It's been a while...

My loving DH, who is still toiling away in Afghanistan, kindly reminded me that it has been a while since I updated my blog. I looked at where I left off and holy toledo has it been a while! Since my last entry several big things have happened!

1. Man Puppy turned TWO! This little guy was our deployment baby, born a month after his daddy shipped off on his first deployment. His birth was a challenge and quite the empowering experience. He was also our first homebirth and after Miss Tornado's hospital birth we were glad to have a complication free birth. :-)

I threw a construction themed party for him. Being a two-year old he thought it was awesome! Here are some pics!

I make some awesome cakes. ;-)

The day of his birthday. We went to Farrells for lunch! They gave him a sticker!

 He got to ride the train at the mall for the first time!

 Happy boy did better than Mommy expected!

 The day of his party!

 The backyard

 Happy birthday boy!

 

2. I had a minor car accident. Someone sideswiped me with his boat trailer when I was getting out of the way for a firetruck. He honestly didn't see me, and he got a green light when I was inching into his lane to get out of the way for the firetruck. However, he proved to be a jerk, trying to drill me for information about my husband's rank and job because I had a blue military sticker. He also told me that I should have let the firetruck hit me because having to wait for the police was making him late for his fishing excursion. The police showed up and weren't much better. The cop showed up and told us that he wasn't there to take statements, just make sure that we exchanged information and also told us that unless the cars are undriveable, his presence at the scene was a "courtesy". Nice to know that I could have been breaking every law out there, but as long as the cars could drive away, I wouldn't get in trouble. *gag face*

 



3. We flew to San Diego! Space A travel is not for the fainthearted, especially when you have three kids by yourself! We did pretty well though. The flight crew is almost always very accomodating, several times I've been told not to worry about the kids' noise because it makes them miss their own kids. It was so sweet of them to say that. It is nice to know that there are some guys who actually look forward to getting home from flights, like Steve always was.

My Sit and Stand stroller is a workhorse. That is a baby in a carseat, a pack and play, a duffle bag with clothes for an adult and three children, a diaper bag and at times the computer back WITH the other carseats were on there. 50lbs per seat my rear! lol 

 Breakfast before we left. Thanks to a miscommunication between the flight crew and the terminal there were no meals available on the flight. This was to be our only meal for 24 hours.

 Big sister helping keep track of little brother, whether he likes it or not. lol

 We got to see some dear friends at 29 Palms

 We found a Creationism/Dinosaur museum. I just HAD to stop for a learning/fun experience!

 My "hatchlings"

 A stop to see another dear friend and his girlfriend.

 We then stopped at Lemoore to see some dear friends that we knew in Pensacola and then Whidbey. Baby Bird wasn't so sure about swimming underwater... lol

 Miss Tornadolearned to swim with floaties this summer. She is now fearless in the water!

 Me and Man-Puppy

 After leaving Lemoore we went to Travis AFB, but to say Space A there was backed up would be an understatement. They hadn't moved our category out in three weeks. So after a week of waiting we made the 9 hour trek back to San Diego in one day. The kids are troopers on car trips!

 

While we were in San Diego we stayed with some friends who had just PCSed there from Hawaii. They took us to the San Diego Zoo. That is one item off my bucket list that I can cross off!

 Standing on one leg like a flamingo!

 There was a flight out of San Diego that we managed to catch. Apparently a lot of the other women traveling Space A alone with their children found out about it too. We all saw each other at the terminal. We totally didn't plan that. But that meant that we had our "herd" to help keep the kids together. It reminded me of an elephant herd, how the females group with the offspring to take care of each other. It is easier to corral close to 20 kids with 10 mothers than it is to go at it alone. Those elephants have it right! :-D

 

Thank goodness for technology. The DVD player plus the V-Reader we bought Miss Tornado really paid off. They kept her busy for the 3 hour terminal wait and the 6 hour flight.

