Changes abound

Eleven months. Our Andrew is 11 months old. All of a sudden, I am busy planning a first birthday party and weaning him from bottle to cup and gently starting to potty train.
You've come a long way, baby! But, I think your Mommy has come even further. It's easy to see the changes in Andrew. Here's a little run down of his latest feats, big and small:
Words, words, words! Andrew is talking up a storm and surprising us everyday with new words and keeping us laughing with what seems to be pitch perfect comedic timing. Mama, Dada and Papa are still his most commonly said words, but he also says stop, go, bye, Dixie (my parent's dog), Dee Dee (for Brody), Nea Nea (for cousin Nathan and Aunt Renee), cracker, ball and small sentences like "I love you," "I love grits," "I got it," "I drop it," and his latest and cutest phrase "ho ho ho" for Santa Claus and snowmen. His communication skills both verbal and non verbal continue to amaze me.
He is not walking yet, but is cruising around and will stand alone while playing with a toy or reaching for something. It seems he has stretch arms and will work and figure out ways to get things that are out of his reach. For example, he has an Elmo place mat at my mom's and he pushes it underneath the napkin holder, salt shaker or sugar dish and then carefully slides the mat back to him, bringing with it the object of his desire.
He is a happy baby, content to play on his own but equally happy to have me or one of his cousins down on the floor with him playing invented games. One of his newest skills is pushing toy cars, trucks, tractors and trucks along while he's crawling and about a week ago, he started making motor sounds for all his automobiles as they roll along.
Though I have certainly allowed him to play with all types of toys, his favorite things are balls and things with wheels. Some things just come naturally to little boys, I suppose. He also loves books and can "point" with his thumb at certain pictures in some of his books when asked to do so. He can respond to certain commands like, "look at me" or "give me that" but when told "NO!" he usually gives me a mischievous grin and goes on with what he's doing. He looks so much like his father and acts so much like him that he would make a good case study in the nature vs. nurture argument. His dad isn't even around and I see him doing things like Greg does or making facial expressions just like Greg makes. He loves to wrestle with Brody and I'm thankful that Brody is a tolerant and gentle playmate. He still does a great job sleeping at night and he is completely fed from the table now. He loves most every food he's tried but bread appears to be his favorite food. Like father, like son. He is an expert imitator. He tries to talk on the phone, use the remote, brush his hair and his teeth just like he sees mommy do. He doesn't want me to feed him anymore but has yet to get food on the spoon and get it to his mouth with food still on it. For about two weeks now, he has used the potty every morning. He is a pretty regular guy and after reading about potty training in one of my mom's old Dr. Spock books about his toilet training methods, I decided that I didn't need to wait any longer to get Andrew accustomed to the potty. So, every morning after he's had his bottle, I put him on the potty and every morning with only one exception he has had a bowel movement in the potty. I know that he isn't trained and probably won't be for another year or so, but he is comfortable on the potty and seems to understand exactly what to do when he sits down and he doesn't try to get up. So, I take that to be progress. Andrew wears 12 and 18 month clothes. He weighed 24 pounds on Halloween so I'm sure he's up to 25 by now. Oh and he has four teeth -- two bottom and two slowly coming down on top.
So, that's the long and short of all things Andrew. He is a sweet natured baby who loves to cuddle, kiss and hug. And I am more than happy to indulge him!
I guess it's not so easy to see the changes in me. Well, unless you count the extra weight I'm still lugging around (I don't want to talk about it). I'm a different person than I was a year ago. I'm not sure I could ever explain how being Andrew's mother has morphed me into this other person who is a better, truer, fiercer version of my former self. Every day I wonder how there was ever any joy in my life before Andrew because he simply fills every moment of the day with a happiness that is pretty amazing. I tell Greg all the time that I don't know how I would make it through this year without Andrew. The days pass quickly. There is laughter, singing, cuddling, learning, playing and wonder in every day. There are long, luxuriously tender afternoon naps together. There's a sense that I am not alone even though Greg is not here. I have our son here with me and the light he shines into my days fills up the dark spaces created by this deployment.
I suppose I could have predicted this joy. I suppose I could have predicted the love. I could have predicted the pride I would feel in my son. I guess what would have eluded me a year ago would be the enormity of it -- the magnitude -- the way my relationship with my son would leave me completely humbled and grateful and awed.

