It’s Been A Minute

It’s officially May and the last day of school is in exactly 15 days.  I started this blog post 6 days ago and that should attest to my head space right now. 🙂  Life is currently full of all the end of the year school things and soccer and Leo’s therapies and doctors’ appointments.  The wave pool has been mentioned approximately 47 times so far and NO ONE in our family can actually wait in a reasonably expected cool way for it to re-open.  Harper said and I quote, “I just keep thinking about the wave pool.  Sometimes it’s all I can think about.”  Hahahahahahahaha.

Speaking of the wave pool, I recently wrote a family favorites guide to Nashville for MommyShorts.  You can see all our real, legit Nashville favorites HERE.  I’ll let you guess what made the #1 slot.

 Wave Country ,

We can’t quit you.  See you soon summer lover.

Love, The Kelleys

Leo’s birthday was last last Tuesday…more on that later…and now we will not have another birthday until July.  I love celebrating my kiddo’s birthdays, but 5 celebrations in 3 months was hard this year, so we are welcoming the birthday break.  Plus, Leo is the only person who wants to see, let alone eat another donut for quite some time.

I let this small soap boxey rant fly on my Instagram feed after some really frustrating weeks dealing with IEP shenanigans.  Enjoy! 🙂

“Lately we’ve been swimming in IEP meetings and communication with our school district. I can’t tell you how much time I’ve spent trying to speak with and finally getting to speak with all the “right” people to get what’s best for our kiddos with special needs. I adore our public schooling, I adore our teachers, but I do not adore policies & procedures that make zero sense for our children. I do not adore policies & procedures that simply make things easier on our administration. I do not adore policies & procedures that are biased against lower income parents, guardians and whole families who are busting their asses just to provide the basics needs for their kids…who are not afforded the extra time, access & privilege that’s needed to fight these policies & procedures so their babies can receive the absolute best education which should be easily available to all. It makes my head spin and my heart ache. It’s overwhelming and disheartening, but we press on. We continue to raise our voices and love on our teachers and beat on those closed doors and remind all kids just how brilliant they are. This is currently the hill I’ll die on. 😂  There’s just so much work to be done. And for all you educators who are working relentlessly on behalf of ALL kids, Bravo!!! 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼 Thank you for fighting for what’s really best for our babes. Wish I could buy you all a drink.”

This season is our season of Everett.  It’s the time of the year that holds all our memories of him and so our family has been pretty off the charts in the emotions department.  So I’m doing what any normal mom does and busying myself with all the important things like tracking how many loads of laundry we’ve done this month, figuring out a good combo of oils for a legit insect repellant and working on my group journal project.  Sometimes I’ll do just about anything to avoid the hard right in front of me.

Sidenote:  I found the most amazing beachy hair wave spray.  I sprayed my freshly washed wet hair down with it this morning and I keep catching myself in any mirrory surface because I am loving my beachy wave hair.

Another sidenote:  I quit wearing deoderant about 5 months ago.  This proclamation makes me laugh.  I went through a pretty intense detox stage wear I smelled strongly of Taco Bell, but then my smell kind of neutralized out.  I can still totally stink at the gym, but I really don’t think I’ll ever go back.  Bonus:  I am loving THIS pit spray. 🙂

Josh Kelley and I went to the Mumford & Sons concert in March.  We had never seen them in concert despite our best efforts in the past.  This time it happened and I’ve never been to a better concert.  It felt holy and spiritual and special.  I cried a lot.  Their album Delta has deep undertones and so many of them remind me of Everett and his sweet life and death. Several of the songs fling me right back into that hospital room holding his whole body in my arms.  It’s moving and melodic and soothing to my heart.

My friend Meredith’s sweet little girl Ember is having surgery tonight in China.  I cannot get them off my mind and heart.  It’s big and it’s hard and it’s all the hope.  You can read Meredith’s words HERE.  Please think of them.  Please carry them close and pray and hope and love along side them.  Wish I could be there.  Wish I could squeeze her neck and buy her all the coffee.  Let’s go Ember girl.

So many things to pour over.  So many combinations or hard and good.  Leo is finally big enough to wear Everett’s clothes and it’s just that…hard and good.  It’s hard to think about the time that’s passed without him.  How he’ll forever be this amazing little 3…almost 4-year-old…and to think about how much he would have changed and grown by now.  And it’s good that Leo is growing bigger and stronger and that Leo is here.  That we’re together and he can wear these scared little clothes Everett lived life in.  Every morning Everett would go to his basket of clothes and pull out what he wanted to wear.  He was so great and we miss him more and more every single day.

I hate when I’m away from this space for too long.  I really miss it.  Trying to make the time to write…to keep up…to carry on.  One of my favorite things to do is to sit down and document these moments.  They are all valuable and I just don’t ever want to forget.  Hoping to be back more regularly.  Fingers crossed.