Two Teeth!

Trying to get your baby to show his gums is a lot harder to do than you may think.  I mean Ashton's mouth is always open drooling or spitting up (I exaggerate).  But getting that tongue out of the way, that's a battle.  Ashton got his first tooth in about a week or so ago and then just days later the second one popped in.  It is now very visible that he has two teeth and now when he bites on my hand or face it hurts!  Side Note:  Is it sad that I haven't written anything in Ashton's baby book for months and for me to keep track of the dates I will use Facebook (and maybe this blog) to help me with dates through posts and pictures.  That is pretty sad to me but also very helpful and convenient since I haven't kept up with it like I should.  Okay the top picture is cuter but the bottom picture shows his teeth better.  He has been kind of fussy today so who knows, maybe a third one is already coming through.  Post and Carry on with the rest of your day.

        

Too Many Milestones!

Today, our friends' The Loud's (I love their name!) invited us to go to their church and Lifegroup.  When we first moved here we were very proactive in finding a church.  We tried several and a few we went to several times.  But none of them stuck with us, we just couldn't really find what we were looking for.  Nick and I were raised in very different religions and finding a happy medium is much harder than I thought it would be.  So sadly we have not been going to church for awhile.  We were doing daily devotionals and scripture readings but even that has fallen aside with Ashton.  Once the kids are asleep, we generally either want chill out time or sleep time too.  Now that Caden goes to school at the same church and is learning a lot, it has peaked my interest again in going to church.  Just as I decided I wanted to have a church family (again with Nick leaving soon), Sarah asked for us to try their church out.  I decided this must have been a sign and that we should try it out.  It took several Sundays to get our schedule worked out with company and sickness, but today was the day!  I had several fears going into today.  The first was Caden, Mr. Routine, would be in a different classroom than he was for school.  I was scared he would freak out, but luckily he was excited to try out a new classroom.  The second fear was leaving Ashton.  He is almost eight months old and this is the first time I have really left him alone.  My mom and sister have both watched him for a quick errand but nothing big and these were strangers.  If you didn't know this, I worked in a church nursery for almost 10 years so I have standards.  I generally haven't liked a church in the past because of their inadequate nurseries.  Let me tell you, this was the coolest nursery ever.  They probably have about 10 rooms, so they ages are really broken down.  In order for me to pick up my child, I have to give my fingerprint!!  The scan then will check in/out my kids, by photo recognition!  I had never seen such a thing and think that this is so cool.  So once I got to Ashton's room, I knew he would be fine.  He loves to crawl and play so he was golden.  I acted like an incompetent parent, not knowing what direction to give and just said do whatever you want.  He of course was fine and didn't cry when I left, but did give me a huge smile when I returned.  We really liked the size of the church and the message hit home.  The pastor was able to relate to the real life and had many funny stories, which I enjoy that type of sermon.  The Lifegroup was very intimidating at first glance.  There were several couples and I was scared of what would happen.  I am more of a sit back and take it in, I hate being forced to speak about something unless I feel I have a useful viewpoint.  This group was very welcoming and I didn't feel pressured to talk and was able to listen and learn a lot.  The only bad part was the introduction.  Neither of us like public speaking and when it was our turn to talk about ourselves, Nick looked at me as if go.  So I had to do the talking. . . brat!  But I survived, so that is the important part!  We really enjoyed the church, the message, the people, it was really a good day.  Afterwards, we did lunch with the Loud's : ) at Red Robin.  It was entirely too busy and with the time change, my whole family was cranky.  So I am afraid we scared them off from restaurants.  I hope Ashton gets better soon, he is really hindering my social outings.  : )  The kids fell asleep within second of the car ride home and slept for awhile once at home.  And then when Ashton woke up, we saw this:

 He is such a big boy now!!  We immediately lowered his bed to the lowest position which made me sad.  I am not ready for him to be this old!  Today was again a great day.  I feel like I have changed so much in just the time I started writing this blog.  It is funny how fast life can change for you.  Hopefully optimistic Lindsey stays around for awhile.  Post and Carry on with the rest of your day.       

