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.

Organizing!

Recently I started taking iron supplements again and WHAM! my energy is back! Suddenly I have a nesting urge! I've taken two days in my own bedroom organizing everything. I have a huge box of Goodwill stuff and that is just our room! I have two bedrooms (the kids), DH's office, the living room and the dining room. This is going to take a while, but I'm excited. Four moves in four years means a lot of crap that I've just stuffed in closets. Now it is time to clear it all out so the next move is easier.

The hardest part of streamlining stuff is not cleaning out my clothes, or DH's clothes, it is streamlining the kid's clothes. I have such fond memories of them in those clothes, but I have too darn much! I just went through Baby Bird's clothes and I remember dressing Miss Tornado in them. So many people have showered clothes on us for both girls' births and now I have to cut through the mounds of clothes because there is no way one baby girl can wear all those clothes and I'm out of storage solutions. Now I  have all three kids' current clothes in one dresser (one drawer per child) and now I have to sort through all the clothes in storage because there is just too darn much.

I'm so excited about this organizing! It will make things so much easier to keep up! Now I can order DH's anniversary gift and have a good place to put it! And I also have discovered I need new bookshelves. lol

2 1/2 months!

Well, we are 2 1/2 months into our deployment! This deployment has sucked so much worse than last time. I think the fact that I was expecting Man-Puppy made it a little easier. I had a major life event to plan and then the newborn haze started and time sped up. I also had people to visit out of state which broke up the monotony.

This time I am keeping up with three kiddos, two of whom have had health concerns and I don't get ot talk to DH very much at all. Everyone keeps asking if I have family coming to visit and I have to tell them no. Everyone is surprised, but they are happy to hear that I have a good Bible study group and church for support. I keep trying to entice my second mom to come visit me, but she is in the middle of her own life changing time. She is hoping to come out in October for a birth seminar on island and I hope to attend with her. It will be great! I really miss having her around!

Man-Puppy just went in for his nutritionist follow up. The appointment was at 8:30am and I had to take all three kids to the Army hospital. I left the house an hour and a half early to make sure I didn't show up late due to traffic. Half way to the hosptial I smell poop. I look back into Man-Puppy's carseat and see poopy legs (he is rear facing, so I could only see his legs). I debated turning back, but I saw the traffic back into our town and knew i would never make it. So I got to the hospital, stalked a soldier to his great parking spot and took it when he backed out of it. I then went to work. It took HALF a package of wipes to clean him  up, but Man-Puppy handled it like a trooper. I didn't have any extra clothes, so he just wore a cloth diaper. So me and the two girls were dressed nicely and Man-Puppy was half naked like a little heathen. He thought it was great! lol The nutritionist has a kid, so she completely understood and commented that he looked very comfortable. At the appointment she told me that his bloodwork was fine and commended me for asking questions of the pediatrician and told me it was nice to meet a mom who didn't blindly follow someone just because they are a Dr. I really liked her. I wish she was a pediatrician, I would make her the kids' pcm in a heartbeat. After dealing with some jerks for Drs, it is nice to meet someone in the medical profession who treats me like a human worth respecting. If only the pediatricians (and other people in life) I have dealt with could understand that you have to give respect to get it. If you treat me like I am a capable adult with legitimate concerns, then you get the respect. I treat everyone with respect, but I communicate with Drs who reciprocate and more gets DONE.

Man-Puppy is doing so well! He is learning to warm up to people a little faster. He is quite the charmer and loves on his peers like crazy. His Puggles teachers (AWANAS for toddlers) love him. They always rave about how caring he is to other children and how he picks out toys and takes them to children for them to play with. He doesn't actually play with them, but he serves them. I really think he has a servant's heart, sometimes to a fault. I think that is how Miss Tornado's Cubbies vest went missing. He loves to throw everything in the trash, and now the vest is missing. oops... He is walking very well now and people just love to listen to him talk. Communication is his strong point, even without words. He just has this way of reading people and expressing himself.

Miss Tornado went in for a behavioral evaluation last week. We were thinking sensory processing disorder, but the Dr said that she is testing right at the cutoff for an autism diagnosis, so she is going in for so much more evaluation. So in July we will be going in for a child group study once a week for a month so she can be evaluated around her peers by speech therapists etc. She is also supposedt o meet with an Occupational Therapist as well for a separate evaluation. This summer is going to be a summer of Dr appointments. Of course this all happens when DH is gone. Why wouldn't it? UGH But it will be nice to get some answers and some help for her. Watching her struggle with peer interactions breaks my heart and I hope to help her integrate better so she doesn't have to deal with too many struggles as she grows. Growing up is hard enough without these kinds of issues!

Baby Bird is doing well. We went to the zoo this last weekend for military appreciation day (free entrance, free food and live entertainment). I let her crawl around on the ground for a while, but apparently she is allergic to something here. At 3am I woke up to her gasping for air. I almost took her to the ER, but I was able to get her to breath easier with some massage. So now I am keeping the kids away from "monkey pods" until spring is over. Monkey pods are sticky pods that are dropping from their trees this time of year and they stick to EVERYTHING. They really are quite disgusting and all four of us react when we are near them. I had to do some acupressure points on myself to clear a bad sinus headache. Other than the allergy, she is doing amazing! The other day I went ot check to see if she was awake from her nap and she looked at me and WAVED! She is several months ahead of where her two older siblings were at this age. She is also pushing up onto her hands and knees. Actual crawling is just around the corner! She is just so advanced! As a mom I have a pretty good idea what my kids' personalities are and Baby Bird is "complex". She isn't a really smiley baby, but she isn't exactly introverted either. The whole "still waters run deep" phrase describes her. I have a feeling she will be a VERY analytic person.

DH is doing ok. He stays busy at work. He does have a good Men's Bible Study Group there that he fellowships with. He even has them pray for me. That man is everything I could have wanted in a husband and father for my children. We get to talk about once a week and even that is spotty. He misses home, but he is doing better with his coworkers. It is like he has gone from a work environment like the movie "Office Space" to some kind of war movie. He has his frustrations, but it is good to know that he is doing well at his job. He is also working on JuJitzu on this deployment.

I am doing... ok. The stress of health issues with the kids plus anemia haven't been exactly good for my health, but I am dealing. I'm trying to work out regularly and I have started taking iron again. I miss my hubby, a lot. Knowing how much he misses us and how much he is missing with the kids' development is a tough place to be in. I miss having pillowtalk at night and a friend to joke around with during the day. He is my very bestest friend and life without him is colorless and dull. Even though the kids keep me busy, things seem two dimensional without him here. I am glad he told me to take the summer off from my college courses. I would be going insane trying to keep up with classes while dealing with all this crap. I am happy to get some reading in though. It is nice to read for pleasure instead of school. I've read a SEAL sniper autobiography, all three books of the Hunger Games, and a book called "Obama's Wars". I am working on another SEAL sniper autobiography and then I have a Beverly Lewis book to work on.

So that's life in a nutshell right now.