A dirty shirt

There's a moment that I would guess every military spouse knows all too well. You half heartedly decide to finally attack that growing mountain of laundry and while sorting the whites, the darks and all that fall somewhere in between you find the last piece of clothing worn by your husband before he left for parts unknown.
I don't know about other spouses, but I usually bury my face in said item and inhale that lingering scent before throwing it into the wash. For me, that moment came last week, when all the other laundry from Greg's visit home had been washed, dried, folded and placed in a suitcase that will live at my parents' house until Greg comes home because we simply don't have room for it out here in our trailer.
Finally, last week, I got around to unpacking the small bag I took up to Baltimore and added those dirty clothes to the laundry mountains in the hall way. There, with my favorite jacket and my "date night" dress were Greg's clothes from our night out. I brought them home with me because there's no need for "civvies" over there.
The dress shirt, one of my favorite things to see my husband wear, still smelled like him. Greg doesn't usually wear cologne and our night out was no different. The smell that lingered there on the collar was simply the smell of my husband. It's familiar, safe, clean ... intoxicating.
I buried my face in the shirt and cried my eyeballs out.
I still haven't washed that shirt. I folded it and put it up on the bookcase-style headboard of my borrowed bed.
When I was a little girl, my grandmother died. My mom gave me one of her house dresses and I slept with it for months. I loved inhaling that scent -- it was a mix of soap and fried chicken and some indescribable something. But, after a few weeks, that smell faded and I had to try really hard to find even the faintest whiff of my grandmother on that house dress.
I haven't slept with Greg's shirt. I have picked it up and inhaled that sweet smell from time to time. I know that like Grandma Bessies's house dress, Greg's shirt will soon be just another dirty shirt atop a mountain of laundry.
I miss my husband.

Goodbye

I said goodbye to my husband Wednesday. Really, we had six days of goodbye. Greg flew home to NC on Friday and on Monday morning, we dropped him off at the airport to fly back to Louisiana, so he could take a bus to Houston to fly up to Baltimore. The infinite wisdom of the U.S. military is astounding sometimes. (This is a picture of my handsome fellas I took over the weekend.)

On Tuesday, I took the 50 minute flight from RDU up to Baltimore Washington International and waited in the USO for Greg’s flight to arrive a couple of hours later. It’s the same USO where we nervously waited for our flight to Italy when we moved there in 2005, the same USO that welcomed me home countless times over those four years when I’d take what is known in military circles as a “hop,” essentially serving as a seat filler on a military chartered flight that left once a week every week from our base in Italy to Baltimore.  BWI is more familiar to me than any other airport because I’ve spent so much time there over the years and the USO has always been a little haven where I could sit down, have a cup of coffee, watch TV, make phone calls or use the computers. As I sat there waiting for Greg’s flight to arrive, I couldn’t help but think of how many of the biggest transitions of my life have started right there in that room: moving to Italy, flying to the states for IVF treatments, moving back to the states after four years in Italy and now, oddly enough, seeing my husband off for a year-long deployment to Afghanistan. I thought about how every time we have experienced one of these life changing events, we couldn't see what was down the road but we found blessings at every turn. In Italy, we were surrounded by the love of a close circle of friends and we traveled and ate and drank and spent a good part of our four years there in absolute awe. Our failed IVFs tested us, strenghtened us and make us ever so grateful for this sweet sweet life. Louisiana was horrible, but it brought us to Dr. V and now we have our miracle boy. I wondered what blessings this deployment might hold in store for us. In a few years, will we look back and feel grateful for this experience?
 A year flies by. I know this because our precious son will soon be a year old. And, yet, when I think of an entire year without my husband, it feels like an eternity lies before me. Andrew will have his first Thanksgiving, first Christmas, and first birthday. A New Year will begin. Winter. Spring. Summer. Fall. Our world will change. Our son will change. And all this will happen without Greg here to see it, to feel it, to live it.

