...and in March we are headed to Pope AFB, North Carolina. I was not happy at all when I found out. I'm still not what I would call "happy" about it, but I'm not wanting to cry anymore, so I suppose we're making progress. I'm trying to find the good in it. For one, we will be 2 1/2 hours from Hazen's best friend and his awesome wife--not bad! We will also only be about 300 miles from Washington DC, and 570 from both Disneyworld and NYC. I've always wanted to visit all those places, ESPECIALLY NYC, so I'm kind of excited. We might get to have some adventures. :)
We will be put on the housing waiting list tomorrow, so hopefully they have a house for us by the time we get out there. That would definitely help my stress level.
I don't want to move across country. I don't want to be away from my family. But the fact is that we are a military family and we have to learn to deal with disappointment. Just gotta make the best out of it. .)
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Almost my last day!
I'm nervous! I've been here for a year and a half. It's part of my routine now. I've been very anxious to be home with my kiddo the last year and a half, but now that it's almost here, I don't really know what to do. I have all these visions of art projects and trips to the children's museum, but I also know he's not the same little boy that I used to be home with. He's grown up and keeping him entertained is a little more tricky these days.
I am of course still his mommy. I play with him. I know his interests. But I haven't done the day-to-day stuff with him in quite a while. I have the evenings. We spend those eating dinner, taking baths, reading stories, and going to bed. The weekends are full of errands and trips out of town. But there is a big 10-hour chunk that I don't deal with Monday through Friday. It's kind of scary to have that much time looming over me.
I guess the transition will be easy-ish for us, at least initially. The next week is very full. Tonight Hazen goes to Butte, and he'll be back tomorrow afternoon sometime (then I'll come in for my "last day" of work). Tonight, Ian and I are building a ginger bread house. I have no plans yet for the morning, but I assume there will be pancake baking and coloring involved. Saturday we have visitors. Hazen's brother and his wife and their 5-month-old twin girls are coming over. The brother-in-law and sister-in-law are going to head out of town for a gig (BIL plays guitar), and we will spend the evening with the girls. They'll come back and stay at our house and head out Sunday. Sunday or Monday we will take Ian to my dad's where he will stay indefinitely. Hazen and I will pack and reserve a UHaul and storage unit. Christmas Eve we will go back to Dad's house, we'll spend the next couple of days between there and Hazen's moms, then we'll come back to Helena and load up our UHaul on the 27th. The 27th and 28th are moving day, the 29th is cleaning day, and the 30th is final inspection day. The 31st is Hazen's birthday, and somewhere between there and the 4th (my birthday) he will leave for Texas for 2 months. Phew!
I am going to take a Quickbooks class online. I want to do at home bookkeeping, but most opportunities require Quickbooks experience. We used Peachtree at my school, so I'm SOL. We'll also get our orders in the next week or two, and the chaos of figuring out where on earth we're going and how we're going to get there will ensue.
Maybe I'll just keep working...that suddenly seems much less stressful...
I am of course still his mommy. I play with him. I know his interests. But I haven't done the day-to-day stuff with him in quite a while. I have the evenings. We spend those eating dinner, taking baths, reading stories, and going to bed. The weekends are full of errands and trips out of town. But there is a big 10-hour chunk that I don't deal with Monday through Friday. It's kind of scary to have that much time looming over me.
I guess the transition will be easy-ish for us, at least initially. The next week is very full. Tonight Hazen goes to Butte, and he'll be back tomorrow afternoon sometime (then I'll come in for my "last day" of work). Tonight, Ian and I are building a ginger bread house. I have no plans yet for the morning, but I assume there will be pancake baking and coloring involved. Saturday we have visitors. Hazen's brother and his wife and their 5-month-old twin girls are coming over. The brother-in-law and sister-in-law are going to head out of town for a gig (BIL plays guitar), and we will spend the evening with the girls. They'll come back and stay at our house and head out Sunday. Sunday or Monday we will take Ian to my dad's where he will stay indefinitely. Hazen and I will pack and reserve a UHaul and storage unit. Christmas Eve we will go back to Dad's house, we'll spend the next couple of days between there and Hazen's moms, then we'll come back to Helena and load up our UHaul on the 27th. The 27th and 28th are moving day, the 29th is cleaning day, and the 30th is final inspection day. The 31st is Hazen's birthday, and somewhere between there and the 4th (my birthday) he will leave for Texas for 2 months. Phew!
