My Camo Kids

Because, you know, I had nothing better to do.

2009-05-07T15:20:00.000-07:00

This is Hannah hanging on to a helicopter. Its not really related to this blog post, but it is pretty darn cute.

So, Monday. I'm doing the mom thing, hanging out with Hannah, doing random chores, and waiting to babysit my friend Allison's totally awesome completely adorable 8 week old son. Around 2 P.M. I notice I'm getting a little nagging headache and take two motrin. At 330 said friend Allison accompanied by said cute baby come over accompanied by devoted and doting daddy Mike. The baby sadly had been over-vaccinated....I mean, had his two month check up....that day and received some 5 shots plus some nasty liquid rotovirus. I'm sure someone thought it was a brilliant idea to pour liquified germs into our vulnerable baby's gullets, but that person probably didn't actually HAVE children. Allison figured he was really too fussy to leave, so they visited for a bit and then went home. I did try to hold the baby at one point, but after 30 seconds Hannah said "Mommy! Mommy! Give a baby back a Miss Allison!" So I did.

When they left my headache was worse, so I took a couple more motrin (bad nurse!). Around 7 p.m. it still had not subsided so I took a few tylenol(Ah! My liver!) and shortly after putting kids to bed I went to be myself figuring it was a migraine to which the only solution was deep, dark sleep. Thus followed a night of tossing and turning, with each toss and turn came increasingly painful shooting pains in my head and neck. By morning I could feel it going down my spine all the way to between my shoulder blades, I felt like vomiting, and couldn't tolerate light. It was at about this point that I thought, "Hey, for reals, something might be up with my brain". It must have been my awesome nurse assesment skills kicking in. Or maybe it was my husband saying "Ok, you need to go to the emergency room." One of the two.

He got the kids all ready for school, packed them in the car and I hobbled out as well, in the process repeatedly telling the kids who weren't being all that loud to STOP BEING SO LOUD. Daddy told them Mommy was sick. Hannah said she was sick too and wanted to go to the doctor. The boys seemed to be all too happy to get the heck out of the car and go to school.

Once everyone was dropped off we went to the E.R. on post. We sat in the waiting room, me with my eyes closed, until the triage nurse called us back. She was a little abrasive, and LOUD despite the description of my extremely intense headache, but whatever. Within 5 minutes we were back in a bay, where some kind soul had turned the lights out for me. The E.R. doctor came in shortly after I laid down and asked me a few questions, including "Have you ever had a headache like this before?" I mentioned in high school I had an aneurysm which resulted in some loss of speech and ability to write for a short period of time. His response was "Ok, we are going to move very quickly with you. Things are going to get a little crazy here, so don't panic." DON'T PANIC. Reassuring.

Next thing I know people are taking my clothes off and hooking me up to heart monitor, and sticking needles in both my arms and rushing me to CT. Dean was right by my side, holding my hand and covering my eyes to keep the light out. The doctor was concerned that I might be having a brain bleed. I came back and he told the nurse "Keep the curtain OPEN I want to be able to see her at all times." Once the CT came back negative everyone calmed down. He came back in, said my brain wasn't bleeding and instead I probably just had a nice case of meningitis which of course would entail a spinal tap.

Awhile later a small, frail looking, mousy resident with slumped shoulders tiptoed in and nervously presented the form for me to sign giving her permission to stick a large needle in to my spinal column. This made me very nervous. I signed the form and immediately regretted it. When the actual doctor came back in I told him I didn't want her to do the procedure. He reassured me she had the experience, I wasn't her first guinea pig, and he would be RIGHT THERE is she screwed up. I felt marginally better, only because he had enough confidence for both of them.

The tap itself went like this: I curl in to a fetal position on my side, tucking my chin to my chest. This was nearly impossible because, P.S. MY NECK FREAKING HURTS! But I did the best I could. Then some young man who I presume was a nurses assistant in a military uniform held on to my shoulder and hip to make sure I didn't move. Honestly, this was the worst part of the whole thing because he was A) Creepy and B) putting his crotch in my face. Luckily the nervous resident proceeded fairly quickly, the supervising doctor gave her a little direction, told me I had a mild case of scoliosis (awesome!), and after sticking me a few times to make sure I was numb enough she got the actual tap done on the first try. Post-tap I just had to lay flat for as long as possible, but no less than 30 minutes.

After a little more than an hour the doctor came in and said "One of us has white blood cells in their spinal fluid! Want to guess if its you or me?" I said "You?" and he laughed and said "You've just earned yourself an overnight stay at our lovely hospital." The blood work and spinal fluid suggested it was most likely viral meningitis but they have to culture it, which takes 24-48 hours and standard procedure is to hospitalize the person and treat them as IF its bacterial just to be safe. I got my first does of antibiotics in the E.R. at that point, Rocephin, and the admissions nurse came to see me. I got really stuffy at that point and my nose was swollen when the Staff doctor who would see me inpatient came by and she asked "Are you sure its not a sinus headache?" Uhm.....yeah its totally my sinuses and I just put white blood cells in my spinal fluid to throw you guys off track....No, I told her, I was just fine until a few minutes prior and thought maybe some of the cleaning supplies they had used in the bay next to mine were bothering me or maybe it was the patient who just came in after being peppersprayed....I don't know.

When I got up to my room I had a neat little box on my door with a big sign on it saying AIRBORNE PRECAUTIONS and DO NOT ENTER BEFORE REPORTING TO NURSES STATION or something like that. Everyone who came in wore masks. It was freaky. It was like I was the patient and not the nurse! Oh wait. I was. And let me tell you, its a hell of a lot more fun to be the nurse. I am not a big fan of the being the patient business. But my nurses were super nice and got me all settled and gave me pain medicine which made them basically my new best friends. Around 7 P.M. they came in and gave me another IV antibiotic, Vancomycin. This is a one hour infusion. Approximately 20 minutes in I very suddenly became itchy all over and turned bright red from head to toe. The itch though was incredibly painful, more like being covered in fire ants. I called the nurse and she came in and said something along the lines of "Holy CRAP! You're all red!" and turned the antibiotic off. She called the doctor to get me some benadryl IV, which worked like a charm. I felt like I could literally feel it going through my veins calming the itch as it spread. She said "Well I guess you won't be getting any more of THAT" and slapped a big ol' red allergy band on me. And then I went to sleep, because benadryl is the nectar of the gods.

I woke up at one point when the night shift nurse came in, but it was dark and I was still drugged. I think I asked for a pain pill. Then I went back to sleep.

Around 3. A.M the nurse came in to hang the second dose of Rocephin, the same thing I got in the E.R. I didn't hear her or see her, but I woke up at 3:30 very suddenly with marshmellow hands and Angelina Jolie lips with complimentary hives and the same intense fire-y itch. Called the nurse. The swelling, especially of my face, seemed to be cause for much more alarm and she called the doctor to come see me. They were at my bedside, two of them, within 2 minutes asking me how I was breathing, if I felt any tightness in my chest, and please, if I didn't mind too much, if I could KEEP BREATHING. More benadryl. They stayed for about 10 minutes until they could see the swelling start to subside and then left. The nurse was like "No freaking WAY are you allergic to BOTH these drugs! That sucks!" Yes. Yes it does. So no more antibiotics for me at that point.

In the morning the doctor who had seen me in the ER and admitted me came to see me. She very nicely explained to me that these were the two best drugs to treat bacterial meningitis, and if they couldn't treat me on top of the fact that they were mostly certain it was viral, then I might as well go home. The culture at that point was negative, but it hadn't been a whole 24 hours. Still she felt confident enough to discharge me, and the pain pills they were giving me had brought me headache to a tolerable level.

So, one CT scan, one spinal tap, and two drug reactions later I am home safe and sound. My back hurts. My head hurts. But overall I'm in pretty good shape. I have to rest and stay away from basically the entire world until Tuesday. Fortunately the boys could go to their Dad's and my sister-in-law got a flight down from NJ to watch Hannah so Dean can go to work.

I woke up this morning at 11:00. I haven't done that since.......ever. And my dad is sending me movies to keep me occupied.

All in all, I'm one lucky girl.

Catching Up

2009-02-09T18:54:00.000-08:00

I don't know if the rest of you knew this, but its February.

I am not entirely sure how that happened.

Dean arrived home on the 23rd of December, just in time for Christmas. His plane arrived early in the morning, a bit after 8 a.m., which meant I had to get all the kids up around 5 a.m. and toss them in the car. Not that any of them minded. Even little Hannah knew something incredibly exciting was going on, and babbled all the way to the airport about "Daddy on a hair-pain!" The boys had on their ARMY t-shirts, just like Daddy's PT shirt, and a sign they made saying "WELCOME HOME DADDY!"

When we arrived we had some waiting to do. And while we were waiting some unexpected guests arrive to witness our little homecoming: Photographers. My best best best (VERY) best friend Erin had asked the photographers from her wedding to come and capture this very precious moment for my family. I couldn't believe it.

Heres us. Waiting.

Just a few minutes later and I got a text message. His plane had landed. He was on his way to us.

I'm pretty sure it was at that point my brain went numb. It was like.....well, it was like waking up from a dream. That fog, when you don't know if you are still sleeping, or if you are awake, And you wonder if you really just spent the last twelve months without your husband and he is about to walk off an escalator and back in to your life, or if you will wake up tomorrow still alone in your bed, "single" parent of three, who spends every waking moment trying not to think about your husband living in constant mortal peril. Know what I'm talking about? Maybe not.

And then there he was. And the boys ran to him, and Hannah shrieked delightedly "DADDY!". And we hugged. And kissed. All in that dreamy fog. I honestly thought I would cry when I saw him, but I didn't. It felt too unreal, too impossible, too miraculous that this was happening, that it was over, that he was home.

Then we collected his bags, got in our car, and drove home still basically in shock. But the good kind of shock, where you smile so hard your face hurts and your heart feels like its going to flutter right out of your chest because holding his hand and seeing his face is exhilarating and overwhelming.

And since that day we've just been, you know, catching up on things we missed the last twelve months. I'm sure you don't need details.

Best Day Ever. Part I.

2008-12-20T16:58:00.000-08:00

Dean is back in the United States.

BEST! DAY! EVER!

That is of course until the day he actually arrives HOME. Which will be in the next few days.

I actually don't have words to describe how I am feeling, but its basically completely awesome.

I love you, baby. Come Home!

What a Day

2008-12-06T18:39:00.001-08:00

Today was quite a day.

We started out this morning early. Because my children seem to have an uncanny sense of the days that I am not working and insist on refusing to allow me to sleep in. Not even a wink. Of course on the days I DO work they have to get practically dragged out of bed. How do they know when to be zombies at 6 a.m. or when to be bright eyed and bushy tailed at 5:30 a.m.? I don't know, but if you ever figure it out please let me know so I can make it stop.

So, we got up very early today, since I am off. And watched some cartoons. But as I attempted to catch a few extra winks on the couch Hannah found a small, plastic mound of peas from her toy food stuffs and began licking it and saying "HMMMMM! PEAS! Peas Mama! HMMMMMM!" which very quickly lead to "More peas please, mama, pease please pleeeeeeaaassseee" My response to this was "Hannah, you can't possibly want peas. Its barely 6 in the morning." to which her polite response was "PEAS!! MORE! PEAS! PLEASE!" Fine. Fine. I made some peas. And she ate two entire bowls.

Around 11:30 we started making preparations for the Big Game. The Army Navy football game, of course. This is the first year we have ever watched it, but we really got in to the spirit. Everyone put on one of Dean's PT shirts, except for Hannah who had a smaller shirt that used to belong to Eden, and we all cheered "GO ARMY!!" right up to the point that the game started and the Navy promptly began kicking our trash. But at least our guys had REALLY cool looking uniforms to wear as they were soundly defeated. Cause you know, looking good is always important. Especially if you are really bad at football.

Then about half way through the game we had another major event in our household. Jude lost his first tooth!! He had been wiggling it when he turned to look at me and said "Mommy, I think its about to come out!" except his mouth was full of blood because in fact the tooth had already made its way to the floor. I said "Jude, I think it already did come out" and still with a mouth full of blood he says "REALLY?!?!" I found it on the carpet while Eden ran to the bathroom to get some toilet paper to stop the bleeding. It was all very exciting, and Jude immediately wanted to call people and share his big news.

After our sad defeat and exciting unexpected tooth-loss we had nothing left to do with our day but play. Hannah decided the View Finder was the most awesome toy of all time ever created, and also found she quite enjoyed sitting in a cloth bin talking to herself. But she didn't want me to take her picture while doing so. Oh, to be two years old. And theres a few other funny photos. Enjoy.

Big Little Girl

2008-12-03T18:05:00.001-08:00

Hannah Rebekah turned Two Years Old on November 30th.

When I think of Hannah as an infant, the first image that comes in to my mind is that of her Daddy holding her for the first time at the hospital. Rocking her gently back and forth, whispering to her quietly that he loved her. Its one of those moments in time that is perfectly frozen in my memory. She was such a tiny, perfect, little baby, barely over 5 pounds, but from moment one she owned our hearts.

And she knew it too.

Her big brothers were so absolutely adoring and attentive, and to this day that has not lessened. They were, and still are, quick to tell me if she needs something and quicker to tell me if they think I am doing something wrong. They always want to love and hug and kiss her, which sometimes she tolerates and other times she does not, but they keep trying anyways. They always want to make her smile and laugh, and she gives them some good laughs in return. Watching the three of them together is the greatest joy of my life.

Trying to put in to words what this little girl means to me is nearly impossible, there is so much in my heart. When she came in to being she brought with her a force that shaped our little family, all of our love for her binding us tightly together, no longer a "step" family or a "blended" family, just quite simply a family. Her family.

Hannah is strong-willed, tender-hearted and tempermental. She likes Alligators, sparkly dresses, playing in the dirt, dancing in front of the mirror and washing her hands. She knows all her shapes, including "crescent" and "hexagon", which never ceases to amaze me. Her favorite thing in the world is her Daddy Doll, who goes everywhere with us. She can speak in sentences and knows all kinds of big fancy words but still insists on calling her sippy cup "ah-kum" for reasons no one has yet been able to discern. Just because shes Hannah. She is bright, beautiful and endlessly entertaining. And so very, very loved.

Birthday in Absence

2008-11-22T17:43:00.001-08:00

This is a cake. And yes, it is shaped like a turkey. Why? An excellent question.

Allow me to explain.

Today is Dean's 29th birthday.

29 years ago this day was Thanksgiving Day. So his mother, as a tradition, has always baked him this "turkey cake" in remembrance of that year when she did not get to eat any Thanksgiving dinner because she was busy. You know, at the hospital.

So now, as his wife, the ritual of baking this cake has passed to me. Dean is still in Afghanistan, obviously, but in our 4 years of marriage the boys have come to also expect the turkey cake this time of year. So I told them that even with Dean away we would celebrate his birthday by making a "practice" cake, and then we could bake him another one when he got home. The reason for this was twofold: One-Who doesn't like to eat cake? and Two-I really did need the practice. This freakin' cake is COMPLICATED.

In case you can't tell from the picture, the frosting is applied in tiny swirly dots all over the cake in various colors. This takes the patience of a saint, which I clearly am not. When my mother in law makes this cake it is beautiful, all the dots are uniform in size and shape, and in neat little rows. But she has had 28 years of practice, so I can't really expect to compete. Plus I had to do said icing application with a crying toddler (who had spent the morning in the ER due to an ear infection that just won't quit) on my hip. So I was using the icing applicator with one hand and bouncing and rocking Hannah with the other.

Awesome.

When Mary came in and saw the state of things in the kitchen I said to her "Just imagine 20 something years ago your mom was doing this with YOU on her hip!" which made us both laugh. Then she took Hannah out to the little house for a few minutes so I could use both hands for a bit. That didn't last terribly long, so then Mary stepped in and finished the icing so we wouldn't be eating a turkey that looked half-plucked. It was a learning experience, but it turned out pretty good anyways.

Then we sang a quick Happy Birthday to Dean and had cake and ice cream in his honor.

Happy Birthday, baby. I love you.

Anticipation

2008-11-17T16:34:00.001-08:00

Waiting is difficult.

Whether its waiting for your human to throw the gosh-darn ball already so you can chase it at lightspeed until you crash head first in to the fence or waiting for your husband to come home from a 15 month deployment, the waiting part will most likely drive you crazy. If you fall in to the first category you can jump up and down and bark and run in circles. If you fall in to the second category you probably have trouble eating and sleeping, along with spending prolonged periods of time counting and recounting the days left on the calendar. None of these activities actually help the anticipated event occur any faster, but in either case you just can't help yourself.

We have entered in to the count-down-to-home stretch at our house. I've been saying for awhile now that we were going to make a paper chain to count down, but we have yet to do it. Its not that I don't WANT to, I think I'm just still in shock that its actually TIME to do it. I had better get with the program soon though or our paper chain is going to be less of a chain and more of a small belt. Christmas for once will take a backseat as the major event of the year in my young children's lives as they eagerly await the arrival of a man not in red, but in digital print cammo. Even Hannah seems to have caught on somewhat that something big is about to happen as she will periodically exclaim "Daddy? Back? Airplane?" Jude's class had a circle time activity where each child took a turn saying "I am Thankful for...." as the teacher wrote their list on the board. What was Jude most Thankful for? His Stepdad. Eden has taken it upon himself to constantly reinforce the schedule to us all repeatedly stating "Well, don't forget, Dean MIGHT be home on THIS day or he might be home on THIS day, or maybe somewhere between the two. But either way Christmas won't come till he's here" They want to talk about it every morning before school and every night before bed.

