Making Memories

In May, we took an afternoon to head to Nationwide Children's for a chance to make some memories as a family. Nationwide staffs and supplies a family art room for child patients to have family fun time and make positive memories. While Caroline couldn't participate in the way our other children could, the afternoon was a chance to take a few suggestions from their professionals on how to help our children (and ourselves) through this time. Throughout this process, they've been here to offer some children's books explaining "special births" to coincide with our counselor's advice, along with some other helpful suggestions on how to capture this short time as a family of 6.

We started by making a hand print canvas, saving some space for a later time when we can add Caroline's. Each of us got our hand painted  - something a little different and fun than the normal messes the kids make each day.

We also took some time to fill some Christmas ornaments. Each child had a short written message about Caroline to put in a small glass ball that will ultimately go with Caroline. Jane was able to write her own message in marker, and loved playing with the craft supplies. Edward chose some special "gems" for Caroline - he learned that emeralds were green and  rubies are red as he searched among the beads for sparkly treasures. And Tom used  6 colored pipe cleaners, one for each of us - to make a flower that is inside an ornament we can keep for our own Christmas tree each year.