identity thing whereas being gay is a sexual preference you were born in your gender that you identify with totally different! I don't often get overly offended by people's opinions but my mommy claws come out when people say bad things about my kid. This includes the people who claim to support LGBTQ rights, but only choose what letters don't deserve those rights. This isn't just allies, it includes the community as a whole not recognizing transgender as being an issue. With all of the vigils going on for the victims of the Orlando shooting naturally the transgender community lent a hand, however it has come with backlash one gay man decided to bash a transgender teen and called the teen the wrong pronoun because he doesn't believe in being transgender. That was a person in the community, if we don't have support in the community who do we have support from? Sometimes I feel like we're fighting a losing battle and that no one is truly listening to the struggles of being transgender. One day. I pray one day that we have the support, even if it's just our community.

You trust a homeless person?!

If you are friends with me on any social media platform you know Jason and I befriended a young single father, who just happens to be homeless. We have pretty much adopted him and his five year old son as our own and have been taking care of them as well as we can. Yes, that includes buying him things he needs. I know-you don't even know this guy! Or everyone's favorite assumption "he probably does drugs". If you think either of those things, you're wrong! We actually had no idea he was homeless for about the first week of our friendship, we met at the pool and our kids got along and he was a former teen parent so he was one of us! We had no clue we were changing his life that much by inviting him over for a meal or two or giving his son a hoodie on one of the cold summer nights. It wasn't until a street fair happened and Jason offered to pick them up he confessed to living in a hotel, that was when we realized how bad this was. So, yes we do in-fact know the guy, which means we also know he doesn't do drugs. The reason for him being homeless is personal and yes he knows I'm writing this he's actually sitting next to me as I type it, but I won't be saying why he is homeless out of respect to him. However I will be saying this, yes it is often times hard to trust a homeless person I mean you never know what they will spend the money on. We actually have a local guy who goes around asking for money and then goes to the bar and spends it on beer. My advice, if you're helping a homeless person give them food. His sign he stands with actually says he would rather have food than money and he full heartedly means that. If someone is truly down on their luck they will appreciate anything you give them trust me, I've seen this first hand with his son. This post isn't to pat us on the back, it's to show you the good side of homeless people because our blog is all about acceptance-for everyone!

Putting Others First

Sometimes I feel like life gets crazy and we forget our real purpose on this earth. Despite what people think, it's not to be the "perfect" person and bash others for living different lifestyles it's to love one another and put people before ourselves. Growing up I watched The Duggars and every special they had, I remember one special they talked about practicing J.O.Y. and explained what it was and it's something that has stuck with me since then. J.O.Y. is an acronym for Jesus first Others second Yourself third. From that moment I realized I need J.O.Y. in my life as well and adopted the term and have taught it to all nine kids. Putting Jesus first is much easier said than done, it's something that definitely takes a lot of time and work, but that's perfectly fine. Putting others second is also a hard one and it seems to be the forgotten one by so many people. I realized recently in our family we have become so absorbed in our daily lives and figuring out what to do for our kids birthdays, what to buy them for Christmas, the latest and greatest school supplies-anything that we could get OUR kids we were thinking about. We were forgetting that this world is not about us, it's not about all the things our kids want, it's about helping people get the things they NEED. I realized that our family needed to  stop thinking so selfishly and start thinking selflessly something that is kind of hard when you have so much going on. Luckily, God knew that I needed a reminder of why I'm here and gave me the opportunity to not just help someone a little, but change someones life completely and I am so blessed that I am able to do the work God wants me to do. I am hoping that as I go forward I remember to practice J.O.Y. because I have nine little kids watching me and I want them to learn by my example of how to do this. I know however, if I forget again and get caught up in life I will always be able to be reminded.

Fathers' Day!