The excitement level around here is definitely escalating. Hopefully we won't all need chemical sedation by the time the big day actually arrives.

Yes. We. Can.

2008-11-05T07:52:00.000-08:00

FULL TEXT:
PRESIDENT-ELECT BARACK OBAMA: "If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible; who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time; who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer.

Its the answer told by lines that stretched around schools and churches in numbers this nation has never seen; by people who waited three hours and four hours, many for the very first time in their lives, because they believed that this time must be different; that their voice could be that difference.

Its the answer spoken by young and old, rich and poor, Democrat and Republican, black, white, Latino, Asian, Native American, gay, straight, disabled and not disabled - Americans who sent a message to the world that we have never been a collection of Red States and Blue States: we are, and always will be, the United States of America.

Its the answer that led those who have been told for so long by so many to be cynical, and fearful, and doubtful of what we can achieve to put their hands on the arc of history and bend it once more toward the hope of a better day.

Its been a long time coming, but tonight, because of what we did on this day, in this election, at this defining moment, change has come to America.

I just received a very gracious call from Senator McCain. He fought long and hard in this campaign, and hes fought even longer and harder for the country he loves. He has endured sacrifices for America that most of us cannot begin to imagine, and we are better off for the service rendered by this brave and selfless leader. I congratulate him and Governor Palin for all they have achieved, and I look forward to working with them to renew this nations promise in the months ahead.

I want to thank my partner in this journey, a man who campaigned from his heart and spoke for the men and women he grew up with on the streets of Scranton and rode with on that train home to Delaware, the Vice President-elect of the United States, Joe Biden.

I would not be standing here tonight without the unyielding support of my best friend for the last sixteen years, the rock of our family and the love of my life, our nations next First Lady, Michelle Obama. Sasha and Malia, I love you both so much, and you have earned the new puppy thats coming with us to the White House. And while shes no longer with us, I know my grandmother is watching, along with the family that made me who I am. I miss them tonight, and know that my debt to them is beyond measure.

To my campaign manager David Plouffe, my chief strategist David Axelrod, and the best campaign team ever assembled in the history of politics - you made this happen, and I am forever grateful for what youve sacrificed to get it done.

But above all, I will never forget who this victory truly belongs to - it belongs to you.

I was never the likeliest candidate for this office. We didnt start with much money or many endorsements. Our campaign was not hatched in the halls of Washington - it began in the backyards of Des Moines and the living rooms of Concord and the front porches of Charleston.

It was built by working men and women who dug into what little savings they had to give five dollars and ten dollars and twenty dollars to this cause. It grew strength from the young people who rejected the myth of their generations apathy; who left their homes and their families for jobs that offered little pay and less sleep; from the not-so-young people who braved the bitter cold and scorching heat to knock on the doors of perfect strangers; from the millions of Americans who volunteered, and organized, and proved that more than two centuries later, a government of the people, by the people and for the people has not perished from this Earth. This is your victory.

I know you didnt do this just to win an election and I know you didnt do it for me. You did it because you understand the enormity of the task that lies ahead. For even as we celebrate tonight, we know the challenges that tomorrow will bring are the greatest of our lifetime - two wars, a planet in peril, the worst financial crisis in a century. Even as we stand here tonight, we know there are brave Americans waking up in the deserts of Iraq and the mountains of Afghanistan to risk their lives for us. There are mothers and fathers who will lie awake after their children fall asleep and wonder how theyll make the mortgage, or pay their doctors bills, or save enough for college. There is new energy to harness and new jobs to be created; new schools to build and threats to meet and alliances to repair.

The road ahead will be long. Our climb will be steep. We may not get there in one year or even one term, but America - I have never been more hopeful than I am tonight that we will get there. I promise you - we as a people will get there.

There will be setbacks and false starts. There are many who wont agree with every decision or policy I make as President, and we know that government cant solve every problem. But I will always be honest with you about the challenges we face. I will listen to you, especially when we disagree. And above all, I will ask you join in the work of remaking this nation the only way its been done in America for two-hundred and twenty-one years - block by block, brick by brick, calloused hand by calloused hand.

What began twenty-one months ago in the depths of winter must not end on this autumn night. This victory alone is not the change we seek - it is only the chance for us to make that change. And that cannot happen if we go back to the way things were. It cannot happen without you.

So let us summon a new spirit of patriotism; of service and responsibility where each of us resolves to pitch in and work harder and look after not only ourselves, but each other. Let us remember that if this financial crisis taught us anything, its that we cannot have a thriving Wall Street while Main Street suffers - in this country, we rise or fall as one nation; as one people.

Let us resist the temptation to fall back on the same partisanship and pettiness and immaturity that has poisoned our politics for so long. Let us remember that it was a man from this state who first carried the banner of the Republican Party to the White House - a party founded on the values of self-reliance, individual liberty, and national unity. Those are values we all share, and while the Democratic Party has won a great victory tonight, we do so with a measure of humility and determination to heal the divides that have held back our progress. As Lincoln said to a nation far more divided than ours, We are not enemies, but friends...though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. And to those Americans whose support I have yet to earn - I may not have won your vote, but I hear your voices, I need your help, and I will be your President too.

And to all those watching tonight from beyond our shores, from parliaments and palaces to those who are huddled around radios in the forgotten corners of our world - our stories are singular, but our destiny is shared, and a new dawn of American leadership is at hand. To those who would tear this world down - we will defeat you. To those who seek peace and security - we support you. And to all those who have wondered if Americas beacon still burns as bright - tonight we proved once more that the true strength of our nation comes not from our the might of our arms or the scale of our wealth, but from the enduring power of our ideals: democracy, liberty, opportunity, and unyielding hope.

For that is the true genius of America - that America can change. Our union can be perfected. And what we have already achieved gives us hope for what we can and must achieve tomorrow.

This election had many firsts and many stories that will be told for generations. But one thats on my mind tonight is about a woman who cast her ballot in Atlanta. Shes a lot like the millions of others who stood in line to make their voice heard in this election except for one thing - Ann Nixon Cooper is 106 years old.

She was born just a generation past slavery; a time when there were no cars on the road or planes in the sky; when someone like her couldnt vote for two reasons - because she was a woman and because of the color of her skin.

And tonight, I think about all that shes seen throughout her century in America - the heartache and the hope; the struggle and the progress; the times we were told that we cant, and the people who pressed on with that American creed: Yes we can.

At a time when womens voices were silenced and their hopes dismissed, she lived to see them stand up and speak out and reach for the ballot. Yes we can.

When there was despair in the dust bowl and depression across the land, she saw a nation conquer fear itself with a New Deal, new jobs and a new sense of common purpose. Yes we can.

When the bombs fell on our harbor and tyranny threatened the world, she was there to witness a generation rise to greatness and a democracy was saved. Yes we can.

She was there for the buses in Montgomery, the hoses in Birmingham, a bridge in Selma, and a preacher from Atlanta who told a people that We Shall Overcome. Yes we can.

A man touched down on the moon, a wall came down in Berlin, a world was connected by our own science and imagination. And this year, in this election, she touched her finger to a screen, and cast her vote, because after 106 years in America, through the best of times and the darkest of hours, she knows how America can change. Yes we can.

America, we have come so far. We have seen so much. But there is so much more to do. So tonight, let us ask ourselves - if our children should live to see the next century; if my daughters should be so lucky to live as long as Ann Nixon Cooper, what change will they see? What progress will we have made?

This is our chance to answer that call. This is our moment. This is our time - to put our people back to work and open doors of opportunity for our kids; to restore prosperity and promote the cause of peace; to reclaim the American Dream and reaffirm that fundamental truth - that out of many, we are one; that while we breathe, we hope, and where we are met with cynicism, and doubt, and those who tell us that we cant, we will respond with that timeless creed that sums up the spirit of a people:

Yes We Can. Thank you, God bless you, and may God Bless the United States of America."

Little Black Boots

2008-10-29T12:12:00.000-07:00

Today I took Hannah out shopping. Its gotten cold and the boys really needed some long-sleeved winter type stuff. Hannah needed some new shoes. She has only one pair, they are white and pink sneakers, and we bought them over the summer in NJ while visiting Grandparents. Hannah, as we all know, doesn't grow very fast. So it wasn't so much that she had out-grown the shoes she had as it was that they were all scuffed up and the velcro didn't fasten anymore due to the fact that she fastens and unfastens them approximately ten thousand times per day.

So we get the boys clothes and then head over to PayLess. The nice man there measures her teeny tiny feet and points me in the right direction to find teeny tiny shoes. I'm looking around and they have some really cute little sneakers in various shades of white and pink and purple with sparklies. Hannah is walking around my legs, seemingly not paying much attention.

And then she sees them.

"BOOTS! MOMMY! BOOOOOOTS!"

"What baby-girl?"

"BoooooooooooOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOTS!!!"

And there in fact on the shelf right at her eye level were a small pair of black, shiny, zip-up boots.

Black.Shiny. Zip-up. Boots.

"Do you want to try on the boots, Hannah?"

"EEEEEEEEEEEEKKKK!" And she plops to the floor on her bottom and tugs at her shoes "Shoes! off!!"

The boots go on and I have to admit they are basically the cutest thing I have ever seen in my entire life. She stands up and prances over to the nearest full-length mirror with the biggest smile on her face.

"Boots, mama! Baby boots!"

She bends down trying to examine the boots reflection as closely as possible. She shrieks and giggles and runs up and down the isle in a boot-induced hysteria.

I let her walk around for a good while in the boots and then tried to coerce her in to trying on some sneakers as well. Its a No-Go. The boots were not coming off. The nice man in the store cut the tags off so we could pay for the boots without causing Hannah to have a complete meltdown. I bought her some sneakers anyways, he said I could bring them back if they didn't fit. Of course, right now she is napping.

With her boots on.

A Day on the Farm

2008-10-26T17:17:00.003-07:00

This is a "Corn Pool."

I have never in my life beheld so much corn in one sitting. This large blue tub of corn was one of three such tubs, and it became the highlight of our adventure to the Pumpkin Patch. Move aside, Pumpkins, we've got Corn to play in.

It was a really beautiful fall day, a bit windy, cool but not cold. I had made everyone bring jackets but we ended up leaving them in the car. The first thing the kids did was play in a little Hay Maze, and the first thing Eden did was complain that the walls were not high enough. However, after several minutes in the maze and still unable to find his way out he came to realize that the height of the walls did not matter nearly as much as his own height. And since he was still not tall enough to see the maze's master floor plan he still could not easily find his way through in spite of the wall's short stature. Jude, being ever present in his Jude-ness, tried for about two minutes and then promptly jumped a couple bales of hay, ran out the exit and exclaimed with hands held high "I did it!" Hannah meandered back and forth on the first straight path entry way to the maze and seemed happy enough to have found her way back out the entrance with her Daddy Doll in tow.

You can see Jude here in the bottom corner preparing to jump the wall....

After the Maze we saw a sheep dog and his handler herding some sheep. It was really, really cool. This dog was amazing. The man had some sort of tiny whistle and he made all these random sounds with it and the dog responded instantly to whatever the calls meant. Clearly he knew the definition of each tiny chirp from his master, and those sheep clearly knew the dog meant business and did not want to be anywhere near him. He never barked or growled, but he would lower his body or raise it up and look at the sheep different ways and they would move. We were told the dog was not allowed to bite the sheep. He could bite the cows, but not the sheep. Sorry, Cows.
After the little dog show we went to the above mentioned Corn Pools. The pools had only two rules:

Rule # 1: NO THROWING CORN

Rule # 2: DO NOT BURY YOUR HEAD IN THE CORN

Personally, I love Rule #2. I mean you just know some genius at some point decided to bury their head in the corn and it probaly wasn't as much fun as they imagined it would be. And now its one of only two pool rules.

The boys dove right in, while Hannah sat off to the side grasping tiny handfuls of corn shrieking delightedly and exlaiming "COOOOORRRNNN!!!" The boys dove and dug and "swam" and swished and stomped, while Hannah sat and picked up the corn and dropped the corn and picked up the corn and dropped the corn and dropped the corn....for a good 30 to 40 minutes. Eden handed his glasses to me at some point, afraid they would fall off or get broken in the corn-melee.

Daddy got to play in the corn too.

After a long while a gentleman came up and said we could go on the hayride in about ten minutes. So we started extricating ourselves from the corn, shaking it out of our shoes and pants and shirts and hair, and made our way to the hayride. Hannah was not impressed with the hay and immeditely stated she wanted "Out! NO! COOOORRRNNNN!" but then we were on our way and she was ok. Unfortunately, about 5 minutes in to the ride I realized Eden's glasses were no longer on my head. I dug around in my bag hoping I had absentmindedly placed them there after getting out of the corn, but they were no where to be found. When we got to the pumpkin patch Eden and I walked back to the corn pools and searched, but found nothing. Then Aunt Mary went and looked again even walking part way down the path the hayride had gone. Nothing. We picked out a couple pumpkins and had our picture taken, but Hannah was crying because she wanted to carry the pumpkin herself. And mean old mommy wouldn't let her. Because it weighed more than Hannah did and would crush her. But she still thought I was a terrible Mommy and she cried angrily for a good five minutes about it.

We put the pumpkins in the car and went back to the corn pools one last time. Aunt Mary stayed with the boys and I took Hannah walking around making one last-ditch effort to find the glasses. Nothing but defeat. I give my name and number to a lady who works on the farm, but I am certain they will not be found. At least not in one piece. The boys are still jumping around in the corn, Hannah is playing happily, when I look down and see a tiny...black.....thing....sticking out of the corn. I reach down, pinch it between my two fingers and somehow, amazingly, insanely and miraculously, pull Eden's glasses out. In all honesty, I still can't believe it. They were bent a little from being buried, but I straightened them out and gave them to Eden who was just like "Oh. Cool." and went back to playing.

After that minor miracle, we went and got some soda and then saw all the animals. There were small horses, which Hannah called Cows, a little cow, which Hannah called Cows, and some mommy and baby sheep, which Hannah called cows. Jude was most fascinated by the mommy sheep and the baby sheep she was feeding. "Look, Mommy! They're drinking its milk!!" Then we saw some goats, and Hannah told them "Be Quiet!" and "Behave!" Then we saw some ducks. Hannah put her tiny fingers on the ducks' cage and they bit her, which she found to be hilarious so she did it over and over. They didn't hurt her, I think they thought she was trying to feed them, but I tried it and you could definitely feel a pinch from their beaks. She didn't seem to care in the slightest though, she just laughed and quack quack quacked at them and stuck her fingers in anyways. On our way out we saw chickens and more chickens and then lots and lots of chickens. And then some pigeons. I would have taken pictures but my camera battery died.

So it was a lovely day. But my heart just felt that little tug of sadness anyways that Dean wasn't here to share it with us. I know he will be home soon, but its just not soon enough. I could hear him laughing at Hannah, and the things he might say or do with the boys in the corn pool. He would have had a blast.

Next year he will.

Pudah's Prayer

2008-10-21T17:30:00.000-07:00

Today turned out to be wonderfully amazingly awesome.

First of all, the car was in the shop. It had been there since yesterday, but around 1130 it was fixed and I could go get it. This is where I am grateful for really awesome friends I can just call up. Yesterday I had to call Allison to come and retreive Hannah and myself from said car place because the car guys realized it was going to take them a BIT longer then they initally expected to fix the problem. Allison came and got us, no problem, and we had a really nice lunch on the way home. Plus I got to see her cutest of all preggo tummy which was fun. Then today I had to get back to the car place, and I called Penny. She managed to help me out in between needing to run errands and picking up her own child from daycare. But shes awesome like that, and I was really happy to see her and talk even if it was only for a ten minute drive.

So we go to get the car, and the poor car guys who had give me a price quote estimating that it would take approximately 1 1/2 hours to fix ended up spending more like 5 or 6 hours on my car. But yesterday they had told me they would honor the original quote anyways. I talked to Dean about it, and we both felt this was unfair. I wasn't sure about paying for a whole 6 hours since I was sure they had stopped to help other customers etc during this time frame, but I also thought they deserved more than being paid for just one hour of work. When I spoke to the manager on the phone after he said the car was ready I told him I just wanted to be fair, and I had no problem with paying for 2 or 3 hours of labor cost. He seemed stunned. He sort of chuckled at me and said "Well....Okay." When I actually picked up the car and paid for it he said they decided to charge me 2 1/2 hours. I asked if he was sure that was alright, if that was enough. He shook his head at me and smiled "I don't think anyone has ever said that before. Most people wanna fight you and just say Thats not the price you quoted me!" I told him again I just wanted to be fair, and he said "Its alright, dear, this will be just fine." I told him we would be back again soon because my van needs new brake pads or something. Its tough to find a car guy you can trust, you know? But I think after this he will remember me and he will be happy to have us for return customers.

Then, in more awesomeness, I came home and Hannah and I took a nap. It was 2 hours of complete perfection.

Then the boys got off the bus asking for friends to come over. So we went to the grocery store really fast, and then called Brad (Eden's friend) and Taylor (Jude's friend) to come over. Taylor has asked me almost every time I have seen him either in the morning at the bus stop or getting off the bus if he could please please PLEASE come to our house, so he was really excited to come over. Taylor and his 3 sisters live with their grandma. I am not privy to the entire story, but what I do know is their mom and dad are not around at all. So, his grandma brought him over and one of his big sisters had come along for the ride. Her name is Amber and she was in Eden's class when we first moved here. Amber is a rough and tough wild child, who likes to talk about playing in the woods and climbing trees back when she lived with her mom. I could see in her face that she wanted to play, so I asked "Can she stay and play too?" Her grandma seemed suprised, she didn't want me overwhelmed with kids, but I said I didn't mind. I asked Amber if she wanted to stay and she answered sort of cooly "Well, I don't really care" but I could see she was actually very happy.

