The military wife

I received this in a forward, and I thought this is one that sums it all up. It's a pretty good description of the military wife.

To all the military wives.

To all the wives who hold it together and those of us who
on occasion lose it...Thank you for being so wonderful!

They may look different and each is wonderfully unique.

But what do they have in common? They have this in common:
Lots of moving. Moving far from home.

Moving two cars, three kids and one dog----all riding with
HER of Course.

Moving sofas to basements because they won't go in THIS house.

Moving curtains that won't fit.
Moving jobs and certifications and professional development hours.
Moving away from friends, moving toward new friends.
Moving her most important luggage; her trunk full of memories.

Often waiting-
Waiting, waiting; waiting for housing; waiting for orders; waiting or deployment; waiting for reunion; waiting for phones calls; waiting for the new curtains to arrive; waiting for him to come home for dinner----AGAIN!
They call her 'military dependent', but she knows better.
She can balance a checkbook, handle the yard work, fix a noisy toilet, bury the family pet... She is intimately familiar with drywall, anchors, and toggle bolts.
She can file the taxes, sell a house, buy a car, or set up a move ---- all with ONE Power of Attorney.

She welcomes neighbors that don't welcome her.

Reinvents her career with every PCS; locates a house in the desert, the arctic, or the deep south and learns to call them all home. She MAKES them all home.
She is fiercely IN-dependent and somewhat hasty; Leaps into decorating, leadership, volunteering, career alternatives, churches and friendships.

She doesn't have 15 years to get to know people. Her roots are short but flexible. She plant annuals for themselves and perennials for those who come after them.
Military Wives quickly learn to value each other. They connect over coffee, rely on the spouse-network and accept offers of friendship and favors and record addresses in pencil.

Military Wives have a common bond. The Military Wife has a husband unlike other husbands, his commitment is unique.
He doesn't have a job, he has a 'mission' -- he can't decide to quit -- he's on-call for his country 24/7, but for the military wife, he's the most unreliable guy in town!
His language is foreign:
TDY
PCS
OPR
ACC
BDU
And so, a Military Wife is a translator for her family and his.

She is the long-distance link to keep them informed the glue that holds them together.

Military Wife has her moments ---- She wants to wring his neck, dye his uniform pink, and refuse to move to Siberia. But she pulls herself together. Give her a few days, a travel brochure, a long hot bath, a pledge to the flag, and a wedding picture. And she goes. She packs. She moves. She follows.

Why?
What for?
How come?
You may think it is because she has lost her mind. But actually it is be cause she has lost her heart. It was stolen from her by a man who puts duty first, who longs to deploy, who salutes the flag, and whose boots in the doorway remind her that as long as he is her Military husband, She will remain his Military wife.

My favorite time of year

Well, it's time to play catch up. Every time Doug comes home, he brings Tristan a present. This time it was a big gun with a scope on it. The main part was that it had a scope or a pipe as Tristan calls it. I'm not sure who's played with it more, Tristan or Doug.

We went to Pekin for Thanksgiving. Our trip was nicer this time, only two stops on the way up and one on the way back. Gavin is becoming a good traveler. He turned five months on Thanksgiving and decided to start rolling over, back to tummy. But he's forgot how to roll tummy to back, so he gets stuck. He was a pretty happy boy though, more people around to hold him and all.

Tristan's big idea of something to do was to go ice skating. It's been YEAR's since I've ice skated and I'm happy to say I didn't fall once. I almost did but I just pulled the muscles in my back doing that wiggle arm wave to keep from falling. Tristan got to push around buckets to keep from falling. He had a great time and even skated a little bit with no buckets.

Now that we're back home, it's just been busy getting ready for Christmas. I love Christmas. Decorating, cookies, shopping, Christmas music... Tristan decorated his tree and we got our tree yesterday. We have more outside decorating to do and of course lots of shopping. I'm actually having a hard time thinking of things for the kids. Tristan has everything and Gavin has all his old toys. Between the two of them we have a least a quarter of a toys r us store. No matter what, December will just go to fast and I will never get everything done that I want to. But it's still my favorite time of year.

