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

 

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!)

 

 

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)

 

 

 

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

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?

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

 

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

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

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

 

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)

 

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.