My husband was unusually quiet while he was home. Greg is nothing if not boisterous. My mama says he has the happiest face she’s ever seen. But he was not himself. Parts of him were already gone. I’ve seen this from him time and again over the years. When our second IVF failed and we returned to Italy, we had less than a week before he left on a five-month deployment. I grieved mightily while it seemed Greg had flipped a switch somewhere in his brain, turning off his emotions and turning his focus to the job in Kuwait that awaited him.

This time was a bit different. I didn’t need him to grieve with me. We have had a year to come to terms with the reality of this deployment. We have our sweet boy now so the pain of infertility is gone, replaced by this great big love. At this point, tears won’t do us any good. Talking about it, well, we’ve done that. We’ve talked about it until there really was nothing left to say.

On Sunday night, Andrew fell asleep in my arms while drinking his bedtime bottle. I asked Greg if he wanted to hold his son for a while before I put him in his crib. Andrew is so active these days and so curious and so busy that to get him to sit still in your lap for a good cuddle is quite a feat. Those tender moments are usually reserved for those first and last waking minutes of the day. I placed Andrew in his father’s arms and went about the business of washing bottles and getting ready for our pre-dawn drive to the airport. It took a few minutes for me to realize that Greg was crying as he held our snoring son. Just like the night before he left for training and I found him hunched over Andrew’s crib crying, this scene broke my heart.

And so, the uniformed man I met at the Baltimore airport had already said his goodbyes to his son and his thoughts were focused on the days ahead – the travelling, the job, and the danger. He tried hard to be there with me and there were moments when I felt the weight lifted from his shoulders but they were fleeting.

On Tuesday, I awoke early (even though it was the very first morning since Andrew was born when I could have slept as long as I wanted). I watched Greg sleeping, the cool gray light of a rainy morning lit his face. His breath was steady, his face was peaceful. I laid my head on his chest, my hand covering his heart. And I begged God to place a shield around him. I silently pleaded with God to deliver him back to us in a year – whole in body, in mind and in spirit. I tried to push away thoughts that this could be the last time I would ever wake up next to my husband.

We spent the next hours in relative silence. I went over the rules again: no helicopters, no volunteering for dangerous shit, no being the hero and lastly, no worrying about us.

At the airport, we sat in the observation area, which gave us a certain amount of privacy. We held hands and watched the planes take off and land. A steady rain fell outside and the raindrops on the glass reminded me of teardrops – like a Holocaust memorial we once visited in Boston where steam continuously forms condensation on the glass panels so they appear to be crying.

My own tears came later, during our last moments together. I was wrapped tightly in the safest place I’ve ever known – my husband’s arms -- and I felt myself giving way under the weight of the moment. There are moments in a marriage that are so intimate and tender that to try to describe them would be foolish. There simply are no words.

Oh my poor neglected blog.

Nearly everyday I have an amazing idea for a post -- you know, a real post that has real writing and isn't just a laundry list of Andrew's newest milestones or what's going on in my life -- but it seems I always choose to curl up in the big blue castoff recliner that sits in my living room and just do nothing at the end of the day.

Our Andrew, well, he's amazing, of course. The baby who we couldn't take anywhere as a newborn because of his crying jags has turned into the happiest, sweetest baby in the world. I can take him anywhere and he's usually content to look around at the great big world, make friends with passersby and just be his cute, happy self.

He will be 10 months old on Sunday. That means I've already started looking at party themes, party supplies, and first birthday gifts. It's so crazy. He is crawling on hands and knees now, has been for about two weeks, pulls up on everything and forgets he can't walk from time to time and then quickly remembers when he falls.

He is a world class explorer and he gets into everything. Just yesterday his little fingers found a candy dish on a side table at my mom's house and then he took his treasure and hid under said table. We would have had a hard time finding him except he was giggling from underneath the tablecloth.

He is a big talker already. He says all kinds of things. The most amazing being "I love you." And, you might think I'm making that up, except I have video of it and can prove it. He also says "hey there" and "Got it" and "No no no no" (usually to the dog).