It's Fall!

We took full advantage of the last few nice days of fall we had. It was in the 60's and 70's, sunny and just so nice to be out after school. Tristan raked some leaves into a pile to roll and jump in and throw.



I finally got the baby saucer out for Gavin. He loves it and sits really well in it. He loves to sit and he pulls himself up if he's laying back at all.

Gavin is trying to wrap Doug around his little finger. He is just smiling and talking to him now. He knows that he has trained other people (Grandma and Grandpa) this way. If he is smiley and cute, he gets picked up. It's nice that he warmed up to him pretty quick. Although for some things like eating and sleeping, only Mommy will do. And most of the time, that is ok with me. He's such a cute and cuddly baby boy.

I'm glad it's over

I didn't even watch all the political stuff last night. I knew I wouldn't be up late enough and I'd hear about it this morning. I'm just so glad it's over. I was so tired of all the political commercials with the "he did this, he voted this way", "no I said this and voted this way". Uh. I agree with my Mom, why can't they just say what they are for, what they want to do and stop with the negative ads. I guess it would be a perfect world. It would also be a perfect world if it wasn't so much about race. So there is a black man that's President now. Can't we move past race? He's still just a man. Get over his color, look past that. What's he going to do for our country? So finally the political commercials are off and now comes the Christmas rush.
October and early November is too early to be playing Christmas music in the stores. And this is coming from the biggest fan of Christmas. I love Christmas, it's my favorite holiday. But while I'm still shopping for Halloween stuff is not the time I want to be listening to Christmas music. And I never realized how many toy commercials there are until I went from watching Disney channel or PBS kids to Nick Jr. Oh my goodness. We are only watching commercial free PBS kids from now til after Christmas. Every new toy Tristan sees, he wants. Every commercial, even it's a doll or girl toy or baby toy, he wants it.
So, Doug is home again. He came home last night, dropped all his bags and stuff throughout the house and went to work this morning. He's home for a couple weeks, leaves, comes back for a while, leaves again....so it goes. But Tristan is so happy to have his Daddy back and poor Gavin doesn't know him. I feel sorry for military kids sometimes. When Tristan got up this morning, Doug wasn't back from PT yet and Tristan saw he was gone, you could see the worry and disappointment in his eyes when he asked "Where's Daddy?" I told him he would be back soon and he was relieved. I'm just happy Doug will be here for the holidays. He'll be gone all around them, but home for some the good family times. I'm lucky and thankful for that.

Four months have gone so fast

Gavin is four months old. I can't believe it's been four months. He is just getting so big. He's been eating cereal for about a week now. He is a hungry little boy, well he's not so little. He weighed 15.7 lbs and is 25.5 in at his four month check-up. He is obviously growing well and he is doing everything he is supposed to. It just makes me so proud to be able to mark all the yes boxes on the developmental chart.

So what else is new... Tristan had his last soccer game Saturday, yea! No more early and cold Saturday mornings. He was so proud of the trophy he got. He says he won "40 80 60 games". Ok.
Tristan carved his pumpkin tonight, and when I say he carved it, I mean it. He was a little scary with a knife but there were no accidents. And he did a good job. It turned out cute, or scary according to Tristan.




Halloween is his favorite holiday now. He has such big plans for decorating the house and having a Halloween party. They are good plans, they are just not going to happen. He wants a maze in the back yard and all kinds of decorations. He'll be one of those people who go all out for Halloween. We have some very cool houses in our neighborhood. I need to go take some pictures. Some people put a lot of work into their decorations and I can't help but wonder, where do they store it all? It's some big stuff and we have no storage here. They must have storage sheds somewhere but their houses are impressive. Here's mine.


Not quite as impressive.

Happy Halloween to everyone. Have a spooky night.

