Thanksgiving Picture Failure

We have grandma and grandpa Reintjes in town for Thanksgiving this year and yesterday for the main event we had over a couple of friends as well and our priest who popped in before heading off to the galley to eat with the rest of the sailors--which was probably a poor choice as far as delicious food is concerned, but I guess priestly duties do require sacrifices :)

We had a lovely time and it was really nice to divvy up the cooking responsibilities and only worry about making half of the meal.  Unfortunately we had so much fun I only ended up with two pictures and I'm afraid neither of them is of any precious children so any grandparents reading this may want to just give up now.....

Ah, the entirety of my Thanksgiving decor.  When you're trying for all free decorations you just make due with what you have and in our case we have a lot of cardboard.  David helped make the garland but he kept getting mad because he thought we should write "Happy Thanksgiving" and he couldn't understand why I wouldn't agree to cut out all those extra letters.

I did make an emergency Thanksgiving day grocery store trip to buy a bouquet of flowers that I split between a couple of mason jars to make the table more festive.  I ended up putting some craft paper across the table since I don't have a long enough table runner which turned out to be fun for the kids to draw on while they waited for dinner to be ready and then again for dessert.  I also busted out the real china because I refuse to tote things around from house to house that we don't actually use and I don't want to give up my pretty china :)

Now I have big plans for the weekend that involve getting our Advent wreath together and finishing up our Christmas shopping and in the mean time I hope everyone is enjoying their day after thanksgiving leftovers as much as we are :)

Walking Too Soon

We were at a birthday party this weekend and John Michael was totally showing off.  The other moms-of-just-one-baby kept looking at him and asking, "How old is he?" umm....9 months.  I tried to reassure them that baby milestones are not a competition and if it made them feel better my boys tend to be early movers and late talkers (which is a great combination if you like your children running pell-mell down the street and not answering your desperate calls to "wait for mommy!") but I'm not sure if it really sunk in.

If David were walking this early I would have been obnoxiously proud, but as it stands I'm mostly just tired :)
As exhausted as the idea of one more mobile child makes me though, it's still pretty cute to see such a little guy wobbling down the hall so we tried to capture it for all of you who I'm sure are super interested.  I'm afraid we weren't too successful but here's a blurry video of his back as he takes off down the hall for your viewing pleasure.

You are welcome.

In Which I Tell You to Stop Texting Me

The baby has murdered my phone.

I'm not sure how exactly because I didn't actually observe the execution but when the phone was found it was definitely covered in baby drool so I'm pretty sure that rules out the older boys.......

Now my old phone, may it rest in peace, was not what you'd call fancy but it did have a keyboard on it so I could send and receive texts and pictures with limited amounts of fuss.  Well that's all over now because this is my current phone:

Oh yes, an oldie but a goody circa 2007.

Luckily for me Chris never has the catastrophic accidents that seem to plague my phones and he has a drawer full of old yet still functional phones that he can activate at a moments notice.  (This phone was actually once part of a matching pair but mine met its end in a glass of orange juice--catastrophic accidents I tell you!)

There was a brief discussion about him downgrading himself from his iphone to the old flip phone and giving me the fancy phone as a personal test of his manliness but in the end he realized that his manliness wasn't up to the challenge--I mean after all his schedule is on on there!--it's linked to his calendar for goodness sake!--how would he read the drudge report I ask you?--how would he know where his friends and family are located without having to actually speak to them?  I'm not the only one who still thinks iphones are a little creepy am I?

I still haven't gotten my contacts switched over to this phone yet because we haven't quite decided if I'm keeping it or not--so, sorry if you haven't heard from me lately--apparently I only know two phone numbers off the top of my head, Chris' and his dad's--because grandpa Reintjes' cell is the same as his old house phone number that I used to call quite a bit back in my younger days :)

I can't decide it I want to spring for the iphone or just keep this antique or upgrade to some non-internety option (if those still exist that is).  I'm not sure I can be trusted with the internet in my pocket--I mean I can barely be trusted with the internet in my laptop and also there's that tendency towards catastrophic cell phone accidents.....

