Huge Update!

Alright, ladies and gentlemen, you're in a for a long one. So settle in, grab something to drink, maybe something to eat...and here we go!
So the last two months have just been crazy! August 7th, Megan came to visit us. We had fun going to the beach, playing at home, and watching True Blood with an ice cream bar every night after Lorelei went to sleep. It's was nice and relaxing, and she gave me a little break which was much needed!


August 30th, Mom and the girls flew into Washington, D.C. and we all did the tourist thing until September 1st. I don't recommend doing all that in 2 days. Especially when it's hot out, you have a baby, two whiny kids, and if you have pain issues. Poor Mom did pretty well though on a sore foot. Sydney and Savannah whined like kids will and Lorelei sweated like a little piggy in the stroller. Other than that, it was really fun and interesting, I'd like to go back some day to do a little more sight seeing, but I am NOT driving! DC was like New York minus all the screaming out of the windows of their cars. Traffic was just awful and the streets are crazy.

So we got back to Virginia Beach and relaxed for a day or two and went to the beach. I was really fun! The girls had fun in the water, Sydney especially. Savannah needed a little hand holding.

Erick came home early on the 5th. Lorelei was still in a morning funk since we woke her up, gave her a bottle, dressed her up, then threw her in the car to go. I think she was thinking, "I haven't even had breakfast yet!"


When Erick got off the ship, I handed her to him, she just looked at him. She didn't cry or lean away from him, just looked at him. After awhile, it was business as usual. We went home, had lunch and they played together. We went to the Hilton, where Erick and I were going to stay later, and swam. The girls love to swim and Erick loves bringing Lorelei swimming. The next day, Mom went back home, but she had to fly out of DC.




September was just crazy. Erick had the first leave period, so he was off for two weeks. For two weeks after, he had duty one day, the following day was a half day, then a day off, then duty again. So, as you can imagine, it was hard trying to get back into a schedule.


Lorelei's friend's, Nicole, birthday brought in October. It was a fairy themed party and Lorelei had a blast with the 18 kids that were there. At first, she was a little afraid of all of them, but eventually she dug in and had fun. This one little boy liked Lorelei, so they started to play fight. They were hitting each other and Lorelei thought it was hilarious! He said "ow" first then kept trying to get back at her. He got more and more rough, but Lorelei just laughed! Eventually, we told him to stop and he got frustrated that she wasn't getting hurt like he was. I was so proud of my butt-kickin' little girl! She won her first fight!


For Erick's birthday, we went to Best Buy and bought him a BluRay player. While he was deciding which one he wanted, Lorelei and I were walking around. She had just recently learned to walk really well, so I was following her around keeping watch and picking her up when she fell over. She picked out the first season of the Terminator show and ran around with it. Afterward, we went to the Macaroni Grill for dinner and free cake. Lorelei kept throwing food on the floor and at the servers as the walked by. We had a table that was on the corner of the main room, so people were walking by a lot on their way in and out. 85% of the people stopped and cooed over Lorelei. I swear, if we had a nickle for every "AW!! She's so cute!" we'd be rich as hell! When we got the hunk of cake, Lorelei dug in. After every bite Erick gave her, she hugged him and patted him on the shoulder. It was hilarious!



On the 15th, Dad flew in and the next day Lisa flew in. The 17th we had Lorelei's birthday party at the Oceanfront Courtyard Marriott. We got a suite so it was big enough for everyone. The kids got to go swimming, we had pizza, then we had cake. If you follow me on Facebook, then you've seen the pictures of the cake. For those of you who don't, I made the cake myself out of gum paste and fondant. For my first cake, it turned out pretty well. In hindsight, there are things I would have done differently. Like I wouldn't have used gum paste as much as I did. I had a ton of fun and made me want to make cakes more often. I'm already planning three for my friend Maggie's daughter's, Yassi, first birthday in January, for Erin's daughter's, Isabelle, first birthday in March, and Maggie's birthday in May. I really am excited to do more and learn more as I go.


For Halloween, Lorelei was a pink bunny and I dressed as a witch. We went to the Pembroke Mall with Maggie, Nicole, Yassi, Erin, Isabelle, and Sandy. Nicole dressed as Iridessa, Yassi as a bug/butterfly, and Isabelle as Tinkerbell. I let Lorelei out of the stroller a couple of times, but she just ran everywhere! She decided she was going to be the Energizer Bunny for Halloween, not just some lame pink bunny! The costume came with a hat with ears sewn onto it, but the damn thing was like a winter hat! She was sweating like crazy! So she didn't wear it a whole lot. As we were trick or treating around the mall, I saw other little one-year-olds walking nicely with their parents, not my little one. Erick had duty, so he wasn't able to come along. Boy, I could have used the help!

