I'm Alive!

Oh, my poor and neglected blog. Life has been so busy having an active 11 month old. The months are going by in a BLUR!

It's been HOT and HUMID in Alabama and we've been trying to hit the pool in between the storms.

 

Hazel is crawling and cruising everywhere and getting into EVERYTHING. I call her Hurricane Hazel.

 

She LOVES to splash in the dog water. Ugh.

 

She and Figaro are still best buds...

 

She turned 10 months old in June

I'm ten months old!
I'm speed crawling and cruising everywhere.
I can stand for a few seconds on my own.
I love to drink out of mommy and daddy's water bottles.
... I say "mmmm" when I eat something I like.
I love to push things (remotes, paper, toys) across the floor when I crawl.
I say what sounds like "Hi!" and "Whoa!"
I LOVE to empty laundry baskets, shelves and drawers.
I love Sesame Street and my Dinosaur and Peek a Boo Books.
Peek a Boo is the best.
My favorite toys are mommy's measuring spoons and a water bottle filled with beans--they're so noisy!

She got Mike a Dr. Who shirt for his first Father's Day...

 

She started cutting teeth in late June/ early July

 

 

We had a very rainy weekend at the beach over the 4th of July weekend...

 

 

 

She turned 11 months old on the 10th...

 

I'm 11 months old!
I have three teeth and more are cutting through.
I love to get tipped over when mommy sings "10 Little Indians." I start to lean over way before she even gets to that verse and just giggle and giggle when she tips me over.
I love to stand at the shower and open the curtain.
Squealing fits. Enough said.
... I love to dance, especially to the song at the end of Gilmore Girls and the Elmo's World song.
I do "cheers" with my sippy cup.
Splashing in the dog water is awesome.
I love to hold down the flap of my snap cup and shake it to get my snacks out. I get so many out at once--it's way more efficient.
I LOVE to read. I hold up a book and screech at mommy and daddy until they read it to me. My favorites are "Peek a Boo" and "Good Night Little Bunny."
I took my first steps on June 30th!
I can stand and balance and I'm trying so hard to walk.
I love my little push car but mommy says I'm a crazy driver.
I have learned how to fake cough and laugh.
I love to way and say "Hiyee" to everyone, especially my animals.
I say "mama" "dada" "wow" "whoa" and "hi!"

 

 

Mike graduated from the Senior NCO Academy on the 19th...

 

 

I got some serious blisters on my heels after a 9 mile run a few weeks ago so I've been taking it easy the past couple weeks. I'm almost healed finally so hopefully I'll be racking up the miles again soon-- the Army 10 miler is fast approaching AND I've signed up to run the Princess Half Marathon at Disney World next February. It's the weekend before my 30th birthday, which will work out great. A half is my ultimate running goal and for me to accomplish it at one of my favorite places AND the weekend before I turn 30 will be super special.
I have been BUSY! Did I tell you guys that I'm working on my Accreditation to become a La Leche League Leader? I should be done with that process in the next couple months. There are no lactation consultants or LLL Leaders in the immediate area, they're all about 30-40 minutes away, so it will be good to be able to help the local mamas with their breastfeeding questions. I'm also trying to get a chapter of Stroller_Warriors up and running here at Fort Rucker. I've gone through the application process and now I just have to have a Skype interview with the founder of the organization. We found out that we will be here another two years so I'm trying to make the most of it!   



Misfit.

I do not belong in Alabama. (Neither does my husband for that matter but this is my blog so it's all about me, right?) We've been here two months and the only positive thing we've discovered so far is the fact that he will not have to leave me and Hazel any time soon--and in the military that's HUGE. Not only are we in the middle of nowhere, it has been incredibly hard to meet people here.

Before I became a mom I always thought, "Just wait until I have a kid. It will be so much easier to meet people then!" Wrong. Know why? Because Moms are judgey, myself included. It's hard enough finding people you mesh with on a personal level but when you throw parenting into the mix it's a million times harder. The Mommy Wars are hell.

I went to two playgroups this week for kids under one. I was one of two people who showed up on Monday. The other woman and I chatted for a few minutes while waiting to see if anyone else showed up. It was awkward. I am not good at chit chat and never have been. I got asked if Hazel was sleeping through the night yet and a very surprised look when I said she wasn't. Why is it a surprise that my three month old, exclusively breastfed baby still eats a few times a night? I don't mind it at all. We hung out for about 15 minutes and decided to leave when no one else showed up. Playgroup fail.

Today I went to another playgroup. I was a little more hopeful about this one because the moms who said they were going were from the Crunchy Moms group here. (Only a little more hopeful because the Crunchy Moms group here kind of sucks compared to the one at our old duty station. They don't get together or chit chat. I was actually scolded for trying to post off topic things in the group when I first moved here. I wasn't trying to cause problems, I just wanted to talk to and meet up with some other like minded mamas.)


