Masterpeices

G is super into doing stickers lately. He has easily gone through (and I'm not kidding) a thousand of them since Christmas. Luckily, he got nearly that many in a sticker book from his Auntie and Uncle, so we haven't had to dip into his college fund just yet.

This is how he "does stickers." There's probably 400 on here. He just stacks and stacks and stacks.

Let's look a little closer.

 

 

This truly does not even begin to show the thickness of this paper. It must weigh a pound or more.

 

In other news, when he really takes his time, he can stay in the lines! Erik and I are in ongoing discussions as to whether I should make him stay in the lines more or not.

 

We have a pretty serious art gallery going on the side of the fridge thanks to preschool. I have such a hard time parting with his creations. So I've already chopped some up and sent them off to relatives. Let them feel the guilt pangs of tossing them out! 

When Did My Child Start to Pee Standing Up?

Every year around my birthday I wonder how in the world I'm already 28 or 29 or however old I'm turning that year. Some Most days I still feel like I'm about 17 years old. A wiser, more worldly 17 than I actually was, but definitely not my actual age which I can only quantify as "pushing" 30. Except for if I've had too much to drink the night before. On those mornings, I definitely feel my age.

I remember when I was a kid, the years used to draaaaaaaaaag along. I remember specifically how the year I was in second grade seemed to last an excruciatingly long time. (Of course, I hated my teacher and she hated me, which definitely didn't help matters. Believe it or not, I was the naughty kid in class.) One time, I mentioned to my father-in-law how the years used to seem to last a long longer than they do now and he told me that's because every year is a lesser part of the greater whole of your life.

Does that make anyone else want to jump off a cliff?

Kinda seems unfair that we get those extra long years at the beginning instead of the end.

6 Months.

And still pretty hard to photograph.

 

Some Days

Some days I can't wait to get back to a real Army post, surrounded by people who "get" me, finding new members of our "Army Family" and getting back to the feeling of community that can only come from living around those in the same situation as you are.

And then some days, while listening to music, cooking supper in the kitchen and listening to Erik and the kids play or read in the living room I think "so this is what normal feels like... this could be okay, too."

Prior to living in Hawaii, I hadn't had any real "Army Wife" experiences. We married quickly after a deployment, lived at Ft. Drum for only a few months after that (and one of those months was block leave, so there was hardly any mandatory fun to be had) and then we were off to Ft. Sill for a course, so that wasn't exactly "real life" either. I find myself wondering, as our stint here in "purgatory" begins drawing to a close, if we're ever going to have the experiences we had in Hawaii again.

Am I going to draw near to women because our husbands are in harms way and we need each other to help raise the children and pass the time? Nothing builds friendship like that. Are we going to need friends around the holidays if we're closer than 1,000 miles from home? Nothing builds a community quite like that. Am I ever again going to have the feeling on Wednesdays like I did at Schofield Barracks? Wednesdays were the days they held memorial services for KIA's during the deployment. The feeling in the air those days was palpable. And uniquely military. I didn't enjoy the feeling, but I knew when I would cry as I saw the Honor Guard preparing outside, that all the others around me were also praying and crying for our fallen. There's community in that. Maybe what we had in Hawaii can't be replicated. Maybe, if it means more war, I don't want it to be.

I don't want to feel like an outsider to the Army anymore. I miss the camaraderie. I miss the community. But this weekend, I began feeling like a part of *this* community. Civilian life has always seemed so ordinary, so ... bland. Not like moving around the world and all the adventures that come along with that. But this weekend, talking with people who've lived in this town their whole lives, it didn't seem so bad.

I s'pose it's true that you always want what you don't have. It's just strange not to have either at this point.

Maybe it's me.

Maybe I'm reading too much in to this but I HATE it when I see people write "Your husband is a lucky/blessed man" on pictures women post of themselves on Facebook. And not because I hate "The Selfie" but because I just can't seem to figure why those who post these things think that how someone looks is the only thing that could possibly make her valuable to a partner.

Am I reasonably intelligent and easy to talk to? Yes.

Am I financially responsible? Yes.

Have I prayed and faithfully waited throughout 3 deployments and an innumerable number of separations? Yes.

