“regular spartan woman”

I’ve had a much better couple of days. I get like 5% better everyday, but apparently the 30% ok mark was enough to keep me from errupting into tears. whoop! I told J I hadn’t cried in a couple days and he said “you are a regular spartan woman”. lol. niiiiccceee. my answer to him was “it takes a village to raise a child and that’s exactly what they lived in!!!”. I’d be cool if my parents, aunts, uncles, and cousins lived next door… or in the next tent over or whatever. as it stands, everyday is a little better. I’m
thankful for that.

in other non-deployment related news: my kids are friggin adorable. in about the last month or so, they’ve started playing together. it’s hilarious. you can see jack’s little wheels turning trying to figure out if it’s awesome or a real pain in the backside. either way, I love watching them play together. I’m so thankful that I am able to be here with them everyday. I really dislike the Army sometimes, but it has made it possible for me to be at home with my sweet babies. whenever I think about going back to work, the number 1 thing in my mind is “but they’d be in different rooms at daycare” no bueno. I guess I could hire a nanny, but I really enjoy being the expert on my kids. it’s my favorite subject to be an expert on, actually. I’m too type A to give that over to someone else. There are times when my gorgeous babies are mysteries to me, but most of the time I know just what they need. It’s very fulfilling for me.

Right now, manners are the número uno practice at our house. Everytime J says “thank you momma/daddy/random other person” without being prompted my little heart swells. there aren’t too many times that he forgets to say “please” either. squeal! now I just have to each him not to brandish a twizzler like nunchuks and he will be all set. he is also learning numbers, shapes, letters, and word recognition. sometimes I am amazed at him. he will properly identify a shape or recognize a word like “cow” and I’m blown away.

sister is clapping and walking. I’m scratching my head trying to figure out where my baby went. she loves to “wrestle” with J, which is actually just her trying to tickle him. it’s funny bc she and Macy (my 2nd pet) have a lot in common. J has a surprising amt in common personality wise as well w/ manhattan. (hopefully minus the whole peeing on my floor thing). man is really laid back until he isn’t and then he is a complete whackadoodle. macy is high strung and into everything– much like sister. clara has a real opinion about EVERYTHING and she will let you know it. so funny someone so small has such a big personality. i think we are in for some interesting teen yrs.

anyway, I’m off to bed. more later. night!

*tough*

so I’ve been a little whiney lately while trying to gather information on this whole deployment thing. I won’t pretend I’m ok with it yet or have I figured out how im going to handle it yet, but I’m getting more and more ok with it everyday. I’d put myself at a solid 25% today. that’s better than where I was the last time I wrote about it. that day I was doing well to be at a 0% okness level.

I still cry if I think about it too hard and I still have a sick feeling in my stomach. I’m really trying not to waste away the time we have together before he goes. I told J yesterday (after I threw up) that I suspected this deployment would be a lot like throwing up. you dread it and dread it and pray to God, Allah, and/or Kermit (hey, whatever you are into) that it won’t happen. trouble is, if you gotta throw up you just gotta. it always inevitably happens and when it’s happening it’s never as bad as you imagined it would be (hence all the pleading) and when it’s done, you feel like a rockstar. I hope deployment is a lot like that.

my newest list of concerns are loneliness and meal time. I’m no freakin’ Paul Deen, y’all. I’d rather bake a cake than cook a meal. I’m a huge proponent of “family meals” but even at breakfast and lunch when it’s me and the kids while Jerry is at work, it’s gut-wrenchingly lonely. my son can talk, sure, but we cant exactly carry on a conversation about anything on my level… and Lord knows I wouldn’t try to make him. I’ll probably spend a lot of time with my tv. I need the noise to keep me distracted enough to function. even when j has staff duty, I sleep with the tv on. I just can’t sleep w/o the company.

those key hours between 430-930 or bedtime are probably going to be my worst. Jerry should be up where he is going by the time I go to bed and that’ll be good… nothing like going to sleep after a phone call from your hubs just before bed. I wonder how he’s feel about me staying on the phone w/ him all night long? I’ll just listen to him go about his day instead of the tv. I guess I’d better get Vonage. 🙂

Anyway, just some thinking. if you have any ideas of ways I can keep myself busy let me know. I had a friend once say “God doesn’t give you more than you can handle, so handle it” still, I’m praying tonight and have been praying for something/anything that will change my situation enough that this year w/o him is tolerable. and I realize, be careful what you wish for so every night I specify to God “but I still want us to love each other and want to be married and be happy” :). what I mean is that maybe God will surprise me with a great friend getting a job here or a change of plans for the deployment or heck idk. God is super creative.

