For my husband, who will find this as funny as I did

I can't get this to upload to my email to send it the proper way, so here you go, Tim.

Conflicting interests

What they want to do today.

What I want to do.

It's finally fall here. It's 42* outside, the air is crisp, and the sky is blue. I want to curl up on the sofa with my pumpkin spice coffee, finish reading Twilight (which has me SO addicted to it), then read some Christmas catalogs, and smell the sugar cookies baking in the oven.

The girls want to color everything with their new pens. And then wash themselves silly in the sink. I hear the water running now. Gotta go.

When a toddler isn't sleeping, but a mother is

The water level was almost overflowing before I got the camera. What is it with my children and water?

***

Edit

Even better, apparently Kate also decided that the kitty's food and water would be better mixed together, with some slop spilled onto the laundry room floor. Wheeee! My laundry room smells like the humane society right now.

No decent Halloween pictures

The penguin misplaced her Halloween treat bag, and had to substitute her medical bag to collect the goodies.

Trick-or-treating at the mailbox. She didn't get much from this stop.

The kitty cat and the penguin would not hold still. Not during their professional photo shoot last week, and not on Halloween night. As a result, these are the best pictures we have of the girls in their costumes.

They did have fun, however. We went to far more houses this year than last - all the way down to the end of the street this time, instead of just to three houses. There were a ton of kids out in the neighborhood, which took me by total surprise (we had to close up shop by 8pm because we were out of candy), but the girls did really well not being too frightened by them. Kate had the "trick-or-treat" thing down very well, and even Claire was able to get her point across. At one house, I told her to, "say trick-or-treat", and she said, "teat, peas!". No tricks for her.

Tim is gone now, deployed for a good portion of the month. Oddly, they call all trips to the mid-East "deployments". It's sort of confusing; I tell people that he is deployed, and they get this pity-party look, and then sort of scoff when I tell them he'll be back for Thanksgiving. It is the longest that he has been gone since the girls have been born, but I'm pretty sure we will survive. The house is an entirely different matter. He has been gone for two whole days and already I have lost all power to the girls' rooms. I tried flipping the breaker, and unplugging several items, but to no avail. Even my neighbor is perplexed. Awesome. Whatevah, they don't need power in their rooms, do they?

The good stuff

Okay, okay. The details!

I am currently about 15.5 weeks pregnant, and am due on April 17. We don't know if we are having a boy or a girl, and since we don't plan to have any more children, we are not going to find out until the baby is born. I sort of feel compelled to do all those things during pregnancy that you can only do when pregnant, like not finding out the gender, and eating pretty much whatever I want. I'm not sure that this last strategy is smart, but it sure sounds fun, doesn't it? <=D

Things are going fairly well right now. The first trimester was pretty rocky, and there were several times when I just wanted to be put out of my misery. That whole thing about eating whatever I want began at about week 6 when I could only stomach eggs, fruit, and bread products. The sight of vegetables made me nauseous, and the smell of garlic almost made me have to leave the house. I felt somewhat ill when I was pregnant with Kate, but never got sick, and I was totally fine with Claire, although tired. With this one, I felt HORRIBLE. Miserable, gross, barfy, and lethargic. I'm sure trying to chase after two small children and act like somewhat of a good parent to them had something to do with it, but man. I am glad that is over. I do not know how other women do it, when they are actually sick throughout weeks of their pregnancy. Because when you're there, you feel like you will never get beyond how you are feeling, and it is sort of depressing. Lucky for me, my ickyness only lasted from about week 6 until about week 12. And I never really had to be anywhere, like work, or upright.

I was super stressed out about the health insurance thing, as you might have read about. In Tucson, I was spoiled: there was no hospital on base, so all pregnant women went off base for OB care. I had the best doctor ever. I delivered in a great hospital. My husband was home and not in danger of being deployed or TDY near or on either birth date. Here, things are different. There is a hospital on base and all prime insureds go there for OB care and delivery, and Tim has a deployment in March (he should be back by the end of the month, but eek! That is cutting it close, in my opinion). I have known too many women who have had not-so-fab experiences delivering their baby at a military hospital (Katie, I am most of all mortified by your experience), and I did not want to go through this.