I am going to take a Quickbooks class online. I want to do at home bookkeeping, but most opportunities require Quickbooks experience. We used Peachtree at my school, so I'm SOL. We'll also get our orders in the next week or two, and the chaos of figuring out where on earth we're going and how we're going to get there will ensue.
Maybe I'll just keep working...that suddenly seems much less stressful...
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Croup
The kiddo has croup. His third "major" illness in his lifetime (he's had two ear infections). I suppose we're doing pretty well as far as that is concerned, but it's still no fun to have a sick kidlet.
He woke up coughing strangely and with a 101.9 temperature on Monday morning. Alternating Tylenol and Motrin brought the fever down to the 99 range, and he was doing better by the evening. He didn't eat anything all day, but was getting enough liquids in the form of juice and water.
Today he woke up coughing horribly again, and Hazen and I both commented that he sounded like a seal. His temperature was up to 101.7 again. I googled "seal cough" and learned that my child probably had croup. A trip to his pediatrician confirmed it. They gave him a single-dose of steroids to open up his airway and he is doing MUCH better already. His doc said that he will likely wake up tonight coughing, but the steroids should keep his air passages mostly open.
The hope is that the fever is gone in the next couple of days. Once that goes and he's acting normally again, he should be past the contagious stage. We need him well by next week--he has to go stay with the grandparents while Hazen and I get the house packed. We need to be out in just over 2 weeks!
He woke up coughing strangely and with a 101.9 temperature on Monday morning. Alternating Tylenol and Motrin brought the fever down to the 99 range, and he was doing better by the evening. He didn't eat anything all day, but was getting enough liquids in the form of juice and water.
Today he woke up coughing horribly again, and Hazen and I both commented that he sounded like a seal. His temperature was up to 101.7 again. I googled "seal cough" and learned that my child probably had croup. A trip to his pediatrician confirmed it. They gave him a single-dose of steroids to open up his airway and he is doing MUCH better already. His doc said that he will likely wake up tonight coughing, but the steroids should keep his air passages mostly open.
The hope is that the fever is gone in the next couple of days. Once that goes and he's acting normally again, he should be past the contagious stage. We need him well by next week--he has to go stay with the grandparents while Hazen and I get the house packed. We need to be out in just over 2 weeks!
Friday, December 11, 2009
My Silly Boy
We've been working a lot with Ian on his sign language. Since Hazen's sister is deaf, we all know a decent amount, and we want Ian to be able to talk to her, too. We started when he was about 6 months old, though I believe he was a little over a year before he did his first sign ("milk"). After that was "all done" and we added little by little from there. He is now VERY interested in learning signs, but he has a hard time with the finger coordination required for a lot of them. Last night he came out and asked for water, so I went ahead and showed him the sign (it's a "W" held up to your mouth). He couldn't do the "W" and I didn't realize how hard he was trying. Suddenly he came up to me and said "Mom, help. Water". I put his hand into a "W" for him, and he was so proud when he could do it. He ran over to Hazen and said "Look!". When we put him in bed, Hazen told him to get under his covers. I always use the word blanket with him, so I told him to pull up his blanket. He gave us a mischievious look and then signed "blanket" at us! It was very sweet and cute, but he was totally being a little smarty pants--he was still sitting on his blanket. ;)
Then, after he was supposed to be sleeping, he came out to the living room and said "Mess" to me. I couldn't figure out what he was talking about. Then he held his hand up to me and he smelled like vomit. I went to his room expecting to see puke all over his bed, but no. There was just a little bit on the floor in front of his closet. Our theory is this: Ian likes to stand in front of the mirror on his closet and do silly things--he will watch himself cry, he will make weird faces, etc. He also likes to put his fingers down his throat (I don't know why...he's three...). Our theory is that he watched himself put his fingers down his throat and made himself throw up a little bit. I couldn't help laughing. I could completely imagine what he had been doing at the time, and I suspect there was a look of shock when he threw up.