Eden, Brad and Amber got right in to a big game. Something to do with swords and dragons and monsters and magic, I couldn't follow all the rules. It was complicated. Jude and Taylor soon joined in, bringing their walkie talkies, and we all ended up outside on the front lawn for over an hour. They ran and shouted and rolled around in the grass and played their little hearts out. Hannah watched them delighted, and occasionally ventured out in the grass as well to grab a sword or shout at someone. But really she was most happy just to watch. It was a really beautiful afternoon, the air was crisp and cool and it smelled like fresh cut grass. This of course was most likely due to the fact that my wonderful 13 year old neighbor had just cut our grass a couple hours prior. The whole scene made me feel so grateful for my life, so much love for my children, and inspired by a day that brought me a sense of people's true goodness. When it was time for everyone to go home I got hugs from all the visitors and my own children came inside with rosy cheeks, big smiles, and grass in their hair. It doesn't get much better than that.

Tonight as we got ready for bed Jude asked if he could say a prayer. It went like this:

"Dear Heavenly Father, Thank you for our day. Thank you for all that we Have. And for all that we Love. Please bless Dean to be safe in Afghanistan. And thank you for our food. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen."

I think that says it all.

A Moment

2008-10-16T06:49:00.000-07:00

This morning I was driving in my car after mailing some stuff at the post office. I got to a red light only to realize that at the next light which was not very far away I needed to be in the other lane to turn right.

I looked over and the driver next to me was an elderly African-American woman in a big van. I assessed the situation and decided I could definitely pass her and change lanes before the next light. So my light turned green and I sped up, turned on my blinker, and quickly changed lanes. At the next light, I turn right and so does she.

We come up to the next light and she pulls up in the lane next to me and honks her horn. I'm thinking, Oh crap, this lady is going to yell at me for cutting her off.....but I look over and she has this BIG smile on her face and she is pointing at the back of my car and waving and smiling. It took me half a second, but then I realized she was mouthing something and my face lit up. "OBAMA?!?!" I shouted even though I'm sure she couldn't hear me, and she threw her hands up in the air in a big "WAHOOOO!" sign and mouthed several more times "Obama! Obama!" So I threw my hands up in the air too, and we had a mini-celebration for about 10 seconds at the stoplight. It was an awesome moment. Then the light changed and as she drove off I saw that she also had an Obama bumper sticker, along with a mix of Army, Retired Army, Support Our Troops etc stickers all over the back of her car just like some you see on mine. So it turned out we shared more then just our love for Obama, which gave my heart warm-fuzzies.

Icky

2008-10-15T05:47:00.001-07:00

Peoples' kids who smell like cigarette smoke make me sad.

Learning Curve

2008-10-10T12:11:00.000-07:00

I have been back at work now for almost 2 months, and I am finally starting to feel like a nurse. Which is really neat for me, and also probably a reeeeaaallly good thing for my patients. I feel more confident in what I am doing, and they feel more confidence in me as a result. The weird thing is, I worked for 5 months previously on a Mother/Baby floor and I never had this feeling. I went to work and cared for new moms and their babies, but it never felt like I was accomplishing much. I KNEW about being a Mom, I KNEW about caring for babies, and showing new parents how to swaddle their newborn just wasn't requiring much brain power on my part. Its not what one would call a high-skills area and I certainly didn't feel like I was using my hard-earned 4 year degree to its full potential.

But things on a med/surg/oncology floor are very, very different. In the last two months I have (finally!) learned how to start IVs. I've changed dressings on wounds that were ranging from fresh out of surgery to rotten-full-of-maggots. I've seen all kinds of drains and wound vacs and colostomys and illeostomys and amputations and abrasions and staples and sutures. I've had patients from their early 20s to over 90 in all sizes and shapes and colors.

But the patients who have already found a special place in my heart are our cancer patients. To see them and their families, battling an illness of their body's betrayal at the most fundamental level, alternating between optimism and despair, anger and love, frustation and determination is both inspiring and humbling. A few weeks ago I was caring for this wonderful woman, whos family was always by her side tending to her every need, who in the midst of her own extreme suffering could still crack a joke and make everyone smile. I went in to the medication room to draw up some pain medicine for her and I just started to cry, I was so overwhelmed by her struggle. The cancer was killing her, and the treatment for it was only making her remaining time miserable. But she had no choice, you see, because she has young children. Who need her. Who she has to fight for even if the doctor says the odds aren't good. I had seen her youngest daughter for the first time in the hallway just moments before, and she stopped me in my tracks. "You look JUST like your mother," I said. "Thanks", she said with a big smile, "My mom is beautiful."

My preceptor came in the room behind me and asked me what was wrong. Like a child, all I could manage to get out with my sobs was a very simple "Its just not FAIR." She gave me a big hug and told me "Now I KNOW you are going to be a great nurse, because you care this much." She let me cry for a minute and then she roughly rubbed my shoulders, told me to pull it back together, and go do whatever I could for my patient. And that would have to be good enough.

A few of the patients I have cared for in my short time on this floor have already died. Not through any fault of ours, the cancer just couldn't be beaten. The learning curve here is steep. But I am learning how to cope. Someone asked me yesterday if I though I would "get used to it". I hope I never do. Because I do believe that the only thing I can give these amazing individuals that will make any real difference is my honest compassion and caring.

Why Barack Obama is a Jedi

2008-09-29T17:18:00.000-07:00

Tonight was our weekly "Movie Night". Once a week I take the kids to blockbuster, the boys take turns choosing the movie, we order pizza and spend a couple hours together. Tonight it was Jude's turn, and he selected "The Return of the Jedi". This is one of my favorite movies for a lot of reasons, the main one being that Harrison Ford is my favorite actor and he is still smokin' hot in this movie. But that's besides the point.

So we are near the end of the movie, where the rebels are trying to get in to the little outpost to destroy in and bring down the Death Star's energy field(Disclaimer: I promise I am not a nerd, please hear this out) Luke has gone and turned himself in and is now sitting in front of the Emperor being taunted about the fact that his friends are basically walking in to a trap and cannot succeed against the enormous enemy force that will be there to greet them.

At this point my sister in law, Mary, makes a comment that this sort of reminds her of the current Presidential campaign. The large, controlling, evil empire in the hands of a few individuals desperately clinging to power for power's sake at the expense of everyone around them versus the small, seemingly insignificant rebel alliance, facing long odds but willing to take a chance knowing that they are the last hope for freedom and justice in the galaxy.

"Plus," I say, "The Emperor does kinda look like John McCain."

This makes my nine year old laugh hysterically.

So naturally Luke Skywalker becomes Barack Obama. Young, determined, energetic, charismatic (insert any good adjectives here) and possessed with internal strength, natural ability, and desire to do good. All necessary things when one is going about the business of saving the universe. Or in our case, just the United States of America. In this last big scene Skywalker says repeatedly that he does not want to fight, that he believes there is good in everyone, that he will not turn to the dark side. He is not there to destroy anyone, he only wants to bring them along with him in to a better, brighter, more peaceful future. Obama wants to discuss the real issues, not Palin's pregnant daughter. He wants fairness and equality, and a government governed by people who care about those less fortunate then themselves. He wants to promote science, education, advancement and alternatives instead of "same old same old, and who cares if it kills the planet because we will all be dead by then anyways!" policies. He's fighting this fight because he has to, not because he wants to. Which makes him a Jedi in my book. (Ok, now I am a nerd)

Joe Biden then can be our ever favorite Han Solo. Older, with a bit of a chip on his shoulder and street smarts to boot. He's charming and brave with a tendency to put his foot in his mouth. But we love him anyways. Biden, that is. Well, and Han Solo but everyone loves Han Solo so that goes without saying.

Sarah Palin won the dubious distinction of becoming Darth Vader. No, not because I think she is evil. Which she is. (Warning to my Conservative friends: Stop Reading Now. Wait....do I even HAVE conservative friends?) She is Darth Vader for the one simple fact that Vader is the Emperor's ultimate undoing. The difference of course here is that Vader makes a conscious choice to toss the Emperor over the railing in to the blue-fiery-pit-of-death-thing, while Palin on the other hand I think will rather accidentally and slowly nudge McCain over that precipitous ledge with her incoherent speeches. In fact the upcoming VP debate could actually be the defining ledge-tumbling moment.

As seemingly minor characters in this drama we also nominated the Religious Right to be the Storm Troopers. Unable to think outside the box, they can't stray from the pack, but they can blindly follow orders quite well. They are a well organized, well trained force that strikes fear in to the heart of many and then uses that fear to control them. To counter this of course there is a positive force: The Ewoks. Small, furry, feisty, smart. At first glance they certainly don't appear to be any real threat. But they were the one variable the bad guys hadn't seen coming and they tipped the scales allowing the rebels to proceed to victory. We don't have Ewoks in our fine country, but we do have college students. Lots and lots of them. And in this monumental, historical election, in this defining make-or-break moment, they will stand up and demand change. Or at the very least they might hit someone in the head with a sling-shot rock. You know, whatever they gotta do to get their point across. That point is this: Its time for a new generation to be in control. Because I personally do not believe our country can survive 4 more years of this shit.

Oops. (Or: In Case You Didn't Know, Melted Plastic Stinks)

2008-09-22T09:52:00.000-07:00

I did this.

See, heres what happened. I was trying to be a good mother and boil the tops for Hannah's sippy cups since they had been back and forth to daycare and thus could be declared hazardous objects of biological warfare. I put them in a pan full of water, turned on the stove, and went about my business starting the laundry and other motherly-type duties. Then the phone rang. And it was Dean!! Naturally when Dean calls the rest of the world comes to a screeching halt, I usually go to my room and lay on my bed while we chat.

We had probably been talking ten or fifteen minutes when I very suddenly remembered there was something on the stove.

I ran out to the kitchen only to be greeted by a large cloud of billowing black smoke. The water had all boiled away and the tops were now seconds from bursting in to flames. I grabbed the pan and stuck it in the sink and turned the water on and I think I said something like "Oh shit I almost caught the kitchen on fire!!" All Dean heard was "fire" and he was saying "DO YOU KNOW WHERE THE FIRE EXTINGUISHER IS?!?!" Which, I did not. But luckily nothing was actually on fire, there was just tons of smoke. I opened the back door and the window above the sink to let it out, I couldn't use the over-the-stove hood thing because sadly it is approximately 100 years old and doesn't work.

So the major crisis of burning the house down was narrowly averted. Whew. The kitchen still stinks though. Theres nothing quite like the stench of freshly melted plastic. Today I have to go out and buy new sippy cups. And a new pan.

And maybe I should find out where I keep the fire extinguisher.

A Happy Hair Day

2008-09-19T18:15:00.000-07:00

Lately, I have become increasingly frustrated with my hair. I'm back at trying to grow it out, but its at that akward point where theres basically nothing to be done with it. And I hate it. And its evil. Which makes me want to chop it all off. However, my very sweet husband is basically begging me not to, and since hes in Afghanistan its the least I can do for him to not cut my hair.

Instead I have begun investing in a series of scarf/headband thingys in an attempt to make my hair at least appear decent. Or if it won't appear decent it will be too covered up for anyone to notice.

Yesterday I had on this sparkly scarf thing and my hair was all messy and cool looking and I was awfully proud of myself so I took a photo. Ta-Da! Happy Hair Day.

!$#%@#$

2008-09-18T19:15:00.001-07:00

Ok so this one time, I wrote this really long, funny, clever, witty blog post.

And then my husband called.

And instead of clicking save I accidentally deleted the entire thing.

!@$#%$^!!!!!!!!!

New Views for Jude

2008-09-09T17:53:00.000-07:00

Today Jude got glasses. And quite frankly, he was beyond thrilled about it.

The last few months I have noticed he seemed to want to sit practically on top of the TV when watching it. He also squinted a lot and complained of headaches on occasion. All big fat clues pointing us straight to the eye doctor, but with everything else going on it got pushed to the back of my mind and the bottom of my to-do list. But, today was Early Release day from school, and I decided to take advantage of it. I got him a same day appointment and right after school off we went. We took Eden to play at Sammy's, which upset Jude quite a bit since he had been made to sit through Eden's eye doctor appointment last year. Its hard to explain to a second born child why their older sibling frequently gets to do things that seem unfair, but I tried my best. "When Eden had to see the eye doctor you were too young to be left at a friend's house." to which he replied "I could've stayed at Sammy's too!" to which I replied "We didn't KNOW Sammy then" to which he replied "But we COULD HAVE known him!" So I gave up and just agreed that it was unfair, but thats how it was going to be anyways.

The eye doctor turned out to be a very young lady with a very big smile who made Jude feel extremely comfortable. She let him push the buttons to make his chair go up and down, and she really explained all the steps of what she was doing as best she could. She was very patient with his wiggly-ness, and very complimentary of his attempts to cooperate. When it was all said and done, the conclusion was that yes in fact he did need glasses, he has astigmatism, and one eye is worse than the other. I'm pretty sure she said the left eye was worse, but it was difficult to hear her at that point because Hannah was yelling at me to get more "wash wash" out of the dispenser on the wall.

Then we went and picked out some frames. This took all of 5 minutes because Jude actually doesn't care much what goes on his face. Unlike Eden who labored over the decision for a good 45 minutes, Jude was fine with any frame I put on him so long as it meant we could go home. It came down to two pairs I liked, and he chose the silver ones over the browner ones. Then in another stroke of good fortune they had the lenses in stock and said it would be a mere 15 minute wait to get the glasses put together! Hooray! Jude was very excited and very proud when he finally got to put on his new glasses. His mouth dropped open and he exclaimed "Oh WOW! Everythings got COLORS!"

He was really happy to get home and use his glasses to watch cartoons. Which he can now see from the couch.

September 1

2008-09-01T17:26:00.000-07:00

Its official.

Its September.

This month marks one year since Dean left home to go to Ft. Riley in order to train for this deployment.

One entire Year. And the really funny part is...we aren't even done yet! Oh wait, thats not funny at all. Although I do remember very distinctly last September thinking that THIS September would never come. And now here we are. So that counts for something. Still, its strange to think I haven't lived with my husband for 12 months, and still have 3 to 4 months to go depending on whether or not you count this month since its already started, or if you count December which is when he will be home but probably not to till the end. In my head of course I like to calculate the time whichever way makes it seem shortest. This means I don't count either September (cause its started already) OR December (cause I will see him before that month ends). So that just leaves October and November to really get through. Trust me, in my Army Wife Brain it alllllll makes sense.

Now please excuse me while I go eat a big ol' bowl of Chocolate Trinity ice cream(from Publix! its the best ice cream ever!) to celebrate this milestone of sorts. I made it to September.

Judah Pudah

2008-08-21T08:38:00.000-07:00

Jude turned six years old yesterday.

Six.

Thats half way to twelve. Or 1/3 of the way to 18.

Whhhhhhyyyyyyyyy????

Ok. I am calm again.

From the very beginning, and I do mean the VERY beginning, Jude was nothing like his brother. When I was pregnant with Jude I threw up 3 or 4 times a day for the first 12weeks (with Eden I threw up 3 or 4 times TOTAL EVER). With Jude I craved hot wings and ceasar salad (with Eden all I wanted was chocolate anything). As my tummy grew, Jude would most often find a nice spot in my ribs to place his feet. If I tried to push on him to get him to adjust his position he would literally PUSH BACK as hard as he could as if to say "Thanks for the suggestion, Mom, but I am comfortable right where I am."

After he was born, he didn't really do the whole sleeping thing. He cried a lot, he puked even more. I know the term is "spit up" but trust me, if you had seen what came out of that kid's mouth you would call it puke too. And it was projectile puke, capable of traveling several feet across a room or completely saturating my clothing to the point where if it happened and we were out somewhere we just had to go home to change.

Once he started smiling and laughing though he was a total charmer. And most of all he loved to make his big brother laugh. Jude was a very busy baby, and learned to crawl early, mostly so he could chase Eden around the house. Eden used to have to tell me "Mommy, I have to go potty!" and I would have to hold on to Jude and say "Ok, go! Run!" and Eden would run to the bathroom as fast as he could. The second I put Jude down he was off like a shot after him shouting "EEE-DAH!! EEE-DAH!" He would crawl over to the door and put his little tiny hands under the crack, unable to bear the seperation from his favorite person in all the world. He would lie on his tummy with his fingers under the door and say "eeedah, eedah" until Eden came out.

One of my favorite things Jude used to say was when he was around 2 years old. If you asked him to do something, or told him to stop doing something, he would reply as if he didn't understand and say "Whaa you say? Mama, Whaa you say?" Around this same time he also had horrific, full blown tantrums of the lying-kicking-and-screaming-on-the-floor variety. They were quite a scene to behold, and left me completely baffled as Eden had never had a tantrum in his life. In fact, most mornings Jude woke up screaming. The only way to make it stop was to get him a sippy cup of chocolate milk (mixed only by Mommy, unless you wanted to hear screams of "MOMMY DO IT MOMMY DO IT!!!!!), set him on the couch, and put on a cartoon. It became our morning ritual for quite a long time. He also found his own clever ways to try to get out of going to bed, like sticking his leg out between the bars of his crib all the way up to his thigh till it became tightly wedged, and then shouting for help. This was completely intentional, and scared the crap out of me every single time because I was convinced that one day I would not be able to un-wedge his leg. But I knew he was doing it to get attention, so I just had to go in, get him unstuck, lay him back down, and leave again without talking to him. If I said anything it was just "Jude, No." Some nights I would only have to go through this once, but most nights it was three or four times before he finally went to sleep.