Then, to top it off, I had a battle of wills with the admin staff on base. I tried to set up my first appointment, and they asked me if I wanted a morning or afternoon class. Class? Um. I tried to calmly and politely explain that I didn't need to attend the class about childbirth, and that I had in fact attended the same class in Korea (I saw a girl here at the hospital with the same book they gave me back then), and I was good, thank you very much. She told me that I had to go to the class before I could schedule my first OB appointment. I explained that I already have 2 children and that I was really okay with not taking the class. I mean, if you have to find childcare to attend the childbirth class, shouldn't that exempt you from the class requirement? They weren't going for it. I scheduled the p.m. class and began frantically calling everyone I knew (who does not live here and therefore wouldn't give my secret away) to ask about everything from TriCare Standard to actually giving birth here at the military hospital. I called the OB clinic back and asked if I could go off base for care. They said I could do so only if I was high risk. I muttered something about hoping I was. Then I changed my time to the a.m. class "because the children would be happier at that time and probably behave better". She told me I couldn't bring children to the class. I told her I was new here and what did she suggest? We went back and forth and I may have hung up on her.

I finally had a flash of genius: I remembered a friend who had just PCS'd from here, who had also had a baby before they moved. I called her and asked her the important question: if you could do it all over again, would you deliver on base here? She said probably not. Problem solved. She put me in touch with a friend of hers here who recommended an OB to me, and when I called to see if he accepted TriCare, they said he did.

I am not sure if I am breaking rules or getting through on some sort of loophole, or if it's just that I am actually considered high risk (I will be of advanced maternal age when I deliver, wouldn't you know), but TriCare hasn't given me any trouble about going off base. Let's all just breathe a collective sigh of relief, shall we? The icing is that this OB is great. I don't know yet if he is as great as my OB in Tucson, but I love him so far.

Kate understands that she is going to be a big sister again, and perhaps more importantly, that there is not a baby in her tummy as well. Claire looks at us like we are kooky when we start talking about the baby in my belly, and looks questioningly at her own tum. She loves babies, though, so I'm sure she will be a great big sister.

Overwhelmed, and suffering from writer's block

I don't know what has happened. Weeks ago, when I was secretly pregnant, I couldn't wait to share the news! It seemed like everything I wrote about was slightly lame, like I needed to just be able to talk about being pregnant and then everything would be back to normal. But it's not! At midnight, I think of great blog titles, fabulous and funny stories to write about. At 3pm, I have nothing. I might as well be napping! So here's a big shout out (Tim's favorite expression) to my 3 faithful, if bored, readers.

Tucson was great, as I might have mentioned. It was like going home, somehow. Probably because I know more people there than I know here, I was able to suggest places to go for lunch, and I even offered up a new and fun suggestion to my sister of a place to take her in-laws, although she has lived in Tucson for more than a decade.

I might or might not have gained about five pounds last week, from all the yummy places I went to lunch, and from Shayne's amazing dessert selection at last week's coffee. My sister and I took the three girls to get Halloween pictures taken at Sears (why oh why do I torture myself that way? They are horrible! And expensive!). It didn't go well. I spent gobs of money anyway. Shayne and Andrea and I took the kids to the zoo. Kate and Claire fed the giraffes (Claire for the first time; it was hysterical. She was SO excited to feed them [because Kate was excited], and then she saw the long purple tongue on the giraffe and freaked out and dropped the giraffe snack behind the little fence. Me, having just paid a whole dollar for that snack, raced the giraffe to it and won, so Claire and I could feed him together. I think she has recovered by now. I guess I should have started a whole new paragraph [or post] for this topic.). Kate played with her best friend Reagan for hours. Tempie followed Claire around faithfully whenever they were together. I read an entire book. It was such a great week.

I don't know if I will do the trip again next week or not. It is one thing to drive nearly 8 hours (not including multiple and unbelievably long stops) with two adults to corral the children, and to do it alone might be suicidal. But three weeks is a long time for us to be here alone, and I think we might get slightly bored. I think the secret is to get up and drive as early has humanly possible. If I can only drag my butt out of bed at 4am...

Kate is incredibly excited about Halloween. We took the girls to the Reid Park Zoo to go trick-or-treating, and now she can't wait until it's dark every night so it will be Halloween.

I have not figured out how to explain places to Kate. She is having trouble wrapping her head around the notion that even though we drive several miles in one city, that we are still, quite likely, in the same city. Every time I drove them from place to place in Tucson, Kate wanted to know when we would go back to Tucson. I'm pretty sure she thinks of Tucson as Reagan's house and Tempie's house. And perhaps after our trip, our hotel with the fountain.