A Day to Compare!

Pre-Caden, Nick and I spent our days doing whatever and whenever we wanted.  We had no order, just whatever felt right for the day we would do.  I feel like even after Caden came we tried to keep this up.  Granted we had to plan our days better and make sure the diaper bag was fully stocked for our spare of the moment trips, but we were still pretty easy going.  Now Post-Ashton, I think we have completely changed.  I miss who we used to be and hate how much our dynamic has changed.  Caden was used to us randomly driving around for hours, taking in the scenery or putting up with my quest to find a hidden treasure somewhere.  Nick is more of homebody than I am.  He is perfectly fine coming home from work on Friday and not leaving the house till Monday morning for work.  Maybe since I am home all throughout the week, the last thing I want to do is stay at home.  Nick has gotten used to that and even comes up with our own adventures.  Now that Ashton is around, meaningless drives and shopping trips just to get out of the house are all but gone.  Ashton is a good baby but he is not like Caden.  Caden was so easy going and I was truly spoiled by that, I had no idea of any different even when people would point it out to me.  Ashton is not a crying baby but he doesn't like being trapped in.  Whether this be the carseat, the stroller, high chair or me just holding him.  So as you can see that eliminates pretty much any fun since he likes to be on the ground crawling.  We have attempted a few times to go out with him but the trips usually turn so sour that we regret even leaving and get snappy with each other.  However, for a long time I have wanted to go to several stores to finalize my boys' Christmas List and compare prices.  I decided that today was the day.  We went to the mall, Wal-Mart, K-Mart, Target,

and Toys R Us.  Yes we are crazy, but I loved every minute of it.  We really didn't buy anything but just being out of the house makes me so happy.  This is another reason I am trying to become more comfortable doing things by myself with the boys, so I will not go stir crazy in the house.  We came armed with snacks, toys, and the double stroller.  All of the trip went pretty smoothly considering we were gone all day with both boys.  They started to loose it after lunch so we drove around for awhile so they could sleep and then ended up hanging out in a parking lot until they woke up.  I was able to compare everything I wanted to and then did my second favorite thing at home.  I was able to put my OCD skills to work and come up with a comparison chart of prices.  I then highlighted the cheapest store and then made a list of what I was going to get with yes's, maybe's, and no's.  I have so many papers and charts but I thrive on that type of organization, it made me so happy!!  Today was really a great day and I cherish these family moments.  Random drives and shopping trips are what we do and I hope the boys continue to appreciate this when they are older.  I know I have boys, but I don't have any girls to do this with.  Post and Carry on with the rest of your day.   

Putting on My Big Girl Panties!

Even though I am still in about 99% denial that Nick is leaving in less than two months now, I know I need to face the facts soon.  I am going to miss him terribly, a miss that I don't think I will fully understand until it happens.  But right now I am being selfish and wondering how I am going to function day to day.  I have dealt with time apart, long distance, and deployments.  I know I can do it.  But you see, Nick has been on shore duty for three years.  Three years of no deployments, no duty days, weekends off, holidays off.  For three years, I have had a somewhat normal working hours husband.  He has been here with me through Caden age 8 months till present, a full pregnancy and now Ashton age 8 months.  I have been spoiled by this and am scared I cannot leave this now.  I am scared that secretely I wish he would have stayed on Sea Duty so I could not have gotten used to this schedule and did not know any different.  We were so young and naive before, now I know how much help he is and I could have with him.  I do not want to be apart from that now.  This blog has gone another direction than I intended.  Just know that I will miss my husband but right now where I am at is missing his help and selfishly wondering how I can do it. . .
I hate to be alone and have gotten used to never really being alone.  This is something a navy wife should not be accustom to.  I should be strong, independent, and tough.  Those are three adjectives that scare me right now.  But I am trying to get back to that state.  I decided to conqueror being alone today while Nick was at work and I had both boys.  Something I hate to do by myself is shopping.  I decided that I will be doing a lot of that while Nick is gone, so I need to get over it.  Having both boys to get in and out of the car while loading up the groceries into the car is something that I have never done.  Usually one tackles the carseats while the other loads up the car.  Today I had intentions of just walking around Wal-Mart but the boys both fell asleep in the car so I did not make it that far.  After taking way too long getting us ready and prepared, we managed to leave the house just in time for Caden to decide he was hungry.  I really did not want to turn around go home, so I thought of something cheap to eat.  I really hate to eat alone more than shopping alone, so I decided to stick with Sonic.  I thought staying in the car would be best because Ashton is not fun in restaurants with all the help in the world, let alone just me.  I regret choosing Sonic, because I forgot I didn't like them. . . I am a bit of a fast food snob and miss my TX favorites.  More importantly, I survived eating "alone" with the boys.  Afterwards, we mwent and got Caden's haircut.  I drove all the way there got both boys together in and out of the car, successfully.  This sounds small to some, but it was huge for me.  As I write this blog, I am crying uncontrollably.  I think it just hit me that in a few months I will not 