But despite all that, he is still at heart just the sweetest, most loving child. In the early weeks of my pregnancy with Hannah, before the boys even knew, I was driving with Jude in the car one day and he was sitting in the back sitting talking quietly to himself. I said "Hey Jude, what are you doing?" and he replied "I'm talkin' to my baby sister." I was so shocked. I said "Well, you don't have a baby sister.." and he said "I'm just PRETENDING, Mommy!" After Hannah was born he was constantly wanting to hug her and hold her and poke her face with his fingers. He is loving, but not really gentle. Even now, with both Eden and Hannah, I have to remind Jude sometimes that hugs shouldn't hurt. But hes just so excited to love people, and to show it with all of his might. To the extreme. Which is really how he does everything.

So here he is now, a big six year old boy. Who always makes everyone smile.

Fortune Cookie Failure

2008-08-17T09:36:00.000-07:00

This is the ACTUAL fortune I received out of an ACTUAL fortune cookie at dinner last night.

Does this even count as a fortune? It sounds more like a command to me. "GO TO THE GYM! BAAAH!" Thats what it should have said. At least that would have been more interesting. Plus "improving" my exercise routine implies that I already HAVE some sort of excercise routine in place which I could improve upon. This however is not the case. Although a couple of months ago I went to a local gym for a free trial week and seriously considered joining....but, uhm...then I didn't. So, maybe thats what its talking about. Or maybe its just a lame cookie.

Can I get another fortune please?

Nine

2008-08-14T18:25:00.000-07:00

Eden turned Nine years old on the 13th of this month.

There are not enough ways to say how much I love this little boy who is quickly becoming a little man. His birth absolutely and completely altered my life, in ways I could not have anticipated and in ways that I still cannot fully comprehend. I am grateful every. single. day. that I have been fortunate enough to be his mother and I know for a fact that I have learned just as much from him as he has ever learned from me, if not more.

When I look back and think about the day he was born, I am flooded with so many emotions. Being a "teenage mom" is a condition that seems to follow you no matter how many years pass. Seeing the look on my friends faces when they came to visit me in the hospital, the shock and awkwardness of our 18 year old selves around this tiny, pink person who symbolized by his presence the uncrossable divide between their reality and mine. Holding him and feeling the deepest kind of love mixed with the deepest sense of "oh-dear-god-what-have-I-done". The mixture of what I had lost with what I had gained, the certainty that I knew nothing combined with the certainty that I must not fail, the feeling that I must be dreaming conflicting with the undeniable reality of dirty diapers and feedings around the clock.

Luckily for me, he was the best baby anyone could ask for. Eden cried only when absolutely necessary, he woke up happy, spent most of his time content, and seemed endlessly patient with me as I bumbled about trying to figure out this whole mothering thing. He still is. He always wanted to be held and cuddled, he smiled early, talked early, and never learned to crawl because we never put him down. He did however master the art of butt-scooching in order to get around a bit before he decided at about 14 months that it was time to start walking. Eden always did things his own way in his own time, and when he was done with something he was DONE. One day he was simply done breastfeeding at about 10 months, another day he was done co-sleeping and never slept in my bed again (unless he had a bad dream as he got older, of course!), the same went for his sippy cup and his crib. Done and done, just like that all of the sudden. When hes ready and its time, things happen. When hes not ready and its not time, I assure you things will not. Thats just how it goes with him.

In the years since he has acquired both a younger brother and a younger sister. He is an outstanding big brother, patient and helpful, playful and creative, loving and kind. He has a tendency towards bossiness, but what kind of big brother would he be if he didn't? He knows how he is supposed to treat his siblings, and when he falls short the person who is hardest on him is himself. He is always quick to comfort when they are in need, encourage when they are down, and give hugs and kisses just because. I know how much he loves them, and they know it too. Its a beautiful thing to see.

Yesterday we were able to go out to dinner for his birthday, just him and me. Special mommy time is hard to come by these days. We talked and laughed, planned Halloween costumes and Dean's homecoming. He even ate almost his entire dinner and he proclaimed his hamburger to be "the best burger I have EVER eaten! I especially love the salty crusty bits!" Afterwards we went to Toys R Us to spend some birthday card money, and it was nice to just be able to walk the isles giving him the time to really examine his toy options and make a selection at his leisure. Returning home we had cookie cake and ice cream with everyone else. It was a wonderful evening.

Here are a couple photos, Eden at 10 days old and Eden today.

Amazing.

First Days (Or: "Incentivising")

2008-08-12T17:49:00.000-07:00

Wow.

Ok so Monday was just about the biggest day EVER in our household. Everyone was having a First Day.

The boys had their first day back at school. Jude is now a Kindergartener and Eden is a 4th grader. Which my brain cannot fully comprehend or acknowledge. But, anyways, here they are being awesomely cute and adorable.

They apparently have really nice teachers. I wouldn't know though because I haven't MET them, since the teachers were not yet assigned at orientation and then on Monday I had my first day back at work.

Luckily, their Grandma is in town visiting to help us get through our big week, so she took them in and took their photos. That made me very happy. They both had really good days, liked their teachers, and their classmates. The only major glitch was in the afternoon. Grandma went to meet them off the bus.....and only Eden came off. Where is Jude? No one seems to know. So she tells the bus driver there is supposed to be one more and they start radioing around trying to find him. His teacher had for some reason thought he was a car-rider and put him in the wrong line so he missed the bus. She realized her mistake and tried to call me, but I was in orientation and the number that came up on my phone was apparently her personal cell phone which was clearly a number I did not recognize so I did not bother leaving my class to answer. Now if she had called from the SCHOOL I would have known it was something IMPORTANT and left to answer the call....but, whatever. The bus driver finally talked to someone at the school and verified he was there, with his teacher, so Grandma took Hannah and Eden to fetch Jude who was sitting perfectly happily in his room waiting to be retrieved. Believe it or not, a similar incident occured with Eden on his first day of Kindergarten....he was placed on the WRONG bus. Thats another story, but I think my kids must have some weird first day bus karma or something.

Last but certainly not least on the list of significant events was Hannah's first day at daycare!! Here we are getting ready to leave.

Don't we look excited? Ok HERE is Hannah being excited....

So cute!! The drop off went pretty well, mostly because I think she was completely shocked that I was actually leaving her. She didn't know what was going on or what to expect so she just kind of went "Mama?? MAMA?!?!" and then I closed the door. I didn't hear any blood curdling screams afterwards so I think she was ok. She cried on and off during the day, but then Grandma picked her up around 11:30 and all was right with the world again.

My first day of orientation was boring beyond description since I went thru the EXACT same orientation last summer for the exact same hospital, and they have the exact same speakers with the exact same topics and the exact same videos with the exact same slides.....yeah, you get the picture. There was even the same really nice older lady who was talking about benefits and such, who repeatedly used the word "incentivising", as in "Ya'll can see where such programs as our employee tuition reimbursement program is real incentivising to some folks who are lookin' to advance their careers." I've decided it is a word I am going to start trying to work in to my daily conversations, cause its just plain funny. And yes, it was the most interesting part of the entire day for me.

I came home to tired but happy children, who all gave me hugs and kisses. I asked Hannah "Did you have a good day at school?" and she replied "NNNNNOO!" But she said it with a big smile so it couldn't have been all that bad.

Heres all of us together in the morning. Just cause we are cute. Hannah is much more interested in her "bucket" as she calls it(which is actually an M&M dispenser) then having her photo taken.

Stupid frickin' Fences! Frick!

2008-08-06T17:05:00.001-07:00

My fences.....I am telling you they are suicidal. Or something. Perhaps they are just unlucky, I really don't know. But big things like TREES keep frickin' falling on them and making a big frickin' mess.

As you can plainly see from the photo above, yet another section of our fencing has met a sad end at the hands of a large piece of wood falling from the sky. A storm rolled through this afternoon, there were several very loud cracks of thunder near our house. And at some point this tree limb fell down. On the fence. Which created a very large hole.

We have a dog. His name is Mac. He is a good dog and we love him to bits, and he loves going out in the back yard. This is normally not an issue when the fence is intact. But now, it is broken and Mac was sad. There was no way that we could leave it, obviously, because he could run away. So as soon as the storm was over I drove to Lowe's and tried to buy something that would be cheap and adequately cover the gap. This is what I came up with....

Stop laughing.

I was going for functional not beautiful. Clearly.

I got a few stares while at Lowes, I must have looked a bit out of place wandering around the large stacks of wood and particle board and whatever other large pieces of building materials are sold there. No one who WORKED there actually offered to help me but I did get several offers from men in tattered work shirts, dusty blue jeans and work boots. One of these nice guys even held the lattice for me while I went to get my car, and then loaded it in to the back for me as well. Maybe its because I was having such a good hair day.

I don't know if Dean will be pleased with my Mrs. Fix-It skills, but I did my best in order to keep the dog safe for now. Recently the roof around the chimney was leaking (I know, right?!?!Come ON house, keep it together!!) and had to be repaired, and the very nice gentlmen who did a very nice job on it will apparently be getting another phone call from me very soon.

Stupid frickin' fence.

An Old Favorite

2008-07-24T20:27:00.000-07:00

Looking through old photos on my computer tonight I came across this one.

I love it.

I love it because it was taken shortly after we were married. I love it because neither one of us is looking at the camera. I love it because we look so young. I love it because we look so happy. I love it because there aren't a lot of pictures with just him and me. I love it because it is a very real moment. I love it because of the way I am looking at him.

Love, love, love it.

Feelings without Words

2008-07-23T18:59:00.000-07:00

The first time I saw this photo, I felt my heart drop and my stomach tied in knots. I wasn't sure why exactly, until later when I found out where and when it was taken. Then it made sense. Intuition is weird.

There is not much I can say about the deployment right now. Its still difficult, its still lonely. But it has evolved beyond those things, to the point where there aren't really words for how it feels. The mixture of pride and fear, love and loneliness, the often physically painful anxiety tempered only by the calm reassurance of his voice. I am awed and amazed by the strength, integrity, and bravery of my husband and the men serving with him, while being equally terrified and angry at the circumstances which call them to action. Amid the conflicting emotions I often find myself moved to tears, but still never completely sure why I am crying.

And if any one else wants to remind me that "Hey, things sure are heating up in Afghanistan," I would like to remind them: I. Already. Know.

On Vacation

2008-07-08T03:57:00.000-07:00

Hannah and I are spending two weeks in New Jersey with Dean's family. The boys are at their Dad's, going to the beach and generally having tons of fun. They weren't too upset until the day before we left, when Jude said "Wait, I want to play with Uncle Thomas!" (Dean's younger brother) I assured him that Uncle Thomas would come and visit us some time soon, and that I really thought this time he would have more fun at the beach. Last time we all came to NJ we did EVERYTHING from camping to the Statue of Liberty, and I told him we were not doing any of those things this time. So he said "Yeah, I think I will go to the beach." I personally was not up to the challenge of three kids in the airport, getting through security and all of that jazz.

Getting through the airport with Hannah turned out to be quite entertaining. Here she is, walking to our gate, with a wipey on her head. I had just changed her diaper in the bathroom and she asked me for a "wash wash", which about ten seconds later was deemed a "hat hat".

Then once we got to the gate we sat for a few minutes, looked out the window, watched the people. Hannah then seemed to suddenly remember her Daddy Doll was in my backpack. She started pointing and shouting "Dada! DA! DA!" at my backpack. I asked her "Do you want your Daddy Doll?" And she said "Right! Right!!" When I got him out she said "awwww" and gave him a big hug. Then she proceeded to walk around the gate and show him to anyone and everyone, saying loudly "Dada! Thank you! Dada! Thank you!"

She was great on the plane, played with a little boy sitting next to us, and then napped for about 30 minutes. When we arrived Grandma and Aunt Mary were there to meet us. Hannah definitely recognized them but was afraid I was going to leave her with them and didn't really want to look at them or talk to them at first. When I put her in the car seat she really started to freak out that I might leave her, and she cried for a few minutes even once I got in the car too. Poor baby girl! But we all made it to the house, and went outside to explore the yard. One of her new favorite words is "grass", I am not sure why but she seems to think Jersey grass is waaaaay more interesting then Georgia grass. We also had a little cook out.

Thats Hannah with Thomas, whom she has renamed "Tummy!" Every time she sees him she exclaims "Tummy!" and points to her belly. It has the potential to become a very permanent nickname.

The next day we went to the playground. Hannah was fascinated by the rocks in the parking lot. and it took some convincing to get her to continue on to the ACTUAL playground.

So we went on to play on the swings and such. She had a captive audience of no less then 4 adults (me, Mary, Grandma, and Tummy)and I think she quite enjoyed it. Although by the time we go home she may have quite a time readjusting to not being the complete center of attention.

Our Independence Day

2008-07-01T19:30:00.000-07:00

On Saturday, I took all three kiddos out to an Independence Day Celebration on post. I was a bit anxious initially, just thinking about having them all out, its hot, trying to stay up late for fireworks, trying manage all the feeding and diaper changing and constant intake of Gatorade all my myself. I knew the day would succeed or fail based completely on their attitudes and dispositions.

Luckily for me, on this particular day all attitudes were positive and all dispositions remained agreeable in spite of an unexpected and quite violent rainstorm.

We got there around 345 and had only been there about ten minutes. The boys had gone on approximately three inflatables, when a Dad standing near me looked up and foolishly said "I think its going to rain." I told him "No, no, we don't say that word on days like this." But it was too late. Big fat raindrops began falling on our heads. He had jinxed us. I collected the kids and we started walking towards a tent for some shelter. The rain started to pick up, and we were kinda wet before we even made it to the tent. This was a car salesman tent, they had two big rows of cars lined up that I guess they were tryign to sell or something. Anyways, the boys sat down and I told them I was certain it would pass in a minute. Here they are.

And heres Hannah proclaiming "Rain? Rain?"

About 60 seconds after I took that photo the wind suddenly picked up, and the rain began blowing under the tent that was covering us. Everyone huddled in the center, and the rain was just pelting us. And then the tent began to blow away. Literally the poles were shifting off the ground and the guys around the edges grabbed ahold and were trying to hold it down. The rain is literally coming at us sideways now, and Jude starts screaming "We're going to DIE!! We're going to DIEEEEE!!" I assured him that we were not, that it was just wind and rain, but I admit I was getting a bit scared. We were in the middle of a huge field, there was no where to go for cover. Eden was totally calm, but Hannah was screaming at the rain coming straight on to her face. At this point the car salesman says that anyone with babies can come with him and hop in a car, to at least get out of the rain. So a bunch of us run out in to the rain after him, and hes piling people in to these big vans. Mind you, these are cars hes hoping to sell and we are now dripping wet and muddy. But, out of the rain because of his kindness. Right after we got inside, the tent next to ours went down and the tables and chairs started blowing around, knocking people over. The "rock wall" set up in the middle of the field blew over. It got crazy for about 2 more minutes and I was beginning to wonder if perhaps being in a vehicle was a bad decision if we were going to experience a tornado. And then....it stopped. All of it, completely. The rain, the wind, gone. The sun broke out and we could hear thunder rolling past us. So very, very bizarre. We all climbed out,stunned, and went to find our stroller. Eden said "Wow....that was weird." And Jude said "I'm so glad we didn't die." And I took this photo of my three sopping wet kiddos.

Despite all of that, when I asked the kids "What do you want to do now? Should we just go home?" I got a resounding "NO! We want to STAY!" I told them we would wait 15 minutes and see if they were setting the rides and booths back up, which they did. We sat and ate a funnel cake. The party went on. And we stayed ALLLLLLLLLLLL day. Heres the boys on the inflatables.

There were also some cool Army vehicles for the kids to climb in and mess around with, practically mandatory at such functions as this one.

At one point we had to stop mid-stride for the National Anthem. Here are my young patriots.

Eventually after much playtime we chose a spot near the big stage, where there had been live music going on all day. We ate some hamburgers and hot dogs, and blew bubbles while we waited for the sun to set and the fireworks to begin. We also saw a cool karate demonstration, which the boys totally enjoyed.

It turns out the main event on the stage was a group called The Commodors. According to the people around me I was a complete idiot for not knowing who this group was until they clued me in that they sing "Shes a Brick....House!" Ah ha! I know that song, its on the Shrek soundtrack! (Mom of three kids, in case you couldn't tell before now, thats how I know music. Animated movie soundtracks.) The performance was really good, people were singing and shouting and dancing. Jude got REALLY in to it.

Then finally, around 1100, the fireworks started. The kids had all been wonderful, patient and well behaved, even little bitty Hannah stayed awake the whole time! She was impressed by the fireworks. She watched them from over my shoulder and would say "That?? That?!?" And I would say "Fireworks!" And she would say "Right!! Right!!"

All in all, a wonderful day. On our walk back to the car Jude said "That was the best day ever. Well,.....The best day ever so FAR." And Eden agreed, saying "Wouldn't it be cool if we could just do it again tomorrow?" By the time we got home and in to bed it was past midnight, everyone was beyond tired, but there was still this feeling of peace, happiness, and togetherness that comes with making such awesome memories. It was a treasurable day.

Come play in the dirt again

2008-06-23T12:15:00.000-07:00

This is just plain cute.

We have some old planter boxes on our screened in porch. Once upon a time they contained living things, like flowers and basil. Now they simply serve as another sad reminder that my husband is not home, and that I absolutely do not have any sort of green thumb. I have the opposite of green-thumb in fact, and I think I shall call it "the thumb that brings death and decay to all green things that dare bloom in its presence." By which of course I mean to say, I have a knack for killing plants.