And now, because of lack of direction and focus, I will leave you with some photos of our recent trip.

Hysterical

What a great idea this would have been for the big day, huh?

Living it up in Tucson

Tim has a conference this week in Tucson, so we all drove down together to see family and friends. So far the days have been packed. The drive here was slightly miserable, and is giving me second thoughts on doing it again next month without Tim, but we are having a great time here, so it was worth it.

I forgot my camera cable, so unless I Tim can find some way for me to download pictures off the camera, I'll have to save the photos until next week.

We went to Apple Annie's to get pumpkins on Sunday. Our car looks like CSI: had it in their shop for a week: the layer of dust coating the paint has brought out the tiny fingerprints that are covering all low-lying surfaces. But I digress. The pumpkin picking was fun. It was hot, so we kept it short, but the girls LOVED riding on the tractor-pulled hay wagon and playing in the corn-filled tub.

We've also spent time with my sister and her family, and the girls got to go back to their old school today. I was in heaven. I ran all sorts of quick errands that truly were quick! No buckling of small seatbelts! No whining! No back-and-forth about who got to play with the magnet doodle pad! I even had a peaceful, quiet lunch with a friend. And the girls and I were so happy to see each other when I picked them up.

Tonight I get to go to my old squadron's coffee and see many more friends. God I love vacation.

Camping...in our living room

We were supposed to be roasting marshmallows and sipping hot cocoa right now up at Mt Charleston on our very first family camping trip, but the girls are sick so we are going to camp inside instead.

We started out the day with a tantrum thrown by Claire. Tim was watching football and Claire saw a commercial for Nascar. After it was over, she threw herself down on the ground and started kicking and crying, whimpering something about "race cars" in between wails. Just now there was another commercial about her new favorite sport, and she watched with an open-mouthed smile as the cars whizzed around the track.

Instead of roasting hot dogs over a campfire for dinner, we will be eating one of my new favorite dishes and burning marshmallows over the gas cook top. We will also be sleeping in relative warmth and comfort, considering the actual carpet under the tent as opposed to a carpet of pine needles. I will be glad for the protection of our walls, since last night's winds brought a cold front through that has kept the temperature to about 60* today. It's bound to be near freezing tonight up in the mountains.

Kate is running around inside the tent yelling, "It's really fun! It's really cool!" over and over again. Camping is going to be a hit.

3rd

When the house is too quiet

If you find that you've had far too much time to, say, get some cleaning done, check all bathrooms for this:

Not pictured: Claire's jammies, wet to the knees from playing in the sink, and Kate's ill-fated attempt to make papier mache out of wads of Kleenex soaked in a basin full of water.

The next Food Network star

Sampling before I could add anything but water to the mix. Note the large glob of brownie mix on the counter.

This is good stuff, Mom! I'm going to have a bowl of this for dinner.

I decided, in a momentary lapse of self-control, that we had to have these brownies for dessert. Kate wanted to watch Diego instead of baking, but Claire was eager to begin her cooking career. Before I could get out the brownie mix, she had pushed a chair over to the island and was ready to get started. Although the kitchen was a minor disaster afterwards, the brownies turned out just fine.

A very busy weekend

We drove to Mt Charleston on Saturday morning for a day out in the Spring Mountains. The girls LOVED it. We loved it. I was anticipating something akin to Mt Lemmon in Tucson, but we found it to be different in a few ways. There are a lot more houses (do you call it a house when it appears to be at least 3000 sq ft and the average sales price is over a million dollars?), and a lot fewer commercial establishments.

We found a trail to a waterfall and started walking. Next time we will bring the backpack for Claire, as she spent half the time begging to be carried. Both girls loved walking on the rocks, balancing on the fallen trees, and exploring in general. We loved being in the fresh air, the smell of the pines, the bright colors of the aspen trees and the cool weather (it was about 63* and rained off and on)! We are seriously considering going camping up there in the next two weeks. I am a little concerned that we are deluding ourselves into thinking that this will be a good time, but we'll probably try it anyway. How hard could camping be with two toddlers? Ha.

After our "hike", we headed to the restaurant for lunch. We didn't have pie, but the food was good, and as expensive (or more so) as the Mt Lemmon Cafe's nosh, and there was a lot more seating.

On Sunday evening, Tim and the girls made vanilla ice cream. Claire enjoyed it tremendously.

