This is My Forties

Josh was on a 4 day pass so we got a lot accomplished. We took a truckload over to Goodwill, cleaned out the garage, unpacked a lot of boxes, and hung most of the pictures up finally. I also cleaned!! It's aboot time, I know. OMG let me just share something with anyone who has never had to deal with military-related happenstances. There are few times where one might be doing laundry, catch a whiff of something, and want to just throw it away... FTX laundry falls into that category. FTX stand for Field Training Exercise and is basically a camping trip with bullets, tear gas, and lots of weapons and exercise. Josh's ripest uniforms were lovingly packed in large ziplock bags, to preserve their freshness I imagine. Josh said he would do it, but I had time. He would have reached into those nasty, sweat dampened, muddy, sandy, green socks to pull them right-side in. He would have dug through all the dirty pockets, looking for anything that required saving or tossing. He wou...

I swear I should just make a copy of the phrases "Josh is leaving today" and "Josh is coming home today" and save myself the extra 7 seconds of my life I waste by typing them out all the time. Forgive my cynicism. I told Noah today Daddy is coming home and he's going to be home for a long time, but then I remembered that's what I told Noah when we moved. Two months later Josh was gone (though only for a month and we saw him twice in that time). While he was home he worked so late most nights he would go all week without ever seeing Noah awake. What a thing to miss!! This was at Karrie's, playing with one of CJ's guns. Now we're planning all kinds of visits everywhere so we'll not be "feeling like we're home" until... I don't know... sometime in the Fall maybe? Or maybe winter. We're heading to Ohio and will be there through Mother's Day. Then Gma and Gpa N. are coming out at the end of June. Then we leave ...

Noah's old doc sent me a letter about how I am behind on Tristan's shots. Included in the letter were the list of vaccines he's due for. I am pissed. Let's go over the list, shall we? Pediarix - I am fine with this one. It's an all-in-one shot for diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis (whooping cough), hepatitis B, and polio. Hib - this is supposed to guard against some type of bacteria that can cause pneumonia and possibly menengitis. note: the spread of this infection can be wiped out in 2 to 4 days with antibiotics Prevnar - is for pneumonia strains of bacteria. IPV - is the Polio vaccine, which is covered with Pediarix... a little overboard I think Rotavirus- all for this one, but I think Tristan is past the age where it would be fatal. It's severe diarrhea and vomiting which can lead to dehydration. I don't find it to be extremely necessary, but I will probably get it for him. MMR - measles, mumps, rubella. Fine Varicella - chicken...

I swear I could live with Karrie and be perfectly happy. All of us get along so well. OK maybe the boys don't get along that well, but they manage to play nicely for at least a few hours a day! :) She lives out in the country, surrounded by family. That's exactly how I want to live. This is probably why my one week visit ended up being 2 weeks. Georgia is a beautiful place and her part of GA is no exception. The weather was wonderful (most of the time). My only complaint is mosquitoes, but those little blood-sucking wampires are everywhere so it's not poor small-town Georgia's fault. I love the environment and the people out there. Everyone knows everyone and they all help each other out. They take care of all people in their area, regardless of their income, mental state, race, gender, age... it's that small town you always see in movies. I finally got to meet Kylie (Karrie's 9 yr old daughter). She's an amazing kid... great at spelling and art ...

Hahahaha... no, but really we are. I'm driving out to Karrie's sometime today and staying for about a week. Then I am going to bounce on over to Josh for the weekend and get some hubby-time. After that we're gonna drive back home to our lonely pitiful existence. Noah's been driving me crazy for 2 days. Every time I move he says "We going to see CJ!"... no, not yet, Noah. We have to pack. "I want to go see CJ!!!". I think he wants to see CJ, but I'm not sure lol. I'm excited :) I'm going to take a shower and by then the baby should be up so I can finish his packing. Then I have to do dishes and take out the trash, clean some things out of the fridge, and we are GONE! YAY! I love roadtrippin' :)

We're doing alright. I'm thinking of driving out to see Josh after the baby wakes up, but it's probably a really dumb idea. Noah and Tristan both have a small cold, it's raining, and I'm tired. Not the best recipe for a safe and stress-free roadtrip. It's a 4 hour drive. That's pretty long. We talk on the phone and are amazed at how we still feel like he's in Germany. We can't seem to shake that feeling and it's sorta depressing. I thought being able to actually see him might snap us out of it. We'll see how I feel later. I got all my pics and I am starting Tristan's baby book! I printed off a bunch of blog entries to add to the pages. It's going to be so cool :) We have no food in the house again. I was trying to eat everything before we went out to Karrie's, but now I think we'll have to wait until closer to the end of the month (until we all get better). So... grocery shopping :P BOOOO! And that's my bor...

I have one that's a lot longer that I might upload to the scrapbook site, but here's the short clip I took of Tristan's crawling today. I got all Noah's summer clothes at Target. Luckily all his shorts still fit so all I had to buy were new sandals and a bunch of shirts. I got 13 and they're all approved by Noah. I asked him if he liked every shirt and he turned quite a few down. He kept telling me "no I already have that at home" if it was something similar to what he already wears. What a clever guy. I almost succumbed to my urges and bought a few things for Tristan. I just kept telling myself we have enough baby clothes from Noah and nice relatives. No need to waste money! I also got myself a pair of clearance jeans, but I have to take them back... I just don't like how they fit. It's hard to try on jeans while you have a baby dangling off your torso.

It's official today. Tristan is crawling... fast. For a few days he's been intermittently getting up onto all fours and staying like that for a couple little scoots without flopping on his belly, but today he just got it all of a sudden. Then he was off!! He was so excited about his newfound ability that he made it a point to visit every little nook and cranny of the living room, showing Mommy what she's going to have to move up haha :) Also when I went to get him after his nap today he was on his knees, pulling up to standing. AHHHHH!!! He's only 6 months old! What's a mother to do. I was so mad that this pic was blurry, but I love it anyway! Noah is under my computer desk right now talking to Dora and Boots on the microphone. He randomly shoves the mic up to me to say hi. I think he's getting a cold, but he insists "I'm NOT SICK! Mami" so I gave him some claritin. He is sneezing and sniffing and his eyes are watery. I hope it's j...

Today is our 5th anniversary!!! Wow... that means we're in our 6th year of marriage... dang. Time sure flies by! Ironically enough after 3 years of separation this is actually the 1st time Josh and I haven't been together for our anniversary. We're going to celebrate when he gets back. In other news. Tristan cut his 2nd tooth and may actually be cutting two more (all on the bottom). I'm not positive, but it looks like it so we'll just have to wait and see. Noah and I are learning baby signs so that we can communicate with Tris better. I wanted to do baby signs with Noah, but I tried starting way too late and lost my motivation. I'm excited to see how it all goes. Noah was imitating all the signs on the video and seems excited about it too! The other day I watched Caleb for a couple hours so Heather and Jeff could go out to eat. He and Noah had a blast! All 3 of our boys, despite the huge age gaps, are so sweet to each other. Caleb always brings Tris...