Fun, fun day

So in the last post, I said "It's been one of those days all week", well the week wasn't over. Early, early this morning I hear "bloop, blop, bllloooop" coming from the bathroom. So my weird mind is thinking of those stories about big snakes coming up the toilet pipes, and I'm lying in bed thinking, "well if there's a snake coming up, Dora will get it." I checked the toilet and the water wasn't rising, just air bubbles. So silly me thinks maybe if I flush it, the air will get out. Nope. Apparently not. The waters rose. I went back to bed. Later, Tristan gets up and I told him go to the bathroom in his bathroom and he yells, "there's water all over my floor." Great. Time to call maintenance. Well not only was water all over his floor but both bathtubs were full of brown chunky water. So that's what smelled so bad. The little flood went out of the bathroom and down the hall and into the hall closet where we have boxes and stuff. So my fun morning was cleaning it all up. I threw away all the bathroom stuff and went to get new things and some storage tubs. The boxes had Doug's books and memorabilia. Kind of funny that only his stuff got ruined. On the up side, I don't think my bathrooms have been cleaner.

We've been busy

It's been a while and we've been busy. My Mom came to visit at the end of September for a week. And I got spoiled having help here and Gavin got spoiled being picked up by Grandma all the time. He really had her trained. So then we all went to Pekin for a visit. My 6 hour trip took 7 1/2 hours and I'm not doing it again. At least not soon. We all had a good time, I went out with friends, took full advantage of having help around, Tristan played with a neighbor kid, and Gavin got spoiled some more. Then we went to Lockport to visit Doug's family and I showed off Gavin to everyone. Then drove back here by myself, 2 boys and a dog. Actually wasn't too bad, just not exactly fun. So now we are back... the house is a mess and it's been one of those days all week. Tristan got a cut on his eye from a piece of paper, quick trip to the clinic. He's better today thankfully. But you know when you've been away for a while, it's hard to get back to a routine. It's hard to go back to being alone and yes I'm throwing myself a pity party. I'm tired, stressed, a little overwhelmed right now, and am really ready for Doug to come back. But on the bright side, here are some recent pictures of my boys.

Oh, just more pictures of Gavin

I liked the onesie he had on and he was in a good mood so... I had to take some more pictures. And then I remembered that I have some old pictures that look a lot like this. We have entered the stick out your tongue phase. So many pictures of Tristan have his tongue sticking out. Of course I couldn't find many when I went looking but here is one.


Just so you can compare to Gavin.




Look at the belly hanging over his shorts. It's like he has a little milk belly (instead of beer belly).

I got it

I finally got a picture of Gavin smiling, sort of. He smiles all the time at me. But of course by the time I get the camera, he stops. Or as soon as I put the camera up to my face he stops because he can't see me. I put the camera down, he smiles, pick it up, he stops. See a pattern. But he was in a very happy mood this morning.

I look at this and think "I'm Popeye the sailor man." Cute little chunker cheeks.

He was 2 months...

Well at least I took pictures of Gavin at 2 months old. It was just a couple of weeks ago, that's all.
He weighs 11 lbs 8 oz, and is 23.25 in. He's grown a little. He hasn't rolled over again yet, but he is still scooting. He kicks when he's on his back and goes off his little play mat. Or he'll do a low crawl type move on his belly. And then when he's all wore out...
yeah, he's asleep!!!!

Or his other motto: sleep is for the weak. We had a few days like that. Up a couple of times at night, no naps during the day. I haven't been that tired since basic.

The big kid had his first soccer game today. It was so cute. I think he is going to have a lot of fun once he gets the hang of it. He looked a little lost on the field, running behind everyone else and sometimes the wrong way. But he did get a couple kicks so that was good. Some Mom behind me was screaming so loud at her kid it was making Gavin cry. I can see her being a parent asked to leave at a game someday in the future. She just yelled so meanly at her son. I really wanted to say lighten up they're 5 year olds. It's not a big game or anything. I would rather Tristan has a good time, have fun. I don't want to stress him out at 5 years old because he missed the ball or didn't get a goal. Lesson learned, don't sit in front of this lady again.

And tonight the big boys (Doug who's here for 4 days and Tristan) are out camping. So it's just me and Gavin. And some nice peace and quiet, until Gavin wakes up.