I do have comfort though in knowing that God has already seen me through this. He knows exactly how it’ll play out, what I’ll learn, how I’ll grow, and how I’ll come out the other end. He has carried me too far to drop me now.

tears

its 3am. I woke up at 1 to go to the bathroom and I’ve just kinda been suspended in sleeplessness for the past two hours. I can tell you one thing, I’ve got a ball of tears deep in my stomach that I almost can’t fight anymore. I feel so weak for not being more stoic… more unaffected. when I went to West Point, I was saying “I’ll go” but never did I say “I’ll sit back and watch my loved ones go”. I didn’t go to West Point to bag a husband so that I could be a stay-at-home Army wife. I didn’t plan on having two kids under two when I took my oath at RDay. I didn’t plan on my husband leaving me and the kids for a year to go on deployment. I didn’t *plan* any of this. It all just happened, the way life tends to do, and I am eternally grateful, but also extraordinarily out of my element.

I have the ability to pack my emotions in neat little containers and put them on shelves until I need them… usually, anyway. Although I’m not now, nor have I ever been good at handling turmoil with others who I care about. But that is a different story entirely. Just felt the need to put that out there since I intend to reflect completely on my emotions now as a way of hopefully unburdening myself some.

With all that said, this is what I am looking at: I have 2 kids, I’m 2000 miles from family (although my cousin lives 2 hrs away now… thank goodness for small blessings), and my husband/best friend is going to deploy for a year. He was asked to do this job and it’s a HUGE honor (although it still feels a lot like volunteering to me), but I can’t shake the feeling that he is picking his job over us even though I SO want him to be happy in his job. (That stings a little to put on paper… I’ve only just now admitted it to anyone. myself included) A year?!? A year of my families life… just gone. Sure, it’s only a year of 18 we have with these precious children. The past 8 months with my sweet Clara and my Jackman have gone by so fast that at times I have to pinch myself to believe that it’s actually January. But, oh my word– what 2/3 of a year it’s been! I lose my breath at the thought of all the things my husband will miss in just one short year of their lives.

And I am scared. Terrified. actually, I don’t think either of those words can even touch what I’m feeling. I’ve got a fear so deep inside of me that I’m scared to even find out how scared I really am. I literally live for the moments that I can spend with my family. I spend the whole day just waiting for 5 o’clock or 6 or on lucky days 330 to roll around so that we will all be at home together again. I do enjoy the help when J gets home, but mostly I just miss being a unit of 4. that’s the way we work best… as a family.

I am so blessed to be able to stay at home with the kids. after Clara spent 2 months on oxygen, I decided that I’d rather spend every moment of the very short 18 years I have with them at home with them rather than plugging away at a job that makes me unhappy (which is where I was when I decided to leave). so here I am. in 2 short years, I’ve moved twice, had 2 babies, quit my job, and landed here in a whole new world with the very real deployment just 3 short months away.

again, I knew what *I* was signing up for when I went to west point. I could have never predicted life’s events and how I’d fall in love with the guy who sat in front of me in British Lit. I realized that I might have to leave my family behind to go overseas but I only saw that as leaving my mom and dad, not this whole additional family unit. I tell my husband all the time “I didn’t sign up to be an Army wife” because I signed up to be a Soldier. We married when I was still in and I guess i never really thought past my ETS about the life of an Army wife. Here I am and now I’m about to do what Army wives do all the time- take a year by myself to raise this family. Unfortunately, I’m
probably the weakest of any Army wife I’ve ever met. Funny how that works out.

I realize that I’m probably rambling, but I just couldn’t keep this bottled up inside me for fear of boiling over any longer.

What do I do now? My biggest weights on my shoulders are just questions. They may seem simple, but to me they’re enough to bring on a flood of tears. How will I handle everyday? How will I grocery shop? What will I do if something happens and I need help? What will I do on the bad days when I just need someone to help me see the humor in all this? How will I fill my days? What will I do to keep the loneliness from creeping in? How will I give them enough love for 2 parents worth? How do I keep my husband from feeling like he is missing out? How do I breath?

I know it’s only a year, but that’s where I am at. I know people have been through worse, but this is where I am at. I know this may sound irrational to some, but again this is where I am at.

I’m not in this alone. I’ve got 2 people who God so graciously entrusted me with that I have to keep trucking along for. Everything thing I do is for them. I have to be the best parent that I can and raise them by myself for the next year. I guess that is what frightens me most of all. I won’t have my back-up here to comfort me on my worst of days and pat me on the back on my best. I’m just 100% at a loss. How am I going to do this next year? How am I going to be me w/o the other half of me and a very important part of my family missing?

