Life’s a Dance

After two crazy weeks, this week should be a bit better. As far as he knows, Jim will have normal days–home in the morning after PT, possibly at lunch and then by 5:30! I’m so excited!!

My goal tomorrow is to read blogs! I haven’t read blogs, really, since before Ben was born. Stopped in on a few but haven’t left but a couple comments anywhere. So tomorrow, that’s my goal!!

One of my 2008 goals is to learn how to dress–how to put full outfits together, how to better purchase clothes that suit my body, etc. I have been putting money back to accomplish this task. Anyone willing to help me long-distance (or hop a flight and do it locally??!)?

Ben is growing like crazy. He’ll be seven weeks in about 12 more hours. He’s about 13 pounds! Elizabeth didn’t weigh that much until she was around 6-7 months old (can’t find her chart). And she was only 17.5 pounds when she turned a year. Mama milk is filling him up (and out!) well. We laughed yesterday–I was holding him on my lap while I ate dinner. All the sudden he let out this grunt/bark type sound and made a move that appeared to be a face-dive for my dinner plate. And then he smiled and laughed. LOL We think he’ll be much more into food than Elizabeth has ever been!

When people talk about having lots of pictures of their first child and then very few of subsequent children…I now understand! We have so few of Ben. I really need to be taking more.

I also now understand why people like to have an adult beverage while cooking dinner and/or a nightcap. Seriously. These past two weeks have just been so long.

Last Monday Ben gave me a 10.5 hour stretch of sleep!! He didn’t get a good nap at all that day, so I think that was mostly it. It was SOOOOOO heavenly.

Pizza night has been a mostly-weekly tradition since we got married. The night has changed at various times. Since we got here, I hadn’t chosen a night. Holidays, then Jim’s parents, Ben’s birth, blah, blah, blah. After much deliberation, I decided on Sunday nights. And we’re going to incorporate a family movie into it too. So pizza in the living room (E will be thrilled!) and a movie. First night tomorrow night and we’re going to watch The Bee Movie. I’m looking forward to getting back into that weekly tradition.

As of last Saturday night, every moment until deployment are new baby moments for Jim. I took him to leave for Iraq about 10pm the night prior to E turning 6 weeks old. I love that he’s getting all these new baby moments. I look at Ben and had forgotten just how tiny she was when he left. 6 weeks old and then he came home just a few days before she took her first steps. So much he missed.

After everyone else is in bed and I have some quiet computer time, I’ve started soaking my feet. Wow! I didn’t realize the power of a warm foot soak. I love it.

Burnt my fingers tonight. I had my stoneware baker out of the oven to stir the potatoes. Without thinking, I picked it up. Without potholders. Then dropped it. On my glasstop stove. OOPS. Thankfully, the stove didn’t crack. My fingers, not so lucky. Three hours after I did it, I was finally able to take the ice off without pain. But I have a few nice blisters and the rest have that shiny burnt appearance.

I’ve found a great new online store. Diapers.com In addition to diapers, they also have baby care products (including California Baby & Nature’s Baby products which I adore) , pacifiers, baby food, wipes, etc. You can mail in your coupons and they’ll store them in your account so you can use them on future orders. I think that is pretty cool! I’m not sure how their prices look overall. They seem pretty good to me but I’ve only purchased a couple packs of disposables with Ben and those were from the commissary. If you spend at least $49, you get free shipping. If you haven’t already ordered from them, you can use me as a referral to get $5 off (and I get $1 credit). Referral code is happygrl. No pressure or anything. (Hannah or any other CDing mamas reading this–they have bumGenius 3.0.)

And because of the total randomness of this, check this out, courtesy of my dear friend Ruth. Lisanne, did you know about this?? (Columbus, one of the towns mentioned in the article, is my hometown.)