We FINALLY got some dates as to when Erick needs to be in Mississippi and when we need to be in Japan. We don't have the actual orders yet, but Erick's detailer broke down and told him. My reaction was, "It's about god damned time!!"
Lorelei's 12 month appointment is this Thursday, and I'm fairly nervous as to what they'll say about her weight. The last time I weighed her, she was 26 lbs. I'm hoping she hasn't gained any weight as she's walking now and running around like a maniac! There is a couple on Erick's ship that have a 24 lbs. 8 or 9 month old boy. I asked if they ever get shit about his weight, nope. Of course not! He's a BOY! Boys can be fat little babies. Girls can't. So I'm going into the doctor with my hackles up. If they say one thing, I'm probably going to spazz out.

That's all for now! I'll try and keep on top of this better! Hope all is well with everyone!

New computer, New orders, Shattered Trust

So I know I said that I'd post something here weekly, but lately there has been too many negative things happening to me and I don't want to give the wrong idea that that is all I dwell on. My friend Taylor sent me a post on my facebook wall asking for new posts. Here was my reply:

"I go to my page, click new post, then just look at the blank vastness that is my blog/life. Being a mommy is awesome, but it doesn't make for good reading. The housewife shows lie. Being a housewife involves lots of showers missed, time spent in pjs, and pretend tea parties that my 8 month old doesn't grasp (when I give her a pretend sip out of the cup, she looks at me like "have you lost it? There's nothing in there.")"

After that, and upon many other happenings, my muse was back. So here's an update! Lorelei is now crawling all over the place! I had to rearrange the furniture so I can block her in the "play area" when I need to. Just today she pulled herself into the standing position. It wasn't very smooth or traditional, but it got the job done. Instead of going from being on both knees, to one knee and pushing up, she just straightens her knees and stands at a 45 degree angle on her tiptoes. I got a new baby gate that blocks off the stairs, it's really nice. It's the kind that swings open so I'm not crawling over it with a 23 pound baby. I had ordered a new TV stand, but it somehow got lost in shipping, so I'm still stuck with Lorelei hauling ass to the DVD player to try and figure out how it works. When I know she's playing with it, I say "No, no, Lorelei." She looks over her shoulder, does a little yell thing, then when she sees me coming for her she turns back to the DVD door and flips it really fast. Almost as if she's trying to get in all the playtime she can with it before I come and block it off again. Lorelei stared waving by holding her hand out palm up and making a fist, now, she looks like she's saluting Hitler! I hope she starts wiggling those fingers soon! I think she's starting to understand that I am "mama." She never makes the "mamama" noise when she's playing or anything, only when she comes up to me or I'm holding her. It's exciting!

For my birthday, Erick bought me a new computer. It's a new MacBook Pro. I'm very pleased with it! I'm going to send my old one to Erick's Grandma so she can stay in touch better. Especially when our new orders get carried out. We are going to Yokosuka, Japan! When Erick comes home, he has about a month left on his current ship, then he'll be going to a school down in Biloxi, Mississippi. It's four months long, so we'll all be going. We are still unsure if we want our stuff moved to MS and stored until they ship it to Japan, or if they can ship it over ahead of time. We probably won't be getting to Japan until March 2010, so it's a ways off, but I like to think ahead and make some sort of plan. It's looking like we won't be able to bring our cars over due to emission differences, so I'm thinking we either sell my car and store Erick's somewhere or just sell both. We had planned on getting a bigger car in a few years anyway when baby #2 comes along (which may or may not happen in Japan, it all depends on the dates we're there). I'm thinking it may be smarter to just sell both cars, that way we don't have any car payments and can save more money. Also, Erick doesn't want to be on a ship next sea duty rotation, so he's thinking of putting in for orders that are technically sea duty, but he wouldn't be on a ship. Some of these orders are in Europe, so we're hoping to go that route. And if that's the case, we wouldn't be back for Erick's car in a really long time. I'm really excited about leaving the country.

