Memories of Us

Not Happening

So, sleeping until 8?  Not happening.  Today we didn't even make it to 7 despite putting the boys down at 8 again last night.  Thus, I give up.  If I can't get an extra hour in the morning, I'm not sacrificing a precious child-free hour at night.  Also, my attempt to move Will's nap time to noon (which really wasn't even moving it AT ALL) backfired horribly yesterday.  Will is a mid-morning nap kid.  I know most toddlers give up the morning nap and keep the afternoon one, but not my boy.  My boy takes the middle road and sleeps from 11-2, thus eliminating any chance of a social life for either of us since most organised child-related outings/activities seem to always happen at 10:30.  Ugh.  So I figured with DST this past weekend that I could sneakily shift his nap to noon thereby creating the opportunity to have a LIFE.  But no.  He woke up at 2:30 and cried for an hour straight.  That's what an afternoon nap does to the kid.  For some reason waking up that late in the day is just DEVASTATING.  Thus today, he we are back to our 7PM-7AM with an 11 o'clock nap schedule.  It's almost like Daylight Savings Time didn't even happen around here.  Except for Mommy and Daddy, who have both accidentally stayed up until midnight the last two nights.  

Jamie has been studying the airplane a lot lately in preparation for a training flight tomorrow night.  He hasn't flown very much at all due to the demands of his other duties in the Wing and I know he's kind of excited.  He loves it, after all.  So, I've had to pretty much MAKE him come to bed the past two nights.  But he's so wired from studying that he has a hard time falling asleep.  I'm used to it.  It happens when he comes home from a late flight or simulator too.  The problem is that he wants to TALK.  To ME.  He turns into a chatterbox!  It's endearing in an after-the-fact way, but not so much in the moment, when I'm tired and want to sleep.  It's one of the things I miss the most though, when he's gone.  The pillow talk.  The empty bed is one of the worst parts of marrying the military.  I'm starting to prepare myself for a separation that is bound to come before too long.  We've been together for like, 4 months straight, which may be the longest stretch of togetherness we've ever had.  I'm kind of getting used to it, which is probably bad.  Plus, I've never been left with both boys before.  It's going to be a hard readjustment, having him gone.

Talking about deployments, can I just mention that I kind of despise that "Coming Home" show on Lifetime?  It's so invasive and voyeuristic and well, kind of sick, making entertainment out of reuniting families like that.  I had to stop midway through the episode because it made me so upset.  I'm sure a lot of people enjoy seeing the happy reunions, because they are admittedly beautiful and joyous.  But all I could see were those kids who had clearly been hurt by the separation from their father, knowing that my boys are going to have to deal with that in the coming years.  I guess it's only fun to watch it if you don't have to live it.

 

Quick Takes on a Monday

1.  I woke up yesterday morning as usual to the sound of Will wailing to get out of bed and demanding a bottle.  I glanced at my iPhone on the bedside table before trudging down the hall, you know. to see how much I didn't get to sleep in.  And I was shocked to see that it was nearly 8!  I was still super tired though, which confused me since getting to sleep until 8 is akin to sleeping until like, 10 in my life before children.  But whatever.  Yay for my good sleeper!  And then I walked into Will's room and saw his clock which read 6:45.  Somehow I had lost a whole hour of sleep on that short walk down the hall. Darn you, Daylight Savings Time.

2.  We tried to keep the boys on the pre-time change schedule of sleeping 7-7, which would mean down at 8 and up around 8.  Because, oh LORD wouldn't that be heavenly?  Sleeping until 8!  So we put them down at 8 last night, which should have felt normal to them.  But this morning?  They woke up at 7.  Damn it!  How do they know!?! 

3.  I went shopping both days this weekend during nap time.  We are  having family pictures taken next week and I would like to not be wearing maternity tops and saggy jeans in them.  So, I bought new jeans, in a size smaller (YAY!) which puts me back in my pre-pregnancy size clothes.  I am now only two pounds away from erasing pregnancy from the scale completely.  My body, on the other hand, will never be the same.  Changing clothes in the dressing rooms in front of the mirrors was not what I would necessarily call FUN,  but it really wasn't bad.  Because honestly, whenever I would see my belly and feel a tinge of unhappiness, I would think to myself, "This is the body of a woman who carried two huge babies to term.  It's nothing to be ashamed of."  Plus, I'm only 4 months post-partum and expect my body to bounce back a little bit more still.  Plus, I'm going to start doing crunches :-) 

4.  Jake is already working on cutting teeth.  I can see two little bumps in his bottom gums where his first teeth are working their way up.  I think it may be a few weeks before they actually cut through, but still . . .  Will didn't do this until he was 6 months!  I told myself that I was going to stop breast feeding when Jake got teeth and could bite me.  But now, I'm not so sure.  I'm not ready to quit.  It's so easy, and I enjoy it.  Now I'm thinking that maybe I'll wait until we decide to get pregnant again.  Or until he bites me.  That could be a game changer.  I don't enjoy it THAT much.