I should have known I would be uncomfortable as soon as I pulled up and saw the Gadsden Flag flying. I was the only newbie there and the other ladies talked as if I wasn't there. The hostess handed out invites to her kid's first birthday party to everyone but me. I get it--I'm the new person. She didn't have to invite me but did she really need to do that then and there to make me feel even more excluded? All their husbands are flight school students and we were talking about their choices in duty stations. I started talking about Lewis and how much I liked it there. They all agreed it would be a nice place to be stationed were it not for all those, "Obama lovers..." I kept my mouth shut. Sigh. I really hope we meet some nice people here or it's going to be an even longer two years....

That's it for now. I have a crabby baby who got two vaccines today. One of these days I'll be sure to blog about our Alternate Vaccine Schedule and why we decided to go that route. 


P.S. Despite the beautiful baby in my arms, I'm afraid I will always be the bitter infertile. Hearing other women talk about their incredible fertility and the ease in which they got pregnant still makes me twitchy.

From Seattleite to Southern Bell

Okay, okay...it's been way too long since I last blogged but it's been one HELL of a month! This post may or may not make any sort of sense. Mostly it's just going to be full of bitching and moaning because nothing has gone smoothly since we started getting ready to leave Washington.

Clearing Fort Lewis was a pain in the butt. For my fellow Army spouses, I'm sure you know the hell that is CIF. For you non-military folks, CIF is the place that issues gear to soldiers. Mike has hundreds of pounds of gear that he's collected throughout his 9 year career in the Army. When we left Fort Drum he was required to scrub oil stains from his Gortex suit, even though it was the old desert print which was no longer used and would never be issued to another soldier. I thought THAT was bad but this time was much worse.  Mike had a couple old brown flight suits that he wore his first tour in Iraq in 2005-2006. They were disgusting when he got back and Fort Drum's CIF didn't ask for them when he cleared so he got rid of them. Guess what JBLM wanted when he cleared? Those damn flight suits. Seriously?! Luckily he found some at a surplus store for $100 (that we had to pay for) so he could get signed off on that. Then there was his sleeping bag that "didn't smell clean" even though he had just washed it. The CIF lady told him that it couldn't be clean because it didn't smell like anything. He explained to her that we didn't use scented laundry soap or fabric softener in our house and he said she looked at him, "Like I had a dick growing out of my forehead." Ha! My husband. He brought that sleeping bag home and doused it with some Febreeze he had found in the glove box. When he took it back to CIF the next day it was a different person and they didn't even try to smell it. ::head desk::

The movers came and packed up our stuff and all along we had planned to have a cleaning team come in so that we didn't have to clean ourselves--I was only five weeks post partum and caring for a newborn and let's face it, men just don't clean as well. For those not familiar with the process of clearing military housing, it's pretty tedious. Window tracks, refrigerator seals, baseboards, you name it. It's a LOT of work. Weeeelll, we met the cleaning lady, she looked at our house, gave us a quote and told us she'd see us on moving day. Guess who didn't show up until late in the afternoon on the day before we were supposed to clear? Guess who DID spend all afternoon, evening and the next morning cleaning for our inspection at noon? Guess who passed with flying colors thanks to some elbow grease and team work? We were FINALLY on our way, thrilled to be done with JBLM and sad to be leaving the Pacific Northwest and my brother's family behind us.

We stopped in Eugene, OR for a couple days so that Mike's grandma could meet Hazel before we moved across the country. It was about a five hour drive so it was a good test run of how the longer days would go with Hazel and the pets.  We went to the Farmer's Market (which is huge and amazingly awesome!) ate some Voodoo Doughnuts, watched football and just hung out with family.

The first day we made it from Eugene to the UT/ID border.



Somewhere in Utah...

My dog is a freak...

It was a beautiful time of  year to drive across America.

 

Each day got progressively worse for my poor baby. She was so tired of being in the car so we were so glad when  stopped off for a week in Missouri to see my parents and to stretch our legs for more than a few hours at a time. While we were there my dad showed Mike how to shoot a bow, took him fishing and turkey hunting. I was beginning to wonder what happened to my city boy!

 

It was in Missouri that we saw Hazel smile on purpose for the first time. <3

Zero was so happy to have freedom!

From Missouri we went to Tennessee, to my sister's house, where Hazel got to meet more cousins!

I wonder how many of my readers remember when I flew to my sister's last October to help her after the birth of my niece, Charlotte? Well guess who's already one!

My oldest niece, Gabrielle, is the same age I was when she was born.

