This Is Me

I live in a world that is not my own that I succumb to in many ways. I live by a code that leaves me to find joy in the small things in life. Not take advantage of anything. Love and learn from everyone I meet in my journey. And especially to learn what it means to be selfless in more ways I thought possible. I am a Army wife. It is what I do. I have a love hate relationship with what I do. But do I regret it? No way.

Sunday, May 26, 2013

Midtour-The Airport

We had a general idea of when John was going to be coming home for his midtour leave.
Ironically enough the estimated week was the same week as my finals.
Go figure, right?
Well, we had an estimated date of May 1st, of which was the one off day I had that week between my finals.
Wouldn't you know, for the first time ever in our time in the Army, I got the call that he was coming home a day early.
While most would find this good news, which I ultimately did, but I also instantly got a sense of panic.
That day early was the first day of my finals!
Before I called/texted/emailed/messaged any family I immediately got in contact with my teachers about my final.
I have to tell you, after going to a private university, I was not expecting much from a community college and was expecting to do the majority of the teaching/work myself.
Nothing could be farther from the truth.
I have met some of the most inspiring, talented, and down to earth people at PPCC and thanks to these people and (I have to pat myself on the back a little bit) me having perfect attendance and just being a super cool student (haha) I was allowed to turn my stuff in late and then not even take the finals. Straight A's in both of them without taking the final.
Three A's total.
This mama is stoked!

Anyways!
So I get my classes taken care of and then am in a panic about getting everything ready for John to arrive with one day less than what I thought I had.
Nothing you can do can fully prepare you for these long awaited two weeks.
This is our third deployment.
Midtour, all three times, have been very different.
This one was one for the record having the babe in tow.
As of that day, he'd been gone for 218 days.
For the first time, in all the times I've done this, I was nervous.
Nervous more for him and her, than me.
I was nervous she would cry.
I was nervous she wouldn't recognize him or even like him.
I was nervous that he'd get hurt feelings if she did cry or not like him.
We had talked about this before he came, that he couldn't get hard feelings if she didn't react well, but it's easier said than done.
Because of him coming a day early, my parents and GG were able to come to the airport with us (if he were on time they'd have already left for my little bro's graduation in Missouri) as well as my mother in law and one of my brother in law's.
Of course his plane was a little late, but he finally walked out of the terminal and now it was time for B to perform.....except she didn't really.
We stood there together, her holding a picture of them before he deployed.
She'd look at the picture...look at him...look at the picture...look at him.
That's about has far as it got.
Finally my mother in law just took her from me and handed her over to him and I cringed waiting for her to do her "stranger danger!" antics.
But she didn't and and I was SO relieved!
She let him hold her for a while, sometimes with a cautious eye, but most the time pretty distracted with everyone else fluttering around giving hugs and congratulations.
By the end of the day, a mere 5 hours later, we were home and she was dragging over books to her dada and crawling into his lap just like they were BFF's.
The fun was just beginning....

Brynlee approved walking buddy.

Showing her pictures of Afghanistan
on his iPhone.


Pre Midtour Madness

SO, I haven't posted in a while and I'm beyond fully aware.
So much has changed and happened since March (OMG, MARCH?!) that I had to pull out my trusty handwritten planner to figure out what in the world we've been doing here lately.
So, end of March we had Easter.
This Easter was unique in that we actually got to participate in the usual Easter activities which included epic Easter dress pictures with the cousins, egg dying, Easter service, and having friends and family over for an awesome Easter meal.
Brynlee dying eggs was the most hysterical thing ever and I ended up with a "Hulk hands" kid, SO worth it.


All the while, Brynlee's tummy issues remained a mystery. We continued appointments with allergy and gastro docs doing tests and consults with no answers. All in all she's been tested for over 30 things including food, plant, tree, and pollen allergens all of which have come back negative. Even bananas that we knew she was allergic to, came back negative.
Around the time of her horrible topical reaction it seemed like the tummy issues all but went away, almost a thing of the past.
I don't want to jinx us, here two months later, but all in all, things have actually been really good and seem normal, but still no answers to what she broke out to or what she was having tummy issues from.

I finished my condensed course (Design and Color) the end of March.
What a psycho 5 weeks it was!
I have to give a HUGE shout out to every single member of both our families that made this condensed course possible for me. I was gone to class all day Saturday and Sunday and it took a lot of help and patience from all the fam in watching Brynlee and giving me the opportunity to get this class under my belt.
Thanks to all the support and help, I earned my first "A" of the semester and learned SO much.
Taking all these classes has reaffirmed for me not only professional confidence in what I do, but also my LOVE for what I do.
How awesome is that!?

During this pre midtour madness time, Brynlee started wearing shoes, started standing without hanging onto anything, walking with her walker, made another trip to the zoo--this time with Emalyn, Brynlee's new BFF--Arya Hyskell was born, walked the March of Dimes with some dear family friends, and grew in four molars as well as the left side's top and bottom canine teeth.
Stubborn non walker. ;)
To our surprise, Brynlee is not walking yet.
I'm 100% convinced she can, she just doesn't want too.
If you watch her standing, walking with her walker or cruising around furniture in the living room, she'll let go and take a step, probably cause she doesn't realize she's doing it, and as soon as she does, she plops on her bum and crawls away.
To be completely honest, I'm in no hurry at all.
It seems like immediately after a kid turns one, if they aren't walking, something is wrong with them.
We all know my kiddo is far from the "norm" when it comes to any specific age "standard," and I hate these stereotypes and assumptions on babies. It makes parents feel like their kids aren't normal.
I know my kid is normal, I also know she's stubborn as a mule.
I can't make her do anything she doesn't want to do.
Through experiences in my own family, crawling is so important besides learning to be mobile.
Granted if she's almost 2 and still only crawling then I'll admit that something needs to be looked into, but the hand/eye coordination as well as left brain/right brain development at that stage, with that action, is just so important.
With that, I can sincerely say that I could care less that she's not walking.
I've been asked by tons of people if I'm worried that she's not walking.
Like it's any of their concern to ask, but the answer is no.
However I've been asked so many times I finally asked her doctor about it just to reaffirm my lack of caring, and he waved it off with no more concern than I had.
I do have a suspicion that she'll go from crawling/cruising to running.
Forget walking. Psh.