The very best kind of love

Tonight I am plum worn out. This weekend we didn't get a lot of sleeping (or really, anything) done. I tend to stay up cleaning instead of sleeping, which is the habit of one who hates to sleep in a cluttered house. We had a great time hanging out with Eric, Erin, Ryan and Zoe and spent most of the weekend with them. We stayed up late, got up early, laid around the house and did not enjoy the dreary weather.

This morning I had an interview for a position similar to the one I'm in, but with better pay and benefits. So I thought a lot about it last night, got up early to get ready for it, and then worked all day. I got home tired, made dinner tired, and slumped on my elbows for dinner. I went through the motions of cleaning up and trying to stay awake. I went to Hayden's room to get him ready for bed.

He's a little under the weather, which makes him superduperextrareally snuggly. Which is my favorite kind of Hayden when I'm also tired. He wanted to brush his teeth, and did a really good job. He even let me help, which doesn't always happen. We read books, we watched a little DWTS, we read more books and he got into bed. He asked for kisses and hugs, ehh-kee-moes (Eskimo kisses) and Ah-ker couch? Which means he also wants Oscar to go to sleep, on his couch. We had to call daddy to tell him ni-night, and then he climbed up in the bed for good. We fixed blanket, located pup-pup and I told him I loved him more than the moon. He usually replies with "Love you moon" but tonight he said "love you momma. love you."

My heart fell into a million pieces and I was reminded again just how lucky I am to be mother to this sweet, wonderful child.

Baking party

On Tuesday, I had a long day at work. It was just a frustrating day overall, with little I could control to make it less frustrating. So when I got home, I knew I was due for a few hours in the kitchen. I made dinner for us, and then got to baking. Banana bread is one of my very favorite things to bake, because it's so easy and I so rarely mess it up. And, knowing this one was going to work in its entirety, I got to make it with walnuts! Jay doesn't like nuts in his desserts and Hayden is texture-picky so I usually have to leave them out. But I was so excited to fold them in just before baking, and to me they make the difference between a snack and a delightful dessert.

I also made my first attempt at peach tarts. Stephanie Baker makes the very best peach tarts and was kind enough to share the recipe. By trade, I am not a baker. I love to cook, but I was not born to bake. This was my first shot at rolling out pastry dough, and it was an adventure. I discovered quickly that the polish pottery rolling pin I have is definitely meant for decoration and not for rolling dough. Or maybe it's meant for experienced dough-ers. Either way, I had to switch to the wooden one early on. All in all, I think they turned out well for my first try and I learned some things along the way to try out next time.

I always have bigger plans than my clock allows. So I had to toss out the idea of homemade chocolate chip cookies. But to me, that's a weekend project so that Hayden and Jay can enjoy them straight from the oven because that's when they're best!

Here's the recipe as requested by several!

Peach Tarts-Makes 24 tarts
Filling:

1 1/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup butter, melted
1 teaspoon vanilla
6 ripe peaches, diced (I don't peel them)

Crust:
2/3 cup crisco (I use the butter flavored sticks)
1 tablespoon milk
1/4 cup boiling water
Pinch salt and sugar
2 cups flour
sprinkle of cinnamon (optional)

Mix filling and set aside.

Place crisco and milk in a bowl. Add boiling water. Crisco will not be melted all the way. Add other ingredients and mix well to form a dough. Roll out 1/3 of the dough on a floured surface. I then cut circles with a drinking glass out of the dough. Place dough in bottom of muffin pans. Fill each with peach filling and bake at 375 for about 30 minutes. Filling will be bubbly and brown just a little. Repeat steps until all the dough is used.

**Editor's note, I only used 3 peaches because they were good size and it was enough for 24 tarts! I would also leave out the vanilla for a more tart taste. Stephanie's were perfect, mine need some work!**

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

As luck should have it, Hayden was sick last night and didn't get to wear his St. Patty's day shirt to school. I was so bummed, since it's terribly adorable and was acquired WEEKS ago to prevent him from being pinched. He was throwing up into the wee hours of the morning for no apparent reason, so mom spent the day at home with him. I love being a working mom and he loves being in school, but sometimes it's nice to have a day together in the middle of the week, especially when there's sunshine available!

