Sunday, January 30, 2005

Life

It's on it's way. When I do "Super Leah", where I hold my daughter above my head so she's parallel to the ground and sing, "Super Leah...Everyone wants to see ya, she's Super Leah!" I can see that teeny tiny indentation in her gums that will soon produce a painfully sharp little object sure to cause much joy in my life. How can she be getting her first tooth? Wasn't she just born last week? Oh, wait, no. Wait, where am I again? Oh yeah. She's already past her seven month mark, I've got a three year old who asks me if he can go to school every single day and my husband is within a month of deploying. Can I go back to the week after Leah was born? It was so much nicer then. Hey, so what if I was 30 pounds heavier, my toddler was in diapers and I was up every two hours? At least I didn't have to think about being a single parent for the majority of a year. *Sigh*

Thankfully the Iraqis are voting like they should be despite threats and acts of violence from the terrorists...cowards. Apparently if this whole democracy thing goes the way it should, we'll start pulling out of their country. I doubt it will be in time to effect my family but it's a nice thought. On the other hand, watching CNN the other night I saw a ticker that stated that Bush wouldn't rule out war with Iran if need be. Ohhhhhh, come on!! Can't this wait until Bill is retired?? We chose not to join the California Highway Patrol (hum the CHiPs themesong here) because we thought it would be too violent and the things Bill c/would witness would be way too emotional for him. *Ahem* Excuse me, I'd like a big cup of irony please.

Thursday, January 27, 2005

Talkin' 'bout my Jeneration

It all started back in kindergarten when this girl by the name of Jennifer kept taking my work out of my cubby. My mom was understandibly concerned that her daughter had nothing to show for her 4 1/2 hours in school. Where were the fruits of my labor disappearing to? Darn my common name! Not able to read yet, this other Jennifer mistakenly took my work since the cubby had her name on it. Of course! Well, my last name began with an "M" and hers started with a "Z". Back of the line, woman!! Think I'm overreacting? Check this out.

Wednesday, January 26, 2005

Before and After

Before we had children and it was time to crawl into bed, we maybe had to remove a magazine or a sock. Perhaps even a cat or an extra pillow. Now that we have two children our nightly ritual consists of: removing two toy pianos, one is Leah's and the other is Trey's since he has to do everything she does, grab the book that's been hiding between the top sheet and the blanket, oh, there's the pacifier that was misplaced this morning and one of my makeup brushes that Trey pulled out earlier today. Hey, there's one of Leah's tiny socks at the foot of the bed and a sippy cup that somehow made it upstairs. Ok, finally everything is cleared off...oh wait, there's a Cocoa Puff stuck to my pillow. I'd like to turn off the light now but I'm afraid of waking up with an imprint of a lego on my cheek.

Sunday, January 23, 2005

Note to Self

When the doctor advises you to give your child prune juice because he is not getting enough fiber in his diet (due to the fact that he's so stinkin' picky!) and therefore...ahem...constipated, dilute the juice with water. Or at least only give him half a cup unless you want to spend a good part of your Saturday praising whomever invented Oxiclean while cleaning Spongebob Underpants.

Saturday, January 22, 2005

When Will You Die?

I am going to die at 80. When are you? Click here to find out!

Here's the Dealio-Yo

We went to the predeployment briefing on Thursday on got all the info that they're going to give me. Bill is scheduled to leave March 1st give or take 7 days and return October 1st give or take 7 days. No more, no less. No chance of him coming home earlier. The CO said that if everything were accomplished in Iraq, Uncle Sam would still find something for them to do until October 1st came around.

Here's the good news: Unlike two years ago, he will actually be sleeping in a building with running water and AC (when it's working). The summers get up to 140 degrees so AC would be nice this time around. He'll have email, though not everyday and he'll actually have access to a phone. In 2003 I got a total of three phone calls while he was gone and a handful of emails and that was all before March. He came home in May. For two months I had no idea how he was doing until I got a hand written letter and then that only let me know how he was doing two weeks prior. If you'd like to send something to him, email me and let me know and I'll give you his address. We're still not sure what he'll be doing over there since he's an admin guy attached to a grunt unit. Fun!

Sunday, January 16, 2005

Friday, January 14, 2005

He's Simply a GENIUS!

It's always been my dream to play the piano. Since that dream hasn't yet come to fruition I've decided that it will be my children's dream as well...whether they like it or not! On Trey's baby registry, Bill and I chose musical toys sure to create a love of the art in our son. He had the Kick & Play Piano, the Sparkling Symphony Gym, a mobile that played classical music, Baby Bach and Baby Mozart videos, and anything else that played classical music. He even went to sleep for the first six months of his life listening to George Winston's 'Winter Into Spring'. Well, it worked. As a wee toddler, if Trey was busy playing and a commercial with acoustic guitar came on, he'd stop what he was doing to pay attention to the tv. If I happened to be channel surfing and pass VH1 without stopping, he'd cry. Now, he loves to sing along to almost every commercial that has a catchy tune (especially the McDonald's, buh buh buh buh buh, I'm lovin' it) and his favorite CD to sing to? No, not a toddler songs CD but Norah Jones.