I could be an Olympian

I've been watching some of the Olympics, at odd hours of course. At least it's on at 3 am when Gavin is up eating. I've never really watched more than the gymnastics I guess because I'm seeing sports I don't even know what they are. But I've seen table tennis! Table tennis (come on, it's ping pong) is an Olympic sport? I could do that! I saw men's table tennis, now that was funny. Oh and badminton(?). I could play badminton. Those are the sports I want to play in the Olympics. Forget that swimming and running stuff, I'll play the hard sports.

Gavin is on his way to being an athlete. With all his rolling and scooting. He almost fell off the changing table because he scooted until his head was hanging off. I was putting away his clothes and he was crying, I looked back and there he is hanging his head off the edge. I about had a heart attack. He's rolled over two more times and boy is he fast. He gets up on one knee and kicks and bam, he flops over. It's not a nice slow roll, he just flips over. But his new playmat is silky material and he can't get any traction on it, so he can't stay on his knees to move anywhere. And I kind of think it makes him mad. He still tries though. He reaches and grabs the material and tries to get up on his knees. He's outgrown two of his cutest jammies and it's so sad. They are so cute with little teddy bear feet and puppies on them. But since he can't straighten his legs in them anymore, I've put them away. It's sad when they grow so fast and you can see it by little things like that. Just all of a sudden they're too big for jammies, then too big for the car seat, then too big to be held like a baby. They grow too fast.



And I have to brag just a little (because I can and I want to). I went to my 6 week check up and I've lost 5 extra pounds from my pregnancy weight. I've been back into pre-pregnancy clothes for a week or two now. It's like "yeah, I'm back to where I was before I got pregnant" and also "I was this fat before I got pregnant?" So hopefully with breastfeeding I can lose some more weight. Although I'm sure if I quit eating like I was still pregnant, I would loose even more. I can't help it, I'm addicted to cookies now. Gavin won't let me eat egg rolls, my spaghetti sauce, anything spicy (and I've been craving spicy foods, wierd), or drink pink lemonade. Well I can eat those things but then I'm up all night with a fussy baby. So for now I will eat plain food and drink juice and water. And then have 6 cookies for dessert:)

Batman and Super Baby

Tristan is fully obsessed with Batman now. We have moved on from Spider-Man. I don't know why though, he has never seen a Batman movie. And he won't for awhile, he's not old enough for those yet. He's barely old enough for Spider-Man but he has seen all those. Anyway, I guess it is just the "new thing". He has the lunch box and now the costume, which I told him he can be Batman for Halloween since we have the costume already.

And I guess Gavin is going to take after the super hero theme here too. On Wednesday, he rolled over. He's only 5 weeks old and he rolled tummy to back. I had put him on his tummy in the living room while I was cooking in the kitchen and Doug was finishing dinner on the grill. Well Gavin was mad, he was crying and screaming and both of us were trying to hurry and get dinner done. Doug went into the living room to get him and he was on his back. So his first time rolling over and no one saw it. He hasn't done it again though. I've put him on his tummy and now he is getting up on his knees and kicking so he actually moves forward. What happened to putting a baby down and them not moving. He moves in his bassinet too. I can put him down in the middle and he will kick until he is up in the corner. He likes to be touching his head to the side. And it makes me think of that joke, "I live in a round house and I like to sleep in the corners." I think it is a good bet that this kid is going to be a mover.

First day of school and 1 month old!

I really meant to write sooner, like last week when Gavin turned one month old. But, I'm horrible at actually sitting down and writing. Even worse at actually sending an email to someone, I just do forwards. Anyway here is my big one month old boy.

And my boys together. They look alike even in this picture.