So now the boxes are just full of dirt. Expensive dirt at that. The fancy potting soil kind you have to buy in big bags at Lowe's. This is the perfect kind of dirt for an 18 month old to play in, at least according to Hannah. She stands by the back sliding glass door and insists "Aa-yide! Aa-yide!"(that means outside, in case you don't speak "Hannah") over and over. When I open the door she heads straight for the boxes and plops herself down in front of one. She digs her tiny hands in to the dirt, bringing fistfuls out to toss on the porch and then swish around as she says "wash wash! wash wash!" She hasn't quite got the concept that "wash" means "to make clean", she simply thinks it goes with the hand motion of rubbing your hands around, whether it be with soap or dirt its all the same to her. She continues wash-washing the porch, or occasionally taking a tiny handful and throwing it up in the air with a celebratory "ah-ah-AIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEE!" I'm not sure what that means, but she seems to know. Then she moved on to "wash-wash"-ing her feet and legs, her belly, her hands and her arms. This went on for a good thirty minutes until she had dirt in her hair, in her ears, and all over the rest of her body. At one point she found a tiny rock, which was very exciting since she also knows how to say "rock" She stood up and said "rock rock rock rock" as she walked across the porch until she found a suitable sized hole to drop the rock in where it disappeared beneath the porch forever. Then she immediately cried out "UH OH! OH NOOOOO!Where? Where?" to the vanished rock. I told her the rock went "bye bye" and she said "Awww! awww! Rock..." as she had apparently decided she had an emotional attachment to it. Then I told her to go find another rock and she quickly moved on.

By the time she was done playing in the planter boxes she had even managed to get dirt in her diaper, so she took a nice long bubble bath and then an even nicer, longer nap. Now I should probably find some where else to put the planter boxes, or I have a feeling she will want this to become a daily activity.

Tattoo Time

2008-06-17T20:09:00.000-07:00

So, heres my new tattoo.

I must say, I like it quite a lot! The top symbol I acquired a few years back, at the ripe old age of 19, when I went to visit my dear friend Austin in New York City. I got off the plane and before we had even reached his apartment we had hatched a plan to go get tattoos. Nothing premeditated, I had no clue what I was getting I just wanted one. In hindsight.....kinda stupid. Austin ended up not getting anything at all, but he always was the smart one out of the two of us.

So for going on almost 8 years now I have had this random black mark on my back. Its actually the japanese kanji for "eternal" or "forever". I just picked it cause I thought it looked nice. But recently I started feeling like the tattoo needed to be completed, filled out somehow in to something with, you know, meaning. I started searching and I came upon the design for the bottom portion of the tattoo. It is the japanese kanji for "mother", and convienently enough had three flowers. One for each of my three fabulous children. I knew instantly it was perfect. I even emailed it to Dean for confirmation and he agreed. Perfect.

I then began pondering what colors I would use for the flowers, tossing about the idea of birthstones....but then the boys would match since they are both August Leo Birthdays. And the fact of the matter is, my boys are entirely too different to be the same color in my tattoo. I discussed it with Dean and said I thought Eden would be a good "Blue" and Jude would be a good "Green". but not like pale anything, I wanted really bold, dark, jewel tones. He thought that sounded good, but just to be certain I asked the boys themselves.

Me: Hey guys, Mommy wants to ask you something.
Them: Yeah?
Me: If you were a color, what color would you be?
Eden: (without a moments hesitation) Blue.
Jude:(with a small pause) I think I would be green, cause I am always on green at school.

Awesome.

Hannah's color I had to debate a bit, pink would be nice cause its a cherry blossom after all, but it just felt too girly-girl. Plus, Erin made me promise not to make Hannah's flower pink. And Erin doesn't usually ask me for much, unless its important. So it was then either purple or red, and I eventually chose an amethyst-y purple. I think it suits her quite nicely.

I got my tattoo done by a very nice guy named Chris, who told me all about his ex-wife and 4 kids he never sees which made me sad. But I couldn't be too sad because I was very focused on NOT crying while getting tattooed. I didn't want to look like a wimp after all. Most of it was actually painless, except right in the center. I did have to say "ouch!!" very sincerely a few times, but no tears were shed. Cause I'm tough like that.

And now I must swear off tattoos forever. Done and done. That way Erin doesn't have to lay awake at night worrying what I might do next. You're welcome, Erin. :)

Erin's Wedding

2008-06-10T18:40:00.000-07:00

These pictures were taken last month, while Dean was home for R&R. This was my very best friend of all time, Erin's, wedding. And it was A-M-A-Z-I-N-G. We danced, we drank, we celebrated togetherness. Her awesome photographers captured these beautiful moments, and I will cherish them forever.

Edited to Add: Please take note of the large BullDawg in the Football uniform in the background of the first picture. He was a special guest that evening from UGA, courtesy of Erin as a suprise for Chris. And let me tell ya, the man in the dog suit could dance circles around ALL of us!

Chocolate Attack

2008-06-07T16:28:00.000-07:00

Mental Note: Shopping with PMS may be hazardous to your health.

These are no ordinary donuts my friends. These are chocolatey-chocolate donuts with chocolate on top. And I have eaten two already.

Anyone else want a donut? No? Ok....I guess I will just have to eat them all myself.

More Peas, Please!

2008-05-28T18:05:00.000-07:00

If you take a look at Hannah's plate, you will see a sight not normally beheld by mothers of young children.

Peas. Lots of them.

Now, of course any one can put peas ON their child's plate. That in and of itself is not amazing whatsoever. What is truly amazing is that Hannah is in fact eating the peas. And enjoying them. Quite a lot in fact. Hannah likes her peas so much that when they are on her plate nothing else is touched or tasted. She has eyes only for those little green veggies. This is why you will notice there is a rather large pile o' peas on her plate. She had pieces of hotdog and some goldfish crackers, but I really just put those on there to make myself feel better because I know she is only going to eat the peas but I want her meal to look well rounded.

It is a curious thing to me. When I get the little pan out to boil them, she starts to get excited. I have to pick her up so she can watch me put the peas in the water, and then we have to stand there until they are ready. She says "P-Peas! Hot! MMMMmmm! P-Peas! MMMM!!!" Luckily for us, peas both cook and cool down pretty rapidly. I put a bit of salt and pepper with some butter on top, and she starts insisting "Chair! Down! MMMMM!" The second she is in her highchair and the plate is down, she goes at it with both hands, grabbing tiny fistfuls and shoving them in her mouth as if they were candy and not in fact...you know....peas.

Soccer Monsters

2008-05-20T08:12:00.000-07:00

Yet another soccer season has come to a close. Its time to look back, and reflect on what we learned.

First, we learned that Hannah seems to have more interest in being out on the field than either of her brothers. Its not that they don't enjoy the game. Its just that the game isn't really their top priority, shall we say. The boys like being part of a team, they like wearing their cool uniforms, and they REALLY like the post-game snacks. The actual game, with the running and all of that kicking and whatnot, they could mostly do without it seems.

Jude did seem to get the general idea of cheering when his team scored and giving a hearty frowny-face foot stomp when they did not. At the beginning of the season he would attempt to kick the ball if it rolled directly in to his foot (I say attempt because even when the ball did roll directly in to his foot he was not necessarily successful in then kicking it in the desired direction). By the end of the season though he was quite often seen running towards the ball in a proactive attempt to make contact with it before it made contact with him. The focus of his gmae however remained water breaks and half-time orange wedges, but overall I was very impressed with his progress.

We also learned that Eden liked playing defense. It required less running,which meant less sweating, and there was the added bonus of getting big cheers for stopping an on-coming goal. This initially made me terribly nervous, knowing that if it got past him he could be singled out as the kid who caused the team to lose. Luckily for both of us, his teammates were not those kind of kids. And even more fortunately, he turned out to be a darn good little defender! I still encouraged him to play up front once in awhile, but he refused. He found his niche, and he was staying put. Plus, he liked to strike these "I'm a big scary goal defender" poses, with his arms and legs spread wide and a growly-grimace on his face. I am fairly certain this did not have the desired effect on the opposing team, but it did make me smile.

I spent good portion of every game scooping Hannah up just before she ran on to the field. She felt very strongly that she should be allowed out there to play with her brothers, and she made this known. Loudly. During half-time I would attempt to appease her by ketting her loose to run around the field, which made her gloriously happy for those ten minutes.

Perhaps we should take these lessons to heart before registration in the fall......both the boys have already expressed an interest in taking karate instead. Still some kicking involved, but much less running. And its indoors.

And Sammy makes.....four?

2008-05-10T12:05:00.000-07:00

This is a photo taken by my sister in law, Mary, who was just here to visit. She came with me to Field Day for the boys' school. In case you hadn't noticed, one of the kids in the photo is not actually mine. I said to Mary "Here, do you mind taking a photo of me with all my kiddos?" She says "Sure!" And I say, "Ok, come on boys over here, Mary is going to take our picture!" We all get together, and I crouch down. And then I realize Sammy is crouching next to me. I laughed and said "Sammy, are you one of my kids?" and he said "No, but I wish!!"

Best. Compliment. EVER.

Sammy is a very cool kid. He is Eden's best friend, and he lives in our neighborhood one street down and then up a few houses. They ride the bus together, and this year they were in the same class which is how they came to be "best friends" instead of just "bus friends". In the past few months Sammy has come over to our house usually once or twice a week after school. He and Eden play really well together, and since they are in the same class they can do homework together. Sammy often eats dinner with us on these nights, which I love because no matter what I make he will eat it, and he will LOVE it, AND he will tell me its delicious! I swear the boys eat more when Sammy is over as well, its that whole competition thing. They don't want to be out done, but they don't have a prayer because Sammy can easily eat more then both of them put together.

One evening while at dinner Sammy randomly chimes in with "Eden's Mom, did you know Eden likes a girl in our class? Well, actually, we both like her." I did not know Eden had a crush, but I was also not suprised he hadn't told me. Eden is....an internal child. Jude will verbalize every thought and feeling that crosses his mind but Eden seems to delight in the fact that his thoughts are his own and no one can make him share them against his will, thankyouverymuch. So I said "No, Sammy, I did not know that. Whats her name?" At which point Eden turns bright red and begins waving his arms frantically in a very emphatic "STOP TALKING" motion in front of Sammy's face, since he can't speak to silence him because his mouth is full of chicken nuggets. But Sammy says "Jennifer! Just like my mom!" and starts laughing. Eden puts his head on the table. He is trying to look mad, but he is also laughing. I said "Eden! Tell me about Jennifer!" He sighs and says "Tell you what?" in that sort of Ugh-I-can't-believe-this-is-happening kind of way. And I said "Tell me what she looks like first of all." He says she has brown hair, usually in a ponytail, and braces. But he says it with this goofy, love-struck grin and blushing cheeks that I have never seen on my child before. He really DOES have a crush! It was a very big moment for me, as a Mom. Then Sammy says "I can't believe you didn't tell her already. I tell my Mom eeeeeeeverything." Maybe some of that open-mindedness will rub off on Eden. But I doubt it.

Speaking of crushes, Hannah seems to have an itty-bitty-baby crush on Sammy. When we go pick him up and he climbs in the car she exclaims "MAMMMMYYY!! MAMMMYYY! HOOORAY!!!" and the top of her lungs. When we get home she wants to follow the boys around. If he leaves the room she says "Mammy? Uh oh! Ohhhhhh no!" and we have to go looking for him. She wants to hug him and put her head on his shoulder. When he says "Hi Hannah Banana!" she shrieks and laughs and turns away. At Field Day she was so excited to follow Eden and Sammy around. I told Eden's teacher I thought Hannah might have a crush on Sammy. She said "Well, at least shes got good taste. Hes a great kid."

Oh, and I got to see Jennifer too. But Sammy had to point her out to me.

2008-05-07T10:10:00.000-07:00

2nd Half (except its more like 2/3)

2008-05-07T10:08:00.000-07:00

R&R is over. We had so much fun, I can't even write about it all. To sum up, we went to the beach, went on a fieldtrip with Jude's class, went to my best friend's wedding, and spent lots of time just hanging around the house being a family. Oh, and we got new carpet, which was a huge production. Overall though, it was just tons and tons of wonderful.

There is not really any way to tell someone what it feels like to have such an essential part of our family basically missing, then returned, then gone again. When he left at first there was this void, an empty space that I felt around me. The house had a silence where his voice should be. And then when he came home, it felt so loud, so full, so bright. Now the empty space returns, but it seems almost more defined in contrast with his recent presence. Sharp edges where he should be. The empty space feels heavy. Maybe that makes no sense, but its the only way I know how to say it.

There are way too many pictures to post, so I just picked two. One of all of us, and one of Hannah with her Daddy.

We have about 7 months left in the deployment, but we still like to think we are half way done. That makes it easier to deal with.

I think Patches is Gifted....(Or:So what can YOUR cat do?)

2008-04-09T16:57:00.000-07:00

Our cat Patches has apparently taken up a new hobby.

Reading.

So this is what is really going on when we are out of the house! I had always wondered what the cats did in their spare time apart from sleeping and making obscene amounts of poo in the litter box. Now I know.

I hope that her little cat friends don't tease her and call her a "nerd". How will she cope with the pressures of being labeled "gifted" at such a young age?

On his way Home!!!

2008-04-08T17:02:00.000-07:00

Dean is his way home for 2 weeks of R&R!!

*Lora does a Happy Dance*

POP! (Or: A Sad Day for a Judah-Pudah)

2008-04-02T10:15:00.000-07:00

These are the remnants of a big pink bouncy ball.

I was at Target with Hannah two days ago, and she simply REFUSED to leave without it. "Ball! Ball! BALLLLL!" She kept saying (and signing!) until Mommy caved in. She was so excited, she carried it around the store showing everyone who would listen "Ball! BALL!". She held on to it in her carseat all the way home "Ball! Ball! Ball!" At this point I am beginning to worry she will never say any other words ever again.

We got home and she played with it, rolling it in the hallways, kicking it like a soccer ball, patting it and even hugging it.

Then.....her big brothers came home.

Jude really really REALLY wanted to take the ball out in the yard and play with Eden. I told him he had to be extra careful because it was Hannah's ball, and we didn't want it to pop. So we all went out in the front yard. The boys tossed it back and forth, rolled it down the hill, even rolled it to Hannah who shrieked with delight when it bounced off her front. Eden tossed it to Jude, but he didn't catch it and it rolled down one side of our yard in to the neighbors yard....where large prickly pinecones loomed,sinister and sharp, just waiting for the opportunity to pop something. Jude ran after it as fast as he could, but when he caught up with it and tried to pick it up it went "POP!"

Jude picked up two sad,floppy pink pieces, and started wailing. Hannah, on the other hand, started laughing and clapping as if she had never seen such a great trick. The ball had become flat! Awesome! Jude ran over to me and crumbled in to my lap, a heap of tears and sobs "I...didn't.... MEAN TO....mommmy!!!" I told him it was ok, it was an accident, and we would get another ball another day. Hannah, meanwhile, is shaking the big piece of what was once her ball, and laughing hysterically.

We collected ourselves and what was left of the ball, and went inside. Jude insisted that we could not throw the ball away, because he said "Mommy, I want to remember this really special ball FOREVER!" I told him it was no good now, it was trash, and we couldn't keep it. But we compromised by taking his photo with it, so he could remember those glorious five minutes when this ball was a part of his life. That made him very happy.

Table and Chairs (Or: My baby knows sign language!)

2008-03-30T09:55:00.000-07:00

This is Hannah's brand new table and chairs.

The reason they came to be is that Hannah is a very tiny person, who had no place that was Hannah-sized to sit. She could sit in her highchair of course, but she really doesn't like to unless she is eating and even then the second she is done she wants to get down. Since she is now 16 months old (today!)I realized that perhaps she would like to start doing more big-kid things, like coloring and playdough or maybe even painting. She is getting kind of bored with the "baby" toys, and is ready to move on.

I ordered this table from childrenstablesandchairs.com. A very creative name for a website......which sells children's tables and, you guessed it, chairs! They had lots of cute stuff, and not as expensive as I had found on other websites for wooden tables and chairs. They also had a very nice table that happened to match the top of Hannah's crib. On top of that, it only took 3 days from the time I ordered it for it to arrive! I was so excited that I decided to attmept to assemble them myself, in spite of the fact that I am seriously tool impaired. But the chairs went together very easily with an Allen wrench that was included. The table was a bit more challenging because it required a real screwdriver, and the top screws on a couple of the legs didn't want to go in all the way. I did get out Dean's power drill, but after staring at it for about 10 minutes hoping it would reveal its mysteries to me, I realized I still had no clue how to work it. So I just tightened all the screws as much as I could with a normal screwdriver. The table does stand, and its not wobbly, so I think it will survive until Dean gets home and can fix it up right.

So, Hannah seemed really happy to have it all set up in her room. She will come up to me now and say "Table? Table? Chair? Chair?" The really cool part about this is while she is saying table table chair chair she is simultaneously doing the SIGN for table and chair in sign language. Why? Because she learned how from her Baby Einsteins video about sign language. She can do so many signs, its amazing. Besides table and chair she knows the signs for blanket, bed, clock, flower, cup, bowl, puzzle, blocks, ball, piano, computer, and bear, and "change" for when her diaper is dirty, but I taught her that one myself! They aren't perfect of course, shes not quite that coordinated, but they are really close. In the top picture you can actually see her doing the sign for chair. We go to her room and I sit her in her chair and she repeats the words and signs several times and then wants to get down. She is unfortunately still a bit too small to get in and out of even these small chairs on her own, but soon I am sure she will be able to manage. We have colored a picture while sitting at the table, but that took some convincing. Mostly she just likes to talk about the table rather then use it but thats ok. I am sure she will get the idea soon enough.