I guess that’s why I have this knot off tears that just won’t go away… and I don’t know when it will.

ok wow.

i knew it had been a loooooong time since I’d blogged, but I didnt realize it was like september long. man, it’s been a busy 3+ months.

for starters: my BFF Christine and I had an awesome month long visit. it was great being able to spend time w/ her and baby w. while she was here, I also got j and c enrolled in boutique modeling and that has really taken me on a journey that I never could have predicted.

we got c baptized. that came about in sort of an odd way. I’ll post that later probably.

I really have no idea what happened the rest of November. December 3rd we had J’s bday party. sesame street or bust! we decorated for Christmas, had Christmas, and I have no idea where the last few weeks have gone.

I opened a photography business right at the same time I was gifted, yes gifted, another business so my photography business is on the back burners.

all in all, this is not where I thought I’d be in my life, but I’ll be rolling with the punches.

what the Hell was I thinking

I write this as I am in the throws of toddler Hell. like seriously, toddler mother effing Hell. if you think my language is foul, you underestimate just how horrible this situation is that I am suffering through right now. 2 weeks ago, I decided to fly to Mississippi w/ my 4 month old and my 21 month old…by myself. what the eff was I thinking?

as if this situation weren’t on the verge of complete and utter insanity even IF my son had taken a nap today, please imagine for a moment how terrible it must be knowing that he didn’t nap. yes, I am currently ignoring him and writing this because I am afraid if I didn’t do something to distract myself I’m going to get off the plane as mother to one child, not two.

so far he has smacked his sister in the head with his toy as hard as humanly (toddlerly) possible. this sent my normally very reliably calm baby into a screaming fit. jack is quite the sympathy crier so then I had a symphony of wailing and I was getting plenty of nasty looks. I just wanted to scream at the top of my lungs “I’m doing the best I fucking can, ok!!!!!!!!” and then disappear into thin air.

in addition to giving his sister’s perfectly round head some character, he has also constantly kicked the seat in front of us and he threw his sippy cup like a garter and phwapped the guy behind us. I don’t know how to discipline that. he is currently strapped into his carseat so it’s not like I can do timeout. I’ve told him “no”, but that doesn’t do me a whole Hell of a lot of good if I can’t discipline him when he defies my “no”.

I brought along a bunch of toys and we’ve currently lost half to the floor with no hope of recovery. I don’t really care about that part but we have been playing “fetch” and I could do without that fun since I’m not a dog and have no plans to become one in the foreseeable future.

I planned to feed c on the way up, but she HATES breastfeeding covers and was whipping my cover around like zorro’s cape while it was still around my neck. I now have a “rug” burn on my neck and a hungry daughter who also has expertly taken 3 shadoobies in the past 2 hours. I can’t leave j to go to the bathroom so I’ve changed 3 diapers on my lap and been peed on. I’m also just whipping my boob out now. I’m waiting to see if TSA awaits me and my toddler terrorist when we deplane. I’m sure the stewardesses are informing air traffic control of nipplegate as we speak.

me and my piss jeans are O-V-E-R this flight. I keep staring at the clock and hoping that it’ll be over soon. i think I’m in some horrible parallel universe where the time actually stands still.

about 30 minutes ago I prayed and prayed about what to do. I’m not saying God led me to medicate my kids, but the idea of giving them medicine to help them calm down popped into my head shortly thereafter. j and c are now both finally asleep. thank goodness.

I forgot to mention that before we even got this show properly on the road (or air?), j was running on the people mover with his Daddy. he bit it hard and gave himself a bloody nose. at which time we realized that his wipes were left in the family restroom. and for the icing on the cake, someone on the plane keeps passing gas, farting, tooting, letting loose a weeping willow, or whatever the Hell you wanna call it. every single time I’m sure it’s one of my kids exploding out of their diaper. I mean Hell, my pants are already covered in pee…why not add a little solid to the show?

I got a significant amt of help from the flight attendant getting on the plane. I have no idea what kind of situation I’m going to be getting myself into getting off. I’m thinking we should probably wait and get off last but when things are bad, I want my momma and things.are.bad. I just want to be the first one running off the plane and go see my mom and dad. I think I actually just had an idea. hmmmmm. we will see if it’ll work.

I’ll keep you posted.

