Doctor Visits:(

Skip and I took Meredith to the doctor on Thursday for her two month visit. Even though my husband works crazy hours and is never home on the weekends, he is often home in the middle of the week. This is helpful when it comes to things like taking the baby to the doctor, because I am not yet brave enough to do it myself. This one was going to be tough as well, since Meredith was due for her first two big shots. The doctor had already warned us at the last visit that should would probably get a fever from them...her first ever:( The beginning of the visit was fine...she is now 10 lbs 6 oz and 22 3/4" putting her in the 50% in weight and 75% in height (so I'm already guessing she will be bigger than her Mommy one day!) Then came time for the shots. Thankfully her doctor splits up the four sets of two-month shots, so she only got two this time and will get two more next month. But it was horrible to see them stick my crying baby in each thigh, and see her promptly begin to bleed! Once they put two bandaids on each of her little legs I immediately scooped her up and tried to console her. It is so hard because I know it is the best thing for her, but it is so hard to take, especially because she is too little for me to explain it to her. And seeing tiny tears roll down her cheeks just breaks my heart every time. I will continue to dread these visits for the next few years. Thankfully she did not actually get a fever that night. The doctor had us give her some Tylenol when we got home, which just made her a little sleepy, and hopefully made her forget about the pain! On a more positive note, Meredith now goes down to bed at 8pm every night and sleeps till 8 am with only one feeding either at 3am or 5am. It has made such a difference for me, knowing I can either get some chores done or go to bed early once she is down. I'm still not sleeping a ton, but it is MUCH better than before! It's sad that getting four or five straight hours of sleep is the most amazing thing ever to me! Now if I can only get her to nap regularly during the day, everything will be perfect!

Semper Fi Sweetheart

This is just a little background information on how my wonderful husband and I met....and the difficult time we had to go through as a young couple. We met on a warm August night in 2003 at the house of a mutual friend. Only one month passed before we were madly in love...and one month after that we learned that his Marine Corps reserve unit had been put on alert and would be deploying sometime in the next coming months. This was not a new concept to me, as my cousin and a few close friends had graduated from West Point a few years earlier. I was already accustomed to writing daily letters, emails, and sending packages as often as possible. I was known as a "One Woman USO Show" after knitting camouflage-colored scarves for several soldiers. So I was very aware of what went into supporting a deployed serviceman. But this time it was different....this was the man I had already planned to spend the rest of my life with. Whether or not we would stay together was never a question, and this was cemented when Skip presented me with a promise ring the night before he left for training that May. He was in California for the next few months before surprising me one weekend at the beginning of August. But his visit, only 5 days before deploying to Iraq, was not the only surprise he had in store for me. That was also the weekend we got engaged!! I was both the happiest and saddest I have ever been in my life that day. I absolutely loved staring at my beautiful ring, imagining our upcoming wedding and future together, but it was bittersweet as there were months of uncertainty lying ahead of us. While the rest of my friends were enjoying the final carefree year of college, I was faced with the very real possibility that the man I had just agreed to spend the rest of my life with would not return to me.

I spent the next seven months in a daze. My days were spent trying to concentrate on classes, work, student teaching and writing at least one email and one hand-written letter a day....my nights were spent catching a few hours of sleep here and there, in between 3 am phone calls and AIM conversations from Skip (that time difference was the worst!) There was never a moment that he wasn't on my mind, worrying about him and praying for his safe return. We were much luckier than others in that we got to talk on the phone and online almost every day. However this fact did make it harder on the weeks they would shut down communication to the entire base , as I was in constant fear that something had happened to him. I pretty much lived at the post office sending packages and stalking my mail box for those ever coveted letters. I checked my email about every five minutes and never went anywhere without my cell phone. I would even leave right in the middle of class if he called me! Phone calls were constantly being cut off mid-conversation as satellite phones are pretty much the worst in the world. So our conversations always starting with us saying how much we loved each other, and we would say it again about every minute or so, just in case we got cut off right after. We never fought as you were always fearful that the one time you did, it would be the last conversation you had with them. We hardly ever talked about what was going on over there. I would fill him in on my day and we talk about our plans for the future. We spent hours online searching for houses and condos we would buy once he got home. We were always just trying to stay positive.