He loves to eat and has pretty much decided that he's done with baby food except for during breakfast time when I can still get some fruit into him. I still haven't found anything he won't eat.
Just this week he's been sick for the first time with a cold. Seeing him sick really gets to me. I can only imagine how bad it's going to be when he gets the flu or something like that. He still only has one tooth but I'm expecting the one beside it to pop up any day now.

 The biggest news I have is that after getting a contingency offer on our house in early October, we got a better offer just this week. It's a cash offer so we will be closing next week and that means I have already made our very last mortgage payment! The offer was more than we could have hoped for, being that we were fully financed with a VA loan and have only owned the house for a little over two years. This turn of events is an answered prayer.

My parents, Andrew and I spent a few days in the Blue Ridge Mountains last week and it was wonderful. The picture here is one I took of him in the yard of the house we rented. It was a beautiful place.

The whole tooth and nothing but the tooth...

The long awaited first tooth is finally here! It popped up a week or so ago after a couple of particularly grumpy days. There was a slight fever, an upset tummy and then, like magic, the top of a sharp little white tooth appeared.
The arrival of this tooth, has made me sentimental. Time is passing so quickly and I am beginning to grasp just how fleeting all this sweet yummy babyness really is.
A part of me is longing to stop time so that I can savor every moment of this sweet, sweet time. But then, I start desperately missing my husband and wishing I could fast forward to next year, when we're all together again.
Andrew and I have settled into a nice routine here at our new little home. We spend a lot of time snuggling and playing and learning. It doesn't take a lot of effort to keep this tiny house clean and I do my work at night when Andrew is sleeping. Andrew's newest feats are as follows: He can back into a sitting position when crawling, he can get his little star shaped spinach and apple puffs to his mouth every time (almost) with his little pincher grasp, he can make the "L" sound (as in la la la la), wave bye bye pretty consistently, play tug with Brody, and about a thousand other little things I can't think of right now. He really does learn something new everyday.
Andrew and Wyatt are starting to really interact with each other more. Wyatt just learned to say "Andy" but what he says sounds more like "Annie." It is pretty adorable.
I know I've probably said it before, but my Andrew is just the sweetest baby. He is so loving. Every morning we walk over to my parents' house for coffee and breakfast and Andrew is in the habit of going first to my mother and "loving" her and then he leans over to "love" my dad, putting his little face against my Dad's face. Of course, this just turns them into mush. He loves to cuddle up and give big wet sloppy kisses.
As for me, well, I'm trying to keep my mind off the stressful things -- like the fact that my husband is going to be gone to a very dangerous place for a whole year and the fact that our house hasn't sold. I'm going to Weight Watchers and just signed up for a Zumba class. I am trying to get back down to my pre pregnancy weight by the time Andrew is a year old. I've waited a long time to start this, but the pending deployment and the move just made it pretty hard for me to focus on myself.
One last note, I am feeling more like myself than I have in a long time. Being near my family and taking this medication my doctor prescribed for my PPD has really changed things. I was very reluctant to take the meds and didn't actually start taking it until months after it was prescribed. I wish so badly that I had started taking it back when I got the prescription. It has been a small miracle for me.
I know it's something people don't talk about because it is quite embarrassing to say that you need help and there is a whole stigma attached to depression. But, I was in quite a funk and now I'm back to being me. I will keep taking the medication because I think with Greg being gone, I am likely to slip back into depression. I don't want to be that person ever again. I like being me.
To anyone who might read this if you find yourself in a similar funk, don't hesitate. Get some help. It makes a world of difference and that is the tooth, the whole tooth and nothing but the tooth!

So long

It's been so long since I blogged. Seems I can only manage a post a month. Bah.
I feel bad about that. It's not what I'd pictured when I started this blog.