He stopped throwing up at 5am but I didn't want to send him to school so I let him get some good sleep this morning. We made breakfast together and watched cartoons and played with toys. After his nap (that's right, slept in his own bed in the middle of the day!) we headed outside to get some fresh air. Grandma Gloria got him a Buzz Lightyear four-wheeler that has only been ridden around our apartment, so we took it out for a spin. We rode all the way up to the playground, since Hayden hadn't yet investigated its possibilities.

He had a great time on the slides and bridge and climbing apparatus. He's amazingly gifted in the area of climbing, which will surely cause trouble in years to come. But for now, it's wonderful to watch him look at something, try it out and figure out how to conquer it all on his own.

Jinx be damned, I'm going to tell the world!

That's right. I don't care that it's only been a little while, I'm going to talk about it. That it's so recent a development that releasing it to the world may very well be asking for terrible karma to ruin it.

Hayden is back to sleeping through the night. In his bed. All alone, except for when Oscar decides to sleep on the accompanying loveseat. He walks into his room when he's supposed to go to bed, no muss-no fuss. He gets into his bed, where we have a debate for about 10 seconds regarding the current whereabouts of his blanket, as well as where he'd LIKE his blanket to be. I make sure he has his pup-pup, kiss him, promise him to leave the door open so he doesn't get scared, and I walk away. I WALK AWAY.

This may seem a trivial accomplishment to some. To those, I say you don't have children OR you don't have a child that, at the tender age of two, has survived one deployment, several bouts of senseless vomiting, one move across the world followed by 2 months of traveling and one more move into your very own Toy Story-themed room. If you think adults have trouble adjusting to separating from the Army, finding jobs, starting school and moving twice...try being the child in the middle of all that. Which is why I do not fault Hayden a single SECOND that he's been awake instead of asleep.

We have progressed and it has not been easy. As a newborn, Hayden flat refused to sleep and I just did not get it. I did everything imaginiable and he just wouldn't do it. Except sometimes during the day. So with due diligence and an unreasonable amount of caffeine, I got him in a schedule. And at six months that schedule was three two-hour naps a day and sleeping through the night for 11-12 hours. This went on virtually every day for six months, until we dropped one nap. At one year old, Hayden was taking two two-hour naps a day and sleeping 12 hours through the night. This went on for some time, and changed when I started working of course. He got a two-hour nap at school, sometimes a quick hour when we got home from work and school, and then still about 10 hours straight through the night.

I'm not sure when it happened or why, but I believe it was in the fall of 2010 that Hayden started waking up in the middle of the night again. Changing seasons, growing pains, packing our house...whatever it was, Hayden would go down at 8, wake up at 10 and refuse to go to sleep until 12. Or he would go down at 8, wake up at 2am and stay up one to two hours. This makes for tired moms and dads. By the time we left Germany we were just getting through the days the best we knew how.

We expected transition issues when we moved. Hayden slept 30 minutes of a 9-hour flight, which turned out to be most helpful in keeping him on a normal, east coast sleeping schedule. The first 4 days we were in North Carolina he took a two-hour nap and slept mostly through the night. We patted ourselves on the back. Then we went to Virginia to visit family. Hayden's WHOLE life he has slept in pitch black darkness. No nightlight. No cracked door. Not a sliver of light coming in. This of course is not available everywhere one travels. So began the mom-and-dad-laying-down-to-put-him-to-sleep. Which is something we've never done and had no intentions of doing so, but desperate times call for desperate measures.

Once we were settled in at Gloria's, we had to lay in the twin bed with him to get him to sleep. Sometimes he moved to the crib, sometimes stayed in the twin bed. The crib which of course, had to be turned into a toddler bed because he could climb out of it. In addition, we took away the pacifier two months before we moved from Germany. A necessary evil, but what I wouldn't give some nights for him to have that to help him get to sleep! We have to grow up sometime though, all of us. If he slept in the twin bed he'd often roll out of it, so I usually ended up going to bed with Hayden at 830pm and staying there, or making my way back in there when he inevitably woke up in the wee hours of the morning.

