To recap the past six weeks or two months or however long it's been since I've been here:
- I ran my first 5k with Skinny Stephanie. It snowed and I wore mascara I'd never worn before, so it looked like I cried through the entire thing. (Although my fat was definitely crying.)
- Molly is now one year old. People ask me if I can believe it. And yes, I can. I have been here for every single minute of it. And it felt like a full year to me. Maybe even two if I didn't know any better.
- Sam is starting to speak REAL LIFE WORDS and in sentence-form sometimes. Blows my mind every single time I hear it.
- If you are what you eat, my kids are destined to be oven-baked chicken nuggets. I have zero desire to cook anything. (Other than a nugget, obviously.)
- On a related note, Molly refuses to be spoon-fed anymore. And it's just as well, because I have zero desire to spoon-feed her. So a typical meal now consists of me placing appropriately-sized food on her tray and then her flinging it off with a crazed look in her eye. Then I set her on the floor and she eats her food down there. Again, I DO NOT CARE. This might scare or even offend pre-deployment Jenn, but as of right now, two shits are not being given about the eating situation here. So long as they are properly nourished, I don't particularly care if they eat the food off of a plate or the side of a plastic dump truck.
- I am so thankful for my friends. They are real-life heroes that save my sanity daily. Sarah comes over at least once a week to let me run errands sans kids. Like this past week when I decided that payday Friday before Easter was a good time to buy Easter dinner groceries at the commissary in the rain? Yeah, some sanity was definitely saved. She also brings her husband over to do yardwork that I really should have done sometime during the fall months of 2012. Aggie always invites us over to dinner and cooks delicious food and deals with listening to my kids whine about random things like being stuck at the top of her stairs, or falling down her stairs (SAM OMG), or how I didn't pack 15 squeezies for them to eat. My neighbor Vickie can regularly detect when I need saving and lets me pass my kids to her over the fence for some babysitting. I cannot imagine what I would do without her. And sweet Lauren sends the BEST care packages at just the right time. I swear she could not have planned that last package out any better. It came on a day when I seriously needed some help. And she delivered- in the form of good wine. So many blogger friends have texted and emailed to check on me and I sincerely appreciate every last word of encouragement and support! It feels like we're so close to the end of this deployment, yet when every day seems to last eleventy billion hours (minus naptime of course), it still feels hopelessly far off.
- We're still chugging along with preschool, although this past week was spring break. And I feel like I can speak for every mother in town when I say- the man that created this "spring" "break" needs a good shanking. "Spring" consisted of two snow days and a bunch more rainy days. "Break" is laughable because what do these babies need a break from? Coloring? Listening to stories? Ridiculous. We all know that preschool is glorified daycare. Let's just call it like it is. No spring break for preschool. That is crazy.
- Totally unrelated to the last bullet point: My kids watch tv regularly now. I held out with Sam until he was two. And even then he didn't seem to care about it one way or another. But somewhere around the beginning of the year, we have started watching about 30 minutes of tv before bedtime. Molly is hooked. Sam asks for "shows" and "Nina" (the nighttime lady on Sprout) and Jesus take the wheel, I know far too much about Caillou's daily life and I can't help but wonder why he has no hair. I feel like I've crossed into new mom territory and I kinda can't wait til Steve gets home so there can be a different distraction from 6-6:30 and this current phase can end. (Kid tv makes me wanna stab my eyes outttttttt.)
- As much as I hate this deployment and as much as I miss Steve, I am thankful every day that I have something worth missing so much. I cannot wait to get him home.