The long and short of it goes something like this:

Andrew is eight months old. Holy cow! I am more in love with him everyday. He crawls now -- well he army crawls. He is the fastest low crawler you've ever seen. He gets up on his hands and knees and rocks back and forth but when it's time to move, he drops down onto his belly and pulls with his chubby little arms and pushes with his little toes and scoots all over the place. He still doesn't have any teeth. I am assuming they are in there by the looks of his gums, but they are certainly taking their sweet time. He still loves to eat. We are still doing baby food but more and more he is eating table food. Or as Greg calls it "human" food, as if I've been feeding Andrew hamster or dog food for the past four months. He loves it all -- hummus, potatoes, peas, pasta, beans, fruit -- even cooked onions. He is so smart and everyday he amazes me. He loves anything with a string or tassle but his favorite thing is to pull my hair. He says "mama" "dada" and "papa" and makes sounds that are like "hey" and "no." He makes a sound like "eeehhh" when he fusses at Brody or at Wyatt (for some reason he loves to fuss at Wyatt).

We made the move from Louisiana home to North Carolina. My parents flew out to LA to make the trip back with me and Andrew in the van and Greg left a day later in his truck pulling the Uhaul trailer full of our stuff. We spent a night in Alabama and then another in Georgia with my cousin Amy and her family. It was a long trip, but Andrew did wonderful. He only got grumpy a couple of times and that was at the end of the day.

We got settled into our little temporary home here and it is nice. We went up to Massachusetts to visit Greg's family before he left. We tried to spend quality time together. He tried to do everything he could think of to make it easier for me.

The night before Greg left, I gave him Andrew's bedtime bottle and sent him off to put our little one to bed. After a long while, I could hear Andrew fussing so I went down the hall and found Greg hunched over Andrew's crib, patting Andrew's bottom and crying his eyes out -- his whole body shook and the tears just ran down his face. It broke my heart.

Greg has been gone almost a week. He's in training until mid-November. The good news this week is that he will get to come home during a long weekend in October -- the weekend before our ninth anniversary. I had thought we would be apart for both our ninth and tenth anniversaries. But, we will get to celebrate this one together and I'm grateful for that.

My parents and my entire family have been great. There is something to be said for having Granny and Papa so close. Andrew loves spending time with them and so do I, of course. My niece Kelli comes over to watch movies and drink wine with me and my sisters drop in for short visits almost everyday.

Our house in Louisiana still hasn't sold. We are hopeful that it will sell but we think we will eventually have to rent it out. I miss the house, but not nearly as much as I miss my husband. Home truly is where the heart is.

I leave you with one of the photographs Liz took the week before we moved. Andrew didn't want to smile for her -- which is odd since he's always smiling. But she got some beautiful shots despite that fact.

What's a house anyway?

When we first met with our realtor back in May, she took a look around the house and told us what to do before we put it on the market. The only painting she suggested was to cover the stripe in Andrew's nursery.

I can't do it. Maybe after we move and his little room is empty, his crib and his toys all packed up I'll be able to cover the stripe. But, for now, the thought of covering it up makes me feel very sad.

I waited so long to create his nursery. When I was pregnant I would sit in his room in the glider rocker and talk to him and sing to him and dream of the day when he would be a reality in my arms. His room is easily my favorite room in the house. We spend hours in there, playing and rocking and cuddling. The light blue paint color is called "subtle breeze" and it makes me think of the ocean and the sky.

This is the house we dared to dream that another round of IVF could work for us. It's the house where we mourned another failure. It's where we were when we decided for one last attempt -- an FET. I got my first inkling that it had worked when I took an HPT in our bathroom, snapping a photo of that nearly invisible pink line with my cell phone and sending it to Greg. It's the house where we rejoiced in our pregnancy and took that tenuous journey. It's the home that welcomed our sweet baby boy and where he has spent the first seven months of his life.

I have an emotional attachment to this house, despite the fact that I desperately want to leave Louisiana. I wish I could pick this house up like a turtle and move it right along with us. So many wonderful memories live here.

But, I tell myself, it's just a house. Memories live in your mind and heart, not in the four walls that make a house. Andrew will have other rooms and he will be happy no matter where we live. A house is just a house, right? Maybe this is a good luck house. Maybe the next people who live here will find a lot of joy, just as we did. A young couple came last night to take a second look at the house. Andrew was already sleeping for the night, so we couldn't leave. They are getting married in November and are buying their first home. Who knows, maybe this house will one day welcome home their new baby.

It's time for me to let go. But don't expect me to paint over that stripe.