 

4. When we got home we all got SICK. On the flight home Miss Tornado's nose started running. By the time we got home she was in a full asthma attack mode. This only happens when she is really sick. I gave her her inhaler and then got everyone to bed. We all woke up with the flu. We had no groceries in the house, but I managed to ask a friend to bring me some groceries and we survived off of that.

5. Miss Tornado's birthday was right when we were getting over our flu. Poor thing, we didn't do much for her birthday because none of us felt very well. What I ended up doing was taking her to Starbucks and getting her a strawberry and cream frappachino and four cake pops. That's right, my firstborn is FOUR! She has grown up so fast! She is definately my greatest challenge, but also such a joy!

 

5. Just after her birthday I took Miss Tornado to the hospital for her appointment to find out the results of the screening they did on her. My heart started spinning and breaking all at the same time when they confirmed her diagnosis as High Functioning Autism. They said her prognosis is very good with therapy, which we will be starting soon. I'm still on the roller coaster of emotions, but it is nice to have the confirmation that her problems are not my fault as a parent. Certain people in my past always pointed the finger at me when it came to the struggles Miss Tornado faced and I accepted the blame because of certain parenting myths I was taught to believe. Although, as Man Puppy and now Baby Bird have come along and are growing up, I see that I am not a failure. Miss Tornado is definately very different from her siblings, not just in personality, but also in certain neurological challenges. She is smart as a whip (as many HF autistic people are), but she faces some sensory and social problems. I have great hope that with therapy she can avoid too many problems with bullies that she faces nowadays because of her social issues.

6. Man-Puppy started speech therapy, although I do think it was a bit premature. He has been exploding with new words everyday with very minimal therapy sessions. He surprises me everyday with some new words. He is very communicative, and thinking back to Miss Tornado as a 2 year old versus Man-Puppy as a 2 year old, I can see that the 2 year old phase is very true. With Miss Tornado there was no "2 year old phase". It started when she was 6 months old and lasted until just about 3 years old. With Man-Puppy there is a marked difference in his demeanor. The tantrums are no where near his older sister's tantrums, but they are still a challenge. I see him becoming a very empathetic and charming little boy and it makes me one proud mommy. <3 He is all boy, including findign him walking across my piano keyboard just because he could. He recently had very beautiful blonde curls... Which I will discuss in point 8.

7. Baby Bird turned ONE! That's right, my whirlwind baby that wouldn't wait on anyone to be ready for her birth is one year old! She is quite the fiesty little thing but is still a very easy child. She is going to give me a run for my money in the future though. I already spot her magnetic personality that makes people want to do anything for her. Including her siblings. I look at her playing with her siblings and think "yeah... she knows what she is doing". lol This girl will break hearts all over the place.

For her birthday we didn't do much. I baked a cake and we had it after dinner. She didn't care much for the cake, preferring her first slice of pizza over her first slice of cake. I don't blame her, I would rather have pizza than cake most of the time. ;-)

8. We went to the airshow! It was the kids' first time seeing the Blue Angels, and they couldn't have cared less. lol I had ordered cute ear muffs for hearing protection. They didn't like it, but mommy enforced it when the jets were flying. Two women walked up to me and one said "You are married to a Navy pilot aren't you?" I told her he has his NFO wings and she smiled knowingly and walked away. The second woman heard this exchange and asked if my husband was a Blue Angel. ROFLOL

It meant a lot to me to see the Blue Angels flying. It reminded me of some of the wonderful days in Pensacola. I remember driving to Steve's house or elsewhere and seeing the Blue Angels practicing. It was a beautiful sight and the memory makes my heart ache to go back to Pensacola. It also reminded me of my many good friends who were there for flight school (including my future husband) and the great times we had. Watching the Blue Angels fly in Hawaii really made me miss my "home" of Pensacola. We will never get to go back there to live, but I am holding out hope that we get to be stationed nearby so I can go visit.

Back to the airshow. Here are some great pictures!

Baby Bird was not amused.

 Man Puppy thought they were great for the first five minutes.

 My precious babies!

 Miss Tornado is getting pretty good at taking pictures.

