Memorial Day Weekend

We ended up spending most of the long Holiday weekend over with our good friends across town.  Mike had to work in the evenings but Mishana and the girls had their days and evenings free to hang out and help me not hate the fact that I wasn't spending the holiday with Matt.

That's sounds over dramatic doesn't it?

Well, I apologize for that, but holidays of any sort are meant to be spent with family and those are some of the hardest days for me to handle right now.  The children help by keeping me busy and distracted, but, still.  The whole weekend I kept thinking about Memorial Day last year.  Not that we did anything particularly important.  We just spent the day together as a family and it was wonderful.  I honestly can not believe that was already a year ago when it seems like it was just yesterday. 

It seems like a good sign to me that the last year went by SO quickly.  Obviously, I can't wait until this time NEXT year when we can spend the holiday weekend as a family again.  On the other hand, these days when my children are little are so precious.  I hate feeling like their flying by. 

Anyway...

From pretty much the minute we got over there Peter was in to all their softball gear. 

Especially their batting helmets.  He'd been dying to get a hold of one at every game we went to, so I think he was thrilled to find some he was allowed to have. 

Of course, A.J. wanted to play too...

I like that Peter picked the orange one to match his orange shirt.  The orange shirt that he INSISTED on wearing.



So sweet.  She must like orange too, just like her brother, because she couldn't wait to get her hands on that helmet.



Unrelated, but Tristen just got this giant Teddy Bear for her birthday... A.J. was in loooooove.  




Soon, we went outside for some, you guessed it, baseball. 
Tristen sat with A.J., Riley pitched and Tayler helped Peter bat.

 Here's a short video:

Peter's little legs running like crazy with the bat still in his hand after he gets his hit might just be my new favorite thing ever!

Before long, Peter donned his helmet and wanted to go it alone. 

A random break for some cuteness, caught on camera.

That evening, we spent the night, and first thing the next morning, still in his jammies, Peter was ready to go and get back to it.

Later, we picked up Subway and took it down to a park near the Sound and had a little picnic.

I'm pretty sure A.J. was unhappy that she didn't get any.

Peter ate quickly as he literally could not wait to run down and check out the water.

Once he got there he seemed unsure about what to do next.

Naturally, I picked up a stone and tossed it into the water.  This immediately showed Peter what to do and he became like a man on a mission.

He threw lots of rocks.  Lots. 

He thew and threw and threw them.  Up and down he popped fetching rock after rock after rock and then with a SPLASH each and every one went into the sound.  He started with his left hand and then when that arm got tired he switched and threw with his right hand for awhile.  When that arm was tired he switched back again. 

And occasionally, he tried to go into the water....

Love that camera work there at the end!

I'm not sure, but it seems like he thought this game was the best thing ever.

Meanwhile Tristen had A.J., who sort of reminds me of Princess Leia in the original star wars movie with that hood on.

If your wondering the others were there too.  Mishana was busy showing off her mad-stone-skipping skills and Riley was trying to learn them.  Tayler was, um, there to, but I don't actually know what she was up to.  I was a little busy taking pictures and trying to keep my boy dry.

Literally, to get a picture with him, I had to hold his arms tight to get him to stop throwing the rocks long enough for Mishana to snap the photo.

We weren't there terribly long, but we had to leave because the tide was coming in and before long there wouldn't have been any little rocks to stand on and throw. 

Or collect.  Because obviously when you go to a rocky shoreline you have to bring home some cool rocks.  Well, that and the 2 smallest ones fell out of Peter's hood when we got home.  I guess they fell in there when he was trying to throw them.  :)

All in all, it was a good weekend and I didn't spend it wallowing.  I'm so thankful to have good friends to spend time with while we're here.

Has it really been 6 months already?

 

I can hardly believe my beautiful baby girl is already 6 months old! 

It definitely seems like time is passing so much more quickly with the second child!

How did we get this far already?

Thankfully, A.J. seems content to humor me and take her time a little bit with the growing up because at this point she's more than content to stay in one place and play or just be held all day.



