Being little is only Thinking little

Today I think it hit me. She is no longer my baby.

She folds her arms by herself for prayers, and keeps them folded the entire time. She cleans up everything in sight as soon as you mention the words, "clean up". She finds an item laying around the house and then wanders around trying to find the one who it belongs to. She can now ask for help whenever she needs it. She is starting to go potty in the toilet. She laughs at herself when she thinks she did something funny. She got the dirty dishes out of the dishwasher today and set the table. She pulled me to the table asking to eat. She's just growing up.

It always suprises me when I walk by the mirror while holding her, and realize how big she really is. Other people don't see this little baby in my arms. I think I'm the only one who sees that. I called her "Ase Baby" yesterday and she was so confused. She said "baby?" wondering why I was calling her one. She has all of her baby teeth (except those 2 year molars), and will eat anything you throw at her. She loves cuddly soft things, loves baby dolls, and loves her big brother and sister. She is the happiest go lucky kid, as long as she can keep in motion. She will play with anyone who will play back, and isn't scared of anything.

Man I love that girl.

an Anything but free fall

One of my best friends, well, her husband is in the army. Right now I am so blessed as to have her living 30 minutes from my house. As much as we are both moving around, it's more than luck that we are here together at the same time, even as short as it may seem. A couple of weeks ago the kids and I went with her to watch the guys jump out of helicopters. Secretly I think I was more excited than the kids were. There is just something about me that loves to border on the dangerous, and this is something I would love to try sometime. I say that now, but if I were up there I'm sure someone would have to push because I know I couldn't jump. The choppers flew right over us, landed in the field right in front of us, loaded up the guys, flew back above us and dropped them out. The benefits of friends in the military. As you watch them fall from the sky, you alomst envy the lazy, slow drift it looks like they are caught in. How awesome would that be to fall so effortlessly from the sky, free from everything that awaits down below, lost in your own thoughts and a view you share with no one else. Then as they hit the ground in an anything but a gravity free lazy way, you realize these guys are really dropping fast. And I'm sure they weren't thinking about how wonderful it felt to be so weightless during their casual float down. As their feet pounded the grassy field below, something pounded inside me. I realized just what these guys have to do for each and every one of us. I've always had such gratitude for all these men and women do, but for some reason, to actually see my friend fully geared up ready to jump, and watching them do what they do, something changed in me. Knowing that I am one of those he is fighting for....The respect I had before is just that much richer, and is now accompanied by something of an awe. And awe for the respect they have for life. A respect that they are willing to give their life to save another. That's what it's really all about.

Rushed into Insanity

So Friday night around 7pm Matt and I bought tickets to leave for Connecticut. Our flights left at 6:15am the very next morning. This meant we had to find someplace for the older two kids to stay for the weekend, and pack for us and our youngest for this quick 3 day trip. Wow! I didn't know that could all happen so quickly. Lets just say we have some really good friends and family who we owe big time!


We flew into NYC and then drove the short hour to get to southern Connecticut. It's a whole different world up there. We thought we had some idea what it might be like (Boston-ish?) but were in for a huge shock. Little town meets New England, meets rural, meets the ocean, meets old, meets money, meets lots of roads, which then meets some of the the friendliest people. Ever. Realestate in Connecticut is insane. They said the only comparable market is San Fransisco. WOW! This isn't a good picture below (we had a hard time finding roads we could stop on to take pictures, without blocking the cars behind us) so this is all we could got. Yea, we're not too happy about this. But these homes are atleast $900,000. Atleast. They were in Fairfield, which is where many want to live, so they may be over 1 million. Yup. There's some cheap houseing for you! If we were ever to live there, you wil not see us in one of these. We will be in more of a glorified trailer way more inland, where we can affored the 1500 square foot box we would live in!



Okay, so I do have to tell you about my favorite time we had. I absolutely loved it. We met some friends in New Haven(?) area and went to a little restaraunt called Bills seafood. First let me tell you, in Connecticut they don't let the chains come in, so all the places are little ma and pa restaraunts. This is a good thing. Usually this means good food. It also means atmostphere. We had both. We pulled up to this little shack-ish place which was packed. We were lucky to find someplace to squeeze in our party of 7. We ended up right in the middle of the room. There were booths all along the outside walls, and a bar in the middle of the room. The tables were found someplace inbetween. Upon taking our seats, the live music shows up. Bills has live music every night on the weekend. Now these guys were some 70 something, up there rocking out some bluegrass. They were actually really good. How they fit in there, I don't know because I thought we took up the last of any space in there, but they fit. The best had just begun however. Once the music started, this couple in their 80s (atleast) who began dancing with eachother. There's no stage or dance floor. No. This was dancing between, around and through the tables. This is something this couple did every weekend! And it didn't take long before others started to join. I'd like to say I got out there, but no. I was too busy enjoying Ase out there. Once she caught on to what was going on, she went and found the lady sitting at the table behind us, with whom she'd been playing with all night, and pulled her up to dance. So the two of them went around the restaraunt dancing with eachother. It was so fun. The whole scene was like something out of a movie. It was crazy. No, it was wonderful! These people genuinly were happy, and loved to have you there. They actually loved having kids around. Instead of getting scowled at every time our kids didn't act like a little adult, we could have tables rolling in laughter every time Ase pulled a funny face. It was all just too much! Why can't we be more like that?

