Fabulous Family

I have such a wonderful family. I've been feeling pretty down lately, most likely baby blues type stuff. It comes and goes. This time it lasted for a little longer than usual. Anyways, my mom and Neil decided to treat me to a day in the city and a night on the town. I started by getting a much needed haircut. Not only was my hair too long and fried, but hair holds a lot of energy and I had a lot to let go. So, now it's shoulder length, the shortest it's ever been. It feels so strange to have it so short, but it feels great, too. Then, my mom took me shopping for a new dress to wear to dinner that night with Neil. We had a lovely dinner at Typhoon - I love Thai food - and because the baby won't take a bottle yet, we can't be too far away for too long a time, so Neil got us a room at Hotel Lucia, where Typhoon is. And once the baby went down for the night, Neil and I went and caught a drag show up in the glamour district. He has a co-worker who performs as "The Avon Lady" and he/she was the special guest last night at The D Word show at the Red Cap. It was a blast, I had so much fun. And the show was very funny. I loved watching the drag queens. They are more feminine, and definitely way more fabulous, than I could ever be!

I am so grateful that I have such a loving, supportive, generous family who takes care of me.

Love,
Aislinn

My Beautiful Family

Well, since I made such a fuss about it, I figured I better share some of our photos from our shoot with Laura Domela. Plus, I'm so proud of my beautiful family!

Love,

Aislinn

Of death and photo shoots

Well, I'm getting what I want! We have a photo shoot with Laura Domela tomorrow. I followed up with her after my post where I complained that it wasn't coming together. She responded that things were just too busy for her but to hang tight. Then, I got an email a couple days ago that she had time this week. I'm really looking forward it. Riley is so very beautiful and I can wait to see how she captures his beauty.

And, we really need beauty right now. Neil, and my mom, think that he is suffering from post traumatic stress syndrome from the drowning. He says he just can't get the image of the boy going under the water out his head. I'm haunted by it too. Not to the degree that Neil is, of course, but I can see it, even though I wasn't there. It's heartbreaking. Being a mother now makes me understand the true love for a child.

Everything happens for a reason. This child dying. And, our delayed scheduling of the photo shoot. We just have to be patient and the reasons are revealed.

Love,
Aislinn

My First Scare

My first scare as an EMT wife came yesterday. Neil works for American Medical Response's River Rescue unit. He worked yesterday while I went to a graduation party for one of my cousins (high school graduation - that made me feel old). I had sent a text to Neil and he didn't respond. Not too strange, but when he didn't answer my call later in the day, nor respond to another text, I started to worry. The only reason that he wouldn't respond is if something dire had happened. So, I got on the kgw news website and saw "swimmer drowns at High Rocks." This, of course, was why Neil hadn't responded to me. But, then after another hour or so of still not hearing from him, I started to get paranoid. The news brief was, well, brief and all it said was that a "swimmer" had drowned. A swimmer could be anyone, even the EMT there to rescue people. Neil has gone on and on about how dangerous the water is at High Rocks this year. He has to swim it every morning to know what the river is doing and he says he's scared every time he gets in the water. Well, it flashed through my mind what I would do if something happened to Neil. I tried not to allow my thoughts to go there, but it was entirely possible that Neil could try to save someone and have something happen to him instead. I lump grew in my throat and I was taking deep breaths trying to erase that fear.

When he finally called, I cried a little bit. Nothing like the fear of losing someone to make you realize how much you love them, or how un-important so many things in life are. I will make sure that I always say I love you now when he leaves in the morning.

So, it was a long night. Neil came home late, of course, and we talked about what happened for a while. It was a boy scout outing and a canoe tipped over. A little boy had been thrown a rope by another canoe and when Neil realized that a boy was in the water, he threw his life vest on and jumped in with all his clothes on. Before he got in the water, though, the boy stopped - he was in the water, but stationary. The rope got caught on something in the river and somehow the boy was stuck on the other end of the rope. It pulled him under. Neil missed him on his first pass. He was also freezing in the 43 degree water so he got out, threw his clothes off, put his wetsuit on and called in a drowning to dispatch. The water was too swift where the boy was to get to him. Even the sheriff's search and rescue dive team couldn't reach him and it took about an hour to get him out.