And that is just fine by me!  We can't slow down the clock (and with Daddy gone I'm not sure we'd want to) but we can take it easy and enjoy the time as it flies by together.

Love you baby!  Happy 1/2 Birthday!

Phobia

A few days ago I rearranged the playroom.  I moved the sofa from under the window onto the opposite wall and then I transplanted the majority of Peter's toys to the sofa's previous location.  It was a warm afternoon, the windows in the playroom face west and the sun was pouring in making it quite warm so I opened them to cool off and let in some fresh air. 

A short while later I noticed my niece outside playing in the park so I leaned over to shout something down at her.  Naturally then Peter started yelling stuff out at her too, except, you know, his was gibberish.  My amusement at this was short lived though, because right about then I noticed a large hairy spider on the window screen just above his head. 

Yick.

A quick, closer glance had me convinced that the little monster was indeed currently residing on the INSIDE of the screen.  I closed the window.  The bugger could stay in there, trapped between the screen and the glass until he baked to death in the sun for all I cared.

Some time passed.

I kept busy playing with my kids and attempting to straighten up the playroom further.  All the while, it got hotter and hotter in there with the window closed, and the afternoon sun beating in on us.  Then BIL came in and we talked about how hot it was and then somewhere in the course of the conversation I got distracted and forgot why the window was closed and I opened it again.

It wasn't long before I realized my mistake.

But by then there was no sign of the terrifying hairy spider.

The one that had been hanging out just above all my children's toys.

The one that was now loose somewhere in the playroom.

One of the nephews bravely helped me search for the demon for a while, but we found nothing.   Well, to be fair, he did all the work while I bravely stood on one of my son's little chairs and told him where to check.  He was a very good sport about the whole thing and claimed not to be afraid.  However, shortly after their bedtime both nephews came tumbling down the stairs asking their parents to solve an argument about whether or not deadly Brown Recluse Spiders live in western Washington.

(Apparently they do...)

So then this evening...

I came out of my kid's room after putting them to bed and I spotted it on the ceiling at the end of the hall.

I screamed for BIL.  (I'm sure he just loves being hollered for by his little brother's wife...)

My very helpful nephew offered to go fetch a stick.

I found a shoe and handed it to BIL then went downstairs while he took care of the thing.  SIL, for the record was sitting on the couch with her eyes closed and her fingers in her ears shouting "La La La La" so as to avoid hearing an details of a spider being in her house.

Afterward, BIL looked up spiders that live in the area  We're pretty sure it was a sort of jumping spider, because I got a pretty good look it the other day in the window and it matched the picture.  They're supposed to be harmless and are usually found on windowsills or ceilings.  Not sure about the "jumping" bit but I'm positive I DON'T WANT TO KNOW

Now, granted the last time Matt was on deployment I managed to survive an entire summer by myself at our house in southern California while an incredibly large black widow spider insisted on living about 2 feet from my front door, just under the lip of the house, behind the water spigot.  No I'm not exaggerating, that sucker was the size of a quarter.  (Ew. Ew.  Ew.  Ew.) 

But I've figured out the real reason I need to live here this year.

Forget the place to live and the finances and the help with my children and with the cooking and any of all that....

Because apparently what I really need this year can be summed up in just 2 little words:

SPIDER KILLER




(Thank you Jeff.)

Turned a Corner?

Okay everyone.  Let's not get too excited. 

Last night, A.J. went to sleep in her room basically at the regular time (around 8 pm.) 

And the only time she woke up was round 1 am.

At 7 am when her brother woke up, she was still soundly asleep in her crib.  I woke up her up and fed her, to relieve the pressure I was feeling.  Than she grunted and squirmed a lot until she produced a very stinky diaper.  :)

After I changed her, I put her back in her bed and she quickly went back to sleep, which is where she still is now at just after 8.

Yeah!

In other news, her brother is continuing with his weirdness.  While I was taking care the baby this morning I grabbed a couple of books and a few toy cars and plopped them down with Peter in his crib to keep him entertained while he waited for me.

