Happy {Belated} Mother's Day

Dear Mom,

You were are always there for me, supporting me, and guiding me.  I didn't always know it though.  In early elementary school I was teased because you wouldn't let me watch cartoons on Nickelodeon.  When I was 12, I remember being upset because you wouldn't let me go see that PG-13 movie.  Then I got to high school and a whole new world of injustice arose: how could you be so overprotective that you wouldn't let me drive or ride with my friends or go anywhere without calling you when I leave and when I get there?! 

I'm sure with every battle you said, "One day you'll thank me," or "One day you'll understand," and hoped that it'd turn out to be true.  And today I'm writing to tell you you were right.  I never understood why you said "no" to all those things, even as I watched the ones who used to be my friends get into trouble and drugs and bad relationships.  I didn't really understand until I had a daughter myself. 

I get it now.

I hope and pray that I'll be that kind of mom to her.  The kind of mom who is strong enough to tell her "no" even when she doesn't understand why.  The kind of mom who always always keeps the line of communication open so that no topic is off limits.  The kind of mom who is there for her no matter the time of day (or night). 

As much as I fought you and didn't understand why you had the rules and standards for me that you had, I always wanted to grow up to be you.  I hope now that I've been given that chance, I hope I can be even half the mom you are. 

I am so blessed to be able to call you Mom, and I love you so much.

Love always,
B

A Fresh Start

In my last post I alluded to the fact that I have been struggling with my identity recently.  For the past several years, since M joined the Navy, I have been quick to define myself as a Navy wife (and fiancee and girlfriend before that).  However, I have come to realize a few things about that:
1) I won't be a Navy wife forever, and
2) I am so much more than just a Navy wife.
In light of these things, and the fact that my writing encompasses much more than the military aspect of our lives, I thought a new name and a new look for this blog was in order.

I apologize for any inconvenience this may cause; I know my many readers will be deeply troubled by having to change the link they have bookmarked.  In all seriousness though, I love that blogger lets me change my site address, but I do wish there was a way to redirect from the old one.  I suppose I could have kept the old one and started this as a new one, but this way I could keep everything in one place.  All that to say, make a note of the new web address if by chance one of the 10 readers I have does keep my page bookmarked.

I really hope that I'll be able to be more diligent about blogging in the next couple of weeks.  My time-management skills have been seriously lacking in the past few months, and I'm working very diligently to get myself back on track.  I also have quite a few adventures in mommyhood to write about and maybe another post or two about our cloth diapering journey.  So stick around and catch up on a little bit of [our] life!

Duty

My blog is titled "Navy Wife & Mommy Life," but as of late has had very little to do with the Navy aspect of our life.  Well, it's had very little to do with anything at all since M got home because I have been slacking horribly in updating, but I digress.  I find that a frequently define myself as "Navy Wife" and not much else.  I hope I'll make time in the next week or two to post about how that has been weighing on my mind recently.  For today, I'm just going to be the Navy wife.

Before M left, we were told that his ship would be going into drydock for maintenance when they returned from deployment.  A few weeks ago, that finally happened.  This is good news, as it means there is no chance of him re-deploying for the length of the stay in the shipyard.  And that should mean that we get to see him more!  During the week, he generally works regular days: 0630-1530.  Every fourth day - weekends included - he has "duty."  Duty means he is required to stay on the ship for 24 hours and be on call or standing watch for that shift.  His department has four duty sections that rotate, so the reactors are manned 24/7.  This means that if his duty day is on Sunday through Thursday, he goes in to work at normal time, is on duty for 24 hours, then works the regular workday the next day.  If duty is Friday or Saturday, he goes in at normal time and spends the night on the ship, but is usually home by 9am the next morning.  And if duty falls on a Saturday, he does not have to go in to work on Monday - so we still get a two-day weekend.

Even though Saturday duty days seem like they shouldn't be that bad, I hate them.  They always fall on weekends when I have a million things I need to get done and they just end up being horribly inconvenient and stressful for me.  Today was one such day:

My in-laws are coming tomorrow evening.  I am excited for their visit, and have known about it for months.  For some reason, though, the fact that I needed to prepare a place for them to sleep escaped me until a few days ago.  I realized that I really needed to finished unpacking the last few boxes that are still stacked in the guest bedroom and I needed to make up the beds in that room for them.  And those tasks needed to be completed in addition to the standard cleaning that I like to get done before I have visitors.  I got a lot done yesterday in the way of laundry and regular cleaning, but still needed to get the guest room ready today, as well as clean the bathrooms and finish making up the beds.