 "Wat's that?"

 Dancing with a new friend that she met at the airshow.

 She had earplugs in, but she was mimicing the poor little girl who didn't have any hearing protection in.

 9. Man Puppys' hair is now cut. Miss Tornado got ahold of some safety scissors that her grandparents sent her and chopped away at Man Puppy's beautiful curls. I cried a lot, but then took them both in for a haircut.

Snip Snip goes the hair!

 Fixing sissy's haircut she gave him.

 Getting her own hair trimmed, cleaned up and new bangs!

 Handsome man!

 The kids and their new haircuts!

That pretty much wraps things up to the current timeframe. It has been quite an adventure around here lately. DH has been gone for almost 8 months now and is due home very soon! I'm nesting like crazy getting ready for his arrival. It is going to be awesome!

9 Months!

Baby bird is growing so fast! My baby girl has gone from big newborn to petite 9 month old who is beating her siblings in every milestone for this age! Here are her stats.

9 months
17lbs even
27 inches long
99th percentile head (that's my girl)
She is pushing up to sitting alone, getting onto her hands and feet, and very close to crawling forward! She has 4 teeth (older sibs didn't get theirs until 10 months) and have not had any of the problems her siblings had with diet or allergies. Everything about her is so advanced. Her siblings adore her and dote on her like nothing else. She is truly a "baby of the family". We'll have to keep an eye on that trait.... lol Once the next baby comes around she'll have to adjust to not being the baby anymore.
Next is ManPuppy's 2nd birthday! My little man is getting so big!

What a tough weekend!

Dang. These past 48 hours have been TOUGH! Father's Day without DH was a tough thing to get through. All weekend I was on a hair trigger for EVERYTHING. Saturday night DH was able to skype and I cried "on his shoulder" for a while telling him what was going on here and how I was feeling. He did a bit of crying too, I know he is hurting as much as I am. When I was going through the list of everything that was bothering me he thought he was anticipating my next comment when he mentioned "yeah, and then so-and-so's death had to be hard on you". The problem? I had not seen on facebook that "so-and-so", a dear friend of mine from Texas had died. She died of complications of cancer and leaves behind an Air Force husband and three small boys. My heart was ripped out of my chest when I realized this. I haven't been the same since. I haven't lost a friend to death since high school. The saying is that God won't give you more than you can handle, but the timing of finding out about my friend's death really pushed me to what felt like a breaking point. I had a minor anxiety attack and heart palpitations.

Sunday I didn't do much better. I didn't make it to church because of how frail I felt. Last Sunday I was no where near this frail and one friend asking me how I was doing led to my crying my make up off. If I had gone to church on Father's Day in my frame of mind it would not have been pretty. The kids and I hung out and watched movies while I took a break from "real life". We all needed the break. The kids were showing signs of feeling my stress and I just had to pull the "emergency brake" so to speak and rest. I'm not superwoman and I refuse to stress myself sick.

Today was a bit easier. I did cry about a mixup at the commissary, but I didn't have sobbing fits or feel like curling up in a ball, so I think I did pretty good. lol I'm sure the people at the gas station where I was fueling the van were wondering why the girl with the minivan had tears streaming down her face, but oh well...

Tonight a roach was crawling on the wall in the dining room (in Hawaii, it doesn't matter how clean you keep your house, you are going to have bugs... and geckos). I grabbed a flight boot and a flip flop and started my stalking. lol I actually tasted the adrenaline rush and noticed the sharpening effect it had on my vision and muscle tension. That was kinda cool. I did manage to kill the darn thing without it ending up flying into my hair (a common occurance) so I counted that as a "win". As I came down off the adrenaline high I remembered that I had forgotten to eat anything but a 6 inch Sweet Onion Chicken Teriyaki sub today, so I finally grabbed dinner at 9pm. It is easy to get so busy taking care of kids that I forget to eat!