Somehow, by the time I was ready for him, he had a truck INSIDE the leg of his footie pajamas and his right arm was sticking out of the neck hole so that it looked like he was wearing one of those very fashionable spandex dance costumes with just one sleeve from the 1980s.  He couldn't have cared less about his arm, but he kept pointing to the lump in his jammie leg and declaring "Uh OH!  Truck!  Stuck!  Ow!!"

And all I could think was "My goodness son, that's almost a sentence!"

Toddler Toothpaste is probably not strong enough for this...

What the grossest thing you've ever caught your kid doing?

This afternoon I was cleaning/rearranging the playroom a bit.  About midway through I noticed that the spinning sweeper brush thing on the vacuum was pretty clogged with somebody's long dark brown hairs.  (I wonder who on Earth that person could be.)

So, you know, THAT was disgusting.

And then...

The task required me to use a screw driver to remove the bottom plate/guard thingy on the bottom in order to grant me better access to the brush thing where I would use scissors to cut off the clumps of hair.  Since the screw driver was involved Peter, naturally wanted to help.  However, since there were also scissors involved I kept shooing him away.

When finally he gave up on helping me he disappeared around the corner into my bathroom.  I didn't know what he was up to, but I suppose I deluded myself vaguely for a moment and imagined him pulling down his own pants and using his potty. (YEA RIGHT, not without my urging and assistance!)  When I snapped back to reality though I realized he was probably trying to splash in the toilet water... a new trick that he's gotten up to a few time before because, gosh darn it he's a fast little bugger.  (Also, so gross!)

However, when I peeked around the corner to tell him to leave the toilet alone, what I discovered was so, so, SO much worse.

He was laying down on his stomach, LICKING the linoleum.

THE BATHROOM LINOLEUM!

(Oh my dear God please save us all.)

SIL told me awhile ago how when he was very little her brother once randomly decided to lick all along the handrail at an airport as he traipsed along after their mom.  He ended up with Scarlet Fever for his trouble, but, um, otherwise, after he recovered, he turned out okay.

Tonight she reminded me that there's probably no way the bathroom floor is anywhere near as dirty and infested as a handrail at Newark International Airport.





Nobody tells you about stuff like this before you have kids. 

Why isn't there a handbook on how to handle these sorts of situations?

SOMEBODY SHOULD WRITE THAT HANDBOOK!!!!

A Few Things

1.  I have poor self control.  This is evidenced today by the fact that while stuck in a long, slow moving check out line at the grocery yesterday I purchased a bag of Sour Patch Kids then came home and ate the entire thing.  Yum, but, ouch.  Seriously, I think I burned a hole in my tongue.  This gives everything I eat the faint flavor of very burnt popcorn, including my morning coffee. Ew.

2.  This might be grasping at straws, but last night A.J. made it through the entire night in her own bed in her own room.  I still got up to feed her at least twice, but it's progress.  Normally she gets up about 3 times and eventually I get tired of walking down the hall to her and end up bringing her back to my room to sleep in SIL's children's old cradle or her swing.

3. Just now SIL asked her middle child to bring down his lunch bag so that she could put today's lunch in it.  Normally her kids pack their own lunches, but this morning he was having a hard time focusing well enough to finish the task.  When the bag arrived, at the bottom she found a very old, very stale, very moldy partially eaten sandwich.  Gross right?  To make matters worse, it was an old HAM and CHEESE sandwich.  Let's see, moldy bread topped with old, rotten ham, stinky cheese and even bad  mayonnaise.... oh the bacteria!  My stomach hurts just thinking about it.  Kids are so gross. 

4.  Dogs, however, are much, much grosser.  Brutus was quite disappointed that he didn't get to eat the rotten sandwich.  That reminds me, I need to call the vet and get him in for his shots....

5.  Peter is currently making roaring monster type noises while stuffing handfuls of dry cookie crisp into his mouth.  The bowl he's using has Cookie Monster on it and I'm trying to decide if this is what inspired him to eat like that.

Let's see, all this and it's not even 9 am.  Just the start of another normal day around here!

Around the Playroom...