*Motrin*- a mom’s best friend

shhhhh…it’s a secret.

it’s ok. daddy doesn’t read the blog anyway. he would KILL me (not literally, he isn’t OJ) if he knew that today we played with washable markers…on jman’s skin. and we *might* have drawn little toddler tattoos on him.

he is still too little to know what I was doing. so, I figured now was as good a time as any to break out my artistic prowess on my son’s arms and back. before you go all 1-800-iamcallingyourhusband on me. I want you to know that I am having a very bad day with my shingles. when I first got up this morning I went to look for my shingle and I couldn’t find it so I thought “whoop! I have been healed! hallelujah! hallelujah!” but then my neck starting hurting so bad I can’t turn my head. shingles are a bitch. anyway, I needed to entertain my son and he already had ink on him from a luggage tag he was playing with that smeared when *ding!* I had the idea. and yes, mentioning the shingles was an attempt at a vote of pity. did it work? k. good.

he had great fun drawing with the markers. he drew on me with reckless abandon (at one point I had something akin to a teardrop under my eye. I guess that means Jack knew about that spider that I went all homicidal on last week). I just happened to be more focused in my drawing efforts on my son.

this was *supposed* to be a barbed wire toddlertattoo. it came out more tribal though so we will pretend that’s what I was going for. man, I hope Kat Von D reads this blog. Kat, I am totally available for employment. Call me anytime.

so anyway, this all started because I tried to bring in a card table from outside and put his new coloring mat on it, but he decided he’d rather be ‘Lord of the Dance’ and have a crayon buffet. (I hear the green ones taste the best).

he isn’t quite old enough for that yet, but he is totally old enough to draw on skin with markers. and.so.am.I! yay!

we even made sure to hook it up with the obligatory religious tat. cut me some slack, y’all! it’s not easy to draw on a squirmy toddler.

that last letter is supposed to be a “u” but it looks a lot more like an arrow pointing down. “I love carpet” works too. or it could be “I love [pizza] or [stuffed animals] or [anything less than 2 feet off the ground that he can get his knuckles above]”.

anyway, about as soon as I’d drawn the last toddlertat we got in the tub. I was afraid this would be a 3 or 4 bath kinda day because there could be no evidence of today’s activities when Daddy gets home. J didn’t mind though. he likes baths and he took his markers with him.

<img src="https://meaganmoving.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/20110916-113141.jpg” alt=”20110916-113141.jpg” class=”alignnone size-full” />

“you said these markers are washable right, mom?” ba dum chi! I’ll be here all day, folks. (and all night too because I’m in a lot of pain.).

well, as it turns out those markers are washable right off of everything except soap scum. if you really want to feel good about your housekeeping abilities, drop a washable marker into your bathtub and see how good it looks when it drains. ooopppsss.

welpsies. now that’s out of my system. won’t have to do it again probably until Clara is Jack’s age. :). k. I’m going to go lie down now.

proof

I couldn’t get a picture of this last night because it was so late when I posted, but viola!

he is a devious little genius!

there aren’t enough safety locks in Colorado…

…to save my son from himself.

I’ve written here several times about jman’s crazy stunts off of living room furniture, on bathroom fixtures, at events, etc. it should be no surprise to you that I already have a running mental list of the cast colors I am planning for j. I am just considering it a small victory that he hasn’t yet realized that he can, in fact, swing from the light fixtures.

his newest “trick” is getting all soaped up in the bathtub and sliding down the slanted back part into the water. it’s like a mini-slide that’s really steep and makes a hellava splash. he just laughs and laughs and does it over and over. it seemed harmless enough until he flipped around backwards and caught his jaw on the edge and clamped his teeth together really hard. if his tongue had been in between the two he’d probably have bitten a hole clean through it. luckily, it wasn’t. unluckily, he realized when he clamped his teeth together hard that they clicked when they closed like dinosaur teeth. now, he clicks and clacks all over house all day. now, I’ve never been the type to be bothered by noisy toys but the noise of him slamming his teeth together is like a little cash register going off in my head for all the dental work this could cause- $4000 for braces, $200 for pulled teeth… Cha Ching! Cha Ching!

I wish my son was just a meathead that used only his brawn for entertainment (ok, not really), but the little dude’s antics don’t stop at physical contortion and propulsion. he is also the most curious of georges. Jerry and I used to try to dog proof our house and our running joke was “how long before the dogs outsmart us”. it was usually at least a couple of days. with our son we aren’t even in the ballpark. let me give you an example:

me: did you know those night lights unscrewed at the top?

jerry: ummm… yeah. how else do you change the lightbulb?

me: no! the top of the lightbulb unscrews from the rest of the lightbulb.

Jerry: huh? what are you talking about!

me: the lightbulb screws into the plug part, but then the top half of the lightbulb screws off where that little band thingamajigger is.