Since it's Fathers' Day and my kids were blessed with the best dad in the world I want to dedicate this post to him. When I met Jason he was a single dad of four kids, he was entirely in love with being a dad and still is.  Being a dad was literally his goal in life growing up and he wanted as many kids as possible-YOU'RE WELCOME JASON! Honestly, despite the fact 90% of the time I want to murder him I love him more than anything, he is the best dad I have ever had the honor of meeting. Words can not express how much his kids adore him, they look forward to the long weekends when he comes home and fight over who gets to talk to him when he calls home. Jason takes his job as a dad very seriously and I love that about him, he never puts himself before his children and it's shown with everything going on with Callie. When he was offered his current job they were listing all of the benefits including the huge, much needed, increase of his salary and he stopped them to ask something. He asked their policy on transgender rights and protecting them. He knew at that moment if they didn't support transgender rights he would walk away from it and turn it down. That was just one of the many times he put his family before his wants, no matter what is going on he makes sure his family is okay. When my grandma died he was three hours away, it was early in the morning and we normally don't call each other too early because neither of us like mornings so when he saw his phone screen light up with my name on it he knew it wasn't going to be a good phone call. I apparently never even got the words out about what happened, I just cried and said "my grandma" and he told me he'd be home ASAP. He meant it, next thing I knew he was at the house taking care of the kids so I could go be with my dad and brother. He knew he had to be here, he never uses distance as an excuse to miss any big event in the kids lives. He has vowed to them to never miss at least their first game and then their last home game(all of them are home games right now though!), he promised to never miss a karate tournament, a gym meet, or whatever they're doing he wants to be as involved as possible and I love that about him. People always question why I would be okay with a "random guy" parenting my kids, but if you knew him you'd understand he's more than just a father, he is a dad. "Anyone can be a father, but it takes someone special to be a dad"-Wade Boggs. Happy Fathers' Day Jason! We love you!

Birthday Party Dilemma

Have you ever  wondered how parents of sextuplets plan birthday parties? Cause as I sit here planning six birthday parties for the summer I am totally wondering what they do! For starters, do you throw one birthday party? Two-one for the boys one for the girls? Or do you throw each child their own party? The struggle is real. I think it is a little different in our situation because they aren't actually sextuplets they're just all born in August/the first week of September and that's where the dilemma comes in. I mean I could personally crank out one birthday party after another without a problem, except maybe my wallet hurting, but I have to think about my family members who are going to murder me if I invite them to six birthday parties in two weeks time. So, with that being said I have to break it to my kids that they have to share a birthday party which also causes a dilemma how do we choose a theme? Where do we have it? Do I ask my family to bring six birthday presents? How do you make the decisions for this big of an issue? Maybe I'm overreacting, but in my opinion birthdays are supposed to be all about the kid and I have to somehow make it all about them....and their brothers and sisters! That's tough. I mean our kids share EVERYTHING and now we're asking them to share a birthday party. Don't get me wrong, we will be spending their actual birthday with the individual birthday kid, but how do we go about doing that? Do we get them gifts specifically for that day and don't give them any at their birthday party? Also, cakes do they each get their own cake? I'm struggling hard man! I'm hoping by August I figure out what the heck I'm doing otherwise I'm just going to say no one gets a birthday party because it's too much work! The struggle man the struggle. Wish me luck and pray for Jason because he has to deal with me complaining.

But why do they hate me?