Chickens

Yesterday was my friend Maureen's birthday so we went out to pick her up up and take her to lunch since her boyfriend had to spend the day at work.  She's been staying with his parents since they moved to the area while they've been searching and saving for a decent apartment.  This doesn't have very much to do with anything, except that they'll be moving soon and before that happens I wanted to take Peter over to meet his mother's "babies." 

Yes indeed!  They have 3 sweet little egg laying hens living in their back yard!

Thankfully, they are quick little ladies and smart enough to keep their distance from rambunctious little blond boys who insist on throwing nearly an entire bucket of treat-feed at down for them.

Never been one for chickens myself, but these pretty ladies were quite cute actually.

Peter kept calling them ducks.

I think he was in love. 

(While I've been working on this post he's come in her about

5 times asking to see the pictures of his "ducks.")

Also, interestingly enough, he wouldn't eat the chicken strips I ordered him for lunch... even (gasp) with ranch dressing.

Watching from her carseat, A.J. seemed more interested in showing

her tongue to people and smiling than anything else.

After lunch when we dropped Maureen back off at home he kept asking to go back and see the ducks. Then he'd say "ooh-ah-oooohh!" which I believe was supposed to be a rooster noise.

Also, as we drove home we passed a number of small farms with cows and horses.  Peter happily neighed and mooed at them all.

The way I figure it, with his current love of all things animals, as well as any kind of vehicle or, um, messes he's currently on par to grow up to be either a vetrinarian, an engineer (Maureen said that, I was thinking more along the lines of either a truck driver or mechanic) or if nothing else, a garbage collector. 

Just so long as you're happy son.

Siblings

Every now and again, I catch my kids together doing something really sweet and my heart just melts.

These moments are important.  They help me find strength and energy even when I feel like I'm at the end of my rope.

Also, considering that for the vast majority of his waking moments my son is the living, breathing definition of "the terrible twos" it's refreshing to see that there is still some of my sweet boy left inside him some place.

Look Ma, NO HANDS!!

It's official... little Miss Abigail Jane is now able to sit up on her own when I put her that way.

(For now, we're limiting this to the safety and softness of my bed where she can't bonk her head on anything hard when she looses her balance and topples over.)

More GI Fun

Yesterday, we finally got in to see the Gastroenterologist for A.J. down at the Army hospital here.  Because, you know, that wasn't much of a delay.

So, let's see.  This doctor, seems to think, yes, she probably does have reflux but then again so do a lot of babies.  He doesn't feel that treating with meds is the "best solution" because he fears that the acid suppression meds could long term affect her ability to properly produce stomach acid in the future.  That being said, I left with a script for Xantac... namely because it's easier to get, doesn't have to be specially compounded (which would have required another 45 minute drive each way to pick it up Monday) or need to be refrigerated. 

In other news, we talked at length about her poop.

Seriously, I bet half of you are logging off right now, and I can't say I blame you.

(No pun intended.)

He examined her thoroughly.

He doesn't feel that there is anything "wrong" with her digestion... aside from the reflux.  He says she's just not a frequent pooper.  He says everything is working, slowly perhaps, but at this point that's it.  He recommended trying to give her 2-3 ounces of juice again a few times a day, like medicine, to try to help things move... particularly to combat the rice cereal which tends to help her form... rocks. 

Last time we tried juice nothing moved any faster, it just smelled way worse.  Which makes me think with juice again, things could just get downright interesting because, seriously, I don't know how her poo could possibly smell worse.  And no I'm not exaggerating or clueless, I have a toddler too and that child could clear a room, but his little sister's are like, so. much. more. rotten.

*shudder*

So we'll see.

I guess he feels that since she is continuing to grow "well" she's doing fine, excessive crying or not.  (She weighed in at 15 lbs 15 ounces today which is still right around the 50th percentile.)  I guess we're just hoping that she become less "high maintenance" as she continues to grow.

He did give me his card to call if anything changes or nothing resolves itself. 

So then we got Burger King for an early lunch.  Peter ate nuggets and apple slices.  I ate a Junior Whopper with fries and A.J. had one fry all to herself.

It started out to be about 2 inches long. 

When I took her out of the car seat about 1 inch of fry was left.  I assumed this meant she gnawed off the rest and perhaps ever swallowed it.

