Still not coping

When Kayleigh passed away (it's been over 3 years now) lots of people said how time would make it easier, and in some ways they were right, but on some days it's like it only happened yesterday and you are left struggling with your feelings and trying to go on with your day all the time feeling like you are drowning under feelings of grief. I know Terence has put up some serious walls to help him cope, both emotionally and mentally. He has trouble remembering even the smallest details from the moment that we found Kayleigh until after the funeral, and emotionally this has resulted in him having a few too many scotches when feeling down and this resulted in him punching a wall (and managing to get the stud) and breaking two bones in hand.

My issues are that I remember too much in vivid detail. I still remember clearly doing CPR and telling Terence that she would be OK. Waiting for the ambulance, the paramedic telling us that they had gotten a response, waiting at the hospital, turning off the machines and waiting for her heart to stop. I remember it all and sometimes I just can't get the pictures out of my head and it sends me into a downwards spiral.

Having Kayl has helped - we feel that the universe hasn't taken everything from us. He looks so much like her it's uncanny. And even personality wise, he is very similar. It's like he's been here before.

Kayl (in Blue) and Kayleigh - both aged 12 months

Games we played

This post was written by Natassja - Kayleigh's closest in age sister and the one person that spent most of their time with Kayleigh. Kayleigh was only 11 months old when Natassja was born so they grew up together, had the same friends and played together. _________________________________

 When Kayleigh and I were younger we both had very large imaginations and created games - some strange, others really really strange

 The least strange one was 'kraken'.
 When Kayleigh, Alexandra, Tayla and I were in junior primary school every lunch and recess we would pretend we were pirates and the playground our ship the tanbark underneath was the ocean and lurking in the waters was a kraken and it would pull us down to drown us and someone would have to jump in and rescue the captive crew member but in order to get to the person in time we had to travel from the deck all the way to an opening in the base of the ship (the deck is nearby the slide, the base by the monkey bars was where the opening) once we were all safe one would go to look out for the kraken by hanging off the side of the playground. Places kraken would attack Steps, near the monkey bars, bottom of the slide, any where that was close to the ground.

ANIMAL GAMES
Tortoise Run 
Tortoise Run was a game we created because our room was clean and for some reason the mattress was on the floor and so we stood it up vertically to make room and it fell on us and that created a game where we stood up the mattress and would crawl slowly away from it pretending we are tortoises and the falling mattress the jaws of a crocodile.
 Boing Boing and lion
(For everyone's information a boing boing is a gazelle) boing boing and lion formally known as boing boing was created after we watched a bit of a documentary about animals and it showed a gazelle being chased by a cheetah and then he got the gazelle, this game usually played with three included to people bouncing on all fours being a gazelle and someone being a lion (because lions are much cooler than cheetahs at that age) the 'lion' has to chase the gazelle 's and eat them and I mean bite. The bed was the lions territory and the carpet is the fields of grass, any ' gazelle' who went close to the bed would be a target.

 SPY GAMES
 Secret agents
Kayleigh and I, and sometimes terry, after our bed time we would sneak into the backyard via the laundry door and our mission to get around the garden without being spotted by mum or dad. First stay close to the wall and get to the clothes line area Second scuttle along the ground staying lower than the level of concrete Thirdly make a run for it and get down to the bottom corner of the garden (one of the tricky parts) Then go one tree at a time checking the back window for any parents at each one Next once reached the silk tree run as fast as you can to the apple tree Hardest part stay low to the retaining wall till you get to precisely in front of the laundry door then bolt and hope you don't get caught to the laundry door.

