thankful thursdays no. 2

Sitting in the back corner of the local coffee shop, trying to both enjoy the time to myself and be productive with my schoolwork, I find myself distracted.  Charley is happily home playing with a babysitter for the afternoon while I grab a few hours to catch up on grad school homework.  I get through a few paragraphs of my textbook before I am moved to tears.  As I read an excerpt about a mother of little girl with autism depicts her struggle to manage a 45-minute plane ride with the snide remarks from other passengers, I start to think how blessed I am.  Wasn’t it just three days ago, I found myself in a similar, yet vastly different position?  Traveling by myself with my 15-month old, 23 weeks pregnant desperately wishing that my husband were by my side certainly was not my ideal travel circumstance.  Yet, I’m struck, it could have been so much more difficult.  While the travel may have been inconvenient, I am blessed with a wonderful, loving and supportive husband, a healthy daughter, a community of friends, family in Florida, New York and Ohio, and above all else, my God who unconditionally loves and forgives me.   It was a gentle reminder of all I have to be thankful for this week…

-I am thankful for Charley, and the joy she brings to my life everyday.  Today, for instance, she discovered that she could crawl in and sat inside the rolling bins under her play table.  Charley spent a good fifteen minutes climbing in and out, pulling toys out, and then bringing them back in with her.  It was adorable.

-I am thankful for an amazing and supportive family and military family.

-I am thankful for a best friend that I can talk to for over an hour on a Thursday morning. One that my heart aches to live in the same town as, but we still can share the intimate details of life together.

-I am thankful for a loving husband who daily encourages me. 

-I am thankful for the strength of our marriage.  That not only do I miss fly boy, but I notice his absence in the small things each day.  I am better, more complete, person/wife/mom when he is here.  This time apart only continues to affirm our marriage, the merging of two lives to one, that two flesh indeed become one. 
-I am thankful for how sweet fly boy’s homecoming will be.  And that I can look forward to that day as it grows closer with each passing hour. 

one month down

we are one month into the deployment.
that feels like an accomplishment in and of itself.
(i'm choosing not to think about how many more months we have to go.  one more down sounds a lot better.)

while reading through some old posts, i came across this "gem" from one of fly boy's previous deployments describing my different routine when fly boy is gone.  let's be honest, i don't think many of the habits i described are/were particularly heathy.

i giggled reading it, thinking about how different, yet similar  our life is two years later, but also dealing with a deployment.

-two years ago, i proudly left dirty laundry in the hamper just to have some of fly boy's clothes still waiting to be washed.  
-this time, i made sure to do all his laundry before he left, even folded it and put it away for him.  i did, however, leave his two flight suits in the laundry room hamper for several weeks before actually washing them and thus admitting to myself he wouldn't be coming home in the foreseeable future.

-two years ago i tried to replace fly boy with lucy.  she hated cuddling.
-today, i still let lucy sleep on our bed, but she still jumps down after five minutes of non-cuddling.  lucy refuses to let me use her to replace fly boy.

-two years ago i avoided wearing clothes that require ironing as fly boy is the better ironer in our family.
-today, i have gotten better at generally choosing clothes that require no ironing.  making fly boy's absence less obvious.

-two years ago i ate cookie dough ice cream for dinner.
-this time, i eat cookies for dinner.  (only after charley goes to bed, of course.)

-two years ago i frequently fell asleep on the couch while watching tv late at night.
-last night, i woke up at 1am and dragged myself to bed to get some "good sleep."  

to sum up:
two years, one move, one baby and another baby on the way, not much has changed when it comes to deployments.

come home soon fly boy.  you bring much needed structure to my life!  ;)

it's beginning to look a lot like christmas

i.love.christmas.
hands down, my favorite holiday.

part of it certainly is that my top love language is gift giving.  i love finding the perfect gifts.  my brother and i have an unspoken competition each year to see who can give the best gifts to our parents and grandparents.  (usually i win. though he is always in a more stable financial situation, i go for the homemade gifts.  no competition.)

we got a real tree this year.  fly boy grew up with fake trees.  i grew up with real trees.  last year we used his almost-real-looking-fake tree.  while it was very nice to not have to water the tree, or worry about it drying out while we traveled, i insisted politely asked that since we were moving to florida this year and there would be zero chance of getting snow at christmas, at least the house had to smell like christmas.  somehow, cough cough, the fake tree didn't make it in the move from delaware to florida. 

as my brother pointed out, it will be fun to see how high our electric bill is this month.

yes, lucy has her own stocking.  she is an essential part of the family.

probably my favorite christmas decoration...the twig reindeer.  fly boy's least favorite.  these may have been a last minute addition to our wedding registry last year that fly boy had no knowledge of.  in general, when creating a wedding registry, i highly recommend working together to choose items for your house.  in our case, we had some very generous guests, and while fly boy was out on a mission in the middle east or somewhere far away, i needed to add some more items to the registry.  the twig reindeer made the cut.  i honestly didn't think anyone would buy us christmas decorations, but knew we could get 10% off after the wedding.  i was thrilled when the massive boxes arrived at our doorstep a few weeks after the wedding.  my hope is that that one day fly boy will love the deer as much as i do.

i got this free printable from HERE, a cheap frame from walgreens and used some wrapping paper for the background. 

generally, my favorite room in the house, except during christmas (as you can't see the tree from the sunroom.) 

my last project for the season.  all thanks to paper source.

if it were socially acceptable, i would keep the christmas decor up all year.