Turns out... she did.

And fried potatoes may just be the answer to all our troubles.

This evening, you see, my girl had 2 stinky diapers.  That is nearly unheard of. 

And in the second... I found the other half of that french fry.  It was now the same color as everything else she'd left me in her diaper and smelled AWFUL but was otherwise still intact apparently, just how she'd swallowed it. 

Which is, definitively, the grossest moment in my live as a parent so far.

And also, undoubtedly should fall onto the list of stories I posted on blogger that I really should not have. 

But seriously... if there was ever a memory I needed to write down, if for no other reason than to free it from my brain and help clear my head... this is it.

Yuck.

Correction

I spoke with Matt again this morning.  In response to my previous post he assured me that he does NOT in fact get to sleep peacefully through the night.

As it turns out, it isn't exactly quiet.

Apparently "stuff" wakes him up.

And after the "stuff" they have to go around and check to see that everyone is okay and that wakes him up too.

I don't know why he felt the need to correct me, especially since he knew telling me this would cause me to freak out a bit.  He swears he is protected and safe and that he will be fine and I'm am trying very hard to trust his words and pray that God will protect him, since certainly, I'm sure there are a lot worse places he could be.  After all, before that point in the conversation he was telling me about how they were so busy at work this morning trying to get done on time to spend their afternoon playing volleyball.

Gotta say, its tough for me to reconcile the images of him running 5 and 10K's in the morning and playing volleyball in the afternoon with the notion that stuff is exploding around him at night.

Also, I'm sure that some of you out there are wondering why the news that "stuff" is happening all around him is so surprising to me.  How's that saying go?  "Denile ain't just a river in Egypt...."

Update on the Man

When last I mentioned Matt, it was around Mother's day and Matt had just gone to Kuwait.   Lots has happened since then, so let's see if I can get caught up.

He sent me a couple more of the pictures of their little farewell, so I'll go ahead and share those. 

They lined the pathway that the guys walked to get to their with American flags.

And well, I'm thinking that there were just random ladies hugging people.  Someday, when I'm old, if we still have US soldiers leaving for deployments in the middle of the night like this, I think maybe I want to be one of random old ladies who give out farewell hugs.  Is that strange?

Perhaps you've noticed that in all those pictures its very dark.  It was in fact, the dead of night, sometime beyond midnight when they boarded the plane.  I think that makes the volunteers there to send them off all the more wonderful. 

So, I don't know, a lot of hours later, after a bunch time on the plane and a stop in Germany for gas, they arrived in Kuwait.  Matt said they landed around 2 am Kuwait-time (which was the middle of the afternoon on Mother's Day- May 10th- here in the states.)  By the time they were unloaded it was past 5, so I guess they had breakfast and were sent off to bed.  Matt says he crashed out, even though he'd slept well enough on the plane.  I saw from one of the guys with him that I'm friends with on Facebook that they were there, and had made it safe and that helped me relax a little until he called me very early Monday morning (my time.)

So anyway, here's a picture of where they were in Kuwait.



Looks, um... dusty.



And.... um... flat. 
I believe Matt compared it to Tatooine.  Wonder if there are any little lost Robots wandering around out there.
Or perhaps Jawas?

These are the buildings where they slept.  Well, at least some of them are, I suppose they could be used for other things too.

Also, perhaps you've noticed that they're not so much "buildings" as, um, semi-permanent (and very well air-conditioned) tents.

Matt's rack in Kuwait.  Not sure why he has no sheets.  Probably he waited until he was on his way out to take a picture and he'd already stripped the bed.

So according to what Matt told me, he should have been in Kuwait for something in the neighborhood of 1-2 weeks.  Except they'd had about 4 "extra" days in South Carolina in which they had time to do some of the training they were supposed to do while in Kuwait.  This included additional Humvee Rollover simulator exercises.

(These pictures were taken in South Carolina, so I apologize that we're all out of order chronologically, but I can't figure another way to work them in without going in and post-dating a seperate post.)

This is the simulator.  The part in the middle there is supposed to be like a Humvee. 