Our church was also having a spring cleaning day this morning and I had books to return to the library.  I had planned to get up at 7, shower, get SJ up at 7:30 (her usual wake-up time), head over to the church for a few hours, drop the books at the library on the way home, and work on cleaning up the guest room.

 SJ had other plans, of course, and decided she wanted to say goodbye to Daddy before he left for work.  After I tried to get her back to sleep for over half an hour, we got up for the day around 6:30 and it was all downhill from there.  She only got about 9 hours of sleep last night (she usually averages 11-12), so she was in a miserable mood from the moment she woke up.  She napped, but only for a total of about an hour and a half, and that was divided over three naps.  She was incredibly unwilling to occupy herself for any amount of time today, so the only thing I managed to accomplish on my to-do list was the unpack the boxes from the guest room.  Unfortunately, unpacking them was as far as I got.  We had dinner and then I finally gave her a bath and got her ready for bed around 7.

We had been under a tornado watch all day but hadn't gotten any storms yet, so after I put her down I decided to turn on the weather just to check it out.  A very strong line of storms was approaching and the NWS issued a tornado warning for my city.  And I live in a third story apartment, so I obviously have no basement or real safe tornado shelter.  So I went and got SJ, grabbed my laptop, and ran down to the complex clubhouse to wait for the storm to blow over.  While we were hanging out there, a very loud alarm (not the fire alarm) went off and continued to sound the entire time we stayed there.  The tornado warning was lifted at 8:15, so we headed back to our apartment after that and I finally got SJ to go back to sleep at about 9:15.

And now I still have my entire to-do list to do.  I think I will just put away the clothes that I unpacked earlier today and clean up the dishes from dinner and head to bed though.  I am exhausted!  Tomorrow M will be home to at least occupy SJ so that I can finish the list after church, I hope.

Goodnight friends!

Where Is the Time Going?!

It's been over two weeks since I've updated again, and we've had quite a few new developments!

SJ finally decided to roll over both ways, then last Thursday she figured out how to crawl!  Silas is none too pleased with this development, but he's a good sport and just finding new hiding places in the apartment :)  And on Saturday, her first tooth finally broke through!

And in other news, I decided to give the business world a try and became a Pampered Chef consultant!  My grand opening show is on Saturday and I'm not really sure how it will go.  I love the Pampered Chef products; they make everything so easy that they pretty much sell themselves.  I'm just hoping that my friends will be on board and help me book a couple shows!

A Long-Overdue Update: 7 Months!

SJ is seven months old today.  I can't believe how quickly time has flown, and at the same time I can't remember life before she was born.  It feels like she has always been a part of our lives, but so very much has happened in these past seven months!

SJ has learned so many new skills since I last had a chance to write.  I am currently watching her rock on all fours and scoot backward (slowly) across the living room floor.  It won't be long until she's really crawling - I'm not ready for that yet!!  She mastered the art of rolling from her back to her belly at the beginning of the year and she has been sitting unassisted since the end of January.  She is fully capable of rolling from her belly to her back, but she refused to do so most of the time and just cries until someone turns her over.  Silly girl!!

Daddy has been blowing raspberries on SJ's belly since he came home from his last underway, and she quickly figured out how to do the same to Mommy's arms/shoulders/hands!  It's pretty cute, except for the slobber-covered body part I end up with :)  She also learned how to give kisses without licking my face, and I can't get enough of those!  So far she only gives me kisses though.  Yesterday, I was playing with her and started clapping my hands in response to some of the things she was doing.  Last night, she started clapping back to me!  Such a quick learner!

Her new favorite "toy" is our cat, Silas.  She shrieks with delight as soon as she sees him.  Most of the time she can pet him gently, but those grabby hands of hers have a tendency to pull his fur if I'm not careful.  Of course, SJ is much more fond of Silas than he is of her.  He is much more tolerant than I'd expect, though!

We started giving her some solid foods last month.  She hasn't had much yet, just baby oatmeal, bananas, pears, and avocado.  She really likes her oatmeal and avocado, but was not a fan of the bananas or the pears.  We did give her a little spoon of applesauce while we were out to eat the other night, and she enjoyed that.  I didn't want to give her much though, because I'm sure it had added sugars that she certainly doesn't need. 

I have been thinking she must be teething for the past few months, but no teeth have broken through yet.  She doesn't seem to be in much discomfort, just drooling a lot and chewing on anything and everything within her reach!  I'm okay with her teeth holding about a while longer - I'm not looking forward to relearning to nurse her with teeth!

And speaking of feeding, it's getting close to lunchtime in our house.  I will hopefully have a chance to write again soon with an update about our new apartment!