Carter's Second Birthday

Between having my parents in town for Carter’s birthday, all three of us being sick, and a few fun things that we’ve had going on, I’ve had basically zero time to blog. Also, Hudson has only been napping in twenty minute increments, so I pretty much only have time to shower each day and that’s it! But I wanted to share a little bit about Carter’s birthday and how it was this year. This year was significantly more low-key than last year, probably for a few reasons. It all just hurts a little less this year, partially because of time and partially because of Hudson. We didn’t spend as much time crying, and we didn’t go all out and buy him a cake or anything. Brandon still bought blue flowers to have at the house, which is something we’ve planned to do every year, but besides that it almost felt like we didn’t have enough time to do anything.

But my parents came down for the weekend, and we drove up to Logan on Saturday, Carter’s birthday, to spend some time at the cemetery. We hadn’t been for a while, so we took time to clean off the headstone, take down all of his summer decorations, and get ready for winter to hit. We stopped and picked up some flowers that we had ordered, and my parents picked out some pretty flowers too. Brandon’s mom made Carter a new little bouquet (but I forgot the one she made him last year for his birthday, I was so mad at myself), and Brandon’s brothers and their wives visited too. Anyway, we hung out at the cemetery for a little bit, then went and got lunch before driving back home. It was one of our quicker trips, especially compared to how much time we spent there last year. I’m starting to feel like a bad mom to Carter because we don’t go see him as much as we should, but it’s hard to make the drive up there with Hudson here. It was good to be up there on his birthday though. We plan to go up every year on his birthday, regardless of what day of the week it falls on.

When we got home that night, we ordered pizza and just sat around talking with my parents. I remember cutting the cake and spending the night being sad last year. I was sick, and we were getting ready to go to Disneyland the next day. I had no idea that the next morning I’d find out I was pregnant. I think that’s another reason this year was so different. Not only was it Carter’s second birthday, but it had also been one year since we found out we were pregnant with Hudson.

It’s a weird thing to try and explain, and I honestly feel like only someone who has lost a loved one can understand. It always hurts, every single day, and the hurt never lessens, but I feel like I’ve gotten stronger, and that the hurt isn’t such a heavy weight to bear anymore. Not as much as it was a year ago anyway. Even though this year wasn’t quite as emotional, it was still a really beautiful day. The weather was perfect, the bouquet we bought for him was beautiful, and it was really nice having my parents there with us and receiving so many sweet messages about our boy. Neither of us can believe that it has already been two years without our sweet boy, but we still love him just as much as if he were here.