Friday, August 24, 2007

My baby turns one soon!!!

Wow, I can't believe it's been nearly a year now! Next week my tiny little pink bundle is turning one! She's not a little baby anymore. She's a TODDLER!! Not that she's doing much toddling. Doc says she'll be a 14 monther when it comes to her walking. That's ok. Less running around for me! She is quite mobile without the walking, however. My husband nicknamed her Scooter since she pretty much scoots around the house at nearly lightening speed. She gets such a kick out of trying to escape too. Thank God I babyproofed the living room before I had her.

Well, since this is my very first blog here...(I've blogged elsewhere here and there) let me give a little background on me.

I'm an Army wife. The last 7 months I've been playing the roll of a single mom while the hubby was sent to war in Afghanistan. I tried to keep myself busy the first month. But it was a hard month for me. Military life is not good for family life...especially for a marriage. The divorce rate is high in military marriages. There is so much stress put on your relationship. So much time apart, peer pressure, it's just an entire sub culture of it's own. It's so different than normal civilian life. I never expected this. Well, that's not true. I did expect some of it. Which is why I vowed to never marry a soldier. I was an Army Brat...I knew what goes on. But my husband won me over with his charm and dashing looks. We fell in love very quickly. He proposed to me a month after we started dating. Then we eloped for military purposes a month or two after that. Five months later we had our official wedding ceremony and quickly moved to Germany. That was 2 years ago. We had our ups and downs. I was definately not prepared for marital "bliss". It was so hard. But I was happy.

Then one day in December of '05 my husband took me to the Nurnberg Christmas Market. It's world famous, and for good reason. I love going, and that was my first time. I was overwhelmed by the beauty of the lights and the romantic airs. I'm not an overly emotional person but I was tearing up at every corner gasping at the wonderous sights. My dear husband and I gorged ourselves on food. Then I noticed people walking around with fresh steaming french fries (or Pommes as the Germans call it) with globs of mayonnaise glistening on top. I CRAVED this. I started to drool every time I'd see some lucky individual walking around with this cone of delicious Pommes mit Mayo! I HAD to have one. We finally passed the stand and I begged my dear husband to buy me some. He refused. He said we had eaten too much. WHAT??? WE??? This coming from the man who ordered everything I ordered, ate his, then ate half of MINE. And WE ate too much? That was it. I lost it. I burst into tears and ran off into the crowd knowing he'd worry about me. How childish I was acting. But that didn't matter. What mattered was that I was denied those fries! Well, we worked it out. I didn't get the fries until the next year, though. I'm still a little bitter about that.

That odd experience showed me that something was amiss. And though I had been taking birth control pills I thought I should check to see if I was pregnant. I had actually stopped taking them a couple weeks earlier so I thought maybe this was a sign of early pregnancy. I took the test and SURPRISE!!!! I was pregnant. I had no idea when this child was conceived. I had no idea when my last missed period was! So I went in to get checked. I was sent to a German dr who did an ultra sound and determined that I was already at least 4 weeks pregnant. Which was before I stopped taking my BCP's so religiously.

I welcomed this surprise with open arms (after a day of mourning my carefree days) and 9 months later came Jaycie. She was so tiny and so perfect. I was overwhelmed at my responsibility to this little child. I had never held a newborn before. But like they say, it all came natural. Hand me someone else's newborn and I won't know what to do with it, but my own, well that was a cake walk. I never could imagine how much I could love someone so much. Each day my love grew and still continues to grow for my baby. She's pulled my husband and I closer together. She's made us happier. Jaycie has shown us what really matters--being a family. I might have given up on my husband and my marriage had it not been for that little baby girl.

My husband's deployment was hard on us. It was hard on him, it was hard on me, and it was hard on Jaycie. She missed her daddy so much. People didn't think she'd remember, but she did. She remembered exactly who her daddy was. It made him so happy to have her stretch out her arms to him when we went to meet him. It made my heart swell with such love and pride and humility that I never thought was possible. We're finally a family again. My soldier came home.

And now we're happily fighting over Jaycie's first birthday party. He claims I'm going overboard. Which I'm sure I am. But it's her first birthday party and there's no family around to celebrate with us. So you can't blame me for going a little overboard can you? At least I stopped at syncronizing the fireworks with her smash cake. In fact, I put those birthday fireworks back. I'm so excited that she's turning one. But at the same time I'm so sad. She's not my tiny baby anymore. One day she'll be too embarassed to hold my hand or give me kisses. I just wish I could hold onto these moments forever.