The Orlando shooting has been one of the most terrible hate acts I have seen and every time I hear someone thankful that it happened it hurts my heart. Jason and I explained to Callie what happened in terms she could understand, when we were done we let her ask questions. The very first question she asked was "Why do they hate me?". This innocent little four year old girl has such a simple question, that neither Jason nor I could answer. As we sat there dumbfounded and unable to give our kindergartner an answer we decided to just hug her we thought it's what she needed the most. I wish more than anything I had the answer to why people hate people like her, she hasn't done anything to them. I wish we didn't have to prepare her for the hate that she's going to face, that we didn't have to scare her like we did. We knew raising a transgender child would be hard, but no one prepared us for this. I don't want to live in a world where every time my daughter goes outside I have to worry about her getting shot or hurt in some way shape or form. I don't want to live in a world where it's justifiable to murder someone because you don't agree with their lifestyle. I don't expect everyone to agree, I don't expect them to magically be okay with me having a transgender four year old, but I do expect my daughter to get the same amount of respect as anyone else. Someone commented on a  post my mom made about praying for the victims saying how he wanted to pray for people fighting for our freedom not "gay freaks" and that commented killed me. How are they freaks? How is someone living their life a freak? Gay people are some of the most successful people out there-hello Ellen!! They are kind, they wake up like you and me, they bleed red which was proven by this terrible event and a post made by one of the doctors about how his shoes were stained red a sad, but true testament to what we've been saying all along. Just because someone lives differently doesn't make them a freak, it doesn't make them less than a person, and most importantly gay people are not pedophiles. Judging someone because of their lifestyle is like me saying all Yankee fans are terrible people who deserve no rights-doesn't make sense does it? That's how you all sound justifying the death of people. One day, I hope my little girl doesn't have to worry about leaving the house. I hope she doesn't have to wonder why people hate her and if everything will be okay. I just pray to God that day is soon.

Having Pride

We were recently contacted asking if we would attend the Philadelphia Pride Parade, it sounded like a perfect chance for Callie to get her feet wet in advocating for herself so we were going to do it. Key words there, "were going to". After hearing about the shooting in Orlando we decided to tell them no and kept our family away from the parade. It's so sad that we have to live in fear because of an act of hate, but this is a reality for our family and so many others. My heart is going out to Orlando right now as I type this, what happened there wasn't fair at all and it was done for no reason other than hate. I can thankfully say our family has never seen this real hate first hand, we may get messages from time to time saying our "son" is a freak or saying we're ruining our child's life but we have never been shot at or threatened. I used to be thankful because I thought that meant our future was getting better and that I didn't have to worry about sending my little girl out in the world, now I know better. Now I know that even though I don't see the hate first hand it's still there. It's still hiding in the dark corners of the world waiting to strike and that scares me so much. I want nothing more than to be able to send Callie to school and have her be herself without worrying if someone is going to kill her just because she's different. I know God made her this way for a reason and I feel in my heart that the reason is to help make a difference in the world, if that means by showing she has pride in herself even though others don't that's fine with me. Raising a transgender child has shown the good and bad in people, some people think that it's the worst thing that can happen to a family and will send us the nasty messages, others will see a picture of my girl and say how beautiful she is. I'm happy to say the people who see passed her being transgender are greater than those who don't, but the ones who don't are the ones who speak their mind the most. I am completely fine with you not agreeing with how I'm raising my child, however, she is my child first and foremost and she deserves every right that we have. Please, if you don't agree with someone don't shoot them. Don't make it so I have to keep my child in a bubble, I want her to be amazing. I want her to have pride in herself, but right now I just want her safe.