 Spys
We are spy's and have our own bases and we have to plan to shoot the other team we would have our own code names and ' 'guns' (golf clubs) and the team left standing wins

CARDBOARD BOX GAMES
Every kid loves cardboard boxes (who doesn't), especially the big ones that you get from washing machines and fridges. In which all of these used

 Jump in the box
the name basically gives it away - we basically have the box vertically cover the bottom of the box with pillows climb on top of the bunk bed and jump in then rock the box till it falls over and you climb out, and lift it up for the next person.
 Earthquake
Same as above only people shake the box violently until they tip it one way too far and they can no longer hold it and it falls and hurts the person inside.
 Rollercoaster
This time it's horizontal and everyone except one person crams inside the box the other shuts the opening and starts lifting, rolling and tumbling the box in all directions until they run out if energy. No name The box is a cave, tent or a house in which we live in.

 BED GAMES
 Cat and mouse 
When we are meant to be asleep we would pull our doonas out of our covers and our top sheets of our beds created many levels we would put one on top of the other and they would be levels one of us was the cat the other a mouse. The mouse runs the cats chases, we would have to be on the same level to be able to catch the mouse the game ends when one becomes tired or mum and dad have a go at us for us being awake at a ridiculous time.

 Cubbies 
Our beds had a mesh thing underneath and we would go on the bottom bunk and rap our doonas around them in a shape and that would be our cubby another type we would tuck the doona under the mattress of the top bunk and allow it to hang down over the bottom blocking all light from there.

 The gap
There was a gap between the wall and our bed big enough to fit both of us down at the same time this could be used as a secret passage way to each others bed or... A place to do flips we would hang upside down in the gap hold onto the frame and flip down or just hang until the blood rushes to your head while the other tickles you until you fall, I was terrible at this and fell at one touch.

 WATER GAMES
 Water tips
 On really hot days we would be allowed to water the lawn and a way to cool down was to use the hose and get wet. One person would run after us with the hose and squirt us with water if it hit us we were in and behind the trees at the bottom of the garden was safe. Another version the one who didn't wont to get wet wet everyone but the whole chasing thing was still part of it
 Water snake
Whilst watering the lawn we would hold and three meters away from the head or put it on the ground and of course it would go crazy everywhere and get everything wet including us.

 What dad does...(literally that's what we referred it as) 
Dad puts stuff on the hose to stop it from moving and he would turn on the hose to be a stream of water and we would run through trying not to get wet as possible but of course we would end up soaked.

its been so long......

It's now been over two and a half years since Kayleigh passed away. So much has happened - we have had another baby whose almost a year old. Natassja is staring yr10 and little Terry is going to high school. Thee are days I wonder hat you would be like now, the year you were going to start college. I always thought that you would go to Erindale fir their sports program or maybe Lake Tuggeranong to be with your friends. Either way I know you would be learning to drive and probably your dad's car. I wonder what you would have made about your dad's new business, where you would b working and what you wanted for last Christmas. Even last week I found that I couldn't listen to a delta goodram song as it made me think of you and the way that you did and his much I missed you. Your dad and I still struggle daily with missing and and someday all I want to do is hide under my Poona and cry.

Too skinny?

Kayleigh was always slender - well maybe not as a baby - but as she got older and get taller, her weight didn't seem to keep up. I know it was genetics as Terence and Kayleigh's nanny are both very slender and Kayleigh took after her dad more than me. At the time of her passing, Kayleigh only weighed 37kgs, which put on right on the edge of 'underweight' for her size.

I know I always kept on at her to eat more. I used Wii Fit to keep an eye on her, and I told her if she fell into the underweight category for too long I would take her to the doctor. Kayleigh wanted to eat healthy as well which probably compounded the problem - trying to ensure she ate her lunch at school was difficult under Mr Haidon spoke to her and found out that she didn't want to eat jam sandwiched as jam has lots of sugar in it. So it was salad sandwiches from then on.

Because of her weight, Kayleigh did get sick quite often, and it took her longer to get over it than her sister. She just didn't have the energy to fight off the viruses as fast. She had lots of days off school, which I didn't like. She had the taken the Tuesday off sick with the flu and we made her go to school on the last day she was properly 'alive' because she was missing too much school. I sometimes wonder if I should have forced her to eat more, to have more 'fat' on her, that maybe that might have helped her fight off the flu that eventually compounded into her being too sick and her heart failing. Maybe we should have kept her at home that day, and she would still be here - I don't know.