5.  We got a little climber/slide thing for the backyard since it's too hard for me to take the boys to the playground by myself.  Will still needs close supervision on jungle gym type things and I can't leave Jake unattended.  Anyway, it came in the this HUGE box.  So, Jamie made Will a playhouse.  It's a big hit. 

It can hold Will, plus me and Jamie (plus Charlie, but he's only allowed in the playroom when Daddy breaks the rules).  Actually, Will and Daddy hid out in the playhouse while I vacuumed yesterday.  You know, because vacuums are REALLY SCARY.  It was kind of adorable.

6.  Every day, when Jamie gets home from work, Will stands at the storm door and waves to him as he walks up to the house.  Then he says "Hi Daddy!" as he trys to avoid the hulking mass of DOG who also must express his overwhelming joy at Jamie's arrival.  Then, Will goes to his playroom and gets his two little blue chairs and takes them into the kitchen, patting one of the seats and telling Daddy to "Come on."  Then, Jamie and Will sit down and have a little snack.  

7.  Will has discovered a deep and abiding love of pears.

 

My Most Hated Responsibility

Surprisingly, it's not changing diapers.

I hate feeding my family.  I hate shopping for the food, which either happens with both kids in tow or at 8 o'clock at night once daddy is home and the boys are asleep.  I hate trying to plan a menu.  I hate trying to time meal preparation around Will's early bed time and Jamie's late nights at work.  I hate that I don't EVER make our food spicy enough to eliminate the need for Jamie to dress is up after I serve him (at this point he keeps a jar of cajun seasoning ready and waiting by his seat at the table).  I hate that Will eats perhaps two bites, if I'm lucky, before dumping his plate over and flinging food onto the floor.  I hate having a messy kitchen when I'm done (even though Jamie frequently does the dishes, which I appreciate - though he never wipes the counter, which drives me crazy).  And I hate that I am rarely hungry and don't even actually ENJOY eating thanks to a lifetime of dieting and feeling overweight.  Which means that aside from the satisfaction of keeping my family ALIVE, I don't really GET anything out of the whole cooking deal.  So, in short, feeding my family is my most hated responsibility.

Honestly, I remember that I need to make dinner usually at about 5 o'clock each evening which is too late to start cooking the more involved things that I have planned.  And the guilt starts to set in that once again, I will be throwing something together at the last minute.  And then, as is becoming the norm, Jamie will call at 5:30 or so (at the time when I'm starting to get anxious for his homecoming because I've been alone all day with the boys) to tell me that he's still at work and running late.  Which is disappointing for obvious reasons, but also makes me grateful that I didn't put in the work on a meal that would be cold by the time he ate it, and reinforces my bad cooking practices because seriously, why even bother.  And then I just feed Will WHATEVER because I know he won't eat it anyway.  Which makes me feel like a bad mother.  So essentially feeding my family is freaking hard and rarely leaves me feeling like anything but a bad wife and mother.  I'm becoming resolved to the fact that I can't win.

Today in my email I got a thing from the What to Expect When You're Expecting website from when I was pregnant with Will and signed up for emails like every other uber excited first timer.  And now I'm too lazy to un-subscribe.  Anyway, so the title was The Miracle Toddler Diet.  I was hopeful, when I clicked on the link, that maybe it would tell me what to feed my child to make him EAT, but instead it was a link to a blogger talking about how her toddler eats, well, EXACTLY like Will.  Though not really because I don't let him eat candy or dog food.  And while it's not clean per se (thanks to Will's EXTREME fear of vacuum cleaners) I don't have old food laying around the house.  And I don't even own lipstick.  So I guess I can feel somewhat superior in that, when Will eats, he eats actual food.  But in the end, I relate completely to this blogger because Will DOESN'T eat and like me, she seems to have just embraced that.  I'm SO over making him nice meals only to clean them up off the floor.  There are days when I marvel that the boy is still ALIVE, much less running around my house like a little maniac.  He is getting rather trim though.

Really, the only one NOT getting trim in this house is THIS guy.

He was 18 lbs 12 oz at his 4 month well-visit.  Just about double his birth weight.  I don't remember when Will hit 19 lbs, but it CERTAINLY wasn't at 4 months.  Sheesh.  I can't remember exactly, but I think Jake measured 24 inches.  He's a thick little guy, but in general he's just BIG.  Sometimes I have to remind myself how young he is.  He's rolling over like a champ these days, but his size makes me feel like he should be sitting up and crawling already.  I'm going to have to remind myself continually not to expect too much of him too soon.  Though I don't doubt that he'll be chasing Will around the house before I know it.  I'm pretty excited for those days, to be honest.  In part because carrying that heavy little guy around is hard, but mostly because it will be so awesome for Will to have a playmate who isn't a thirty year old woman.  What great friends they will be.