I realized, it's not the streets, or the houses that make it quaint there. It's the people. They are what make it what it is. And that's the best way to have it.

the Guilt ridden Traitor!

Matt has been out of town now for a couple of days. Nothing new. In fact, it's pretty much the regular. As long as we've been married he has always had a job that's required a lot of travel. Bug was born into it, Nutmeg was born into it, and now Ase has known nothing but this. However, without fail, everynight they will ask for their dad to tuck them in. Especially Nutmeg, who is a full blown daddy's girl. Then something very sad happened. The last two days, not once did they ask for Dad, or when he was coming home. They didn't ask for him to tuck them in, or to call him on the phone. They didn't ask. This would be the first time in the last 5 years no one has called out his name. Then last night as I tucked Nutmeg into bed, she gave me a big hug and said, "Mommy, your my favorite and I love you more than anyone". I should have been jumping up and down. I should have been elated with this news, if you remember how hard I've been working at building our relationship. But I couldn't. I just felt horrible. Like I took something away from Matt. They had something very special, and I feel I walked in, took it away, while Matt was blind folded with his hands tied behind his back. I don't think Ill mention any of this to him, and he'll never have to know it happened. This is between you and me. I will say though, it does feel good to actually hear the words "I love you".

Have I mentioned how much I love this guy. Right now he is juggling so much. Family, Church, School, Traveling, An old job that won't go away, A new job to figure out, Job searching, and preparing for a move.... to name a few. Amongst all of this he is worried about me. He want's to do what he can to make me happy. Me and the kids. I always knew he'd take care of me, but I had no idea. With all of the decisions he has to make right now, the first thing he thinks about is what would make me the happiest. If I told him I wanted to move to New Mexico (he hates the dry HOT climates) he would do it. I know he would. I think that's what scares me most. Without meaning it, or wanting it, I seem to be holding a lot of power. Ahhhg! But I guess, when you think about it, there is no better power to have. It's embedded in love. It's the same type of power I so willingly hand over to him when I let him make these decisions. I trust him so fully to make the right decision, I don't worry about the choice that he makes. If I do, I can say something, anything, and he'll do everything he can to change course. He's not the best at doing the little things, like bringing flowers home for no reason, or makeing "romantic" gestures (although he will try :P) but he does the big things. He takes care of me, and always will. Love ya babe.

Tag, I think I'm it.

I have been tagged requesting for 7 random facts about me:

1- I hate speaking in public, or with public... which makes it really hard since I'm also a really "wanna be" social person.

2- I really really dislike feet. It's getting a little better now that I've had baby feet to kiss for a while, but still. Yuck!

3- I am a perfectionist. So anything I do well, I can't see it, but only where I need to improve it. This is something I am trying to overcome.

4- I don't like milk chocolate. Blah.

5- I once dated this very good looking actor. Too bad we didn't have the same religous views. Well actually I'm glad, because otherwise I wouldn't have the family that I do now. However, we would have a huge house in hollywood somewhere!

6- I always said I would NEVER drive a minivan. Guess what I drive now!

7 -I hate to follow the crowd. If I didn't like something before it was the "it" thing, I just can't bring myself to like it. But if I think I found it before the crowd, then I still like it even when it is the "it" thing.

I'm Dreaming...

I want to remind you that this is Georgia. "Hot-lanta" as we're called. We don't get snow. We don't do snow. Georgia does not own a single snow plow. So what happenes when we recieve an inch and a half of snow on a school night? We drag the kids out at 8:00pm to go play in it. That's the logical thing to do right? My friend and I thought we were the only ones crazy enough to do this, but as we head outside we notice all the kids on the entire street are out playing. In fact, a couple of houses up they already have a 5 foot tall snowman built. Since we aren't quite geared up for snow (fabric mittens don't hold out the wet) and the kids are past tired, we head in half an hour later in tears. Fingers are TOO cold! So a round of hot chocolate does the trick and we are all off to bed. It snowed again two days later, with atleast 2 inches this time. Again, this is Georgia, so church was cancelled and we all stayed home to keep warm. You've got to love it!