I had sent an email out with some Gavin pictures and just for fun a Tristan baby picture to show how much they look alike. Look and compare...
Gavin
Tristan
Tristan

Gavin

They make some of the same faces too. The big difference is that Tristan was a happy baby. Happy to be held or put down, it didn't matter. Gavin is more like if I'm not eating or sleeping then I should be crying. He is not a happy baby. He is not content to just be awake and look around, unless it's between 1am and 5am. Then he'll just be awake and semi-happy. But then I'm not happy! He's just one of those fussy babies. Luckily 8 years of day care experience has taught me to just tune it out after a while. Crying really doesn't bother me to much. But Gavin gets a frantic cry that just makes you feel sorry for him. So I pick him up and rock him and then he goes to sleep. And sleeps all day, up at night! I know he'll out grow it soon. But my happy baby, Tristan, slept through the night. I was so spoiled with Tristan.

And speaking of the big boy, today was the first day of Kindergarten. I can't believe he's going to school all day.

He looked a little nervous when we dropped him off. I just hope he likes it. He didn't like Pre-K toward the end of the year when they were actually trying to do work and learn things. He would much rather play. But his room didn't seem like it had to many toys in it. And he supposedly has the strict teacher, which might be a good thing for little mister stubborn.

He's here, he's here!

Ok, so he finally came out! Actually the day after I wrote the last post. Thank goodness he came 5 days early. Gavin was born June 27, 2008 at 11:17am, 8lbs 1oz, and 21 inches. He's long and skinny and looks just like Tristan when he was a baby except he has a little hair.

So, for my delivery story... it was much better than Tristan. I can almost see why people have more than one kid. Labor with Tristan was horrible. It was long, painful and of course, no epidural. I screamed so much, I lost my voice having Tristan. So compared to that, Gavin was a breeze. I started having contractions on the 26th in the evening, they were 10 minutes apart and went all night long. Then at 5am they started up 5 minutes apart. So I got Doug up and told him to get ready and by the time we were up, dressed, and ready, the contractions were getting stronger and closer. So we sped to the hospital, luckily early enough in the morning there was no traffic and Doug did 50 in a 25, ran the red lights and passed cars because I kind of felt like maybe we wouldn't make it. But we did. We got to the hospital and my contractions were about 2 minutes apart, I was 3-4 cm. So I start asking about my epidural because I was starting to be in pain and I don't like pain. Well they admitted me, took blood and waited for that to come back and had to wait on a doctor and then call the guy and then finally about 2 hours later I got my epidural. Which was sooooo nice. I LOVE the epidural. I felt nothing, literally nothing. Couldn't feel my legs, nothing. It was so weird but nice. I didn't think I was going to get it in time either because by then my contractions were about a minute apart. So after the epidural took affect I tried to nap a little and watched my contractions on the monitor. They really went down and I thought "No, they're going to take the epidural away or give me something to get them going again", but I was still doing good, it just didn't show up on the monitor for some reason. So as I'm laying there all comfy and numb, I send Doug to make a phone call and a few minutes later I feel the head drop more. A nurse came in and I said, "I felt him move down". So she sent in the doctor, who peaked under the sheet and said "OH, it's time to push". Well we have to wait a minute because my husbands not here. So they are getting all ready, gowned and all that and I'm freaking out because Doug is still not back. So I'm like, can you look down the hall, go yell for him or something. The doctor keeps saying it's ok, we'll wait for him. Doug finally walks in, he stopped to get coffee! I'm laying there with a head ready to come out and we're just waiting on him. So I pushed a couple times, the doctor asks Doug if he would like to catch the baby. And surprising to me he said yes. So he's down there looking and making faces and telling me way more than I wanted to know about what a baby looks like coming out. Well the faces he's making are making me laugh and I can't push because I'm laughing at him and yelling at him to quit looking or quit making faces or I'm going to put a bag over his head. So I pushed about 10 times total and out came Gavin and Doug did deliver after the head and shoulders were out. I hear multiple people telling Doug "He's slippery!", which did not make me feel to good about how he was catching him but ok. So out came this little purple guy.


