Thou shall not kill

I, in a way, stopped keeping my daughter's milestones in her baby book at about six months. The day of that well-baby visit she was ALMOST sitting on her own (on the couch), a couple of seconds of keeping herself from tipping all the way to one side or the other (and I was trying not to be overly worried that my little brothers and sisters accomplished this by about 4 months). I deliberated and sort of marked that down. Sits on her own "a little." The next day after a whammy shot from a vial that, from the sounds of it, went unshaken before that dose, I sit her on the couch and she immediately flops over to the side. Try again. Same results! Well! Do I cross off what I wrote in her baby book (no connection in my mind to the brilliant well-baby care she has received)? Turn her rather limited book into a scribbly mess trying to get things right? "Sits for the first time" on such and such a date had no application to reality, but I didn't exactly get that was how things were going to be. That's when recording positive things (I didn't want to write down my vague misgivings) turned into an exercise of looking back on something or other (she rolled over one way, scared herself to death, didn't--or couldn't--try that again for a while...what day was that? about such and such a date...which month was that exactly for her?...write down that sometime on that page with not a lot of writing space but always more than enough) and making some note in hindsight that I thought might be noteworthy where ever I could best figure out to record it. Somewhere in the next three or so months (but not really fully by the family portraits we had taken a couple of months later because I still had to stay close to her to make sure she didn't tumble off the photographer's set up) she finally began securely sitting and scooting (never crawled), and probably not before the 8-9 month shots shot off her babbling, all types of happy social interaction (crying still worked... I guess I should be grateful that I knew she was frequently unhappy) for a couple more months. I wish now I had written down EVERYTHING (I might have needed a blank and somewhat large journal, not a cute little book with custom made stickers that I could never really use, and some fortitude), the record ultimately condemning my parenting choices, but confirming my in-hindsight-much-closer-to-20/20 conclusions. I wish I would have made some budgetary incursions to get the video camera I felt we should get, but didn't know how to afford to get (and I would probably mostly never want on, but in hindsight a daily video record one week before each well-baby visit and one week after might have been instructive). I didn't know that the things I didn't want to document were going to be the most important to have down in detail and were the foretelling of the forestallment of all major milestones never to be reached ...

... maybe not until the hoped for (hope springs eternal even with the ever present misgivings) Millennium anyway, where I wonder if she'll then want different parents to join with for her eternal family (maybe she'll be given that choice) if/when she finally understands all that has happened to her? but maybe also, she'll finally get the chance to raise her own family when "they shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain, for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea"--Isaiah 11 (I'm pretty sure that means they WON"T be vaccinating among other things).

And so you have Kim. Saving many families with your truth. God is great. He had a difficult but important job for you. Pain to purpose. Thank you for all you do for our children. God bless you and your family and may he hold you and all you love in the palm of his hand always. So sorry for the loss of you parents but your girls now have two more guardian angels above. Continue to Pray big speak loud and as always tell our truth with compassion and humor!