Je parle français!

I finally just heard from Ryan (through a brief and terribly misspelt email), and they arrived in France safe and sound. It's 12:30 my time and they should have arrived about 5 hours ago, but he didn't get a chance to contact me until now. I will hopefully be getting a call from him sooner than later. But for now, I wait.

It feels like a mini-deployment... aka, prep for the real thing next year. I have forgotten what it feels like to not be able to contact him. I just have to wait for him to call/email/Skype me. It brings back all the memories of his 15 months in Iraq. Except this time, I'm not around family and I have a kid to take care of. How different life has become! Better in many ways... maybe worse in a few.

I was pleasantly surprised at how smooth last night went. No doubt it was because of everyone's prayers. They are appreciated more than you know. I originally had a light in the living room on, so that my house wasn't too dark. I also keep my bathroom light on with the door cracked. It almost didn't feel like nighttime, which was great until I couldn't sleep because of it. I actually ended up getting up and turning the living room light off! I was so brave! Jax woke up at about 130 instead of 4, so that part wasn't so great. But besides that, everything went well. I slept well. I wasn't too worried about being alone. And I woke up this morning thinking "I can do this. 6 weeks will fly by!".

So here we are... 1 day down, 39 to go!

Praises and Prayers- Part 2

Praises

-My follow-up (biopsy) for my abnormal pap went really well.

*First of all, it hurt much less than it has in the past.

*Second of all, the doctor said that it looks completely normal and he's expecting it to come back clear! He thinks that it was abnormal because my immune system was all out of whack from having Jax. So if it comes back clear, then I don't have to go back in for 6 months! YIPEEE!! So let's all just keep praying that the doctor is right and it will come back clear.

-One of my previous posts was about a little boy name Tyson who needs your prayers. He needs to be 22 pounds to have his kidney transplant surgery and he is at 20 pounds now, so only two more to go!

Prayers

-Although there are praises in regards to Tyson's situation... other things have come up and there are further prayers needed as well. Here is an email from Tyson's mommy...

We went in for some tests a week ago and it appears Tyson has some other major issues we need to deal with. As you know Tyson has a hole in his belly that bypasses the blockage in his urethra. This has made it so his bladder and urethra have not been used like normal, the size and muscle tone of both are significantly low.

The urologist is very concerned that if we don't get the bladder and urethra working properly that he may reject a new kidney because the bladder/urethra will not be able to process the urine and cause a backup...again.

So...the course of action is this...we go in for a day surgery on October 2nd to remove the blockage in the urethra and put in a catheter. Every two weeks we will put in a slightly larger catheter to get the urethra to grow. The hole he currently pees through will remain until the urethra is usable. The urologist will get on his transplant team so we can have the timing right for working on the bladder as well.

Please keep Tyson in your prayers...God has total control of this entire situation!
We love you all!
Love,
Pete, Annie & Tyson

-So please continue to pray for this adorable little boy. Also pray for his mommy and daddy who have baby #2 on the way!

One final thing... I read this poem on another blog and it really hit home. Although the tough times in life are just that, tough, they are so necessary because that's when God truly works in us. It's a scary, scary thing to admit that tough situations are necessary, but I hope to always trust God and find joy in all that he presents me with. Good, bad or ugly.

Disturb us, Lord, when

We are too well pleased with ourselves,

When our dreams have come true

Because we have dreamed too little,

When we arrived safely

Because we sailed too close to the shore.

Disturb us, Lord, when

With the abundance of things we possess

We have lost our thirst

For the waters of life;

Having fallen in love with life,

We have ceased to dream of eternity

And in our efforts to build a new earth,

We have allowed our vision

Of the new Heaven to dim.

Disturb us, Lord, to dare more boldly,

To venture on wider seas

Where storms will show your mastery;

Where losing sight of land,

We shall find the stars.

We ask You to push back

The horizons of our hopes;

And to push into the future

In strength, courage, hope, and love.

[Sir Francis Drake]

Praises and Prayers

Praises

• i have a man who is a great husband and daddy... and provides for our family.
• we have a happy, healthy, beautiful baby boy
• we have a house that we own (as in, we don't rent. not like own own).
• we have 2 cars that both work. -plus a Harley. but I don't know if I consider that a praise.
• i have friends who are like family away from family.
• we have an awesome church that feeds our souls.
• ryan has been home for 2 whole years. -that's SO not normal for the Army.

Prayers

• that these next 6 weeks (starting sunday) will fly by.
• that I will become better at being alone... especially at night.
• that Ryan will have a safe/fun trip to France.
• that my cavity will not get worse before we have the money to fix it.
• that even though my pap came back abnormal (for the umpteenth time), I will not need treatment and it would heal on its own. (**This may seem like TMI, but I could really use the prayers for this one!)

Thanks. I love you all.

Ponderings

My mind is wandering all over the place... all kinds of thoughts over the past few days.