From Tennessee we drove to Alabama where we started a new chapter in our lives, which had a very rocky start unfortunately. When Mike got orders to Fort Rucker we decided that we wanted to live on post, especially since the waiting list was so short. About a month before Mike's report date we got an e-mail saying that we had been pre-assigned a house and it would be waiting for us when we arrived. As you can imagine, we were relieved! We would be able to move in right away and would have a yard for our dogs. 

On the day that we were to sign for the house I stayed at the hotel with the fur-kids and Hazel while Mike went with the housing lady to look at the house and sign for it. Later that evening Mike took me to the house so we could look at it together. The first thing I noticed when he opened the door was a strange smell but I just chalked it up to being shut up for weeks. Surely the smell would go away once we aired out the house, right?  The house was supposed to be renovated but the only updates I saw were silver doorknobs and new linoleum floors. The counter tops in the kitchen were blue, the appliances were old, the rooms were insanely small (our furniture wouldn't even fit in the master bedroom) the bathrooms were floor to ceiling powder blue tiles, the laundry room was outside and not air conditioned (in 110 degree summers? No thanks...)  and that smell that my nose caught as soon as I walked in? Pet urine. I couldn't believe that after almost nine years of serving his country it was all he qualified for here.

 

Mike and I love a good challenge so we decided to make the best out of the situation. I covered the ugly blue counter tops in contact paper and we bought a steam cleaner for the carpets. Unfortunately the steam cleaning made the smell even worse and we decided to complain to the housing office when they opened back up on Monday. Throughout the weekend we discovered several other issues with the house. Years of humidity had caused the windows to become foggy between the double panes--so foggy we couldn't even see through them to see the beautiful blue skies and sunshine. The toilet in the second bathroom broke after the first time we used it--it was held together with electrical tape. The ice machine in the freezer didn't work. The master bathroom was so small that I had to squish my legs together while on the toilet if I wanted to get to the toilet paper. The tiles in the bathroom were absolutely filthy. And the smell? It was absolutely disgusting. I sprayed with vinegar and essential oils, I steamed cleaned, I kept the windows open despite the extreme heat and humidity. We hadn't had our household goods delivered yet and I wasn't about to lay Hazel on the floor, even with a blanket. It was hell. 

On Monday, maintenance came by to measure for new floors and told me it would be at least three weeks before they could replace them. Mike came home, I handed him a screaming baby and I just started to cry. The stress of the move, the disappointment in the house and living in filthy, smelly surroundings had finally gotten to me. We'd lived in old housing before, that wasn't the problem. The problem was the filth, especially now that we have a baby. After I calmed down Mike went up to the housing office and told them how unacceptable the house was, how it just kept getting worse and worse the longer we were in it. He explained that the house should have never been shown, let alone lived in, in the state that it was in and requested a new house. We were offered another house in the same neighborhood but I didn't even want to look at it--I was afraid it would be just as bad or worse. They told us that because we only had one child we didn't qualify for new housing so they gave us the option of breaking our lease and moving off post, which we took gladly. The only problem was that we had two days to find a new place and get out of the old one so I stayed up late trying to find places to look at online. Thank GOD that Mike's unit was understanding throughout all of this and gave him the time off work to get it all situated. 

We ended up finding a nice town home,  about five minutes outside the gate, with a huge back yard for the girls and in a community of primarily military families. It's got a small community center with a workout room, tennis courts and a pool. The pool will get a lot of use next summer by Hazel and I, I'm sure! We've spent the past two weeks  trying to get unpacked and for the most part we are settled. I had Hazel's cloth diapers unpacked that first night! :) We've already had visitors too--my mom and dad and Mike's brother and his girlfriend. The house is finally starting to feel like home! Now if only Alabama would start to feel like home, too. Can you say culture shock? Seriously. The closest Costco is 75 miles away and Target is 25 miles! Thank God for Amazon Prime! I hope we're not miserable here for the next two years...

Life After Infertility

Before I ever got pregnant I would always see those struggling with secondary IF and think, "What are they complaining about? They've got one baby! Isn't that enough? I would KILL to have just one!" but over the past couple weeks I've seen it from both sides and have had to remind myself to be sensitive to those still struggling while also being humbled and realized that secondary infertility still hurts.

The first experience was in the infertility group I started for the military wives in my area. I started it when I was in a really dark place and felt like the only military wife in existence who wasn't a mom. I quickly realized that I wasn't and within a couple weeks there were over 20 women in the group. Over the past year the group has been a great sense of support and an outlet to vent my frustrations. We met up for lunch several times and it was so refreshing to be with women who understood what I was going through. Since that first meeting, several of us have moved on to pregnancy and motherhood but there are still many women who are struggling. When I became pregnant I kind of  unintentionally abandoned the group because I didn't know how anyone would receive advice coming from someone who had moved on and was now pregnant. I know that when I was going through treatments it was always hard to be around or hear from pregnant women, whether they struggled or not. I guess I was just trying to be sensitive, afraid of hurting anyone. When so many of us moved on, the group kind of fizzled and died so last week I attempted to rectify that, still walking on eggshells because I didn't want to upset anyone with my profile picture of my new little family. It's hard, being on the other side. Just because I know what they're feeling and I sometimes feel guilty that I've found success and they haven't. But then I think about how long it's taken us to get to this point and it reminds me that I fought hard to get here and Mike and I deserve all the happiness that Hazel has brought into our lives. I've just been on the 'infertile and childless' side for so long that I'm still learning how to live life on the other side.