Life is never dull with a toddler. ;)
Then, after he was supposed to be sleeping, he came out to the living room and said "Mess" to me. I couldn't figure out what he was talking about. Then he held his hand up to me and he smelled like vomit. I went to his room expecting to see puke all over his bed, but no. There was just a little bit on the floor in front of his closet. Our theory is this: Ian likes to stand in front of the mirror on his closet and do silly things--he will watch himself cry, he will make weird faces, etc. He also likes to put his fingers down his throat (I don't know why...he's three...). Our theory is that he watched himself put his fingers down his throat and made himself throw up a little bit. I couldn't help laughing. I could completely imagine what he had been doing at the time, and I suspect there was a look of shock when he threw up.
Life is never dull with a toddler. ;)
Monday, December 7, 2009
Cooking, Baking, Holidays, and the Waist Line!
I've really been enjoying cooking and baking these last couple of days. On Friday, I went home sick. I ended up feeling better pretty quickly, so cooked up a turkey (we bought one while they were on sale for Thanksgiving, but since we went to relatives I didn't need to cook). I also made my first ever, from scratch, pumpking cheesecake. It came out SOOO yummy and even looked like the picture in the book! I was so proud. A lot of my baking comes out really yummy but it never looks as good as the picture. This item totally did, though. I took a picture of it I was THAT proud. ;)
Yesterday I spent the day cooking. I made some turkey salad that came out really well, then made my second ever batch of homemade spaghetti sauce, then made Turkey Pasta Primavera for dinner. It was good, but it made way too much and was too rich to eat a lot of. I doubt I'll make it again. I'll throw together some lasagna with my spaghetti sauce later this week.
The unfortunate side effect of being in the mood to cook and bake, and also, of course, Thanksgiving, is that I've put on a few pounds. Not a lot, only about 4 1/2, but I was nearing a certain number on the scale that I don't like to see (I was 1/2 pound away!). Thankfully we bought a scale a couple of months ago, so I can keep track of what I'm weighing. It's too easy to let 5 pounds turn to 10, then 15, when you don't really keep track.
So, I have managed to get back down to my preferred weight. It's amazing what not eating two pieces of 500 calorie cheesecake a day will do! I have to be good weight-wise for the next couple of weeks. The more I cook, the more we all eat. Hazen has about 2 more pounds to lose before the Air Force calls, so I need to be careful and stick to healthy, low-calorie, low-fat meals. I've kind of been sabotaging my poor husband!
Yesterday I spent the day cooking. I made some turkey salad that came out really well, then made my second ever batch of homemade spaghetti sauce, then made Turkey Pasta Primavera for dinner. It was good, but it made way too much and was too rich to eat a lot of. I doubt I'll make it again. I'll throw together some lasagna with my spaghetti sauce later this week.
The unfortunate side effect of being in the mood to cook and bake, and also, of course, Thanksgiving, is that I've put on a few pounds. Not a lot, only about 4 1/2, but I was nearing a certain number on the scale that I don't like to see (I was 1/2 pound away!). Thankfully we bought a scale a couple of months ago, so I can keep track of what I'm weighing. It's too easy to let 5 pounds turn to 10, then 15, when you don't really keep track.
So, I have managed to get back down to my preferred weight. It's amazing what not eating two pieces of 500 calorie cheesecake a day will do! I have to be good weight-wise for the next couple of weeks. The more I cook, the more we all eat. Hazen has about 2 more pounds to lose before the Air Force calls, so I need to be careful and stick to healthy, low-calorie, low-fat meals. I've kind of been sabotaging my poor husband!
Sunday, December 6, 2009
The waiting game continues!
Hazen heard from his recruiter. His CATM school starts January 5 in Texas. He will be there through early March. The problem is that we don't have a base yet. His recruiter said it was odd that he was signed up for a class without having a duty station assigned. The fun thing is that we have to be at our base about two weeks before he goes to Texas. Since he goes to Texas in early January, and it's early December now...I'm not entirely sure how we're supposed to do that. At this point, it looks like the most notice we're going to get is two weeks!
I just really hope we get Malmstrom. That will make things SO MUCH easier for us!!