Walking! (Or: The Best Day I Have Had So Far This Year)

2008-03-14T18:29:00.000-07:00

It is true, my sweet precious tiny baby girl has joined the land of the Walking Walkers Who Walk.

This makes her no longer my sweet precious tiny baby girl, but instead my sweet precious tiny toddler. Because, lets face it, even with walking she is still sweet and precious and tiny. With an emphasis on tiny. Which makes the walking that much more sweet and precious.

At 3 p.m. this afternoon, with no warning or pretense, Hannah stood up holding on the the T.V. stand, let go of it, and simply walked away. Before this stunning moment, and in fact all morning before this moment, she would only walk if she was securely holding on to either my hand, her highchair, or her pushing car. She loved to push things, including the shopping cart, but as far as independent steps she would only take two or three and those usually were in the context of her falling down. I sort of figured eventually she would just decide to walk, but I guess I was expecting a little more active practice, with more wobbly steps and the falling, leading up to 4 then 5 then 6 steps at a time, you know? Like a normal baby? But she had other plans in mind. And so this afternoon she took off, and did laps around and around and around the house. She started in the livingroom, walking in circles first on the carpet, a bit hesitant to strike out into the great unknown of the wood flooring. After thirty minutes of walking confined to the rug though she felt she had her sea-legs, and off she went.

Her pattern became as follows: Go from Livingroom rug to hallway. Take a Left at Mom's room followed by a Left into Hannah's room. Go to Hannah's chair, lay her head down, throw her hands up and say "WOW!" Or perhaps "Yay!" or sometimes "Good Girl!". Pick her head up. Turn around. Walk out. Take first Right, then second Right. Go back to Livingroom rug and again shout one of the three aforementioned congratulatory proclamations to herself. This goes on for basically the rest of the afternoon until bed time, with very little variation except to occasionally hug one of her brothers or the dog.

And it was truly one of the most wonderful afternoons I have had all year!

In other smaller (but still wonderful) news

I bought some slipcovers online from JCPenny at Christmas time, for the couch and loveseat. I hadn't put them on yet because we did not want Patches to turn them into slipcover shreds. She went yesterday do get declawed and as SOON as we got home I pulled them out and trued to put them on......but they were WAY too small! I called JCPenny but they said since I ordered them over 90 days ago I could not return them. The very nice lady said I could go into a store in person and hope someone took pity on me. So today I did just that. Eden was still home sick so he and Hannah tagged along. When we got to the counter I said "I bought these online. They don't fit." The lady there said "Ok.", took them, typed some numbers in to a computer, and refunded all of my money! She didn't ask for a receipt or ANYTHING. It was so, SO very awesome.

Then, I got a text message on my phone a few days ago saying my account address had been changed and to call Verizon if it was unauthorized. I forgot to call them until today. The very nice Verizon lady told me my address was still the same as I repeated to her, and then she said she noticed I had gone over my minutes last month and wanted to know if I needed to upgrade my plan. I explained to her that my husband was deployed, and we had the misfortune of having our bank information stolen, which lead to his name being involved in this check fraud scam, which lead to many many MANY minutes of me being on hold with the police, FBI, Federal Trade Commission, U.S. Postal Service, U.S. Secret Service, FedEx and UPS. I told her I never go over my minutes, it was just obviously a freaky month. She said "Oh, I am so sorry to hear that. You have been a customer of ours for several years, and I am just going to credit that amount back to you, if thats ok?" Heck Yeah! That was nearly $100! Thank you Nice Verizon Lady Dawn!!!

To sum up: This was the best day I have had so far this year. I apologize profusely to March, whom I may have judged prematurely to be in league with January and February. That is clearly not the case. Thank you March for showing your true colors, even if you are nearly half done.

Strep Throat-A-Thon

2008-03-06T17:01:00.000-08:00

I know you were all waiting, wondering, what could that fever have BEEN?? It seemed by Sunday evening as if it was just simply that, a random fever with no explanation. Monday everyone was fine. Tuesday....still fine....Then came Wednesday.

Eden woke up with a really bad sore throat, he could hardly talk and it hurt to swallow. This is very typical strep throat stuff for him, in fact, I think every time he has ever had a sore throat it has been strep. So, I took him to the doctor. He was seen at the on post hospital by a family practice doctor who said it looked like strep and he would give him some antibiotics while we waited for the culture results. Sounds good to me! After braving the strange ticket system of the hospital pharmacy, which is reminiscent of waiting at the DMV with the big board flashing numbers and the disembodied voice calling "Now serving number Two Nine Five at window Number Six", we left with a big white bag full of antibiotic goodness.

Two hours later at home, Jude says he has a sore throat.

Whyyyyyyyyyyyyy?

He woke up a few times in the night, crying in pain even though he had taken some motrin before bed. He was plainly miserable. Hannah woke up twice in the night as well, once with a fever and once making a strange noise like she was trying to clear her throat. So first thing this morning I call the hospital again. They don't have any appointments, but we can certainly come in and get all our throats swabbed for cultures. Super. We leave the house at 9 a.m. We see the pediatric nurse who swabs Jude's throat but not before he protests extremely loudly to ensure that the entire hospital knows he is not a willing participant in this process. Hannah cries because I have to put her down but doesn't seem to really notice the actually swabbing and is fine as soon as I pick her up again.

I think this is the part where we are going to get a prescription for more white bags of antibiotic goodness. But instead I am told "We don't do things that way in pediatrics" and the kids will not get a prescription until their culture PROVES they have strep. I am confused. This will take 24-48 hours. That is 24-48 hours in which my children could begin feeling better if they were taking antibiotics. But "pediatrics" thinks they should instead be in pain and allow the bacteria to go forth and multiply for a few more days, just for good measure. How does this make sense when in the very same hospital the day before my oldest son was able to get a prescription from a family practice doctor??? Their response: "We don't know. But that's not how we do things in pediatrics." And as to why they do not have the rapid strep test which I assumed was a must for any medical facility their response is "We don't stock those." Right......Cause that makes total sense. I am sure culturing every single person's throat who may or may not have strep is MUCH more efficient and cost effective.

I go then to get my throat swabbed over at Family Practice. The nurse does so, and tells me the doctor will be in soon. 20 minutes later the doctor walks in the room.....right past me and my three clearly sick children, two of whom are laying on the examination table basically too sick to sit up, goes to her desk, sits in her chair and TURNS HER BACK TO ME. Without a word. She starts drinking out of a water bottle. I am again confused. The Nurse then comes in and tells me "We need you to go back to the waiting room" Do Whaaaaat? The doctor is literally two feet from me! But no, we are sent away. 30 minutes later it is clear the doctor is not going to see me at all. I go to find the nurse, who tells me the doctor "Was mad because she had a 10:20 appointment she had not seen" and the nurse had brought me back instead of that person. She then tells me the doctor says to just gargle with salt water and they will call me in a few days if my culture is positive and give me a prescription.

If that was all she was going to say couldn't she have said that THIRTY MINUTES EARLIER when she was sitting TWO FEET AWAY???????

Furious much? Yes, Yes I was.

Dean called me and I told him what was going on, and he called someone in the hospital to complain. They said they would come down and find us and see if they could help me get the kids some antibiotics today instead of waiting, but at this point we had been there over three hours and the kids were melting in to puddles of strep-infected tantrumness. It would have taken easily another hour to go through the whole ticket process at the pharmacy, and the puddles that were once my children were not going to tolerate that. We went home.

Jude however was really very, very sick. And I was very, very upset. So I called Daniel and arranged to meet with his Mom, who then took the boys up to Atlanta and had Jude seen at a CVS Minute Clinic (Brilliant!), where not only do they have rapid strep tests, they actually give people with strep antibiotics to TREAT the infection! Sounds crazy, I know, but they do.

Hannah and I will have to go back to the hospital tomorrow for our medicine, when our cultures come back positive. Which I am certain they will. And after that I will be writing a strongly worded letter, and calling whoever I have to regarding our insurance, to get my children's health care moved to a pediatrician's office off post. You know, where they might actually treat them when they are sick.

March, why hast thou forsaken me?

2008-03-01T18:20:00.000-08:00

Today, as most of you probably know is the first day of March. A new month. Calendar wiped clean of black X's, all ready for a fantabulous few weeks of fun and good fortune since January and February did not seem up to the task. I had such high hopes for March.....

My morning started this way: Jude comes in my room at 6:30 a.m. sobbing. I asked him what was wrong and through his choking sobs he says "I.....had....this dream!....And Dean was...was..HOME!! And I was so.....so HAPPY! But, but then I woke up......and hes NOT HERE!!!" *insert complete hysterical meltdown here* All I could do was rock him and tell him it was ok to be sad and to miss Dean and he continued crying for about 5 more minutes before letting me know that he thought perhaps playing video games would make him feel a bit better. Thats Jude for ya.

Then, after about 2 hours of video games we had to go out to a birthday party. But I am a poor planner, so before hand we had to actually go out and buy the gift, wrapping paper, card etc. and then wrap the present and write the card in the car. The party itself was pretty good,the boys had fun and Hannah behaved well. After that we went straight to soccer for the boys' games. Which were both at Noon. And in case you hadn't noticed, there is only ONE of me.

So, lets see....One Mom + Two Games at the Same Time(over the square root of Its Also the Baby's Nap time) divded by Why do I make my own life Impossible = No One is Happy

Yeah, That sounds about right. I will call it The Theory of Military-Wife-Soccer-Mom.

Then for a bit o' icing on the cake, we all came home, plopped down exhausted on the couch to watch cartoons, and promptly all broke out in a fever at 3 p.m. Thats right folks, all four of us with simultaneous fevers. One might speculate, as my good friend Stasia did, that our thermometer was broken, but I assure you it is not.

And as the fevers climbed the crankiness in the household rose exponentially. And lo, the dosing of the Motrin began. And thus, sayeth the Mommy, all the little children shall go to thy beds early. And thus a kind of calm-before-the-storm fell upon the house. Where upon the Mommy pondered aloud, "March, why hast thou forsaken me?" Where upon March replied "Uhm.....What did you expect?"

Love

2008-02-20T07:38:00.000-08:00

We celebrated our 3rd Wedding Anniversary on February 18th. Celebrated is a term I use loosely of course, since my husband is a "kajillion miles away", as Jude would say. We did get to have a long talk on the telephone though, which under the circumstances was a totally awesome anniversary present. I also received the most beautiful roses I have ever seen, but they arrived on the 15th. I think the florist was confused with Valentine's Day and all, and probably thought they were doing some poor guy a favor who had mistakenly ordered flowers for the 18th instead of the 14th. Which was fine, this way they sort of covered both events. I also got a big heart shaped box of chocolates because my husband knew I would probably be in need of some chocolatey comfort on our big day without him. Hes a smart man.

I have to say, I love my husband. This is a good thing obviously, since we are married and all. But the amazing part is that its been three years and I can say that I honestly love him more now then I did when we got married. Don't get me wrong, I was head-over-heels with buckets and buckets o'love at the time. Just hearing his voice made my heart race and my stomach flip and my brain melt into a totally useless glob that was capable of not a single coherent thought except "Dean!" I felt total delight when I saw him and total agony when he left. It was that make-you-crazy-love kind of love. You know what I'm talking about.

And then we were just sitting around one morning, and I said "What do you want to do today?" And he said "Uhm....I don't know. We could go to the park I guess." And I said "Do you want to do anything....important?" And he said "Ooooh....yeah, we could do that too!" And off we went. So I guess technically I proposed to him. Sort of. On that very Friday morning which was not even particularly special we drove to the mall, bought a couple of rings and proceeded directly to the courthouse in a love-induced haze. Which is something two people who are in make-you-crazy-love kind of love would do.

Here were are, three years later. I know its not an extremely long period of time, but it feels like we have been married forever. Again, in a good way. While I don't feel totally crazy and mindless every time I hear his voice now, I do feel something even better. Completeness. Total security. Calm. And a love that is this deep, rich, and indescribably gentle thing. A bond with another person that I could never have imagined. I am so grateful to have him not just in my life, but as my life.

And I can't wait for our 4th Anniversary, which we will be able to celebrate together.

Babes in the Woods

2008-02-13T17:34:00.000-08:00

Ok, well, they aren't really IN the woods.....its just our backyard. But it is a wooded area of sorts. There are trees and shrubbery and leaves and pine needles and such. Much like in the woods. However, there is a dividing line between the real woods and our yard. Its called a chain link fence. It clearly defines "woods" versus "yard" by its mere presence.

The fence however seems to have failed us on more then one occasion. First there are the deer, who don't even give the fence a second thought when they gracefully hop over it to eat our grass. In fact, the word hop implies too much effort for the action the deer take when coming over our fence.....they sort of "plop" over it, as if our poor excuse for a fence it doesn't even merit running start. They have the same reaction to the dog barking at them, they don't bolt or dart or scurry or take evasive action. They simply plop back to the other side. They seem completely aware that the dog will not pursue them into the safety of the "woods", even though it is only our sad excuse for a fence the marks the boundary.

And now there is the Tree-that-fell-down-while-no-one-was-looking tree. This old rotten tree decided its time had passed. Here the tree had two choices: One was to fall in the WOODS where it would not bother anybody. The other was to fall OVER the fence and in to the yard where it could bother, uhm, Me. And although my husband posseses a chain saw I think the tree knew I would not be capable of weilding it in order to chop up its remains. Spiteful tree.

I came to realize this tree is just a symbol of my year so far. Things keep falling down and making a mess. A mess which I can neither predict nor prevent and most times cannot clean up. Now I just count myself lucky when the things don't fall directly on my head.

I am learning to, as they say, roll with it.

We played in the yard anyways. On the tree. Around the tree. Whatever. You can see little Hannah, standing on her own, pondering the wonderfullness of something she found in the dirt. And her very sweet big brother Jude giving her a gentle kiss on the forhead. And all three of them cute as can be sitting on the fallen tree. Cause if its going to be in the yard anyways I might as well make the best of it.

Pinewood Derby

2008-02-02T08:46:00.000-08:00

This morning Eden participated in his first ever Pinewood Derby with the Cub Scouts! He really enjoyed it.

Last night we had to take his car to be "weighed in", since all the cars have to be 5 oz or less. These little wooden cars are marvelously complex, considering they are little blocks of wood on wheels. Everyone seems to have their own strategy for speed, where to place the weights, whether or not to glue the axels in, using graphite to make the wheels spin faster, and of course what particular shape to carve your block of wood in to. Being new to this sport and having absolutely no clue, we simply did our best. Eden of course painted the car, with some help from his dad while he was up at his house last weekend, and we got these application things that you put on with water or something that look like blue flames. I knew that it was pretty unlikely with my total lack of skill in the car making business that he would win, so I figured we might as well make it look as cool as possible. And it was definitely a cool looking car. It turns out it was fairly fast as well, just not quite as fast as the only other kid in his age group who showed up. Oh well. He got a shiny Second Place medal, and his little brother was especially proud of him. So it was a good morning.

Time

2008-01-29T17:49:00.000-08:00

The magnetic calendar on my fridge is some days my enemy....And others my friend. Why is that? Because Time is a tricky, tricky thing. One day may seem to fly by in such a frantic rush its hard to believe there was a day in there at all and I feel fairly certain that the sun may have just decided to turn in early and shorted us several hours. And I imagine that guy in the breakfast commercials with his big round sun belly deciding to cut me some slack. He seems like a nice enough fellow, I'm sure he would. But then a week can in turn seem to occupy the space of an entire month with its reluctance to pass. Like dragging a screaming toddler through a grocery store. Everyone stares at you, struggling to maintain your composure while your child's wailing brings the entire store to a screeching halt. And no one can do anything to help you. But hey, you've got to get groceries. So you put one foot in front of the other and attempt to keep the little monster from getting the best of you.

Except with a deployment it turns out I am both the mommy and the screaming toddler. Dragging myself along through the days. Some days I'm just more of one than the other.

I mark each day off on my fridge calendar. I like to see the black X's. I like to seem them progressing towards the end of the month, filling the empty white spaces, designating that day as Done. Finished. One step farther away from the beginning. One step closer to the end.

The funny bit is some days I wake up, and decide that in itself is enough for the day to be considered Done. I need to mark that X just to keep myself motivated. I know the whole day is still stretched out in front of me, like a marathon I don't quite remember signing up for. But the day has started and so I reason to myself it is closer to ending than it was. Its not very logical, I know, but if it keeps me from crying in my cereal then its totally worth it.

Other days I get all the way up to bed-time and its the last thing I do before turing out all the lights in the house. I mark an X. That day is Done, and I am amazed. It wasn't hard at all! Whew! No major meltdowns, no total catastrophes. And quite possibly even some really fun and wonderful moments, mostly created by my really fun and wonderful kids. I really, really need more of those kinds of days.

I am a little concerned that at the beginning of February I will feel pretty let down when I have to erase all those black X's and start over. But at the same time I will feel thrilled at the action of erasing one month and starting another. Now if February could be free of dead chimney squirrels and the Pukie Fairies, it might become my new favorite month. Only time will tell.

Why I Don't Cook (Or: How to Amputate Your Own Thumb)

2008-01-26T12:32:00.000-08:00

Ouch.

This is my thumb after an unfortunate run in with a very sharp kitchen tool. It would seem that the kitchen tool won this round.

My husband used to tell me, when he was home, that watching me use the knives made him "nervous". I don't cook much at all really, so the knives and I are not exactly well-acquainted. But today I decided to make chili for some friends who are going to come over tonight and keep me company while drinking a margarita or two. Making chili involves slicing and dicing a few vegetables, nothing too complicated. Dice an onion, slice up a red bell pepper, done! But noooooo. Not today my friends. Today, while dicing said onion somehow or other my thumb ended up UNDER the blade. Directly.