And then he started screaming and boy can he scream! But then he pinked up and looked like a normal human. And then something kind of weird happened. I got the shakes from labor and the epidural. It was so weird to be shaking and shivering and I couldn't stop and I couldn't hold Gavin because I was shaking so bad. But they came and took the epidural out and then it went away and about 3 hours later I could feel my legs again. Overall, this delivery was soooooo much nicer, actually almost enjoyable because it was pain free. And I felt a lot better than what I did after Tristan. I came home the next day and time has been flying since then. Gavin was not a fan of sleeping at night at first but now he is sleeping at least 5-6 hours through the night. We are getting on somewhat of a feeding schedule. He has been out to dinner and was very good and he has been shopping twice and slept through it both times. He just definitely does not like the night time. He can nap all day and eat every two hours on the dot almost, but as soon as it hits about 10pm, bam it's crying time. Still can't complain too much because he sleeps all night once he's asleep.

Tristan is a very good big brother. He gets toys out for Gavin to look at and he talks to him when he's crying. And his favorite thing to say when Gavin's crying is "babies just cry a lot". Like it's something he's just accepted. Thank goodness he's not to bothered by it. He is becoming just a little jealous of all the holding time Gavin gets, but I make sure that Tristan gets his fair share of the cuddles too. And Tristan is just so happy that Mom can sit on the floor and play with him again. It's been a couple months since I was able to get down on the floor and play with him. Well, get down and be able to get back up

He's never coming out!

Just in case anyone is wondering.... no, no baby yet. He's never going to come out. I've done all the little wives tales to try and get labor started. Nope. The nurse at my last visit "stripped" me to try and get things started. Nope. I've had just a couple pains, nothing big, but I've had some other "signs" that things should be coming soon. And I really thought he would be here by now, but no, he's not coming out. He's very low, he dropped weeks ago, so I'm kind of doing the waddle now. And because he's so low, I don't look as pregnant as I did. As Doug says, it looks like I just have a big gut. Gee thanks. You be the judge.

Anyway I did take some pictures of our new remodeled house. For anyone who lived in the old Van Voorhis duplexes, here's what they look like now. And no, I never clean before I take pictures. New and improved kitchen.







Tristan's pirate room.

We Moved!

Well I moved about 2 weeks ago. I had one day's notice. The movers came to look at how much stuff I had and decided it would take two days to move me half a block down the street. It just so happened he stopped at someone else house first and she took the days I wanted. And of course they were booked then until the end of May. So the guy went back to the office to check more dates, gave me a call and said "I just had a cancellation for tomorrow, you want it?" I thought "Sure, why the heck not. I don't have the keys yet, let me check if I can get them." So the next day, I moved. Luckily my parents came down to help me, I couldn't have done it without them. Mom and I did most of the unpacking and arranging and Dad did all the heavy lifting and moving things around. No way could I have moved some of the boxes. As it was, the 3 days on my feet made my ankles and feet swell up to comical proportions. I never had swelling with Tristan but I seriously should have taken a picture of my feet. My legs were like one size all the way down. So lesson learned, don't move 7 1/2 months pregnant if you can help it. We still have books in boxes because our bookshelves fell apart on the move. And I haven't hung pictures yet. But if I ever get the place looking decent, I'll put some pictures on. We still need to set up the baby's room too. And Doug is back. He came back early which has been nice, but of course brought all his stuff back and we haven't quite got that all put away yet either. It doesn't help that he came back last Thursday and had to work Friday all day. Overall I do like the new place. The kitchen and laundry room is nice. And I love having the master bathroom. I just can't wait to get settled. Must be that nesting instinct again.

Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day to all us Mom's out there.

This is the day I became a Mom, 5 years ago.

Not much going on here really, which is why I haven't posted. Well, we've been busy, but nothing exciting. We made a trip to Lockport to see Doug for a weekend at the end of April. And in driving 6 hours by myself 7 months pregnant, I realized something. It is not comfortable anymore to drive that long. So the trip to Pekin I was planning for the end of May after Tristan got out of school, got moved up to the first weekend in May. I figured there is no way I could make another 6 hour trip a month later with me and the baby being bigger. He is not happy being squished for a long drive. So we've made a couple trips, I did A LOT of shopping in Pekin. I bought my own Mother's Day gift, a new video camera. Our other one is 8 years old and looks and acts like it. The new one is so nice and little. And I've gotten to use it at a T-ball game and Tristan's school program. His program was very cute. They showed off all they learned this year and it was a Mother's Day thing too. They made little picture frames, a cute picture, and all the Mom's got a flower. And they sang a cute little "I love you Mom" song that had tears in my eyes. I wasn't the only one tearing up though, but I can always blame it on the hormones. I mean I literally can cry over stupid commercials now.