I just really hope we get Malmstrom. That will make things SO MUCH easier for us!!
Thursday, December 3, 2009
I just want to stay home
A lot of the girls on a message board I go to are having a discussion about how to handle school when our three-year-olds start (only a couple of years away!). Since they work full-time, they are having a hard time figuring out how to get the kids to school at 7:30/8:00 and pick them up at 12:30 or 3:30 depending on whether they go to full or half day kindergarten. Others are having issues now with preschool. Since it only runs for a couple of hours a day a couple of times a week, a lot of their kiddos can't go, or they're going to very expensive full-day preschools. And I imagine a lot of kids of two working parents go to kindergarten earlier than they might if they had a stay at home parent. I mean, free kindergarten or expensive daycare...it's tempting.
I'm not worried about any of this. Once Hazen is back in, the most I'll work out of the home is part-time. And I'm seriously looking into taking some more accounting software classes, namely Quickbooks, so I can do accounting from home (I've found several opportunities, but they all want me to be proficient in Quickbooks...we used Peachtree in school, so I know nothing!). I'm not worried about Ian going to preschool, and I'm definitely not hoping that his school will do full-day kindergarten (I personally think that is too much for 4-6 year olds--half day kindergarten was great for me!) and offer before and after school programs.
My personal feeling (this is not meant to offend, it's just how I feel) is that we've started to care too much about status and money. I really don't think it's too much for a parent to be home in the early years of a child's life. They go quickly, and there is time for pursuing careers later when they're in school. I just can't imagine sending my kiddo somewhere else for 9-10 hours a day 5 days a week. I know that I would still be "mommy" but honestly--my child would spend more waking hours with daycare providers than his parents. I guess I don't fully buy that he would be learning my values...how would he really even know them? And that's just the mental aspect--the cost on top of that is crazy! Almost a third of my current take-home income would be going to daycare costs if he was doing that full-time. If we have another baby, it would be well over HALF of my take-home pay. What sense does that even make?
Now that Ian is 3, I feel like going to preschool a couple of days a week for 3 hours at a time would be fun for him. He likes to play with other kids. But beyond that...it makes me nauseas to think about. I guess that's how I've discovered that the full-time thing doesn't work for me. I literally feel sick when I think about my baby being under other people's care for his entire day. And then to have to put a 6-12 week old in there full-time? I feel so blessed to have gotten the time I did with my baby when he was born, and that when I couldn't be there over this last year, his dad could. And now the roles will switch again, and I can't wait. I'm a mom first. Yes, I have an education, one I'm still paying for, but that will always be there. My baby isn't going to stay little forever. He won't ever say his first word, cut his first tooth, or take his first steps again. I don't know how people can survive missing that. I would have been heartbroken if I'd gotten a report at the end of the day "he took three steps today!" and I hadn't been there to see it. Even now, I get phone calls and pictures of the cute things that he does and learns while I'm at work and it tears me up that I'm missing it. I'm his mommy--I'm supposed to be there! And the breastfeeding. I know people manage to do it while working full-time, but I have to say it had to have been much easier for me not working. I could be at his beck and call 24/7. No pumping, no bottles. Just me and my newborn. Easy-peasy. I have VERY strong feelings about breastfeeding, but I don't know if even I could make it work if I was at work 9 hours a day. Pumping sucks!
I guess it's easy for me to say these things, though. I really enjoyed the stay-at-home thing. I love cooking and baking and cleaning and taking my kid on adventures. I love that when my husband comes home, there aren't things that need to be done--it's taken care of. I think I was born a few decades too late. ;)
I don't ever want to go back to full-time work. Literally--ever. Part-time is the most I see myself doing. I want to be the one dropping my kids off and picking them up. I want to volunteer in their classes. And I want to be that annoying mom that is in the bleachers for EVERY SINGLE GAME. I don't want to worry about how I'm going to find and pay people to watch my children because I have somewhere else to be. I just want to be the best mom I can be. And I guess I just don't see how I could do that without being there.