Pictures of Kate's 3rd birthday

It is amazing to me that my baby is 3. I did not understand the adage about time flying (seriously: flying?) until I had children, and now I have a better grasp on it. It doesn't seem like yesterday, exactly, that she was born, but it doesn't seem like three years have passed, either.

Now, at three, Kate has turned into such an incredible little person. She understands so much, and has a thirst for knowledge that stuns me at times. She loves to build things; she jumps at any chance to be like her mom or dad so she can "work on things", "solve her problem", or "fix stuff". Lately she has been wandering around the house with slumped shoulders, in a moping sort of fashion. When I ask her what is wrong, she says she is trying to figure out her problem. Apparently one of her parents must also slouch around with slumped shoulders, looking depressed? Gah. When she tells me what the specific problem is (it usually involves Dora or Diego), and I offer a solution, she immediately cheers up and goes to "fix it".

Her favorite toys are the Tinker Toy set she got for her birthday (Tim builds the craziest working-model...things...and Kate is beginning to come up with her own inventions), a wooden Melissa and Doug fruit set that allows kids to "chop" the pieces in half, her new big wheel, and these foam inter-connecting block letters that she uses to build doll houses and train tracks. Her imagination has no end, which is something she clearly got from her father. She also loves to cook. I think this was one of her favorite parts about her birthday: she got to help bake two cakes! And the energy she has is astounding! When we go on walks at night, she can run until Tim and I are tired out.

She badly wants to read, and has memorized how to spell several words. She is also able to write the letters 'T' and 'I' and 'X', and is working hard on 'E' (right now it has about 5-7 horizontal lines). She gets very frustrated with the letter 'K'. She will sit down with her bunny and read her "diary" to her (a lined notebook).

Potty training is going very well, and although she is still in diapers when she sleeps, she often uses the facilities without my help. This I love!

I am hoping to get her into some sort of school within the next month, as I think she would love some structure to her days, and I know she would be so happy to be around other kids her age more.

Kate, we love you so much! You are so precious to us, and you will always be our special baby girl. Happy Birthday.

Making her cake.
Ryan helps Kate unwrap her gift.
Our house will never be the same.
Time for cake.
Cheese!

Books

Claire is just now beginning to show interest in a bedtime ritual. Now that she realizes the fun in demanding certain criteria be met, she is adamant about performing the entire sequence each time she goes to sleep.

First, she has to sit on the potty and read her potty book, during which she presses the 'flush' button on said book approximately 8 times. Although she rarely produces anything, she always wants to flush the toilet when she is done: "Fush! Fush!" Then it's time to wash her hands, which is one of her favorite things to do throughout the day. I am starting to regret getting her one of those high step-stools that allows her to reach the faucet, as I find her at the sink playing in the soap and water multiple times a day. But hey, at least she's clean, right? Clean and wet. So, she climbs up her step-stool and does this little dance before turning on the water. I must get this on video, because it is so cute, and I have no idea why she does it, so it is likely to stop at any time.

After we are done in the bathroom, she runs to her room where she demands to 'wock wock wif Mommy' in the rocking chair. Whilst we do this, we must also read each of the following books at least once:

It is not a happy scene if one of these books goes missing.

The Birthday Monsters is affectionately known as the 'Cookie [too-tee] Monsters' book for reasons unknown to me. She appropriately wishes the hippo a happy birthday at the end of the story.

At the end of Oh My Oh My Oh Dinosaurs!, she waves bye-bye to the dinosaurs and firmly closes the book. She also laughs every time I read the 'some are tiny' line.

She loves to see the moon in The Going to Bed Book, and gleefully points to it each time she sees it. She also tells me, after I read the 'With some on top and some beneath, they brush and brush and brush their teeth' page, that they do this in the bafroom.

In Max's Toys, she loudly says, "Kaboom!" when Max has a 10-car train accident. Then on the last page, she tells me their room is a "Biiiig mess. Keeeen up! Biiiiig mess. Keeeen up!"

Anniversary?

Seven years.

Oh yeah! Tim and I had an anniversary, like, mmmm, 3 weeks ago? I've been a bit behind on things lately.