It's time for change

If you know me, you know I don't hold back on opinions. I let everything just come out of my mouth most of the time without thinking of what could happen. But, with this subject I feel like anyone with feelings can side with me. If you don't know who Brock Turner is you probably don't watch the news or have Facebook, let me fill you in. Brock Turner is a rapist. That's all you really need to know, at a party he took advantage of a drunk young woman and raped her behind a dumpster, he was given a six month sentence to jail but could get off in three months for good behavior. Yup. All because he's an olympic hopeful in swimming and the judge is quoted with saying"A prison sentence would have a severe impact on him. I think he will not be a danger to others," Persky said when handing down the sentence last week to Brock Turner, who was convicted of three counts of felony sexual assault.". In other words, the severe impact on the young woman who was raped outside, in public, behind a dumpster doesn't matter. Everyone on his side is worried about how it will affect him, but I want to talk about the young woman who seems to have been over looked. She didn't get "20 minutes of action" and she has a severe impact that will never go away thanks to Brock Turner. I don't remember most of what I learned in health, but we learned about rape and we also learned that if someone isn't conscious enough to hold a conversation-THEY AREN'T AGREEING TO HAVE SEX! This is the big thing that is making some people believe that it was okay, because she got herself drunk. That isn't the point, the point is you don't take advantage of someone who can't make the right choices. People always wonder why girls don't tell anyone that they were raped-this is why! They aren't taken seriously enough, sadly this situation is reality for so many young people-men and women-all around the world. When you tell someone you're raped they ask so many questions "Did you say no? a certain amount of time?" "We're you drinking?" "What were you wearing?" "Maybe you sent mixed signals." very rarely do you get the question you need the most "Are you okay?". People are always looking for a loophole, a way to make the guilty party look innocent and the innocent look guilty. But, to anyone who was raped-you are innocent. 110% innocent. Unless you said"Yes" to having sex with someone you never gave consent, if you don't give consent-sorry Turner but that is rape. I don't care if this gets him put on sex offender lists, if he can't eat stake, if has a hard time finding a wife because let me tell you it's nothing compared to what that young woman is feeling. I bet she can't sleep, she can't eat, she probably tries to sleep and sees his face. She'll see his face in every physical relationship she has for the rest of her life. Sex will no longer be a fun thing for her, it'll be a cruel reminder that she wasn't cared about by the law and that a sick pervert is free and got off with a slap on the wrist for ruining her life. She won't be able to get over this and neither should he. It's time we change this law-for the better.

Cleaning out the house

I feel like one of the most done things during summer is for families to clean out their house and have a yard sale. That's what we're attempting to do, we picked out everything that we haven't used recently and we're selling it. I told our kids that if they sell their own things they can have the money, that sparked interest and they decided to go ahead and clean out their rooms a little. When you have nine kids and six of them have August and September birthdays this makes life a little less hectic. As we were pricing things I asked them each what they wanted to buy and Tyson mentioned he wanted to buy a toy for Ryker. Little did I know the toy he wants to buy him is around $100 and Tyson is getting rid of 90% of his toys for it. How many five year olds would do that? As happy as I am that he's trying so hard to get his brother a toy it also kind of breaks my heart that he'd be willing to sell some of his most prized possessions to do so. This is a perfect example though of what we are trying to teach our kids, others before yourself. While my other kids have huge goals of their own to buy with their yard sale money and I am proud of all of them for wanting to save so much for something they will buy on their own, I can't help but feel extra proud of Ty. Anyway, so cleaning is my least favorite thing in the world and I can't wait till we get rid of everything I've realized our house looks worse than when we started! I honestly don't know how people keep their houses clean when they work full time and have kids who play sports. We're normally only home for about 20 minutes per day, but apparently that's all it takes for kids to tear the house apart! Honestly if anyone has any advice about how to handle that, please let me know! Now, it's time for us to leave our house again and go to gymnastics-see never home! Hope everyone has an awesome day!

We survived!!