In February, we moved to our apartment and set up Hayden's room first thing. This began our "new" process.  Of starting over. We would put him to bed, but have to lay down in the floor and talk him into bedtime. After a week or two of that, I graduated from the floor to the loveseat, but often spent most of the night in there because I'd fall asleep in that warm, dark sanctuary for sleep we created. After nights of this, I moved to the outside his open door. Creepy, yes, but at least I got to watch tv and not go to sleep at a child's bedtime in a dirty house.

At some point two weeks ago, we said it was bedtime and he just marched into his room. A few requests for juice or potty, locating pup-pup and figuring out the blanket, but he was asleep in NO time. Actual minutes in single digits. Of course, I thought this to be a fluke and claimed no victory over my two-year-old sleep terrorist. But when it happened three nights in a row, I started to think this could be for real. And last week I realized...wait. I haven't gotten up in the middle of the night IN DAYS. It's been over two weeks, and he's going to bed, staying there and I don't have to go to bed at 8pm. Excited? Understatement. Accomplished? Beyond belief.

Where did five years go?

Last Friday, Jay and I celebrated five amazing, adventurous years of marriage. I'm surprised at how quickly it goes by, yet how it seems to have just happened yesterday! This year we were able to wake up together in our own place. I went to work, Hayden went to school, Jay went to class and later Jay went to work. So while we didn't have a big to-do, it was wonderfully special to spend it as a normal family.

Saturday night Hayden went to my brother's to play with his cousins while Jay and I went to Fleming's for dinner. This was going to be the third year since 2006 that we missed the Carolina-Duke game at Carolina, as we got married while they were playing and our anniversary seems to fall around the annual event. However, when we were seated at our nice, cozy booth we realized we were just outside the bar with perfect view of TWO tv's with the game on! We enjoyed an incredible meal while our beloved Tarheels dominated the game. We had wine and dessert and talked about our wedding day and the things that have happened since then. Here's to five more years, and many more after that!

Family affair

Last weekend we had some family visiting from CA and SC and were so excited to see them! Aaran recently moved from CA to SC and has visited up here but every time she comes up we seem to be out of town! So we were lucky that this time we had a free day to visit. Ashley and Michael came in from CA, along with Michael's sweet new fiance, Sarah. I haven't seen Ashley or Michael in so many years and I couldn't wait to see them!

The fun thing about our mini-reunion was that so many of us have kids now and they finally got to play and run around like we did as kids. Ashley's son, Zach, is an absolute clone of his dad and I haven't seen him since he was about 4 or 5 and I was just shocked at tall he is! The last time I saw Aaran she was getting married, and now she has two adorable little boys.

We had brunch, family staples like chipped beef gravy, and took lots of pictures because who knows when we'll all get together like this again!

Home sweet home

We have finally moved in to our new place! We decided on an apartment for now so we can set up a routine and get ourselves ready for house shopping. It wasn't something we wanted to rush into, so we're really excited about our new living situation! We signed the papers and picked up the keys on the 10th and had our furniture delivered and cable/phone/internet installed on the 11th.

It was such a relief to see all my stuff come off of those trucks and into the apartment. I forgot how much stuff we have! We immediately saw no damage to the big pieces, thank goodness, but opening the boxes was a daunting task we're still undertaking. Happy to report that all my pottery survived!

We are slowly but surely getting it all put together. Not surprisingly, the kitchen was the first room to be unpacked and Hayden's bedroom was the first to be completely decorated. We've had a lot of fun picking out window treatments and the few new pieces of furniture we needed for our apartment. The unpacking process is made a bit more difficult by the time constraints imposed by full time jobs, full time school and full time need for a toddler schedule, but we'll get there! We've done a lot of sorting and trashing and donating and organizing and it feels good to settle in on our own couch, sleep in our own beds and eat dinner as a family. It's also really nice to be able to walk into Target and Bed Bath & Beyond and find everything we need all at once!