It literally took me about 5 seconds to even register what I had done. I just stared at this big flap of skin hanging of my now bleeding thumb. My brain was like "Huh.....Interesting. That appears to be our blood. I wonder how that got there......oh, wait a second.....wait........OUCH!" And then I went and stuck it under the sink. I decided it was best to simply lay the skin back over my wound instead of pulling it off. Cause that would hurt more. And I'm a nurse, right? So I totally know what I'm doing.....I think. I got it all rinsed off and held it with a paper towel for a bit. It kept right on bleeding. And at this point I decided it looked kind of cool and that I should take a picture. So I did.

Oh, and then the neighbor came over and we chatted on the porch for a bit and I showed her what I had done. And she laughed. And told me I should get a food processor. I have a food processor. So that only made it seem stupider.

After several more minutes the bleeding stopped. I washed it one more time, careful not to displace the skin, and then bandaged it up. Then I went over and swore at the onion and the knife. This was clearly their doing after all and not my total lack of coordination while using pointy things. Why were they consipring against me??? All I want is some freakin' chili, is that too much to ask??

The chili is now simmering happily on the stove, while my thumb is still throbbing. It better taste good is all I have to say.

2008-01-24T06:21:00.000-08:00

Welcome to the House of Puke (Or: Lora Just Can't Catch A Break)

2008-01-24T06:08:00.000-08:00

The Pukie Faries are visiting.

This morning around 2 a.m. Jude came in my room. "Mooooommmyy, my tummy huuuuuuurrrts." I said "Ok, baby, come lay down with me." And he went to sleep.

At 3 a.m. Eden comes in my room. "Moooooommmyy, my tummy huuuuuuuuuurrts." Again I said "OK, baby, come lay down with me". And we all went to sleep.

At 3:30 a.m. Jude sits bolt upright in bed. "I'M GOING TO THROW UP!!"

Me: "GO TO THE BATHROOM! GO GO GO!"

And he runs to the bathroom with his hand over his mouth. As soon as he steps over onto the tile floor there is a loud *SPLAT*. So....he didn't quite make it to the toilet but at least it wasn't on the bed or carpet, right? He then threw up a second time in the toilet.

I told Eden to go back to his room because Jude was sick. I changed Jude's clothes and cleaned up the mess with my handy dandy Clorox Hard Surface Spray. That stuff rocks. Then we went back to bed.

At 4:30 a.m. I hear a noise in the hallway that sounds remarkably like a bag of marbles had been dropped to the floor. But it wasn't. It was just Eden having his visit from the Pukie Faries. On the floor AND the wall. I'm not joking.

The noise and accompanying smell made Jude dash yet again to the toilet. Where he not only puked, he had diarrhea. In his pants.

The goal today is to keep them both from breathing on, touching, kissing, or really even looking to closely at their baby sister in the hopes that she will not have a visit from the Fairies as well. However, given recent events in the last month, I'm not holding out too much hope that my luck is going to change now.

I can't seem to catch a break.

The Traveling Daddy

2008-01-21T18:03:00.000-08:00

The Traveling Daddy

2008-01-21T18:00:00.000-08:00

Dean doesn't know it yet, but today he went to Fernbank.

Actually, we all did. My friend Joy called this morning and said:"Hey, lets go to Fernbank, I have season passes!"

Since we sat around in our pajammies all day yesterday, it felt like getting out of the house might be a good thing.

So we went, and it was really fun. The boys hadn't seen their friend Noah in forever. Noah was so overcome with excitement that the first thing he did was run up to Eden and Jude and shout "Don't even THINK about it!!!". I am not sure if he was really talking to them, or himself. Hes one of those kids with boundless energy who's voice carries for miles, even indoors. He makes more noise and body movements then all three of my children combined. Needless to say, we didn't spend much time in the "museum portion" of the museum, but instead headed directly to the designated play areas after a quick lunch.

I decided to bring the Daddy Doll with us for this little family outing, for a couple of reasons.

1) Its fun carrying a miniature version of my husband in the diaper bag and

2) I though Dean might get a kick out of seeing photos of himself at Fernbank.

So first we planted Dean in the garden, then I took a picture of him with baby girl by the window, then we stood him near a dinosaur that would make him look giant, and then we took a family photo. Between photo-ops he was gently stuffed back in to the diaper bag, unless Hannah asked for him to come out which she did periodically. I think just to check on him and make sure he wasn't too smooshed. She would give him a hug, a gentle pat on the back, and then hand him back to me with a "Tank too". (Thank you is her newest word.)

The boys spent most of their time being "Bears". Eden of course was the biggest bear, and was in charge and kept the littler bears in line to the best of his ability. Noah doesn't "keep in line" very well, but if anyone can manage to do it, Eden will. They had some small puppet animals which were their prey. They then stockpiled all the dead animals in their cave and growled at other small children who made the mistake of getting too close. Hannah spent a lot of time "feeding" the baby birds sock worms and looking at herself in the mirrors. Fernbank is sooooo cool.

When everyone was done with that we went on to the secondary playplace, and then to the interactive science exhibit. None of these things though seemed to hold the magic of the "dead animals and the cave game", so we didn't stay long. We went back to Joy and Noah's house for some Chick-fil-a and playtime before heading home. The boys were totally bummed we didn't get to spend more time at the house, so we promised to get them together again soon.

Kids with Daddy Doll

2008-01-20T08:54:00.000-08:00

Just too cute.

Daddy Doll

2008-01-19T12:50:00.000-08:00

Warning: Do Not Attempt to Read this Blog Post Without a Box of Tissues

Have you got them?

Ok. Good. You may proceed.

See why you needed the tissues?

Hannah received her "Daddy Doll" in the mail today. This has got to be the cutest, sweetest, most precious idea of all time. The military Moms who came up with this seriously deserve a medal of some sort. Or at least like, free chocolate for life or something. This 12" totally soft doll has a picture of Hannah's Daddy printed right on the front and an American flag printed on the back. It also has this nifty pocket for a voice recorder, which the company was kind enough to send weeks ago so that Dean could record a message for Hannah before he deployed. So now Hannah can give her doll a hug any time and hear her Daddy's voice say "I love you, babygirl. Night Night."

If I could put sounds on the blog, I would. But it would probably just make you cry harder so I guess its for the best.

I really wasn't expecting Hannah to ask for her Daddy so much. But she does. Every single day. When she sees my phone she points to it and says "Dada?" (his picture is on the front screen, cause hey, I like to look at him too!). When it rings she calls out "Dada? Dada??" And of course whenever she sees pictures of him around the house she exclaims "Dada!" and points or waves. And sometimes blows kisses.

I think shes trying to break my heart. But at the same time it makes me really happy because it means she KNOWS him. And she knows him well enough to miss him. Which is a good thing. Even if it does mean I go through a lot of tissues.

2008-01-18T17:02:00.000-08:00

This is Patches.

This is Patches in Hannah's diaper drawer.

Why?

You would have to ask her, cause I have no clue.

I was changing Hannah's diaper, as I frequently do, and Patches jumped up on to the changing pad. Hannah was laughing and smacking her, and then I thought she jumped down to get away from said smacking. Apparently though instead she decided to climb IN to the diaper drawer and see if there was anything exciting going on. At this point I must have shut the drawer.

About 5 minutes later I hear "meow! meeooow!" I'm going all over the house, opening doors and cupboards (she tends to go in those too when I open them, and then gets shut inside). I can't find her anywhere! Finally, I go into Hannah's room. And there is a teeeeeeeny tiny paw, just peeking out of the drawer. "Meow1 meeeeeeeooow!" and the little paw waves back and forth. I rushed over and opened the drawer in a panic, worried maybe I had crushed her or something. But she popped her little head right out, shook it off and jumped down. I did not have the foresight the first time to catch this on film. However, this cat is not exactly the "intelligent" furball in the family, and the next day she did it again.

This time I grabbed the camera.

Eden gets his Bobcat

2008-01-17T18:45:00.000-08:00

Eden Got his Bobcat. YAY! Its the very first thing you have to do in Cubscouts to start earning other patches. Its been slow going towards this first goal for a variety of reasons, but tonight he got a bit of recognition, a handshake from the NEW (THANK YOU!) Scout Pack Leader, and a Marshmellow Blaster. Thats the prize he chose for the amount of popcorn he sold. I'm reeeeeeeeeally excited about it. Really. Ok. No, I'm not.

Cubscouts has been a bit of a mess. But Eden REALLY wanted to do it, so we are trying our darnd-est to get involved and be good scouts or whatever. This is difficult when our "den" hasn't met all year, and now we are in some other "den" supposedly, but no one has ever called....blah blah blah. Don't even get me started on the whole Popcorn Sales thing. Its a nightmare.

The good news is we have a new Pack Leader who seems to be both organized AND interested in more then just decorating his own kids with so many patches and belt loops they can hardly walk upright. This is a major step up from the previous pack leader, who was one of those people who laughed at her own jokes. I hate people who do that. I am hoping this means things will start moving, and we can have, you know, activities to do. Which is why Eden is involved in the first place.

Yay for Bobcat Badge!

2008-01-14T18:22:00.000-08:00

These are our cats. Zillah, otherwise known as "Kitty", is the big one. Patches, otherwise known as "pain in the a**" is the small one. I find them all over the house, sleeping in a variety of strange positions as demonstrated above. Patches for some reason does not sleep curled up like a "cat" She sleeps all stretched out, flopped over, twisted and folded and usually on top of some portion of poor Kitty. Lucky for her, Kitty is the most tolerant animal on earth. When we got her about 3 years ago, Jude was 2. Jude was not, and is not to this day what you might call gentle. Or careful. Or capable of slow movement. He used to also lay on top of Kitty as Patches does now, and when I would tell him not to his response was "But I hug kitty! She like it!" Kitty was not smart enough to protest, and would just lay there, with the air slowly being pressed from her body, not even attempting to escape. Not one hiss or arched-back or scratch or bite ever came. That is my kind of cat.

Patches, on the other hand, will bite anything that moves and frequently things that don't move at all. She is convinced they may move at some point in the future and so they should be pounced on and shredded NOW, before they have the chance. Pre-emptive kitten strikes. This applies to shadows, windows,and walls with absolutely nothing on them. And also the broom, because she has seen it move and she knows at any moment it could spring back to life and become a threat. Being constantly on guard means she is constantly on the move, darting from one end of the house to the other until she is so exaughsted she has to find Kitty to pass out on. Kitty who, by the way, has been sleeping peacefully for hours.

This morning though there was a strange scene. By our tv we have a little cat perch by the window. The cats usually jump on top of it to get behind the tv stand. They can also lay inside of it as it has two small cubbies. This morning though. Kitty was on top of the perch. Sitting completely upright. Behind the tv was Patches. She was trying to get out by jumping over the cat perch, but was getting repeated "smack-downs" by Kitty. Patches would jump, Kitty would smack, and Patches would hit the floor with a thud. After about 5 minutes of repeated attempts, Patches crawled through the tv stand instead and ran away. Kitty looked awfully proud of herself as she curled up for a nap, all by herself, on her well defended perch.

Don't worry, they made up later. That last photo was taken this afternoon a couple hours later.

How I feel

2008-01-12T06:50:00.000-08:00

This is how I feel today.

Its not pretty.

I have a cough that sounds like a barking seal and feels like my lungs are going to vacate my body in protest. I am so congested I think my head might actually explode. Or maybe implode. Either way, it would feel much better then it does now. I have fever and chills, and general total body ache reminiscient of this one time I was run over by a college student on a bicycle...I think I was like 6 or 7 years old. But its a feeling you don't quickly forget.

Major props to Daniel though, who came down yesterday to pick up the boys for the weekend when I told him how sick I was. Its a long drive and I know he didn't want to, but he didn't complain about it and he even gave me some advice for how to make some soup which may make me feel better. OF course, that requires a trip to the store which I am not sure I am up for just yet.

So today its just me and Hannah and the Barking Cough. It totally sucks.

Spaghetti-O Madness!

2008-01-10T16:55:00.000-08:00

Hannah likes Spaghetti-O's. As you can plainly see.

She is thrilled to be covered in orange, sticky, slimy goo. Contrary to what these pictures might indicate, she was not in fact using that spoon she is holding. She cleverly held the spoon in one hand, and shoveled gobs of ghetti goodness in to her mouth with the other. Occasionally she would shift the spoon to the alternate hand, to make sure that each hand got a chance to be completely immersed in the wonderfullness that was her dinner.

She liked them so much in fact, she didn't even share any with the dog! And that is really saying something because Hannah and Mac are like best friends. Its practically a rule that he gets half of whatever she is eating. Not so in the case of spaghetti-O's. The emptier her bowl became the more frantic he got, realizing there would be none flung to the floor for him. He whined, and circled her chair, but she just laughed and continued cramming.

I think he is still pouting on the couch.

Anyways, a dinner like this clearly required a bath afterwards. This may have been Hannah's master plan all along since every time we pass the bathroom during the day she says "Bath! Bath! BATH!" She had a bath this morning. She had another one tonight. She is very, very clean.

My Sister

2008-01-09T07:46:00.000-08:00

This is probably the most recent picture of my sister and myself together. The sad thing about that is, this was Christmas 2004. And since this is simple math, I can do it. Thats 3 years ago.

How can it have been that long?

I miss my sister.

The thing about Shannon is....well, shes awesome. Shes smart and pretty, and fun to be around. She has lots of friends, and a really cool boyfriend, and I am sure she has a totally rad apartment, but I've never seen it. She always had fun games to play with the boys when she came to visit. We didn't talk on the phone all the time or anything, but she called me pretty frequently for advice, to share a story, or just to say hi. And I did the same.

Then three years ago, it all stopped. Rather suddenly. I made a decision she didn't agree with, I hurt her feelings by not telling her about it ahead of time, and she got so mad she said she never wanted to speak to me again.

I guess I didn't think she really meant it.

I guess I thought that old "Time heals everything" or whatever, would be true. That eventually she would forgive me. Because, hey, we're sisters. Right? Isn't that what sisters are for? Hadn't we been through worse? Wouldn't she be able to see, once everything calmed down, that nothing had to change between us? That I was still the same? The same sister who defended her as a little kid, who shared a room with her till we were practically teenagers, who never fought with her or called her names, who was always glad to help her out, share my things, and have her around. Who she could call crying from New Zealand and be comforted. Who she could ask for advice about boys. Who was always, ALWAYS proud of her.

I still am.

I hear about things going on with her through my parents, and I wish that I was hearing it from her. I hope that someday she will call me. That she will remember the good things, instead of focusing on this one thing that upset her. Big sisters aren't perfect, but I was a pretty darn good one. And I still could be, if she would let me.

I love ya, Shannon.

Eden and his Glasses (or: I can't believe my baby is so grown up I want to cry)

2008-01-07T10:49:00.000-08:00

Here is Eden. Here are his new glasses.

First of all, he LOVES them.

Second, I love him.

Third, Jude wants a pair just like them.

And fourth, Eden looks so grown up I want to cry.

It was obvious from the very beginning that at some point he would need glasses since both his dad and I have terrible eyesight. When he was 4 years old he decided to give us all a good scare by walking around smacking his hands together in front of his face and saying "Look Mommy! Don't you see the colors? They're everywhere!" I promptly freaked out, as only a mother can, and took him to the eye doctor. The eye doctor examined him and proceeded to tell me that I had a very imaginitive child, with perfectly good eyes, who was probably getting a good laugh out of telling everyone he was seeing spots. At that point, Eden began giggling uncontrollably. Not only were his eyes fine, but his sense of humor was well developed for a four year old. I think this may have been only one of a handful of times I would have called Eden "mischevious", because thats normally not his nature. But when he does pull a prank, its a good one.

So, now here he is in the third grade,eight years old, with his first pair of glasses. Hes turning in to such a big kid. Notice also the tight-lipped smile. He refuses to smile with his teeth showing since two of the top ones are missing and his very front teeth are now those akward too big for his face grown up teeth that he will someday grow in to, but which for now make him feel self-conscious.

How can such a beautiful child feel self-conscious I wonder?

I wish he could see himself the way I see him.

2008-01-06T17:28:00.000-08:00

Disney

2008-01-06T17:15:00.000-08:00

Disney-fied

2008-01-06T16:48:00.000-08:00

We went to Disney, and it was very, very Disney-like.

Eden had taken a map of the Magic Kindgom the night before and planned our route through from one end to the other. It ended up being so crowded that we didn't do everything exactly in order, but we did get to all the rides he had marked wanting to do. Plus one or two that Jude saw and we added in "spur of the moment." Very Jude. Very Not Eden. But Jude wanted to ride the carousel as we walked by, so we did. And Jude wanted to ride the Rocket ships when we saw them, so we did.

There was a new attraction since the last time we were there called the Mosnsters Inc Laugh Floor. Its a "live" show, ev nthough its animated. The animated characters interact with the audience when a spotlight comes on certain people and the characters ask questions. The last person who got picked was......Eden! The little monster on the screen asked him what his name was. They both had Mickey Mouse on their sweatshirts and the monster said "Uhm, you have some kind of rodent on your shirt. That must be your brother because he has a rodent on his shirt too!" He asked Eden what he wanted to be when he grew up and Eden said "A Scientist." The monster said "You better start drawing up your plans now....oh wait, that would be an engineer." Eden was so thrilled to be up on the big screen though, and have the monster talk to him. It was very cool.

We managed to not see a single Disney Character though. Which was odd. I guess we just weren't in the right places. The kids didn't seem to mind. Hannah really liked riding the Winnie the Pooh ride, she clapped her hands and shrieked to the music.