For those of you who know me really well, you know that it has been my dream to travel since I knew there was more than just Minnesota. Now I FINALLY get that chance! After several unfulfilled promises from someone close to me, it's happening without her. That's just fine, she doesn't seem to know how her actions have affected me. She has several other people that are obviously more worthy of real promises than I am. I try not to think about it too much because it breaks my heart to think that and I don't like thinking that it could happen to my children. Promises are not meant to be broken, and I hope Lorelei never gets lead on then let down by a loved one. Mom told me not to depend on others to make my dreams come true, which is really good advice that I wish I had gotten earlier. I'll be sure to pass it on to Lorelei. But it's funny, because I do depend on Erick to get me the hell out of here and he has done just that. Just when I thought I couldn't love him more, he follows through faster than anyone in my life so far. It may have something to do with him wanting to travel, too. So now I need to make new dreams that I can make come true. If I get to Europe, wonderful! If I don't, it's my own fault for not being more proactive. But now I find myself at a loss. Trying to come up with dreams for myself is difficult. All I can think of is my hopes and dreams for Lorelei. I don't know what to do now. Going back to school and focusing on German seems out of my grasp since most places we can go don't offer German anywhere. So now what? Mom had said something about teaching English as a Second Language, and yes I am a grammarnazi, but that's not what I'm passionate about. I have too many interests to just pick one. Honestly, when I think of a job that I would truly enjoy, all that comes to mind is something in the funeral services area. Whether it be an embalmer, funeral coordinator, the person who does the make up and hair. Just something. But I think I may be allergic to formaldehyde. So now what? I realize it sound macabre, but I guess that's me. Macabre, cynical, and lost. I think I should just stay a stay at home mom. I seem to be fairly good at that!

It's Been A Long Time!

My last blog was in March, before we went to Minnesota. Well a lot has been happening since then. Lorelei's now 8 months old (as of the 20th) a creeping around on the floor. I am buying a new TV stand, because she has figured out how to open and close the DVD tray on the player. I can just see it breaking off. She's babbling more, clapping, a just recently started to wave. It's so exciting to see her blossom! She's trying to pull herself up on things, but only gets up onto her knees so far.
Lorelei has been put on a new "diet" by order of me. I'm tired of all these doctors making me feel like I am a bad mother just because my kid is chubby. I'm not over feeding her at all, she just has her Daddy's genes! She's maintained her weight for a month now, and I'm so happy! Even the doctors are off my ass! One new thing medically, Lorelei has asthma. It is on both sides of the family, but we all grow out of it by puberty. I hope Lorelei follows that trend!
Erick is still gone. He's coming back early fall. We get to talk to him on the phone frequently and when he's in port, we video chat. We miss him lots!
It's getting late now, I'll have more of an update later!

Getting Ready For MN and Mean Doctors

So this week has been spent trying to get the house in order for when we leave. My friend Erin will be staying here to watch the kitties for me, I'm so grateful! If she couldn't have watched them for me, I would have had to kennel them or bring them to a cat sitter's home, which could have been disastrous. Cats are definitely not dogs. Anyways, as soon as I get a room clean it gets messy again! UGH! I shouldn't be having this problem! It's pretty much only me! I mean, sure, Lorelei makes a lot of dishes and laundry, but she's not running around (yet) making messes. I guess I'll have to try harder.
I can't believe it's been a week since Erick left! On one hand, I think, "Where did the week go?" but on the other hand, "Ugh, it's only been a week!" When it comes to Erick's deployment it seems to be going slow, but for everything else it's going by so fast! I got over the initial sadness of him being gone pretty fast, but of course I still miss him.
On to Lorelei, she's starting to sit up on her own! She still has trouble sitting back up if she bends down to touch her toes. I think it's because of her chubby little belly! We went to the doctor yesterday for her TWO MONTH shots (we were find of slow getting her enrolled in Tricare). The nurses just loved her! One was asking me questions about her development, while the other was just raving about how cute and chubby she was. In typical Lorelei fashion, she ate up the attention. She loves compliments! She smiled and gurgled at her like crazy! Then we plopped her on the scale and, folks, she is a healthy(?) 20 pounds! 20! Oy! So they left and awhile later the doctor came in. Right away I knew something was amiss, she kept saying "him" and "he." Did you even read the damn chart? What the hell kind of doctor are you? Well after a few, "She's a GIRL!" comments, the doctor pulled out the weight/height percentile charts that had Lorelei's measurements on them. She looked me in the eye (a bit too close for comfort, too) and said, "She's a little bit too chubby." Now I had already known my baby is a chunker, but the way she said it made me worry. Is she obese? Doctor I Don't Read Charts then handed me a paper that had the amounts of food she should be having at her age and asked me if she was following something like that. She pretty much is, about 24 oz. of formula and 8 tbls of rice cereal a day. Only I'm giving her fruits and vegetables, only about 4 tbls a day of each. Well you'd think I kicked the Pope in the face with the look she gave me! "You shouldn't be introducing fruits or vegetables yet." After that she spoke to me as if I were a 10 year old with an expensive toy. "She shouldn't be wanting a midnight feeding, just give her the pacifier to see if she just wants to suck...She should be going down to sleep on her own...She should be sleeping through the night." Now while these all would be wonderful things, I'm not going to ignore my hungry baby at night, which would keep her from sleeping through the night, and she's not going to go down on her own if I just plop her in the crib. Now, I'm not a pediatrician, but I do have experience with babies. When I got home I was all worried about her eating to much, so I got out my percentile chart and plotted her weight since birth, she has ALWAYS been above the norm for weight and in the 90th percentile for height. Nothing has changed, same chubber!
Like I said above, she got her shots. It was sad, I cried when she did. But it was also hilarious! We got in there and Lorelei was smiling at the woman who gives shots and talking to her, but after the shots, she would NOT smile at her. She leveled a baby glare at her. It's so fun! Her personality is coming through more and more! We'll see if bitchiness is genetic!
I also think she's starting to teeth. She's been crabby and sleepy a lot lately, not to mention drooling like a lunatic. Yesterday was a bad day for her all together, I'm sure her teeth we hurting her and then the shots on top of that made her even more sleepy and crabby. Today was a bit better, but still chewing on things really hard. She bit my finger today and it hurt like hell! So, look out! Lorelei's getting teeth!