This photo was taken in May, at an angle that I used to show Kayleigh how skinny she actually was - it was genetically skinny though, she certainly didn't starve herself. and this pic certainly shows her in the worst angle possible.

Helping with building the wall

Terence has been gardening lately, digging up the backyard and re-sowing the lawn. Around the end part of garden there is a wood sleeper retaining wall which I was standing on when I remembered Kayleigh helping build it.

Originally the wood was part of a cubby house/fort that Terence was building for the kids, but we had to take it down. The wood that we were using become the retaining wall. Kayleigh helped her dad with moving all the wood into position. I remember her excitement in drilling guiding holes for the coaching bolts and then bashing them in. I remember her smile as it came together and helping her dad push all the soil behind them before helping her dad lay the Canturf that made the lawn and plant the Japanese Maples that went around the edge. 

When Terence was re-doing the backyard, you could see that he was remembering those times by his body language - it's hard sometimes doing some thing because we miss her so much.

Mother's day

As I am celebrating Mother's day for the second time without Kayleigh, but for the first time with her new brother Kayl, it is hard not to feel slightly guilty for the sense of contentment I have at the moment. Although I miss Kayleigh alot, having Kayl has somewhat filled the hole left in my soul that losing Kayleigh created. Little Kayl cna never replace Kayleigh (of course) but it has started a new chapter in my life. The last almost two years I have felt a little lost and Kayl is making look forward to the future again. I still cry on occasion, missing my special girl, and there are moments in the days where I still feel her passing as if it was yesterday.

Mother's day - Kayleigh was my first baby, and so my first mother's day was because of her. She was only 5 months old at the time and I was given . . . . .  .a food processor!!!!!! I actually wanted that machine, it was a Kenwood and it lasted me years and years. at the time is was a practical present as Kayleigh had just started on solids so I used to it make all of her baby food, from apples and pears to mulching up whatever Terence and I had for dinner (how many pork chops and veges were ground up in that thing I'll never know). As Kayleigh grew up, she wanted to make Mother's Day special. She always made a card and presented it to me with a cup of tea first thing in the morning, along with a huge hug and snuggle on the bed.

The very last mother's day I had with her we spent 2 hours at the Coffee Club in Tuggeranong just waiting for some pancakes (which were cold by the time we got them). Kayleigh spent alot of that time attempting to get the other kids to behave - they were getting restless, and playing on the car ride on thing that they had there. She was wearing her 'Stig' shirt and she was talking about her friends and the work she was doing in her wood work and sewing class. It's days like these that I miss her more than usual as it reminds me of the things she did to try and get a smile from me and make me happy.

Mother's Day 2010

Our mini vacuum cleaner

Kayleigh started crawling when she was about 7 months old. At this stage we were renting a house in Banks. Kayleigh had a habit of waking up quite early in the morning- around 6am and we all had to be up with her. It was this time that we did the majority of the cleaning/vacuuming/mopping of the floors. You may wonder why we didn't do it the night before - we did, but because of Kayleigh we always did it again the next morning.

Why???? because I would get up, change Kayleigh and feed her for the morning while her daddy had a shower, then put her on the floor where she would immediately crawl around. Now this child must have had eagle eyes, because every small tiny little piece of dirt or something, Kayleigh would find, pick up and put it straight into her mouth. Now to prevent her doing that, Terence and I would be crawling behind her, grabbing anything she picked up before it made it into her mouth, and quickly vacuuming the area she was in just in case there was more. Now image, two grown adults crawling around on their hands and knees, chasing a very fast little 7 month old who is determined to put anything and everything in her mouth.

Kayleigh was great as a vacuum, she managed to get under the heater, under the lounge suit and even in the window sills. We must have had the cleanest carpet and windows in Canberra, all because of our mini vacuum cleaner.