And in other semi-big news, I'm moving! A couple houses down the street. To one of the renovated ones. For as long as they took and all that, they did turn out pretty nice. You lose some room, you gain some in other places. I get a 10x10 walk in closet, another full bath, a nicer kitchen, a laundry room (instead of the washer and dryer being right across from the fridge in the kitchen), and a breakfast nook which will be our office. So the nice thing is now the baby will have a bedroom. Really nice thing, because Doug is gone and I'm pregnant, they are moving me, I don't have to do it. Just hopefully I can move sometime this week. I just want to get it done with and I'm dying to nest. And I can't nest until I move. I remember going through this with Tristan and it was weird even to me. But I just felt like everything needed to be clean and organized and done, NOW! And I'm feeling that way again, just can't do anything about it yet.

Pregnancy news, everything is going good. The baby is growing great and kicking like crazy. He is going to be one strong little bugger, he kicks hard! Still no name yet, if Doug would only agree to what I like, this would be settled. A month and a half to go, woo-hoo!

Catching up

Yep, it's been awhile. Still losing my mind though and I'm not even sleep deprived. It's been warm enough here for t-shirts lately, but all my regular t-shirts are getting a little small and short for my big belly. Yet somehow it took a week for it to dawn on me that I have MATERNITY T-SHIRTS! I borrowed some summer clothes from my niece and a friend and they are sitting right there in my bedroom. Yet did I think to put them in my closet and wear those. Nope. Then one day, I had an ah-ha moment. I bet the maternity t-shirts will fit. Duh!

So to catch up and explain all the pictures on here... Tristan and I spent Easter weekend at Lake Cumberland with Doug's parents. They were there for the week for their spring break. Our spring break was the week after theirs so we just went for the weekend. We did a little hike, which about killed me of course. There was a huge Easter egg hunt on the frisbee golf course, it was pretty cool. The ranger in charge wanted everyone to sit on a hill for a picture, so we did. Then he asked for a volunteer who isn't shy. Tristan raised his hand and got picked. All I could do was laugh because he is about the shyest boy ever around strangers. I think Tristan thought he was going to go first. But the ranger wanted help singing Peter Cottontail to start the egg hunt. Poor Tristan, he doesn't know that song, and he looked so uncomfortable. But then the egg hunt started and he was off and running up the hill. With me far far behind. I'll get to those "things I forgot about from being pregnant with Tristan" things in a minute. But it was a nice weekend, we went swimming, and to a fish hatchery (which Tristan called a fish factory), and just hung out with grandparents.

The next weekend was Tristan's birthday party. I made the mistake of telling him on Wednesday that it was his birthday. That whole day he was upset because it was his birthday but not his party and everyone was supposed to come on his birthday. No matter how I explained it, he didn't get it. Yes, today is your birthday, but people are working and at school and they can't come until Saturday and that is your party day. So the poor kid went to school on Thursday and told his teacher that it was his birthday but he didn't have a party because nobody could come. Poor kid. But I took him to lunch and shopping on Wednesday and we bought cookies for him to take to school. He got pink and blue frosted cookies because there are boys and girls in his class. Anyway, party day came and before anything else could happen, we had to decorate for the party. No breakfast or getting dressed, he got up and had to decorate everything for the party first. And of course it was Spider-Man all the way. Thankfully he picked an easy theme this year. It was almost like Christmas with all the new toys.