Have I successfully pusged out two (NINE AND A HALF POUND) children? Yes. And might I add that had this been 100 years ago, I almost certainly would have died having Grant, so I would like to think this makes Erik doubly lucky.

Did I gracefully accept the fact that he had to leave me in the hospital 36 hours after having our first child to catch a flight to California for training that was absolutely ridiculous and unnecessary? Yep. I did that too.

Am I a good enough sport to pack up myself and my family 5x in about 6 years and move to places I've never been? TWICE without any help from my partner? Why yes, yes I am.

But am I skinny or exceptionally beautiful? No. So to my knowledge, no one is lining up to tell my husband how lucky he is that I don't piss away our money or leave him when he has to hang out in Afghanistan for 16 months at a time. Well, that's a lie. The getting left in the hospital garnered at least one "You're wife is HARD!" that I know of. But that's it.

I'm just sayin', there's more to a marriage and more to the level of blessing a wife can be to her husband than how she looks. And I hope all the "ordinary girls" out there realize that.

Ordinary Wife, with an apparently unlucky husband, signing off.

From Working Out to Frosting Cookies

Before a visit from Grandma Pat, G is sure to call her and put in a request for all the baked goods that he'd like her to bring. And she ALWAYS obliges. This time it was Bana Bread (banana bread, of course - and interestingly any other time bananas are mentioned he calls them boo-manas.) and cookies - this time he requested cut-outs AND chocolate chips.

So, we were well fed.

Erik left for Thailand a few days into their visit, so we went to the super amazing cheese shop about half an hour away one day and got all kinds of goodies and had a cheese plate for supper. Afterward, Grandma Pat decided we should frost the remaining sugar cookies to soften them up. Grant was definitely on board. Please note his ridiculously cute fleece pull-over. Size 5T and barely fits.

The look of concentration.

Frosting by the spoonful...

As soon as he finished frosting one, he popped it into his mouth.

So he got fired.

And came to sit with me as soon as the sugar kicked in.

Work Out Partner(s)

You probably don't know this unless I talk to you often, but about 4 weeks ago I fell down
our stairs while carrying a huge basket of laundry (thank God it wasn't a kid) and really, really hurt my tailbone and back. Honestly, after it happened, I must have laid on the floor moaning for a few minutes before trying to crawl back up the stairs to my concerned babies. I even called Erik to come home early, which, when your husband works 30 minutes away and can't "hurry" while wrapping things up, is kind of moot, but I digress. I sat on and slept with a bag of frozen veggies for days and days, and was taking as much Motrin as I could feel good about. Just when I was starting to worry I had really done something worse than bruise my tailbone (which takes quite awhile to heal) I started to feel better. It still hurts, but it's not excruciatingly painful to get up and down anymore (don't even ask me how terrible it was to rock P every night). Seriously, the injury and recovery was worse than labor, delivery and recovery with Piper. I was HURT. Couple that with the constant sickness running through our house, and I haven't worked out in FOREVER because I can't take sick kids to the Y. But today I decided to get back on the wagon because I am desperate to get this family back on a routine.  I didn't have time to go to the gym before the child care hours were over, so I plugged in my Jillian Michaels DVD and got to work. Of course, right as the credits started, the kids woke up from their naps. So I told Grant he could join me. Now, I've had some great work out partners in my day, but no one compares to the antics of little G. Laughing at him made the time FLY by.

I couldn't very well snap any photos while we were "working out," so I had him recreate some of the better poses afterward so I could grab a pic. However, I couldn't recreate the fact that EVERY.SINGLE time I did push-ups, G crawled up under me. I told him to lay flat on the floor and not raise his head. Shock of shocks, he listened and I didn't get a fat lip from pushing-up over a toddler. Though the efficacy of said push-up is definitely in question...

Every time Jillian would do her pep talks "I know this is hard, but..." G would agree. "This is hard mom, but just a little longer!" Haha!

Also, apparently jumping jacks give my sweet little G gas. Serious gas. You're welcome, future Grant.

Crunches!

This was supposed to be a Jumping Jack, but it looks more like Jazz Hands.

Punches.

Please be sure to note that work out gear!

And the second it was over, he immediately proclaimed that he wanted a snack.

Oh, and Piper just whined the whole time because she was on Tummy Time.