We also spent lots of time at the pool, but not as much as we would have if the weather had been more like Florida is supposed to be. Like, you know, warm instead of cold.

We are home now though, and it feels really good. Thomas drove the whole way again. Which was good because Hannah was fussy basically the entire drive. Now all the kids are sleeping and I am having chinese food with Thomas. Yum. Im going to post a few Disney pictures, if I can choose just a few.......

Traveling with Kiddos

2007-12-31T18:31:00.000-08:00

We made the drive from Columbus to Florida, as it has become a tradition with my husband's family to visit Disney after Christmas the last 3 years. Its a bit different this year of course, because he isn't here with us, but everyone thought it would be a good idea to do it anyways since the kids look forward to it so much.

And who is going to complain about spending a week in Florida swimming at the pool and spending a day at the Magic Kingdom and Disney Quest??

Not me.

So, here are the kids in the car. They proved once again that they are actually the best kids in the entire world. Hannah slept at her nap times, just like at home. One of her naps was cut short by Jude yelling. Just like at home. And the boys basically entertained themselves and kept the whining to a minimum. Eden read and Jude played VSMILE and sometimes they even played with their toys......TOGETHER!

Uncle Thomas drove the whole way. Thats right. The whole way. I think maybe part of it was he knew the baby was less likely to cry if I sat with her when she was awake. Which was true. Still, I really appreciated it.

When we stopped at a random gas station for snacks and potty breaks, we got some funny looks. I do tend to get these looks anyways, but Uncle Thomas is a few years younger then me and clearly people thought we were "Mom and Dad". Except for that to be true he would've had Eden at 12....... Anyways, he found the looks mildly amusing. I call it the "Teenage Parent Stare", and I've been getting it for 8 years so I don't tend to pay attention to it anymore.

The middle picture is Hannah chewing on her Daddy's sweatshirt that he left for me. She was using it as a blanket and to attempt to floss apparently.

This last picture is the boys being super good. Super, SUPER good. And I love them.

Round and Round we go

2007-12-28T17:28:00.000-08:00

My Dad took this picture. We are sitting in an IHOP, not far from my house. Its the morning that Dean left to go back to Ft. Riley. When he sent me the photo today I was suprised. I don't look nearly as miserable as I was feeling. And look at Hannah.....she has such a great smile! Shes still in her PJs I didn't even have the presence of mind to get her dressed before taking her out. So I guess I wasnt that with it after all. Still, that seems like it was ages ago.....but its been just a little over a week. One week. 10 days if you want to be more exact. If I did math, I would figure out the hours and minutes. I'm just not that in to math. And besides, the point is, it hasn't been long enough.

Today none of us got dressed. We alll stayed in our PJs and played video games and took naps and watched TV and took turns helping Hannah push her highchair around the house. Its what she does. Round and round from kitchen to hallway to bedroom to hallway to kitchen......round and round. Its really very fun. For her mostly. Doing laps at times is the only thing that will make her happy. I think when she pushes the highchair instead of holding my hand she thinks shes really walking. I follow her around, gently trying to guide the chair away from the walls and furniture. Frequently our cat Patches will come along for the ride, holding on to a leg of the chair with her two front paws and allowing herself to be dragged around the house. Hannah thinks this is hysterical and tries to tromp on the cats head. Sometimes she succeeds and the cat lets go of the chair for a few seconds. Then tries a different chair leg. Oddly enough, she gets the same result.

I've got to get a video of it, but that could prove challenging since both my hands are occupied guiding the chair.

And round and round we go.

Today

2007-12-27T18:34:00.000-08:00

Basically sucked. So if anyone has any good news or happy thoughts to send my way, please do. Cause I need it.

Donuts, Please!

2007-12-26T18:43:00.000-08:00

My baby girl loves Donuts. She loves them so much in fact that she would not allow me to help her eat this one. She would not allow me to take it and turn it over so she could get the chocolate part easier either. She insisted on twisting her hand all crazy and tilting her head all funny trying to get that darn upside-down-chocolate part!!

The thing that is so awesome about her though is she wants to do everything HER SELF. There is no helping unless it is absolutely required. Otherwise shes all "I've got it covered, Mom, quit bothering me!"

And I thought I would have to wait till she was a teenager to deal with the attitude.....Lucky Me :)

Christmas in Kabul

2007-12-25T10:09:00.000-08:00

In case anyone was wondering, this is what Christmas looks like in Afghanistan! Here is my sweet husband, with his paper Christmas tree. It was his Mom's idea, and the boys decorated it with little sticker ornaments. Then everyone in his family and me and the kids each wrote him a letter to open on Christmas and wrapped them up like little gifts. It really is just so cute!! He said all the guys thought it was neat, and wanted him to open his presents early, but he would not. It brought a little bit fo Christmas cheer to their otherwise kind or dark and crowded tent. And he loved the letters, of course.

It doesn't feel like Christmas to me today. We opened a couple of presents here at my Dad's, and there is a tree and we are having a big Christmas dinner.....but for me Christmas came and went on December 15th, when Dean was here and we celebrated as a family.

Because thats what Christmas is really about. Not to be all mushy or whatever, but it really doesn't matter the exact day of the year, its that feeling we had all being together.

I did talk to the boys this morning. They are having a grand 2nd Christmas at Daniel's, which is wonderful because I really don't have much Christmas cheer today. I love that they are happy, that they have two homes where they can feel so loved and cherished and whole. We have decided to stop "splitting" Christmas day, where the kids spent Christmas Eve and morning one place and then had to go to the other house in theafternoon. It just made it no fun for anyone, all the stress of going back and forth and having no time to really enjoy their new toys or feel like they are rushed into spending time with all the various family members. This year they sound so much more relaxed, fully engrossed in their new gifts and gadgets.

Dean is already sleeping, his Christmas Day has ended, and ours is barely half way over. Time zones are weird.

Merry Christmas Everyone.

Distracted

2007-12-23T17:18:00.000-08:00

So, It turns out that the more I try to be "distracted" from my new reality the more in my face it becomes. The more I try not to think about it, the more I think about it. The only exception to this so far has been a 2 hour time period where I was laughing so hard I could barely breathe as I watched "The Birdcage". I completely forgot to be sad or stressed or lonely, and it was awesome.

On the other hand I realized today that not even a week has passed. How is that even possible? Its been like at LEAST 2 months in my mind! Come on time, catch up!!

Today someone made me feel guilty. A complete stranger no less. Its weird how people can say things when they "mean well" that can have to complete opposite effect of what they were intending. For instance, I believe this man was trying to comfort me, to make me feel better, to give me so advice he obviously thought I needed. The thing is, I don't recall asking for his advice. I don't want to feel guilty for wanting to talk to my husband, but here this person is going to tell me that talking to my husband may actually HARM him by causing him to be too "distracted" to do his job. That I should leave him alone and "let him focus so he can come home safe". The more I think about it the more angry it makes me. So maybe I will try and stop thinking about it.

This could Cheer Anyone up!

2007-12-21T12:20:00.000-08:00

So, I find myself in need of some cheering up today. Looking at this picture of my kids I dare you to try not to smile.

See? You can't do it either!!

I was up very late last night, then didn't actually sleep much even when I went to bed. Something about knowing it was Dean's last day in the same country as me kept me awake.... I did get to talk to him around 1:30 this morning and then again when he was on the bus to the airport. They were running late so once they got there they had to just get right on the plane. He was hoping to call one more time, but could only send a quick text message before they had them all shut their phones off. Even with all the preparation, and all the anticipation of this moment, it still felt shocking and painful. I've called his phone a few times since, just to hear him on his voicemail message. I can't help it.

I was originally planning on spending the day in my pajamas at home with the baby (boys are at their dads)periodically crying off and on. After a couple of hours I didn't feel any better and had instead acquired an incredibly bad headache. So, change in plans. Hannah and I got dressed and went out. I thought we would just wander around Target and get some lunch, forgetting that the whole rest of the world would be wandering around Target trying to finish their Christmas shopping. We didn't stay long.

Hannah and I went to Panera Bread for lunch. I just have to say, people love Hannah. Everywhere I go they talk to her and tell me shes so "cute" and "tiny" and "precious" and "My goodness she has such dark eyes!", just in case I hadn't noticed these things before I guess. She usually acts shy and hides her head in my shoulder but she smiles because she loves the attention. Today though a couple sat near us and she kept reaching her arms out and shouting at them, and showing them her food. Luckily they were grandparents who thought this behavior was adorable. The grandma was also very impressed to see my baby girl eating a Chicken Pomodoro Panini and Broccoli and Cheese soup. As tiny as she is, that girl can pack food away like nobodies business and she would prefer the real stuff thank you very much. None of this baby-food nonsense for my girl! This very often leaves me with not much to eat since whatever is on my plate is obviously the best food ever and she simply must have it.

I wasn't feeling too hungry anyways.

Now we are home, and she is napping. I would normally call Dean, but that's not an option. So, I guess I will just keep looking at funny pictures of my kids.

2007-12-19T09:36:00.000-08:00

Day One

2007-12-19T09:31:00.000-08:00

The Deployment has officially begun.

Watching him walk on to that plane was one of the hardest things I have ever had to do.

I still just feel absolutely sick to my stomach.

I love you, Dean.

2007-12-16T12:19:00.000-08:00

Hannah with a new toy, that sings Jingle Bells over and over....and over.....
The boys new video game chairs. The sound from the tv comes right out of the chairs!
Awwww!
Reading The Night Before Christmas

Our Christmas

2007-12-16T12:16:00.000-08:00

The tree before.....
The carnage after.....And with delicious cinnamon rolls!
The Cat in the Bag
More mess.

Chirstmas came a bit early this year....

2007-12-16T12:07:00.000-08:00

We celebrated Chirstmas with the kids this year on December 15th. Why? Because for some reason the government thinks my husband should be in Afghanistan for Christmas this year. We weren't about to let him miss out on all the holiday fun, so we just moved the holiday forward! Aren't we clever?

The kids had a blast, and I think they might want to celebrate early from now on. What kid wouldn't? Here are some pictures of the tree, the mess, and the kiddos with their stuff. Enjoy.

2007-12-10T18:37:00.000-08:00

Dean's graduation
He really IS in there........somewhere!
Us. Cold.

Home Again

2007-12-10T18:12:00.000-08:00

Dean finished his training at Ft. Riley last week. I flew out Thursday and saw him graduate, or whatever they call it, on Friday. Then we got to drive alllllllll the way home! We drove a few hours on Friday night, and woke up Saturday to an ice storm in Missouri.

And here I thought I missed having "real" winters. It turns out thats not true. As we attempted to get from the front door of the hotel to the car, Dean demonstrated his "break dancing" skills on the ice. Which was hilarious. And neither one of us fell down. Which was miraculous.

So we drove. Ice collecting on the windshield and the wipers and the car antennae. The big roads were clear at least, so I only feared for my life a teeny tiny bit. I called my Dad (not while I was driving!) at one point and he said "Just head south and when you hit the beach hang a left!" Thanks Dad! Instead we stopped somewhere in inner city St. Louis to get gas and snacks. Because we are just that clueless.

We spent the second night in Tennessee, and it was warmer. We had dinner at a place where you throw peanut shells on the floor.....classy, right? Eddyville, Tennesee it turns out is one hip town. Our waitress said to us "Hey y'all, y'all been here before? Well, y'all sit down and y'all look at the menu and I'll talk y'alls' order in just a few minutes, Can I get y'all a drink while y'all are lookin'?" Annnnnnd we were back in the South.

Finally, on Sunday we made it back to Georgia. We picked up the boys and made it home around 8 P.M. It turns out its hot in Georgia, which is difficult for my brain to really understand since it is still trying to thaw out from the weekend.

Here are some pictures of us, and soliders, and stuff.

2007-12-05T10:10:00.000-08:00

Now baby girl is ONE year old!!

2007-12-05T10:08:00.000-08:00

Here is Hannah with her very proud big brothers. They love her so much!

2007-12-05T10:05:00.000-08:00

November 30, 2006

Home from the hospital
Meeting the dog

Time flies when you're having.....babies!

2007-12-05T09:43:00.000-08:00

So.....yeah its been over a year since my last post. But thats ok cause not much has happened. Oh. Wait. Thats a lie.

Hannah Rebekah was born on November 30th, 2006 and has been the primary occupier of my time ever since. She is now just over one year old, which is amazing considering the fact that I feel at least 3 years older. But really, shes awesome and I will post some pictures so you can all bask in her wonerfullness. Don't expect any smiles though, because she hates cameras.

Eden is now 8 years old going on 25 and Jude is 5 years old going on 5 and a half. The thing I love the most about my kids is that they could not be more different. This means I have to constantly adapt my parenting style for whomever I am addressing at the time. This becomes complicated when all three of them are talking at once.

Eden is in the 3rd Grade. He is currently reading a book called "Eldest". I think it is about dragons since it is the sequel to "Eragon" which he already finished. These books are huge, and have many big words. He thoroughly enjoys them.

Jude is in Pre-K. He likes to draw turkeys, and he brings home a lollipop almost every day for being good. This makes me very proud, but also very confused. At home hes not all about following directions, but at school he is apparently the pillar of self-control. Go figure.

Hannah is a teeny tiny tater tot, as my friend Stasia would say. But she has a BIG personality inside that tiny body of hers and believe me she knows who is boss. Her. No question. She likes to take a bath, sometimes twice a day, mostly because she knows how to say the word "bath". She can also say Mama, Dada, Bru-buh (for brother) Uh-oh, ball, ba-ba (for bottle) and "Excuse me, please change my diaper because I have taken a poo."

Ok, so maybe not the last one. But she does raise her hands HIGH above her head when she is done eating to indicate she is "All done!" Which I think is pretty darn clever.

Dean is in Kansas, and I am going to Kansas tomorrow to see him! We will be driving his car home. He has been in Ft. Riley for over 2 months now, training for the MiT Team he is going on to Afghanistan. So, the next 12 months will be sadly Dean-less in our house. We are very much looking forward to 2009.

And here are some pictures of the last year of our lives.

2006-11-04T16:42:00.000-08:00

Boys with the scarecrow....and it is looking at Jude, which is slightly creepy....

2006-11-04T16:41:00.000-08:00

Me and Eden on the hayride

2006-11-04T16:40:00.000-08:00

Jude and his pumpkins

2006-11-04T16:39:00.000-08:00

Boys on the playground

Halloween!

2006-11-04T16:35:00.000-08:00

Well, the kiddos had a great Halloween, although I couldnt actually go out trick or treating with them because I had been in the hospital the day before.....again! Silly Hannah keeps causing trouble! But everything is fine. The boys did trick or treat in our neighborhood, their dad took them around. They have TONS of candy, which I am now resisting the urge to eat!!

The Sunday before we went to a farm nearby to get pumpkins. We got to go on a hayride, drink some apple cider, see some farm animals and play on a little play ground. The boys were so great, and it was such a beautiful day. Here are some pictures of my beautiful children.

2006-10-17T06:08:00.000-07:00

Dean in Chile

The Best

2006-10-17T05:49:00.000-07:00

I just need to say that I have the BEST husband EVER!

Last weekend, when I had to be on bedrest, he took care of me, baked me brownies, AND took the boys to the Fall Festival at Eden's school all by himself!! How great is that? I actually think they had more fun going without me, ya know, a boys day out kind of thing.

Then this weekend he came to see me, even though it was only for one day since I had clinical all day Saturday. Sunday was a beautiful day, and we went out to Kennesaw Mountain, took the dog, and spent a little time outdoors. Dean brought an old camera he has and took pictures. That made me happy because all the pictures I have of me pregnant I have taken myself, so my head isn't in any of them! I hope these ones turn out good.

We also spent time at home, sitting with our hands on my tummy feeling Hannah kick around. She seems to like hearing Dean's voice. It makes me so happy when I see him excited about her and talking to her. I already know he is a great Dad to the boys, and I can't wait to see him with her!

Here is a picture of Dean that he showed me recently. I love it.

2006-09-07T10:46:00.001-07:00

23 weeks

2006-09-07T10:46:00.000-07:00

23 weeks

23 Weeks!

2006-09-05T16:42:00.000-07:00

So, heres my tummy again, at 23 weeks. Hannah is super active lately, the boys love feeling her kick them! We have a doctors appointment on Monday where I get tested for gestational diabetes and have to drink some nasty orange stuff. But, its a good thing because I have been feeling strange lately and actually think I might have it, so it will be good to get tested and know for sure.

2006-08-23T08:12:00.000-07:00

opening presents

2006-08-23T08:10:00.000-07:00

Jude and his Hulk cake!

2006-08-23T08:08:00.000-07:00

Jude and "Beary" the Build-A-Bear mascot

2006-08-23T08:02:00.000-07:00

Choosing a bear

Jude is Four!

2006-08-23T07:54:00.000-07:00

Jude turned four on Sunday, August 20th. We had a Build-A-Bear party at the mall and then came home for cake and presents with his friends. on the 19th. It was SO much fun!! Iwas so happy with how well it turned out and all of his friends made it. Jude made a bear and got a Superman suit for it to wear, it was very cute. He had an Incredible Hulk birthday cake, which was delicious! He set the table for all of his friends, putting out the plates and cups and napkins before we sang Happy Birthday to him. I think it took him about 2 minutes to open his presents! He just tore into them, he would look at it, say "Thanks!" and right on to the next one. Once they were all open then we started trying to get stuff out of the packaging and he was letting everyone play with his new toys.

He seems so grown up to me! He is such a good friend, and I was so proud of how good he was at his party showing his friends his room and wanting to share all his toys.

2006-08-16T08:11:00.000-07:00

ARGH!