Last year I tried to find one of those plinky kid pianos that I remembered from when I was a kid. They were nowhere to be found. Of course I saw them in a catalog this year, but I digress. He ended up getting a different toy piano from his beloved Aunt Teresa which he can play like a regular piano or set it to play a variety of familiar children's songs. A couple of nights ago Bill and I were sitting in the family room watching tv and Trey was playing with his piano on the floor beside us. We hear "Farmer in the Dell" and Trey's version of lyrics that go along with it. Turns out he didn't hit the autoplay. HE PLAYED IT BY EAR!!! I'm tellin ya, this kid's a genius. We shouldn't have named our cat Mozart, we should have reserved it for our son.

Thursday, January 13, 2005

I'm Learned Good





Your Dominant Intelligence is Linguistic Intelligence



You are excellent with words and language. You explain yourself well.
An elegant speaker, you can converse well with anyone on the fly.
You are also good at remembering information and convicing someone of your point of view.
A master of creative phrasing and unique words, you enjoy expanding your vocabulary.

You would make a fantastic poet, journalist, writer, teacher, lawyer, politician, or translator.



Monday, January 10, 2005

It's Deja Vu, all over again

Last Wednesday, Bill came home from work and everything seemed fine. We went through our normal routine, no problems. How was work? Fine. Etcetera, etcetera. After we got the kids to bed he says to me, "you didn't ask me how my day was".

"Yes I did."

"You did? Are you sure?"

"Yyyaaah. Why? What's going on?"

Then he drops it. "I'm being transfered." Ok, the good news is that it's still within the base. A little weird, since he only has two years on station and I thought we were guaranteed another year, but whatever. Bad news...VERY BAD NEWS...they're planning to deploy to Iraq.

AAAAAAAAUUUUUURRRRRRGGGGGGGG!!!!! WHAT?????? So let me get this straight: You're being transfered for the sole purpose of deploying even though you're supposed to be at your current duty station for another year where there's no threat of you going anywhere? And this came out of the clear blue sky....AND we were just told by your monitor that he didn't have any plans to move you? What in the world??

Apparently, the career planner of Bill's new unit is broken, as in, needs and MRI for something. I told Bill I could fracture something of his, but that didn't work. Out of alllllll the career planners that could go to this place, they pick mine. Why? God only knows.

Back in 2003, Bill was reassigned and one month later he deployed to Kuwait, which led him into Iraq during the big playdate in the sandbox. He knew no one, had no buddies and no one knew anything about him. Fast forward to 2005: He's going to a new unit, deploying ? and no one knows him and he knows no one. Why does this keep happening? If you're going to the worst place in the world, shouldn't you have at least one buddy?

We're all praying for a miracle that will keep him right where he is.

Thursday, January 06, 2005

It's GOTTA be true

I just took this personality quiz and I do say, it fits me quite nicely, I'm embarrassed to admit. Here's what you may (or may not) know about me [my comments]:

20 Questions to a Better Personality
Wackiness: 4/100

Rationality: 30/100
Constructiveness: 30/100
Leadership: 8/100

You are a SEDF--Sober Emotional Destructive Follower.

This makes you a Evil Genius. [Bwahaahaaha]

You are extremely focused and difficult to distract from your tasks. With luck, you have learned to channel your energies into improving your intellect, rather than destroying the weak and unsuspecting.Your friends may find you remote and a hard nut to crack. Few of your peers know you very well--even those you have known a long time--because you have expert control of the face you put forth to the world. You prefer to observe, calculate, discern and decide. Your decisions are final, and your desire to be right is impenetrable.You are not to be messed with. You may explode [at this moment, yes I may].

Of the 73527 people who have taken this quiz since tracking began (8/17/2004), 14.3 % are this type [and it says I'm a follower].

Of course, this could all be skewed due to the mood I'm in (see previous post) and the fact that it's 12:30am

What does it do?

This sucks, this sucks, this really really sucks. More later...

Tuesday, January 04, 2005

Leah has baby-sixth-sense. i.e. "mom's sitting down to eat, so I must make the most pitiful face I can muster and whimper like I'm a neglected puppy." It works. Trey had eaten every morsel of his lunch, which is quite an accomplishment for him. I finally had a moment to eat around 1:30 when she gave me 'the look', so I pulled her up on the couch with me hoping that the mere fact that we were occupying the same space would be sufficient for her. I then noticed Leah noticing every movement of my hand to my mouth, over and over and over.

"Hmmm", I thought. "I wonder what she'd think of the taste of a granny smith apple? I've already let her taste spaghetti-o's and yogurt and countless other things I probably shouldn't let a six month old try. What would it hurt? Well, Leah tasted it to the point there was no way I was going to put that soggy, saliva drenched piece of apple back in my mouth. For fear of her choking on it, I took it away. Bad Mommy!!

"AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!" she says to me. I think there may be a new crack in the ceiling now. We quickly run over to the highchair, but it's not fast enough and the tears start to fall from the tiny, scrunched up red face of a very angry little Leah who has had something delectable stolen away from her. I substitute the Gerber variety of apple which comes in a neat little plastic container, seeds and life removed, and all is well in babydom. She ate the whole thing and fell asleep 5 minutes later. Oh, sweet fructose satisfaction.