Despite having a beautiful baby in my arms, yesterday's experience took me right back to the 'infertile and childless' days. We were at a going away BBQ for Mike and were asked the question, "Are you going to have more kids?" Well hell, this was almost as tough to answer as the, "Do you have kids?" question when we were going through treatments!  I explained that it took us almost four years to get Hazel and that she was an IVF baby, which was received with questions like, "What's IVF?" "Was it expensive?" "Does it make you more fertile?" That led to a discussion between the wives on how it only took them two weeks and two months to get pregnant and how extremely fertile they are. Well isn't that nice? Mike was nice and replied with a smile, "Well we're not that lucky..." while I ignored them and was starting down at Hazel in her ring sling, thanking God that I did not have to endure that conversation with empty arms. I had anxiety the entire time other people were holding Hazel and I couldn't wait to get home.

When one of the guys asked us how it was going with the baby he said, "It sucks, doesn't it?" I told him no. He said, "Come on, it sucks. Don't lie." Seriously dude? Guess it's easy to take it all for granted when your wife can get knocked up on the first try. Apparently the bitterness never leaves. Once an infertile, always an infertile.


And cause this post is a major downer--here's some new pictures of Hazel to lighten the mood.

Look at that chub! She weighed 12 pounds at my last midwife appointment!

So long, Farewell...

There's a saying, "There are no goodbyes in the Army...only see you laters." Well, no matter how you slice it--leaving sucks. It's always hard to leave a place where you've made good friends and it's even harder when you leave a place with family close by. The movers come next Tuesday and our final inspection is Thursday. I can't believe how soon it is! I sometimes feel like we just moved here. I definitely wasn't this sad about leaving Fort Drum but can you really blame me?

I said my goodbyes to some of the girls in my natural moms group last week. I've learned so much from this group about cloth diapering, natural birth, gentle parenting, you name it! It's also how I met my doula. I hope the crunchy moms group I joined for Fort Rucker is just as sociable and fun. I'm going to miss these ladies!

We said our goodbyes to Shannon's family at the last last weekend and on the way home I said to Mike through tears, "Why are we leaving again?"Remember it was our choice to leave--Mike re-enlisted for Fort Rucker. All week long I was dreading saying goodbye to my brother, sister-in-law and the twins. Ugh.

Shawn, Shannon, Arthur and Sadie came down from Seattle one last time this weekend. No one talked about us leaving until the very end. Shawn LOVES our dog Zero and he got choked up when saying bye to her. Once I saw him crying I lost it too. We're going to miss having them close by SO much! Mike and I feel like we're abandoning him here--we'll be back within driving distance of the rest of the family and he'll be out here all by his lonesome. We'll miss the babies growing up together too. Sigh. Mike and I were so bummed after they left! We tried watching Big.Bang.Theory. to cheer us up and when that didn't work we just went to bed--it was barely 9 o'clock!

Before we moved here I hadn't lived near my brother since I was in 2nd grade so it was really great getting to know him as an adult. We've had so much fun living here the past 2.5 years. Countless trips to Seattle for Seahawks and Sounders games, beautiful scenery, lots of beer drinking and tons of time with my brother and Shannon. It was great to have someone to commiserate with during IVF and pregnancy and new parenthood! We're going to miss them. I think my heart belongs to Seattle and the west coast now and I can definitely see Mike and I living here again some day.

 

Like I said...beer drinking.

Zero at Tolmie State Park

Hiking at Tolmie State Park

Shannon and I getting ready to go on a kayak adventure around the lake

Michael Franti concert

Zero's first time in the Pacific Ocean

Camping at Ocean Shores

Mt. Rainier on Veteran's Day

Tailgating before the Seahawks vs Saints playoff game

St. Patty's Day Dash

Mariners game

Seattle Sounders vs Manchester United

Leavenworth

After more beer drinking in Leavenworth

Is there any place more beautiful?

Camping at Canon Beach, OR

I know it's a good decision for us--Mike won't have to deploy or even go into the field while we're at Rucker. We'll be closer to family and will see them more often. We're planning a trip to Disney World with my sister's family in March! It won't rain all the time and it will be better for Mike's career. Still...I hope we end up back here some day so I can see these three cuties together again.