I'm super happy for friends of mine who have had babies in the past few months. However, there is always this twinge of jealousy for those who had, shall we say, non c-section births. I am truly, truly thankful that Jax and I are both happy and healthy now. But there are times when I just get bummed about how everything turned out. It's not that I feel like I didn't do my job as a woman. I pushed for FOUR hours. I did my job. Jax just had other plans. He wasn't ready to come out and I wish I had been more aware of that, sucked it up and just waited to get induced. I bet if I had given it another week, he would have come out on his own. Now, I just really want to know what it's like to actually birth a baby. I pray all the time that I will be able to have a VBAC and experience a "normal" birth one day. Oh well... like I said, I'm so blessed to have a happy, healthy baby and I wouldn't trade that for anything in the world.

On another note, Ryan leaves next Sunday for France. He will be gone for 6 weeks, which isn't too long. But I'm still not looking forward to it. I'm not worried about taking care of Jax by myself. I know I can handle that. It's more the being alone stuff that I'm not looking forward to. Plus the boy things that he normally does that I will now have to do. Trash, lawns, etc... I'm also bummed about him missing 6 weeks of Jax growing. Jax changes so much, so quickly that he's going to seem like a different kid when Ryan gets home. He will be almost 5 months old!

I've also been missing California like crazy. Going home a few weeks ago was AWESOME! I had such a great time seeing family and a few friends. But it also made me miss it so much more. Before we had Jax, it wasn't such a big deal to be so far away from everyone. Now, it's a totally different story. It makes me sad that Jax doesn't regularly get to see his grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins. It also makes me miss my girlfriends more because a lot of them are having babies and I really want to have playdates and hang out with them. I have friends here with babies, but it's a bit different because I grew up with the girls back home.

So basically I've just been overall bummed out for the past few days. I'll get over it and be strong and move on... because that's what mommies do. They are strong for their babies. And I intend to be nothing less than heroic for mine!

California Boy At Heart

Prayers

Please click here to read about an adorable little boy who desperately needs your prayers!

Happy birthday to me

This is the first year that August 9th arrived in the same way that August 8th, 7th, and 6th did... without feeling like any special day. I think that I have just had so many other things to focus on this year (hello, Jax!) that my birthday kind of snuck up on me without much warning. Don't get me wrong, I'm a total birthday person. I love the celebrations and good memories that come with birthdays and birthday parties. But this year was different. It wasn't bad, it just felt different.

For one, I woke up at 5 am on my birthday. Of course, it was to feed Jax but I was still awake much earlier than any other year. Ryan woke up, wished me happy birthday then went back to sleep. I have to give him props for remembering my birthday at 5 am.

For two, it was a Sunday so we had church. In my head, I just needed to get up and get ready for church. Which we did and it was no big deal. When we got home from church, we pretty much sat around all afternoon. I was relaxing, but kind of boring. We had arranged for Doug and Jen to watch Jax while we went out to dinner, so at 7 we finally went and dropped him off.

Ryan told me we had reservations, but he also told me that there were two paper bags in the fridge that I wasn't allowed to look in. I knew he was surprising me with something, but I wasn't sure what. Well this is what....

A picnic on the lake!!!

He even brought me shoes because I had worn heels

He brought all kinds of yummy food

and even yummy dessert; wine, chocolate and strawberries

He's pretty much the best husband ever!

I was extra surprised because he isn't generally the most romantic guy,

but boy did he pull off this one. It was AWESOME!!!

So, Happy Birthday to Me!

He's All Boy

I found this new clothing line through another mommy's blog that I read. For all you mommies out there who have boys, check it out. It's a very new line so there isn't a ton of merchandise yet, but what they have is super cute! Click here to see it... He's All Boy. There is more info about it on the other blog, so click on the other link above to check that out, too!

Acting like a 4-month-old...

2 months!

Jax is 2 months old today! Time has flown by, it's nuts. We had a doctor's appointment this morning at 8am. Much too early! 8am by itself isn't too early, but the time that I must set my alarm for in order to be ready by 8am... that's what is too early. But, I was very happy because Jax didn't even wake up to my alarm and I ended up having to wake him up to feed him before we left. He slept the whole time I was getting ready. It was awesome. We got to the doctor on time and daddy met us there. Here's Jax's 2-months stats...

Height- 22.8 inches (50th percentile)

Weight- 12.9 lbs (75th percentile)

Head circumference- 15.9 inches (45th percentile)

He's a chunker and I love it! But overall, he's pretty average except for one thing... he has the head/neck control of a 4 month old!!! Dr. Olsen put Jax on his tummy and he used his hands to push his head up and look around. Dr. Olsen was so surprised. She said that they expect that from babies who are 4 months old, not TWO months! I was so proud. Not to mention that it also made me feel like a good mommy because we do tummy time and play time and I try to help him strengthen his neck muscles. Yay for me!

Jax also had to get his first immunizations today. Boo. I know they are necessary, but I really hate seeing him hurt. The funny thing is, he actually handled it better than I did! He wailed right when she poked him, but then Ryan picked him up and he calmed right down. I was the one who had trouble stopping crying. It just made me so sad. He was supposed to get one oral and 3 shots for a total of 8 vaccines today. However, I just really felt like that was too much at one time, so we did the oral and one shot today and we will go back in a month for the other 2 shots. Besides that, our next appointment is at 4 months!

Here's the handsome boy with a big ol' I'm-2-months-old grin!