It's official! The school year is done! No more kindergarten for Zayden and Tyson and no more preschool for the "fantastic four"! The youngest three are also moving up in life-Savannah will start three year old preschool in the fall and Ryker will start the "young toddler class" at our church's school. Skyler is still too young for any classes, but we'll probably start her in a mommy and me class somewhere to keep her busy. I am so proud of all of the kids for doing so well this school year, it was a hard year for all of them but they did it! Callie especially deserves a shout out, when the year started her teacher wasn't okay with the transgender situation and made it very difficult for our girl to feel accepted. We're happy to report after months of Callie fighting back and proving that she knows what's going on her teacher caved and actually stopped Jason and I at the graduation to thank us and apologize. She was so embarrassed by her behavior, she shared with us that she had read our blog and reading the "Losing Noah" post was pretty much enough for her and she knew what was going on was as real as can be. This. This is why our blog exists! I felt honored that our amazing kid helped change someones outlook on a situation such as this. She really is a special kid and we're honored to be her parents. All of our kids made amazing strides this year and I really want to take this moment to highlight all of them. Zayden, oh Zayden where do I start with him? This kid is a handful! Due to some health issues-that our close friends and family know about-he was homeschooled by me and boy did he give me a run for my money! I learned so much from this kid though, for starters he's a smart aleck like his dad. I am so proud of him for learning to read and reading as many books as he can now! Tyson, lord I love this kid. If you know us you know Ty is our sweetheart who wears his heart on his sleeve. His kindergarten actually gave awards and he received the "compassion" award which is so deserved. We recently started getting things ready for our yard sale and I told the kids they can buy anything they want with the money they earn for selling their stuff, his response to what he's buying was "It's a gift for Ryker" my heart melted. Hunter, this kid is so hyper! He finally started reading some books and is ready to try "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" I am so proud of him for always standing up for his sister no matter what the cost. He's going to make an awesome "army guy" some day! Brooke, she needed bribed to go to school. She cried and screamed a lot the day before school started and didn't want to go. Graduation day rolled around and she was so upset about school ending! It was an awesome feeling. Estella, as shy as she is I am happy to say she made friends and came out of her shell a little bit. She finally decided on a sport to stick with it-karate! Yup our sweet, little, skinny, timid Stella wants to be a "ninja"! Savannah, she was just a baby when she started school. We really didn't understand why we were putting her in preschool but did it anyway! She's a big kid now though, potty trained and knows all her letters and numbers! Good job Vannah!!! It's safe to say Jason and I are beyond proud of the kids we have raised and can't wait to see what the Lord has in store for these nine.

Six Month Update!

Our little man Ryker has officially been in our family for six months now. I seriously can't even express how much love I have for this kid. He has changed my life in so many ways. Let's just recap here, if you don't know who Ryker is he's my daughter's biological younger brother, they share a dad, their dad wasn't able to have custody due to a personal issue and signed his rights over to us. This private adoption made it a lot quicker than normal adoptions, so we only had two months to prepare for him. All we knew was that we would be picking up a toddler who shared a birthday with me, we didn't even find out the gender until Christmas! It was a stressful time for sure but somehow we pulled it all together and got everything he needed. This adoption definitely showed me who my true friends are, I had friends dropping bags full of clothes and toys off on our door step and other friends who just decided not to talk to us anymore. It was fine though, we knew we wanted this boy in our lives. On the actual adoption day Ryker was nervous, I was nervous, Jason was nervous! We were all a mess! Little did I know the feeling of nervousness I had was a waste of time, I had nothing to be nervous about. This little man just needed some love and luckily he has a mom and dad now who adore him. So, let's just jump right into his six month adoption update. First of all, he is almost 18 months old now and still in the lower percentile for height and weight, but that's okay! He knows about fifty signs and can communicate with sign language, he is however starting to say words. His first clear word was "No!" and it has become his favorite word. He will say it for almost everything no matter what the question is or if there was even a question for that matter. He still has early intervention twice a week and they're working on everything they possibly can, right now their big thing is walking. When he walks his knees turn in, they think it's from not using them correctly when he was a baby but what do I know I didn't go to college! He is starting to be okay with putting weight on his legs and doesn't scream as much when we make him stand. He has even started walking if you hold his hands! Go Ryker! When we adopted him he was a super picky eater and only liked foods with bananas in them, while his favorite food is still bananas he has begun to like other foods as well. He is willing to try anything we feed him now and even reaches for other peoples' foods too! I love seeing him try to sneak food, he used to be afraid of interacting with his siblings so this is huge. Now the big update, I get crap from people all the time about this-no he is still not potty trained. Let's just take a moment here. You lived your whole life with a group of people and suddenly you were taken away from them and given to another family, you now call these two weirdos mom and dad?! What is this!? Now they want you to walk, talk, eat, and do all these other things?! So overwhelming let's not mention YOU AREN'T READY TO USE THE TOILET! Seriously. I'm so over people asking about potty training, so simply no he's not. I'm not sure when he will be, but as of right now he isn't and that's perfectly fine with me. The little boy I picked up six months ago with the shiny blue eyes and tears running down his face is now the little boy I pick up every morning with shiny blue eyes and a huge smile that looks just like his bio dad's. He's finally at ease and he's finally trusting us. This was really what I was aiming for all along. Thank you to everyone who was there for the whole journey of bringing my boy home.