have a choice.  Caden got his haircut at Sport Clips, with the lady who has done it the past two years.  He has his own hairdresser, yet I do not.  It was not that bad, Ashton cooperated and Caden loves to get his hair cut.  Afterwards, I went to the coolest orthodontist there is.  I wish they were a dentist because Caden was in love with the place.  They were currently taking Halloween candy in exchange for a goodie bag (mostly dental hygiene stuff) and donating it to the USO.  About three days after Halloween, Nick and I decided we were done with the candy.  We would eat a piece and not be satisfied since it was so small, so we kept going back for more.  We decided it shouldn't even be in the house and it needed to be gone.  I found that this ortho was doing this, and thought it sounded pretty cool.  I gave them almost everything but a few favorites and am so

happy I did.  I am a bad mom and have never taken Caden to the dentist.  So I also thought this would be the perfect opportunity to get Caden excited and I think it worked.  I got a good recommendation and hopes to be taking him soon.  I was able to make it in and out of two places today, two car seats, two boys, no real fits or anything.  I was so proud of myself and glad the boys were easy on me.  I know that I will have hard times but I hope that the boys will see that I am trying.  They both fell asleep and I decided that I should be taking baby steps anyways.  Maybe I will try the grocery store next week. Post and Carry on with the rest of your day.              

Baby Prison!

As I have said before, you have to be on your toes with Ashton.  When Caden was younger, you could let him crawl around and not worry.  Ashton keeps me in an 'edge of my seat' state at all times.  He is 

constantly pulling up on things that aren't meant to be ladders and always about two seconds away from busting his head open.  I really just needed a five minute 'mommy break.'  I wanted to be able to sit down and take a deep breath without having to go chase Ashton on theexhale. . . I have tried to make the boys' room a place for sleeping.  I am not big on the toys in the room or the room as a time out place.  I want the bedroom to be a quick association with sleep not as a play place or a punishment.  For that reason I have never put Ashton in his bed to play or so I could get something done.  This has really been more of a punishment to me, if anything.  Ash hates the swing and jumperoo, he likes to be moving.  He

does like the walker, but after the mail eating incident, it is not really some place that gives me a break.   So I got the bright idea to break out the Pack 'n Play and trap him!  I put it into the living room with toys in it and walked straight into the computer room and Facebooked it up.  That's right, I just verb-ed a noun.  : ) Anyways, I immediately started hearing the dreaded whine from my generally easy, Caden.  What was he whining about?  He wanted to go into baby prison too!  Can you believe it??  So off both boys went. . . no complaints from this mommy!  They both played in there for a little bit before they started to get sleepy and Ashton wanted out.  Caden on the other hand wanted to stay in,

again, fine with me!  So off I drug the crib to his room to sleep in.  The only problem is both boys had to get out so it could be collapsed to fit through the doorway. . .  stupid safety laws!  Don't they know this mommy needs convenience not a headache! : )  Caden spent most of the night playing Buzz Lightyear in the crib.  Before I went to bed, I checked on him and he passed out on his queen bed.  I guess he decided stretching his legs out was important.  Post and Carry on with the rest of your day.                