Tim planned everything, from dinner to the entertainment, and we utilized his parents' visit to have a nice night out on the town alone. First, we went to Zeffirino, an Italian restaurant in the Venetian overlooking the canal. We had the most delicious pasta (Tim won with his selection of a pesto pasta. When the chef has made pesto for the Pope, you order it, and it will be good. Tim shared this information with me after he had taken the last bite of pesto. It was his only transgression for the evening.), and shared a tiramisu for dessert. After dinner, we strolled along the canal, taking in the sights and sounds. I love Las Vegas. I know a lot of people don't, but it has such a lively atmosphere. I love the sounds and the smells and the people-watching. You can see a woman in a wedding gown passing drunken collegians, smell a combination of high-quality cigar smoke mixed with high-end perfume and steak being grilled.

We went to the first show we've been to in about 10 years: Ka. I thought it was great; Tim thought it was okay. Sure, the storyline was a little...weird...but the acrobatics were incredible, and the set was awesome. By about 11pm, we were exhausted, but it was a fun way to spend our anniversary.

In their own words

Kate:

• Church ball: "Mommy, it's not church, it's church ball."
• "Mommy, it's a jet field airplane!"
• Yoatmeal. Also known as 'oatmeal' to most of the country.

Claire (also, words and phrases not to teach a toddler who cannot pronounce the letter 'r'):

• Mecidine. Double meaning: medicine and music on.
• Stinky britches.
• Fut. Also comes out sounding slightly different, with more of a 'k' ending. This is her word for 'fork'.

Conversations with Claire

Yesterday, Claire woke up before Kate from their afternoon nap. I walked into her room to pick her up out of her crib.

Claire: [Big smile.] "Hiiiiiii, Mommeeeeee!"

Me: "Hi, Claire! Did you have a good nap?"

Claire: [Vigorous nodding; pigtails askew.] "Yesssss!"

Me: "Good. Let's check your diaper."

Claire: "Otay, Mommy. Pee pee."

Me: "Oh, did you pee pee? Did you poo?" [My apologies...]

Claire: "No, Mommy, no poo."

Me: "Okay. Do you want a snack?"

Claire [Big grin.] "Yessssss. Jewsh?"

Me: "Yes, you can have some juice. Do you want some toast?"

Claire: [Pondering.] "No."

Me: "Do you want some crackers?"

Claire: [Shakes head while looking me in the eyes.] "No."

Me: "Do you want some Cheetos?"

Claire: [Eyes big; nods.] "Yesssss! Cheetos! Cheetos! Jewsh!"

Me: "You want Cheetos and juice?"

Claire: "Otay, Mommy."

Why I (strike through) heart TriCare

It's 4pm, and I just got a call back from the peds unit on base. Kate is exhibiting a symptom of a UTI, which she has had before, and I thought it best to get her in and check her out. I called at 7:30am today (several times, actually, since the incompetents at scheduling were unable to successfully patch me through to the right number) and left a message. I called again at 1pm, having not heard from them. Left another message. Amber, the scheduling girl in peds who just called me back, mumbled an apology about not calling back sooner, but "there's something, like, wrong with the phone system here? And blah blah blah...". She then went on to tell me about her experience with a UTI (hello, helpful? Not really) and that I should definitely take Kate in to the ER this weekend, because it could be serious. Duh, that's why I called y'all this morning.

So, they are closed all weekend, of course, and when I asked about scheduling a back-up appointment for Monday, I got a diatribe about how she couldn't actually schedule me for an appointment now because although she could see the appointments, she couldn't actually book any because it's more than 24 hours in advance. And they aren't open on Sunday. Really? And this is where we all want to go with nationalized health care?

I am in the process of switching myself over to TriCare Standard, which I have never been on before, but which seems like a heck of a good idea. I will get to see doctors off base, I will get to self-refer (!), and I will not have to deal with the craziness that I just dealt with today. And if I encounter it, I can change doctors! Also, I am seriously considering switching the girls over to Standard, too, since it is currently the beginning of September and they are booking 18mo well-baby checks in October, when Claire will be 20mo.

Practice

Tim's parents came to visit for the weekend. Since Kate has been obsessing about her upcoming birthday, and the grandparents won't be able to come to the party, we all decided (with much enthusiasm by a certain blonde girl) to celebrate early. Grandmother and granddaughter began by baking a cake, which Kate thought was the most exciting thing she had done in ages. In her defense, it was probably the most exciting thing she's done in a long time.

Reading the instructions. She mumbled something about adding milk and eggs.

Little fingerprints.

Sprinkles. Most ended up in the middle of the cake.

Cake with 8 (that's how many she requested) candles, and presents.

We miss you already, Mom & Dad!