Tomorrow I get to meet a friend's new baby at the hospital and then hit spin class! I've noticed that my heart palpitation from stress go away when I've been working out hard core, so I need to throw myself back into the fray. So far I have lost 13lbs since February, so I'm thrilled! 20 more to go!

This is how we roll...

Every time I take the kids to the commissary someone always says "your hands are full". They find it amazing that I can shop with three kids by myself. Well today I took a picture to show "how we roll". ;-)

Thank you commissar for these awesome "space ship" carts!

Three months

This is what three months looks like...

 

We aren't at the half-way point yet unfortunately. Hopefully this will be the longest deployment DH will ever do, although with the current state of the world who knows what his ship tour will look like.

This 3 month block has been very tough, much tougher than DH's last deployment, which was 6 months. Miss Tornado misses DH this time like crazy. Every night she asks to talk to DH, but we only get to talk to him once or twice a week. She brings it up with other people too, poor thing. She knows that Daddy is on a trip and she says that he visits in the computer.

Soon we will be starting our birthday blitz that the summer has become. Man-Puppy is next month, Miss Tornado is August and Baby Bird is in September and then DH's birthday is two days after Baby Bird's birthday. I think planning the kids' parties will keep time moving quickly.

Next month is going to be difficult. Miss Tornado has her child group study at the Army hospital here. We aren't quite sure what will happen as a result. She will be evaluated by a Speech Therapist, an Occupational Therapist and a few other people while she plays with other children. It means being at the hospital at 8am once a week for a month. Joy joy!

I've started working out more seriously. I've started spin classes twice a week and I do weight training two-three times a week. This week I've dropped 3lbs! If I can keep this up I will lose the weight in no time! I only have 19lbs to go!

Man-Puppy is doing great. He loves to run around and imitate his big sister. He has started trying to match wills with me, but he doesn't give me nearly the problems Miss Tornado gave me. Just two very different little people!

Baby Bird is starting to do baby pushups. She gets on her hands and knees and rocks back and forth. Crawling isn't too far away, a full 2 months ahead of her older siblings!!! She also pushs up onto her hands and toes in a full pushup position! What a strong Baby Bird!

DH is doing well. He misses us so much, but he has a good Bible study out there for some fellowship and we do get to Skype once or twice a week. He  has bought some awesome gifts for us and will buy a couple more soon. He says that the people at the bazaar on base sell old British guns from the days of colonialism, he wants to get one to hang on the wall. He bought me a blouse and Zion a traditional Afghan outfit. I can't wait to get it! I'm going to see if he can get me some fabric as well. He says the people who come onto the base to sell things are really friendly and one guy keeps trying to get him to buy a tailored suit. I keep telling him to go ahead and let the guy make it for him, who knows when a nice suit will come in handy? :-)

It has been such a long 3 months, but I am thankful that God is bringing us through the way only He can. 

Happy Father's Day!

Father's Day is coming up and I came up with the perfect gift for DH! It is on it's way to him and since I"m pretty sure he doesn't read the blog I thought I would post it here. :-) I printed these as 5x7s and framed them so he can hang them on the wall or put them on his desk at work. I know he is going to LOVE them!

Graduation!

Well, last Tuesday I got up at 4am to watch my brother in law's graduation from the Naval Academy! He finally made it and now he gets to go to the real Navy!

Watching him graduate made me think of DH's graduation from there. I wasn't there, we hadn't even met yet, but I really wish I could have been there. DH went through so much to graduate from that school and I know that was a super proud day in his life. We didn't meet until the next August and were married a year and a half after he graduated.

When DH got word that he was deploying this year, our second thought (after "OH CRAP") was "we are going to miss BIL's graduation". :-( We had planned on touring the Academy so DH could show me his old haunts and touring Annapolis. He was going to take me to a couple of restaurants that he liked and we were possibly going to go on a date. Maybe one day... I know it was tough on DH to miss his brother's graduation. 

Here is a picture of DH graduating from USNA. I know that look on his face and that is pure pride right there... :-)

 Here is DH almost exactly 6 years later in Afghanistan.