I'm not worried about any of this. Once Hazen is back in, the most I'll work out of the home is part-time. And I'm seriously looking into taking some more accounting software classes, namely Quickbooks, so I can do accounting from home (I've found several opportunities, but they all want me to be proficient in Quickbooks...we used Peachtree in school, so I know nothing!). I'm not worried about Ian going to preschool, and I'm definitely not hoping that his school will do full-day kindergarten (I personally think that is too much for 4-6 year olds--half day kindergarten was great for me!) and offer before and after school programs.
My personal feeling (this is not meant to offend, it's just how I feel) is that we've started to care too much about status and money. I really don't think it's too much for a parent to be home in the early years of a child's life. They go quickly, and there is time for pursuing careers later when they're in school. I just can't imagine sending my kiddo somewhere else for 9-10 hours a day 5 days a week. I know that I would still be "mommy" but honestly--my child would spend more waking hours with daycare providers than his parents. I guess I don't fully buy that he would be learning my values...how would he really even know them? And that's just the mental aspect--the cost on top of that is crazy! Almost a third of my current take-home income would be going to daycare costs if he was doing that full-time. If we have another baby, it would be well over HALF of my take-home pay. What sense does that even make?
Now that Ian is 3, I feel like going to preschool a couple of days a week for 3 hours at a time would be fun for him. He likes to play with other kids. But beyond that...it makes me nauseas to think about. I guess that's how I've discovered that the full-time thing doesn't work for me. I literally feel sick when I think about my baby being under other people's care for his entire day. And then to have to put a 6-12 week old in there full-time? I feel so blessed to have gotten the time I did with my baby when he was born, and that when I couldn't be there over this last year, his dad could. And now the roles will switch again, and I can't wait. I'm a mom first. Yes, I have an education, one I'm still paying for, but that will always be there. My baby isn't going to stay little forever. He won't ever say his first word, cut his first tooth, or take his first steps again. I don't know how people can survive missing that. I would have been heartbroken if I'd gotten a report at the end of the day "he took three steps today!" and I hadn't been there to see it. Even now, I get phone calls and pictures of the cute things that he does and learns while I'm at work and it tears me up that I'm missing it. I'm his mommy--I'm supposed to be there! And the breastfeeding. I know people manage to do it while working full-time, but I have to say it had to have been much easier for me not working. I could be at his beck and call 24/7. No pumping, no bottles. Just me and my newborn. Easy-peasy. I have VERY strong feelings about breastfeeding, but I don't know if even I could make it work if I was at work 9 hours a day. Pumping sucks!
I guess it's easy for me to say these things, though. I really enjoyed the stay-at-home thing. I love cooking and baking and cleaning and taking my kid on adventures. I love that when my husband comes home, there aren't things that need to be done--it's taken care of. I think I was born a few decades too late. ;)
I don't ever want to go back to full-time work. Literally--ever. Part-time is the most I see myself doing. I want to be the one dropping my kids off and picking them up. I want to volunteer in their classes. And I want to be that annoying mom that is in the bleachers for EVERY SINGLE GAME. I don't want to worry about how I'm going to find and pay people to watch my children because I have somewhere else to be. I just want to be the best mom I can be. And I guess I just don't see how I could do that without being there.
Christmas is Coming!!
I love this time of year. It's not the presents or anything, but I love the decorations, and the trees, and the excitement, and the family, and the cooking...I love it all. :) This Christmas is a bit rougher for us than usual with Hazen being unemployed for over a year and now us waiting for our orders (which means no decorating), but it still feels good. I love it. :)
We had all our Christmas shopping in our trunk. Since we're getting in the negatives at night and our highs are in the single digits during the day, we figured that wasn't a good place to be keeping things. So I snuck out to get them all out of there this morning and then realized I had a problem...no where to hide them. I had planned to put them in our bedroom, but the munchkin had worked his way to our room in the middle of the night. So I boxed them all up and put them in the top of Ian's closet. I feel so sneaky. ;)
We had all our Christmas shopping in our trunk. Since we're getting in the negatives at night and our highs are in the single digits during the day, we figured that wasn't a good place to be keeping things. So I snuck out to get them all out of there this morning and then realized I had a problem...no where to hide them. I had planned to put them in our bedroom, but the munchkin had worked his way to our room in the middle of the night. So I boxed them all up and put them in the top of Ian's closet. I feel so sneaky. ;)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)