One of the most frustrating things was we never really knew exactly when he would be coming home, and the military is always running rampant with rumors. For awhile he had heard that they would be coming home in March and then redeplying again in June for 18 months. Thankfully that never happened, but those few days were devestating to me. Because of all this, I couldn't even really plan the wedding I was so desperate to have. I did meet with the church and reception hall, but could only pencil in tentative dates without deposits because no one knew when or in what condition he would be coming home. Unfortunately this also meant that when he did come home I had only about 4 months to plan an entire wedding and buy and move into a place to live!

The only way I survived this time though was due to my family and two new friends, Meredith and Lauren. Both of their boyfriends were in the same unit as my husband. As much as my other friends tried to be there for me, they just couldn't really understand what I was going through. But Meredith and Lauren knew exactly what I was feeling. We traded phone calls, emails, and tried to visit during vacations. The support of my "Marine's Girls" was the most important thing to me and helped me through this rough time. And even though we all live far and don't get to see each other as much as we would like, this experience bonded us in a special way forever and we will be friends for a long time.

Finally though it was time for them to come home. February 26, 2005 was the single best day of my life. I know I should say it was my wedding day, or the day my daugher was born, but neither of those two things would have happened if Skip had not come home. It was such an amazing experience standing on the runway with Meredith and Lauren, holding each other and crying, as we watched the plane land and the doors open. We each broke apart as we saw our respective man and ran to them, as "Proud to be an American" played over the loud speaker (it was straight out of a movie!) That first hug and kiss were absolutely perfect. It didn't matter that there were hundreds of people surrounding us, or that Skip hadn't showered in days, or that his M16 was still strapped to his chest...he was home, safe, and in my arms. It was as though we were in the only two people in the world.

After that moment we were completely inseperable. I was almost afraid that it was just a dream that he had come home, and would constantly reach out and touch him just to make sure it was real. As terrible as the whole experience was, it has really helped our relationship overall. We appreciate all the time we have together, knowing anything can take it away in an instant. We try (and usually succeed) in not fighting over the little things and never forgetting just how blessed we are that he came home safe and in one piece. I just love him more than anything in life and am so happy to have him home, and out of the Marines!

I should probably start at the beginning

Before I go any farther with this thing, I should probably explain who I am.  My name's Mandy and I turned 26 in October (though I still like to think I'm only 23!) I have two sisters who are more like best friends and live only three blocks away from my parents.  My family is very close and we always have a great time together.  I have been married for 3 1/2 years and love my husband, Skip, more than anything.  (more on him and our relationship later!) I was a middle school teacher for three years and even though it was often challenging, I loved it and miss it still.  However I "retired" at the end of last year after finding out I was pregnant with my first child.  It is very important to Skip and I that I stay home with our little girl, Meredith  It has taken some time, but I am adjusting well to my new role as stay-at-home mom and wife.  I love getting to stay in my pajamas all day if I want to, and never having to venture out in the snow....but it does occasionally get lonely when Skip is working several back-to-back 16 hour shifts and the only people I have to talk to are my 8 week old daughter, our 4 year old Shiba Inu, and our 9 month old bulldog.  It is at those times that I am so grateful I live so close to my family and my mom will just stop by and hang out.  I am extremely blessed though that I have this opportunity to stay at home with my baby and not have to drop her off every day at daycare.  I am thankful every day that my husband willingly works crazy amounts of overtime so I can do this, and for my family who is there to help with whatever I need.  I am a very lucky woman!

Let's see how well I keep this up

For years now my older sister has been trying to convince me to blog about football.  I am completely obsessed with the Giants, and she thought it would be interesting to read my thoughts every week.  I never did however, as I get way too emotionally involved in the games and knew it would be too difficult to translate those feelings into words.  However, I recently had my first child (my beautiful baby girl....more on her later!), and I was the first of my friends and family to have a baby.  This meant that I was blindly paving the way for everyone else; trying to figure out this whole pregnancy/mommy thing on my own.  My mom is a huge help, but she last gave birth 23 years ago, and things have changed just a little.  And there are just some things you don't want to talk to your mom about!  It got me to thinking though and I have now decided to give one of these blogs a go, in the hopes of maybe giving some guidance to someone who is in the same lost boat I am.  At the very least I know my sisters will save it for their future pregnancies!  I make no guarantees in the frequency of my blogs though, as the major thing I have already learned about parenting is you never quite know when you will have a free moment to yourself!  But I hope I can pass along some good "Mommy" information or at least be somewhat entertaining.....Enjoy!