It took awhile for Neil to unwind. It's heartbreaking. The boy was 11-years-old. Neil was frustrated with me that I was so concerned about him when a little boy died, but I didn't know who had died until Neil called and I knew he was alright. He apologized for getting frustrated with me. I don't think he knew how to feel at that point. And he knew that I would worry and he didn't like that.

So, I had my first scare. And Neil had his first fatality on the job. But we both know that it's just the nature of the job. It doesn't make it easier, you just have to prepare yourself that it's going to happen.

Tell those close to you how much you love them, you never know when it could be their time to go. How many times have you heard that? That little boy's parents thought he was coming home to them last night.

Love,
Aislinn

Feeling Silly

I woke up this morning and considered deleting my post from last night. After sitting with it last night, I feel that it makes me look selfish and I'd really like to think that I'm not. But, maybe I am. If nothing else, it's made me look at myself and that's why I'm keeping it up. And it has certainly reminded me that there is so much more out there in this world that deserves my attention instead of comparing myself to a friend. I'm not going to pretend that that realization has made my jealousy disappear, but I'm not going to give the jealousy any more energy - I'll try my best, anyway.

I have a stunning life. I truly am grateful for all that I have.

Love,
Aislinn

Spoiled Brat

So, I have to admit that I find myself a little jealous of my friend that I ran into at New Seasons a few weeks ago. There are actually many similarities between her and me, but she seems - to me anyways - always a step ahead of me. She married a well-known body piercer who is pretty well off and has provided her with a nice car to drive (a mercedes), a nice house (on a 1/2 acre on Mt. Scott) and a budget for shopping (she's quite into fashion - she started to go to college for it, then she met her husband). But it's not just the material things that I envy. Her husband is very dedicated - he and their eldest daughter have special father-daughter nights on their sail boat. They go on vacation quite often - their most recent trip was to Vancouver, BC; it was their 4th time there. She has an amazing circle of friends - her best friend even bought the house across the street so they could live next to each other.

Now, I'm honestly not trying to make this sound like a pity party, but here is my situation in comparison:

I have a 10-year-old Subaru that just had it's speedometer quit working. We live in a tiny, two-bedroom duplex. The last article of clothing that I bought was new underwear when all mine started to rip at the seams while I was pregnant (I'd like to think that it was because they were old, but I think my weight gain played a part in it). My husband is dedicated, for sure. He's so busy going to school, doing his clinicals and working 12 hour days when not in school or at some hospital. We usually see him after 9:30 at night, when he's very tired and just wants to crash. So, it sucks that we hardly get to see him, but he's working hard to support us. For that, I am very grateful. But, I also want my son to see his dad. We've never been to Canada and I've wanted to go to Vancouver for a very long time (I even considered moving there to go to the Vancouver Film School). Yes, we have gone to Hawaii many times to visit my mom, but now that she lives here, I don't see us going there for a very long time. And we certainly don't have the money to go anywhere for a while either. My friends are few and far between, especially since I've had a baby. Plus, my best friend just moved to California.

The most recent thing for me, though, that raises my jealousy is that I have been trying to arrange a trade with an acquaintance that is a professional photographer (she has photographed Storm Large and Wade McCollum, to name a couple - http://www.domela.com/). She said she would do a photo shoot for Riley and I, but she's very difficult to connect with and I haven't heard from her in a couple weeks. Well, I just found out that my friend also knows a pro photographer and they just did a photo shoot for her new baby, and the whole family. I've seen some of the photos and they are amazing. I want photos of Riley so bad!

So, that's why I'm feeling like she's always one step ahead of me. I know I should never compare my life to someone else's. I know I have things that she doesn't, and I also know that everything is the way it should be. And I am so grateful for what I have. I know that I have it much better than many people. I'm ashamed of this jealousy, but I'm trying to figure out why I have it. Neil is always telling me that I'm spoiled. Maybe I am just a spoiled brat (though, in my defense, I have worked hard for a lot of what I have) and I just want more. I don't know what else to say about it at this point, but I'm working on it.

Love,
Aislinn