A Starving Baby!

Tonight, my seven month old decided he was going to help out with our bills and take a bite at them.  That sounds really funny in my head, I don't know how funny it really is.   Anyways, Ashton is super active and you cannot leave him alone literally for a second.  Right now he is into pulling up onto everything.  His favorite is our TV Stand and Ottoman.  The only problem with this is once he gets up there he forgets to hold on and gets sidetrack with whatever his target is in mind and goes for that.  Once he lets go, he falls straight backwards.  If I am not there, then his head hits our super hard tile floor.  There have been some extremely close calls but for the most part we have survived this phase thus far.  You definitely cannot do anything while he is awake because you have to be on top of him.  After Caden took a shower, Nick and I both were getting him ready for bed.  We put Ashton in his walker and let him have free rein of the house.  He gets around way too easily and fast in his walker, so we probably should have not done this in retrospect.  We were in Caden's room for a few minutes, at most, when we came back into the living room.  By our door we have a key basket and a mail basket to unload everything when you walk in the door.  It is actually on one of our coffee tables because it did not fit in the living room, so it is perfect walker height.  As soon as we saw Ashton we started laughing.  He was in the mail basket and had mail all over him.  He was eating all the mail!  He loves to eat paper. . . I don't know why!  Anyways he had gotten our car loan paperwork and ate half of it.  This picture is all that is left.  I think it is so funny.  As I said, you literally cannot leave him alone for a second no matter where he is at.  Post and Carry on with the rest of your day.             

Trade One Thing for Another!

I noticed in the past few days that Ashton has not spit up at all.  I am talking quitting cold turkey.  I cringe to even write this post because I know I will be jinxing myself.  But it is true.  We have spent the last seven months with multiple burp clothes, bibs, and changes of clothes in hand.  Getting massively spit up on was a common occurrence for me, Nick still had trouble dealing with it.  This was all new to me since Caden never spit up.  He had no sensitivities to any food and you could forget the diaper bag and be just fine.  Ashton on the other hand is not so much sensitive to one thing but maybe everything.  We have tried every type and kind of formula, but he spits up regardless.  And if you went to check the mail without a burp cloth, then you would just be stupid.  It has been quite an adjustment but I have gotten used to.  But here in the last few days I haven't been putting a bib on him and haven't even had to clean any part of the floor, me or him.  I don't know what happened, but I am definitely not complaining!
I guess Caden didn't want me to have a puke free day, so he took over in that department.  He went to school today and when I picked him up he said his side hurt.  I asked him if he needed a bucket (after 2 straight weeks, and a 2 day hospitalization with Rotavirus 8 months ago, that is what we came up with.)  Anyways, he said it was not like that and I did not think much of it since he was running all over school with his friends.  He came home and started acting a little bad so he went straight to bed.  That is when it happened.  After a two hour nap, I hear mommy and coughing.  I won't go into too much detail but it was bad and there were three loads of laundry that were needed.  He has too many stuffed animals on his bed.  Luckily, Nick had come home 30 minutes before or it would have been a different story.  We set up the Rotavirus quarantine of a blanket that he had to stay on with everything he would need right there.  It was not 10 minutes later that he was running all over the place.  We spent all night trying to keep him calm and not to get sick again.  He never did, thankfully.  He felt fine and all the sleepy medicine I gave him, kept him up till the wee hours of the morning.  I have no idea if Halloween got the best of him, he ate something bad, this is related to his GI issues, a little bug, or just something else random.  I am glad it is out of our house and hopefully doesn't visit anyone else.
One day I will be puke free. . . Post and Carry on with the rest of your day.