Tubby for my chubby! Sitting up! Daddy Bear!

Just The Two Of Us

So Erick left Friday afternoon. I cried a little while he was saying goodbye to Lorelei, but I think I held it together pretty well. This will be our second deployment, but first one with a child involved. My biggest problem with him leaving is that Lorelei may forget who he is. He will be making tons of port stops once he gets over to the Mediterranean, so we'll try and have video chats. I'm almost positive that she'll recognize his face, but I'm not sure how she'll react to hearing him without actually seeing him in person. It should be interesting.

Good bye kisses

Lorelei is getting so big! I can barely carry her in her infant car seat anymore! She's 20 lbs. and the seat itself has to be 5-10 lbs. Plus it's big and bulky and I feel horribly unbalanced while carrying her. I feel terrible, I have to swing her into a shopping cart or even just the base in the car! Then the base moves, which pulls the seat belt, which causes it to slide all over (especially on leather). So while I'm driving down the road, and I turn, she ends up at a 45 degree angle, and I look like Britney Spears. So new car seat it is. Those things are damn expensive! The one I'm looking at is probably in the middle price wise, $134 or so. Those things can go up to $300! WTF?!
Anyways, the weather has been so nice the past couple of days. We played outside for awhile then today we went for a walk and to swing at the playground. I have to buy her a hat to shade her poor little bald head! Maybe once we get home from good ol' MN. That's right, folks, we're headed back on the 20th and staying for a month. Don't get too excited though, the reason for the trip is because my mom is having brain surgery for trigeminal neuralgia (google it). So most of my time will be spent making sure the girls stay out of mom's hair and stay quiet.
That's all for now!

Family Photos Are In!

Link!!!! https://www.smilesbywire.com/home.asp?AC=LTPP0523101811JCP

Your Baby Can Read! and Family Portraits

I'm so excited! Her reading system came on the 19th and right away I popped it in. I was afraid that maybe she wouldn't be very interested in it as I thought it may not be exactly attention catching (by that I mean loud songs or music), but she watched it! She kept looking at Erick and I, so maybe I can plop her in front of it and get some housework done. A day later, I played it and she actually watched it! She stood in her bouncer thing and stared at the TV. It teaches words like these: Gorilla, Tiger, Mouth, Tongue, eyes, nose, hi, wave, arms, arms up, arms down, etc. etc. Also it plays "Twinkle Twinkle" and "The Insy Weensy Spider" which is odd to me since I'm used to "The Itsy Bitsy Spider" and in that song they say "again" like "ay-gain." Which drives me nuts! We're not British! Its "ah-gen!" When the word flashes, its brightly colored and there is an arrow that moves below it. The arrow's movement grabs Lorelei's attention. It says it will take a few months before she starts to recognize the words in the first ("Starter") DVD, once that happens, you move on to DVD #1. The DVDs are classified in Starter, 1, 2, 3, then Review. The package I bought comes with sliding flash cards packs that go along with each DVD and books that go along with each level.

I guess the creator (a Dr. Robert Titzer) has his kids star in the video. They have really odd names, one is Aleka (Ah-leak-ah). There are other children on there too and they are oddly named and slightly unattractive.
On the 20th, we got family portraits done. I had wanted to get a few pictures taken of just Lorelei, but the pictures taken with Erick and I made her really sleepy. So we only have one of her alone, but its a cute one. We should be getting the pictures on Smilesbywire.com in a few days. So I'll post the pictures on here along with the link. We still are in negotiations of who gets what of what we bought. But I'm really excited to get them!
We also got her a new toy since she's getting too big for her other toys. She also has been wanting to stand, jump and look around. She doesn't like her bouncer seats that keep her lying down.

She jumps up and down like crazy! It has a little light up piano that plays music, she really likes that. She learns how to work the toys and its so cute to watch her learning process!