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She’s slept through the night the last TWO nights!!!  TWO.  T-W-O!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Whether this continues, it definitely gives me hope.

Now, if there only was a way to guarantee that Ben won’t take that long to sleep through the night!!

Yea, I know.  Its been a long time since I updated.  One thing after another and then I got out of the habit.  So here I am.

Jim is gone for training.  My first trial of having him totally gone with two kids.  He’s been away training a lot but not REALLY gone, just 18-20 hour days gone.  We’re on Day 5 and doing pretty good.

Elizabeth woke up vomitting last night.  She threw up a couple times and then slept for five hours.  I thought she was better this morning but, a couple hours after she woke up, she started again.  Sick as in just lying on the couch sick.  My child NEVER just sits still.  So when she does, its bad.  She’s sound asleep right now.  And to make matters worse, I had to tell her that we couldn’t go across the street to the food court playground today.  We go over there most days now.  Its close and there are usually other mamas there with husbands deployed/away.  So its adult conversation.  Some days I wish it was outside but now that its pretty warm, I’m glad it isn’t!!

Guess how her sleep is going….a week ago Friday, she slept THROUGH THE NIGHT!!!!!!!!!!  (Of course, Ben made up for it and was up WAY more than usual.)  She hasn’t done it since but I now have HOPE.  She’s been asking to fall asleep on her own too!  We let her have a toy in her bed with the lights out and she’s usually out in about 20 minutes.  Six months ago it could easily take 2-3 hours to get her asleep.  From the moment we go upstairs until I can hear her snoring is almost always under 45 minutes now and usually under 30 minutes!

Ben is four months tomorrow.  And I think he’s teething.  Elizabeth was such a crier that I never really had any idea if she was crying b/c of teething pain or crying b/c she was a crier.  But the last few days Ben has cried and cried so much, especially as he’s trying to go to sleep.  He keeps putting his hand in his mouth as he’s crying, which is what makes me suspect teething.  I thought he was doing it in a “trying to such his hand” way but now I’m not so sure.  Whatever is making him cry, he is definitely MAD about it!!  He is so NOT a crier, its almost harder to hear him scream than it was with Elizabeth.

I’ve been doing more to get involved on base.  Unfortunately, everything is now on summer break!  We’ve had something to do most days and it has been SO nice.  Its reminded me how much better I do when we consistently have plans.  So I want to work on finding more to do this summer while I wait for things to start back up.  We have a women’s evening Bible study that just started at my church and that takes me through July, I believe.  Its a Beth Moore study and I know it’ll be great.  (I need to go work on it while the kids are asleep, actually!)

On that note, I think I’ll go work on the study while I can.

Surprising Jim & I and her Awanas teachers, Elizabeth said her four verses tonight earning her vest! I really didn’t think she’d tell them since she will barely talk away from us. At the end of the evening, all the kids gather on the back lanai to receive awards. When she came walking out with her vest on, she looked SO big. When we walked up to get her afterwards, she was jumping up and down (surprise, surprise!!) and was so excited to show me her vest. Her four were “God loved us and sent his son” (their key verse), “Jesus loves me” (their motto), “all have sinned” and “”While we were sinners, Christ died for us.” She memorized them much more easily than I thought she would. She really enjoys Awanas and I know she’ll be sad when they let out for the summer.

*sigh* Where does the time go?? How can my baby be big enough to be saying Bible verses?? Probably goes the same place my mom is thinking “How can my baby have a baby big enough to say Bible verses?” I don’t like this growing up thing.

We had about a month where she was having crazy sleep issues (I think I blogged about that) which meant crazy behavior. I think that’s over now, thankfully! She’s sleeping until 6:30-7ish every day. Afternoon behavior has gone back to normal 3.5 year old. Who knew I’d ever be thankful for her normal 3.5 year old behavior??!!?

Her speech continues to improve. Her vocabulary grows at an exponential rate, it seems. Her apraxia continues to be an issue and I really expect we’ll have to get speech therapy through our medical center come the fall. She is completing more words but she probably only says the full word for 20%, if that.

We had little doubt that she would love having a baby brother. And she hasn’t let us down there! If she could spend her entire day holding him, she would. She wants to know what he’s doing at all moments of the day. And she has eagle ears for his crying. She’ll hear him even before he’s crying sometimes.

She’s getting close to outgrowing her car seat, so I’m ordering her a new one tonight. Its the new Graco Nautilus and I am so excited to get it! She can stay 5pt harnessed until 65lbs which is more than 30lbs away! She can then use it as a high-back booster to 57″/100lbs. I’ve spent months debating which seat to choose and I’ve decided just to go with this one. I hope its here when we get back from our trip to Indiana.

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.)

Ben had a well-baby appointment today. He’s up to 10lbs even (almost 2.5 pounds over his birthweight). And he’s grown an inch. At four weeks, Elizabeth was just barely a pound over her birthweight. Nursing issues continue but we’re sludging through them. Two bouts of thrush, blanched nipples, high palete (makes it hard to get a good latch), improper suck technique, blah, blah, blah. I haven’t had cracked nipples in two weeks now (woooohooo!) and I haven’t had “I absolutely can’t do this another second” thoughts for exactly three weeks. Pain is still there but its getting much better. The suck training has made a big difference. Despite all the nursing challenges, he’s obviously getting enough milk!!  We are on week 3 of a diaper rash.  It had some yeast in the beginning but I *think* that part is cleared up.  I’ve tried so many things but I can’t get the rest cleared up.  No bleeding or puss, thankfully, just really raw looking now.  Unlike Elizabeth, he really favors just me to soothe him. Elizabeth would really take to anyone but Ben really prefers me (Jim will do in a pinch). Luckily, he’s a very laid back baby. I always knew Elizabeth was a high-needs baby but I had no idea just how high-needs until Ben came along. Wow! If I could have a household of babies like Ben, I WOULD have a household full of children!!

Elizabeth is absolutely in love with him. She wants to hold him constantly. We’ve started putting him in his crib for naps and she does NOT like him being that far away. Several times I have found her playing outside his doorway. She is adjusting well. By 3:30ish, she starts to breakdown when he’s nursing but EVERYTHING is meltdown-worthy to a 3yo at that time of the day. By the time Jim gets home from work, we are ready for his homecoming!! She got a new bike last weekend and she looks much too old on it. *sigh*

My mom came out last Thursday. She’s in love with her newest grandchild, of course. And she’s absolutely exhausted by Elizabeth!!

My body is healing from birth. I’m still much more sore than I thought I would be. I had no idea how sore I would feel!! Still, I feel such joy that I was actually able to push my baby out. It has gone a long way to helping me heal from the trauma surrounding Elizabeth’s birth.

We got Jim’s training schedule for the rest of the year. Seeing the dates makes me ill. With his first deployment, I handled the preparations well. The only part that was really rough was the paperwork where we had to plan his funeral. But now I know what a deployment is really like. And with his position now, the realities are so much more intense. Looking at the calendar makes me want to vomit. War sucks.