Summer days.

Summer seems to fly by no matter if you're a kid enjoying a break from school or if you're busy trying to keep up with kids home from school. Isn't that right? Or even if you don't have kids and you just want to soak in as much fun and sun as possible. There just aren't enough hours to squeeze everything in.

But we're trying our best around here. Wyndham has a demanding schedule of therapy right now and that actually has allowed me to get out with the other kids a little bit more than I had thought I would be the past few weeks. She gets to spend some free time at the club with Chip- sitting at the computer playing Paint and games and even getting to ride the cart around the course from time to time. She is loving it and is working hard at getting comfortable on her feet and using a cane. I am much more hopeful with her prognosis now than I was at the beginning of the summer. Sometimes hard work actually does pay off!

One of the things I have to do during these summer days of July is to try to over-compensate for what I am feeling inside as we get closer and closer to the anniversary of our Old Depot incident. It is such a struggle for me inside still- 10 years later- to not let the grief creep in and overshadow the fun we still can have as a family no matter what is on our hearts. One of the things I did, mostly for me =), was to get out the Easy Bake oven and make a couple of batches of tiny cookies. It is one of the activities Teagan loved to do most and her fingerprints are still smudged on the window on the front of the oven where you peek inside to watch the cookies bake. I have told my kids they are welcome to peek inside and touch the window too; however no one is allowed to ever whip the window clean. Just knowing that she is still a part of the memoies of the little oven makes the treats we bake taste that much better to me. The kids all oved making the chocolate crinkle cookies {click here for the recipe we used and love!} and I just hope they will grow up understanding that grief and remembering and having fun and laughing can all be rolled into one. I don't know how else to live with my grief other than to incorporate it into their lives too. I don't think they will ever fully grasp what a sudden and profound loss we experienced when Teagan died, and rarely, if ever, do they see me shed a tear anymore, because I simply don't cry they way I used to. I think they will associate good memories and fun times when it comes to Teagan and that's exactly the way I want them to think about the sister that still holds a big piece of my heart. I think Teagan would be happy to see us having picnics and baking with the play oven and recalling the ways she filled our lives with joy.

These summer days are challenging for me in more than one way. But I am glad that I've been able to learn to tie joy and sorrow together. Not just for me. But for them too.