bumblebee cupcake love

Sometimes the best distractions in life are those that are sweet. 

Icing sugar covering my counter tops and rolling fondant between my fingers means that I can get lost a bit in the moment. Lost in the process, lost in the time crunch, lost in the sweet smells of creating happiness for another young mom who is about to deliver a baby boy. Someone who I don't even know. But someone who unknowingly provided me an opportunity to feel happiness for someone else who has something that I wish that I had for myself right now. A pregnant belly, cupcakes topped with cute little bees and the anticipation of a sweet little baby. 

  

So with every little bee that I created and placed atop yellow icing the other week, I felt happiness. Happiness for someone who I didn't even know. Happiness for someone since I knew that they were about to experience something so amazing...so incredible...so exhausting and hard, but so unbelievable.

A baby changes everything.  

So with bees and icing and cute little cupcake holders, I lost myself in someone else's joy...
and forgot about our own loss.

I still remember the day that Terry and I decided to tell the world that we were expecting with our pregnancy announcement. It was earlier than we would have typically made the announcement (before the standard 3 month mark), but since staffing at my school was already underway, I needed to tell my school that I wouldn't be there next year...so word got out and started to spread. And although sometimes I wonder if we should have never said anything at all...I then always come back to the fact that I'm so glad that we shared our news, our story and ultimately our loss. Because without having done so, I don't think we could have managed this on our own. So on those days when I make mistakes since I'm so distracted by my own thoughts, or when I all of a sudden become forgetful because my mind is racing or those days when I'm just not myself because I can't stop thinking about it...I'm grateful that people know. And although things like this little video announcement are still impossible for me to watch without breaking down, I find that if I distract myself enough with the rest of what life has to offer, I can pretend that our loss never even happened (not that I'd recommend denial as a proper coping method, if I was a therapist, but hey I'm not a therapist...so it works).

So we took the kids to the zoo...

and got lost in the slow movements of the giraffes, only feet away from us...

and the tigers...

and snakes.

And we all went ahead with life, as if life was as it always had been. Because in those moments, it really feels like it is.

Because sometimes it's the little things like trips to the zoo and hoola hooping in the dining room that help me to see into the future ahead...and see that regardless of all of the tough times, there is so much to still look forward to...and ultimately, life moves forward.

So here's to a great long weekend, everyone.

Go do something amazing.

Erica xo