So after his birthday party, he was off for spring break. Oh yeah! We of course had nasty weather so we didn't do much. Well I cleaned and organized stuff, but that's not fun. At least Tristan had new toys to occupy him. But Sunday was very nice, so we went to Dinosaur World and Kentucky Down Under. Tristan is becoming interested in dinosaurs, so he loved dino world. It has life sized statues of dino's, a dino playground, a little museum, and a fossil dig. I think the fossil dig was his favorite part because you get to keep 3 fossils. And of course a cool gift shop with so much dinosaur stuff. I bought him a little play set of dino's. Then at Kentucky Down Under, they have animals from Australia. So you get to pet a kangaroo and an emu, milk a cow, learn about sheep, and reptiles, and a Camel. They have little programs to teach you about life in Australia. And they have a little cave tour, which I've been on before and I remembered the stairs but I forgot about the little itty bitty spot you have to squeeze through. They should measure people before you go down there. I made it, obviously, but it was a tight squeeze and I can't suck anything in anymore. The baby does not squish. But Tristan had a great time, it was a beautiful day. His favorite part was a little mining station they have set up. You buy a bag of dirt and rocks and mine it for gold. It has all kinds of rocks and minerals in the bag, and you do get a lot of different stuff, but Tristan is convinced that it is all gold.

Then we've got t-ball. We just had our third practice two days ago. We've been rained out for most of our practices and I have a feeling we'll miss tonight and our first game on Saturday because of rain. But Tuesday's practice was hilarious, I wish I would have videoed it. I could win AFV or something. First the poor coach was alone, he usually has two helpers but they are on leave. The coach is great, he is so good with kids and so patient. But the kids weren't paying attention and it was funny. So he gets them set up in the in-field and Tristan is the first to bat. This is the first batting practice they've had. So they're supposed to hit three times and on the the third time, run to first. Tristan hits his third and the coach yells "run to first". Tristan starts running. "No drop the bat Tristan" Tristan stops half way to first, very gently puts the bat down and starts running. The ball is heading towards first. So coach is yelling "get the ball, get the ball". Tristan stops, grabs the ball, holds it in the air and yells "time" like the coach told them to. I was dying laughing. Time to learn some rules of baseball. They did get slightly better by the end.

And for things I forgot about from being pregnant the first time. Obviously there is mommy amnesia.
1. How hard it is to do anything below your knees. I reached down to tie my shoes before hiking and couldn't reach my feet.
2. No matter how hard you try, your belly does not suck in or squish or move, except when the baby moves, then it's just weird.
3. The heartburn, reflux, whatever you want to call it. It all comes back up.
4. Climbing stairs is hard with a belly. You have to climb with your legs apart.
5. Breathing is harder when you have feet in your rib cage.
6. How out of breath I can get when climbing with feet in my rib cage. I sound so out of shape.
7. How much a good punch to the bladder from the inside hurts. That's just something you can't describe.
8. All the trips to the bathroom. Night and day.

I'm losing my mind

I've been having those days lately where I walk around the house thinking "I was going to do something, what was it?" I'll walk into the office and think, "I know there was something I was supposed to do on the computer." I just kind of walk around trying to remember why it was I came this way. It's severe mommy/pregnancy brain.

So, Tristan is morphing into a weird kid (ok he's been weird for a long time). Weird in a good way but still... He's so funny sometimes the things that come out of his mouth. Like at dinner he has started saying things like "Mmm, this is delicious Mom, thank you. You did a good job making this." Um, thanks, you strangely polite boy, where's my son? But at least he does have manners. If he doesn't want something, he'll say no thank you. He might scream it if you ask him more than once though. It'll be more like "I SAID NO THANK YOU!" Maybe he's just so happy that we are eating real food again, not just what my first trimester tummy could take. That and with Doug home last week, we actually did eat a little better. But the "did you cook this Mom? It's delicious, thank you." just cracks me up. He's just funny.





And it has finally taken a break from raining today. We have had so much stinkin rain, I don't need to see anymore. Our yard is a complete mud pit, thanks to the rain and Dora running around. I wouldn't mind rain so much if I didn't have to wipe Dora down every time she comes in. And it is actually hard to see mud on a black dog. I'm hoping and praying we have a nice dry summer like last year. No rain, no grass growing because really me mowing the grass at 8 or 9 months pregnant does not sound fun.