27 weeks and 1 year

no denying the baby "bump" now!

fly boy and i went out to a nice dinner for our anniversary last night.  it's crazy to think what this past year has brought...a puppy, a new job, quitting the new job because of fly boy's orders, moving from delaware to florida and a pregnancy.  needless to say, we had a lot to celebrate.

it's also crazy to think that next year this time we are going to need to get a babysitter to go out again!

when the cat is gone the mice will play

when fly boy leaves for long periods of time i go into "me mode."  i have a different schedule, different routine, even different priorities.  as i looked at the rather large pile of clean laundry in the laundry basket tonight, i started to think about the crazy/odd/down right weird things i do when fly boy is gone on long missions/deployments.  so just for kicks and giggles, i thought i would start compiling a list of said behaviors when fly boy is gone...

crazy things you i do when your my husband is deployed/gone for long periods of time:

1.  procrastinate doing laundry because there are some of his clothes in the hamper, and you know once you wash them you will only be doing your own laundry for the next however many weeks.

2.  leave said clean laundry in the laundry basket and not fold it for days because after you fold this laundry you will only be folding your own laundry for however long.  (this may or may not leave so many wrinkles in the clothes that you have to either iron your running shorts or wash them again.  you choose wash again because fly boy is the one who does most the ironing in the house.)

3.  leave all ironing in a pile in the closet for when fly boy returns.  also, avoid wearing anything that requires ironing because then you will just be reminded that fly boy is gone and the ironing is piling up.

4.  eat edy's slow churned cookie dough icecream for dinner. (i haven't done this one on this trip, yet.)

5.  let lucy sleep on the bed and try to cuddle with her. (even though she lasts all of five minutes before jumping down and spends the rest of the night sleeping on the bathroom floor.  also, note to self: lucy is not a sufficient cuddling substitute.)

i realize this is not in anyway shape or form an exhaustive list, it is a list in progress.  i will keep adding to it as the next however many weeks go on.

(these may or may not be behaviors i have noticed in the last, cough cough, 24 hours...)

reason #27

i love my husband.
for many many reasons.
reason #27 is his angry face.

fly boy isn't one to scream or raise his voice.  i call it "fly boy yelling" when he gets upset with me.
he also doesn't get angry very easily.
but apparently when he is trying to re-pot a tree in the rain, and i am obnoxiously taking pictures, he gets angry.

this is his angry face.
i love it.
and i miss it.

fly boy is out in the sandbox for a while, and tonight, on this lazy sunday evening, i find myself missing his angry face and his "fly boy yelling."

if fly boy were to come home right now, he would not walk into a kitchen full of dishes in the sink, unloaded clean dishes in the dishwasher or a laundry basket over over-flowing dirty clothes.  and he certainly would not give me this face.

mind you, i am not racing to get up and fix any of the said messes, but i kind of wish in the next five seconds he would walk through the front door, hug me, see the house and give me "the look."

crazy, i know.
but i miss fly boy.
and tonight, i even miss his angry face.

daddy training.

i thought we should start the training process early.
VERY early.

this simple nine-step plan should get fly boy ready, for everything.

step one: get a dog that wakes us up in the middle of the night.  poops/pees all over.  cries. bites. leaves toys all over the house.  reminds you that your life is no longer your own.   

 check

step two: every time daddy in training (DIT) goes to target with you, linger on each baby aisle.  "oooh" and "ahhh" over the baby clothes, shoes, toys, blankets, etc.   

check

(picture from Tilly Whistle on etsy)

step three: start baby sitting for friends' children with DIT.

check

step four: while working on step three, make sure that DIT plays tea-party/dress-up/barbie/princess.

check

step five: go visit friends in the hospital shortly after baby is born so that DIT gets the FULL experience.

check

step six: cry at the drop of a hat.  this way, when you are pregnant, DIT will already know how to handle the extra hormones.
check


step seven: when visiting babies and/or babysitting, make sure babies drool & spit-up on DIT as often as possible.

check

(disclaimer: connor did not spit-up or drool on fly boy in this picture.  i believe his niece has already taken care of this step for us.)

step eight: start spending more than your monthly budget now.  DIT will already be accustomed to how expensive children are once they start growing out of clothes every two months/want to sign up for ballet/soccer/eat you out of your house/ask for money for dates/beg for a new car on their 16th birthday. 
check
 
step nine: while working on step three, if the child has exploding diaper have DIT change the dirty clothes, aid with the bath, change the dirty diaper and take out dirty diaper trash.



we'll see how the nine-step process works out someday.

really, i just wanted an excuse to post the picture of fly boy playing tea-party with addy and cinderella.

socks.

we're newlyweds.

we've been married just over four months now, and we're still learning how to be married.  (though i have a feeling even after we've been married for fifty years we are still going to be figuring out the marriage thing.)  it's funny the things you learn about each other by living together that you didn't know before. 

for instance, fly boy and i have very different ways of folding socks.  since i haven't been working, i've assumed a lot of the household responsibilities, including laundry.  pilots in the military have these thick black socks that they wear every day.  they take forever to dry and they're so bulky i had a hard time folding them. i hate am completely indifferent to these socks.  but apparently i was folding them incorrectly.

we may have gotten into a heated discussion about how to fold socks.  i may have overreacted.  mainly, i was frustrated at these stupid socks; i would leave fly boy's laundry folded nicely on his side of the bed, then catch him refolding his already folded socks. after i had cooled off, fly boy taught me how to properly fold his socks.  we don't argue about it anymore. i still fold my socks into nice neat little balls, i now fold his socks so that the top doesn't "stretch out."

so when people ask what our first argument was as newlyweds, i have to answer "socks."

seriously, socks.