All of this is to say, for heaven's sake please stop sending me text messages!

I don't have it in me to use hip texting slang, so in order to reply to you it will take me fifteen minutes to painstakingly scroll through each letter to spell out every word, with all the correct punctuation and smiley faces--you know, because I'd hate for you to think that I was unintelligent or rude or accidentally hurt your feelings with a complete lack of appropriate emoticons.  If you simply must text me let's just make a deal.  You only send me messages that require yes or no answers and I'll reply with either "Y" or "N" and we'll all agree that no one will be offended at my oh so concise replies.

Deal?

Deal :)

I'm sure I'll let you know if my womanhood ends up being up to he challenge of the flip phone downgrade or if I too succumb to the allures of the internet phone, only time will tell......

Open to Life and in the Military

**This is NOT an announcement**

John Michael is nine months old and Chris has been making fun of me for already wanting another baby.  Now, you may be on his side and agree that I am in fact a crazy lady with mostly irrational worries about my fertility, but I've been doing a lot of thinking about this and I've finally figured out the problem.

It's my countdown clock.

That's not to be confused with my biological clock--although I do already hear that one ticking loud and clear.  No, this is my "countdown to our impending move" clock and when it hit the one year mark it sent my desire to be pregnant right now into overdrive.

It's really hard to be open to life and in the military.  I mean, I know it's hard to be open to life in any number of other circumstances as well, but when you know you have to move every two years, your timing has to be just about perfect or you have me--the woman who perpetually arrives at each new town either pregnant or pregnant and alone or about to become pregnant and who has no real friends there to help and must rely mostly on the kindness of strangers or as I like to think of them, friends we just don't actually know yet.  Sometimes it feels like God is using my fertility solely as a means to give other people service opportunities.

All of that is to say, I'd really like to have a baby here where I do have friends that I've known longer than five months as opposed to there in that unknown location looming out in front of us where I most likely don't know anyone at all and could potentially be too far away for even family to come.  It doesn't help that there could be pretty much anywhere and although I'm sure it would be fine, I'd really rather not have a baby in Guam....or Japan.....or Guantanamo Bay.....not that those aren't all lovely places.....


I mean if I had a baby here I know pretty much what to expect and I may even get that much longed for baby shower (Auntie Leila says every baby should have a shower so who am I to disagree).

If I had a baby here I could be sure that I wouldn't need to worry about things like moving to our next duty location ahead of my husband--or worse having to stay behind--if I'll be too pregnant to travel when it's actually time to move.  We're about two months away from that iffy window where you don't know where or when exactly you're moving next so getting pregnant is taking a big gigantic leap of faith since you literally have no idea what the future holds except of course for the fact that it won't be happening where you currently live.

We could just wait--wait until we know exactly where we'll be going, wait until we can plan everything out, wait until everything will be perfect.  Even if we could count on the military to actually make a plan and not change it at the last possible moment, waiting for the "perfect" time to bring a new life into the world isn't really an option for us.  For one, we don't believe that that ever elusive "perfect" time really exists and, more importantly, we do know very well  that just because you want a child doesn't mean you get to have one and just because you conceive a child doesn't necessarily mean they are yours to keep.  Let's face it, if we put off having another child simply because we didn't know what the future had in store for us, John Michael would probably hold the title of  'baby of the family' indefinitely.

So my countdown clock keeps ticking and every month that passes that window of finally having a baby here and not there is shrinking and if it's making me feel a little crazy who can blame me?  I'd like to say that we've just turned our fertility over to God and that we trust in His timing--which we do in the sense that we're pretty much just winging it over here--but....well it's easier to say that than it is to actually let my own desire to control everything go and really stop worrying isn't it?

I know I should stop worrying and let the future unfold as it will, but that's not really in my nature--after all, who wouldn't want to be sure they could make more babies if they keep turning out as cute as this one?  

So, if Chris happens to mention to any of you that his lovely wife is a little bit crazier than usual, feel free to defend my honor and let him know that it's clearly not my fault--it's my countdown clock!  And also feel free to send up some prayers for me and all the other military moms out there trying to be open to life, I'm sure we could all use them :)