My Isaiah Joseph,

It snowed today! It wasn’t much, but your siblings got super excited, ran around outside in the backyard, and played with the dogs. Lucas just brought a small snowball in while I was writing this to show me. I laughed remembering when you made me save snowballs while we were living in Missouri. I’m pretty sure we had the one for almost two years and the only reason we got rid of it is because we had to move to Virginia. Lucas says he’s going to save this one too.

I took your siblings to the Children’s Museum today. I didn’t take any pictures, it hurt too much. I’ve taken you all there at least ten times, the first time we went there you were just a few months old. You were obsessed with the water floor, but today it was closed. You had your blue shirt with the crab on it and wouldn’t get out of the water. I’m pretty sure you weren’t even walking yet.

I thought of you a lot in the “garage” portion and the house where the floor is at an angle. You loved both of those things the most the last time we went. Of course you’d like the garage, you loved machines and building things and seeing how they worked. We had a good time, I just don’t have visual proof of that time. Without worrying about trying to take pictures, I was more present.

Although you weren’t physically there, we all were thinking about you. We went to the art room to create a picture and also made a little shrinky dink thing. I made a heart with your initials in it, Ellie made one with a drawing of you and her on it and it says “Ellie and Isaiah forever”, and Lucas made a picture of you out of glue. I never said, “let’s make something for Isaiah”, it’s just something we all do because you’re constantly on our minds. Lucas also made a Minecraft version of you on the big light bright thing there.

As I’ve told you before, it’s things like these that make me feel like I’m grieving from the very beginning. I did a lot of the “first” experiences with everywhere and everything in Hawaii. Although we never lived in Pittsburgh, we visited enough to have made lasting memories at various places.

I’m starting to get everything ready to apply for teaching jobs. I got two of my clearances done and get my fingerprints done tomorrow. I’m hoping to have my entire application done by the middle of April and ready when they start looking for next year. I’m going to be honest, I’m hoping to get the younger kids.

I love you more than anything, baby boy. Goodnight and sweet dreams.