Jerry: oh cool. I don’t know why you’d need to do that ever, but ok. how’d you figure that out.

me: I didn’t. jack did.

when I first saw what he’d done, I leapt across the room in some sort of move that probably resembled lord of the dance or a cartoon character whose legs are moving but they’re not going anywhere because I thought he’d broken the bulb and was playing with shards of glass. (totally believable for my son). as luck would have it he merely unscrewed it for whatever reason. thank.sweet.8lb.baby.Jesus

I worry about this child, I do. I’ve caught him I don’t know how many times sticking God knows what into the outlets. we put those little plastic things on, but if he is bored enough and has enough time (2-ish minutes) he can take them off and prepare to give himself a homemade white boy fro with nothing but an outlet, bobby pins, and determination.

also, he knows how to lock and unlock doors and how open doorknobs. we had to turn the knob on his door around so that we can lock him in at night. on more than one occasion this week he has decided that he was tired, come to me, said “night night”, walked into the master bedroom and locked himself in. he has come out after what I’m guessing was a catnap. I’ve started carrying around a Swiss army knife so that i can get into the rooms he goes into or, you know, back into the house. TWICE this week I’ve gone into the garage to get something and the little shit has locked me out. sure 1 year old, babysit your sister for me. I’ll just take this opportunity to run up to starbucks. ugh, I think not.

oh the joys of being his momma. 🙂 actually, there are LOTS of joys. like this picture:

seriously, how could you not love that little guy? just don’t give him 5 minutes alone with a paperclip, car battery, and banana or he’ll be giving mcgyver a run for his money.

looky here

looky here at what I found today:

today the felt board at the public library toddler time just so happened to feature the story of the 3 little pigs. I took this opportunity to give it to j straight. this time he heard the story w/o any BBQ pork, potato salad, or paramedic anecdotes. whew.

i also bought j and c a outside playground set tonight. we were so fortunate that the Clampetts came to help us get it back home:

here is what it looks like off the truck and assembled:

see how happy and polite those children are being? yeah, that’ll never happen around here. more likely they’ll be war cries and hair pulling at our residence. I specifically wanted a playset with 2 swings so that I could avoid major meltdowns. Im hoping that this new member of the Drew family brings us much joy and exhaustion for years to come. amen.

3 little pigs

first off, my son will more than likely flunk out of kindergarten because he thinks pigs say “wee, wee, wee” instead of oink. no matter how many times you tell him they say oink, he will still tell you “wee, wee!” if you ask what pigs say.

tonight j did story time w/ baby j. instead of reading one like we do every night, j decided to tell him one from memory. it was glaringly obvious that daddy was a kid looooooong ago because he didn’t remember how the story went at.all. a few times baby j made fake snoring noises, but daddy couldn’t take a hint. the little guy has got to be a genius. sure, he can’t pee in the potty consistently but he will let you know when he is bored.

the story went something like this (only way more drawn out): three little pigs had houses of straw, sticks, and bricks. and the wolf didn’t get to eat any of the pigs. as a matter of a fact the whole reason he went after the pigs is because he wanted “a pulled pork BBQ sandwich” and they all just ran into the last brick house. he was really mad when he got there because “he had all this potato salad and no main course and you cant just eat a side for dinner” when he got to the brick house, the wolf stood outside and “huffed and puffed and huffed and puffed and huffed some more until he passed out from lack of oxygen and the paramedics had to come, put on an oxygen mask, and take him to the hospital. when we woke up he had a change of heart and realized that all his life he was meant to be a vegetarian. the end”. well, that’s one way to tell it.

the last time j made up a story it was an original, not an adaptation, and it went on for like 10 minutes until he realized he had way to many plot-lines to wrap up, so he just turned on the tv.

in other news, I took j to a play date a gymboree today. he screamed his wild banchy scream over and over and over. I was praying so hard that he wouldn’t scream titttttttyyyyyy since I’d never met these people before and wasn’t really interested in earning a pop quiz from CPS(incidentally, he is saying “te de” like “ta da” but it comes out titty. niiiicccceee). he didn’t scream titty this time thankfully. next time there is just no telling. several children’s parents will probably be billing me for hearing tests though. that could get expensive.

Clara had her 4 month checkup last Friday. she is extremely tall and above average on the chunk-o-meter with a wittle bitty peanut head. because I’m mother of the year I didnt know she was getting shots at this appointment. she did so great though. she went “eeeeeeeeeeeehhh” and it was over. not a tear. not a scream. nothing. brother got his flu shot and did surprisingly well too. no one had a meltdown on the scales. no one did anything remotely embarrassing. it was glorious and unexpected, but not nearly as funny to write about as if j had thrown a naked tantrum. oh wait, that already happened.

until we meet again.