The guys all crawl in, wearing their 40 plus pounds of body armor and strap themselves in accordingly as if they are on a convoy or something.  Pay attention to the box at the top... this is like the gunner's hatch and tells how much the thing is rotated.

The whole thing is then rotated to various angles and the guys have to practice getting everybody out.  This first one it is only rotated a little, as if the vehicle has a wheel stuck in a deep ditch or something.

Now it is on it's side.

 

And finally, here is is rolled over almost upside down.  I don't know if they went further than this or not, but Matt said getting out with all the weight of his body plus the armor resting on his helmet was quite challenging.



Not that any of that matters since Matt will be sitting at his desk for the next year, safely inside a nicely protected building inside a base with lots of secutiry and barricades.  RIGHT HONEY????

So anyway, back to Kuwait.  For a few short days Matt and I fell into this nice little rhythm where we called me crazy early in the morning and emailed me somewhere in the middle each day.  Then on Wednesday night I got an unexpected message from him apologizing because he wouldn't be able to call that evening (which for me would have been Thursday morning.)  I didn't think too much of this... I was busy trying to help get everything ready for my nephew's first communion weekend and all the company.  Besides, I figured he just had some oddly scheduled brief or training, since the military tends to do that.

So Thursday I got up and did my normal morning stuff.  At 11:30 I took Peter to swim lessons and when we got home from that my MIL had arrived.  The afternoon went by, and then that evening while I was failing miserably at getting my children into bed, my Skype rang.

It was Matt. 

He was in Baghdad.

They'd flown out of Kuwait late the previous evening on very short notice.  In the time since he'd arrived in Baghdad, checked in , gotten his quarter assigned, briefly met up with his new office colleagues and been sent to his room to settle in, which is around when he Skyped me. 

Well, at least since I didn't know he'd been flying I didn't do any of my extra worrying.

Since then, we've been able to talk almost every day in the late morning (my time) after he gets off work.  He's keeping busy trying to learn the ropes of his new job.  He also works out a lot and has already joined in the fun-runs they hold every weekend.  (I literally just got done talking to him and he was proudly showing me his new t-shirt from the 5K he ran this morning at 0-dark-30 to beat the heat.) 

So far, he has only been on the base and I'd prefer it very much if that's where he stays.

He hasn't gotten many pictures yet, because there are a ton of places where it isn't allowed because of security.  Also, because many of the bases in and around Baghdad are built around Saddam's old palaces.  I guess he's taking a tour of one soon so that should be exciting.  So far, all he's told me is that in one of the buildings he went in the toilets were made of real marble. 

That seems strange to me, based on my previous experience with military heads which are usually made of stainless steel and lack both cleanliness and toilet paper.

Also, because in contrast to the palaces, his living quarters, which amount to a small, converted moving crate/storage box unit thing, currently look like this:

His bed. And some of the cleaning supplies he's been using to try to combat the sand that is everywhere.  The two nightstands are his only non-bed type furniture so far.  I guess he's hoping to obtain a small desk somewhere and possibly a chair as well.

His locker.  He hung Peter's finger paintings up, but he needs more magnets.  Also, notice the roll of blue painters tape on the fire extinguisher.  This is what he can use to hang stuff on the walls to make it feel homey.  He says he doesn't care very much thought because they work 12 hour days and he is barely in there except to Skype with me and sleep.

The extra locker (because the pod is designed for 2 men) and the ALL IMPORTANT air conditioner.

The other bed (I enjoy that they have the "fancy" bunk beds) and the window which I'm told faces directly into the back of another housing unit.  Really I'm only including this picture because if you look close you can see my face on his computer screen because we were talking on Skype when he took it. 

So...  yeah.

He's there.  He's safe. He's settling in (to the most depressing room ever) and he's establishing a routine and I guess, generally, he's good.

I'm trying not to hold it against him.

I had quite a day myself, but we're not going to get into all that just yet.  I have to try very hard not to hate him since he has a nice, quiet, (depressing but quiet) room to sleep in for 8 glorious quiet uninterrupted QUIET hours... each night. 

Seriously... what I wouldn't give to have that at this point for just one night?