Dealing with loss

It's crazy to think almost two months ago my life changed forever. On April 20th I lost my favorite person in the world, my grandma. My grandma was beyond special to me she helped raise me. After my parents divorced my mom went back to college and my grandma became my babysitter. She did awesome! I had cookies all the time, learned how to cheat at board games, and got anything I wanted. Grandmas really are the best. As I got older, she got sicker. Our times of baking together and playing games were gone and I was now cooking for her and helping take care of her. I was fine with it however, I still got to hear stories about my dad from when he was a kid and I was still spoiled as can be. Eventually I ended up moving three hours away, leaving her was one of the hardest things I've ever done and I was worried about her all the time. Like any good grandma, she sent me cards on every holiday to let me know she was thinking of me-I mean every holiday even the unimportant ones! That made this move a little easier, but I still missed her. Thankfully my older brother still lived in the same town and was playing soccer so we made a trip home for almost every game and I got to spend more time with her. Sadly though, every time I came back she was worse. She was given the diagnosis of having Alzheimer's and that's when my worrying kicked itself up a few notches. It seemed like every time we saw her she needed reminded of all the little things, which was expected but still hard. That's when I came to the realization, this disease freaking sucks. Not only would it one day take her life, but it takes your loved one away from you before they're really gone. I mean really, the last time I saw her alive-Easter Sunday-she only knew who I was for about ten minutes, she was there but not all at the same time. Luckily, regardless of knowing who I was, she still talked as much as she could. It was hard for her, but she did it. This woman went through hell in her life, but never gave up even for a second. Even though these passed two months have been super hard, I know I will be able to overcome it. Don't get me wrong, I will never "get over" the loss of my grandma that's not something that can actually ever happen, but I know I will be able to live with it. Having my kids is actually making it easier for me to deal with this, Ryker has no clue what happened he just knows I went on a "vacation" for a few days to deal with it. Brooke however knows exactly what happened, she knows that grandma is gone and talks about her sometimes to me, she's super sensitive to loss. However, when I'm having a hard day she knows exactly what to do and let me tell you, nothing fixes a sad moment like a baby cuddle(or a big kid cuddle). With all that being said, I know one day I will be with her again, but for now she's with God and my nephew partying it up. We love you grandma.

Co-parenting

Did you guys miss me?! Probably not, but I missed writing here. A lot has happened in my month off,  if you know me personally then you already know Jason and I are no longer together for personal reasons. We however are still working super hard to raise all the kids together since they've been together this long we don't want them to feel like we've given up on them. Our co-parenting strategy is probably a lot different than most peoples', we really don't have a set custody agreement and aren't sure if we will end up needing one or not. Right now we make sure we're both at important activities and make sure the kids are okay with what's going on. Normally on weekends Jason will come visit at least for one day and see all the kids, we are trying to figure out when they can all go to his house-he lives three hours away. I have to say, co-parenting with someone who actually respects you vs someone you can't stand makes a huge difference. We both know that this set up isn't about us, it's not about our feelings, it's about showing our kids that even if something doesn't work out perfectly you can still have a happy ending. Jason has been my best friend for over a year, he's been the person I cried to at midnight, the one who had to hold my hair while I puked, the one who made breakfast when I was too tired from working all night. He was always there and it sucks to realize that person isn't here to help you out anymore, most days all the pressure rides on me. As sucky as it can be I just remember that this isn't all about me, I have nine little ones who want to see us happy and I will do anything to make sure they don't grow up with fighting parents. Right now, I don't even know if they realize we aren't together anymore even though they've been told and that's exactly how I want it.