Maybe She Can Just Get By With Dentures?

I know I've been seriously lacking with our updates, but I'm certain you'd forgive me considering Chase wakes us up every 20 minutes from 2-5 o'clock every day this past week. The poor child is so uncomfortable and gassy. I'm beyond tired and so thankful Wil is here to share the nighttime parenting fun. We take turns getting up with and trying to console her, but there are times, normally after the 5th or 6th trip to her room in two hours, that we play "it's-your-turn" game. I normally win after I pull "I-gave-birth-therefore-I-win" card. Really need to not abuse that one since I do need his help in getting another baby. A LONG LONG TIME FROM NOW, GRANDPARENTS.

Our weekend... Where shall I start? How about that I will never again expect a quaint dinner party when being invited to a "Girls' Night In"? When I called to confirmed my attendance, I was informed that it was the "toys" party. I'll spare you all the details, but I can just tell you that faking an illness to get out of something I already committed to will be seriously considered the next time.

Ok, I've gotten up 4 times in the last hour to try to make Chase take a nap and it's beginning to make me crazy so I'm going to wrap here. I'll leave you with some pictures of our 5-month old baby, at her much happier times.

Almost sitting up on her own.
Her constant cheerleader, Brother Paddy.
She's going to kill me for posting this picture, but how can I resist that cute chunky butt?
Her official 5-month old portrait.

I'm Still Here...Sort Of

Chase is REALLY teething. Drool, diarrhea, GAS, FREQUENT NIGHT WAKING!!! Good thing I love this child...

Wil just put her down for the night. We're going to enjoy a few hours of peace and quiet. Will elaborate more about our weekend later. Hope yours went well.

I'd Like to Return This Weather and Get My Money Back, Please

The overnight low's are going to be in the 30's for the foreseeable future. October was always my favorite time of the year, and September was a close second. No longer. I disown you, September.

The Face of an Exhausted Parent

He was talking and suddenly went quiet. It was barely 8:30.

What Does a Girl Have To Do To Keep Warm?!?

Last year this time I was incubating a human, who put off so much heat I was comfortable just wearing a t-shirt to go outside with the boys--in the German winter. I even thought to myself that the much-dreaded winter was actually kind of enjoyable. Obviously, I was seriously hormonal and had a jacked up bodily thermostat. It's barely fall here and the heaters have already been on for a few days. During the day when the sun is out, it is not so bad. At night, however, you can practically hear my bones rattling in the dark. I think Wil is beginning to feel sorry for me after hearing my whining all this week. He actually threw another blanket over me (in addition to the 2 that were already there) this morning on his way to PT. He really did throw it on me and woke me up, but I was too grateful to bitch and just curled up into a warm Me ball until the baby started to cry 10 minutes later. I saw heaven in those 10 minutes and it was clean and toasty. Now where is my ticket to Italy? Or do I have to try getting knocked up again just to make it through these next couple of months?

In other fun PCSing news, getting to Italy is proving to be more of a headache than moving to Germany all the way from the States, surprisingly enough. Nobody seems to know what we have to do/who we have to call to square away our travel arrangement. And when Wil finally called the correct Italian embassy number (he was given 4 others that didn't work), he was rightly greeted with an automated menu in either German or Italian. At Bragg, the fabulously efficient ladies at Port Call just took care of everything for me in one afternoon. You wouldn't think getting a permission to drive 10-12 hours south would be this much trouble.

Anyhoo, I'm off to take a nap before the child wakes up from hers. Need to reaquaint myself with that clean and toasty place...

Getting an Early Start

I'm determined to have a drama-free move (at least where I have control over), which means getting as organized as I can as early as possible. If you know me, you also know that I don't really "organize" in the traditional sense. I mean I know exactly under which bed I should look for my shoes and it really throws me off when my husband tells me that he puts them in MY closet, where they belong. There is a perfect method to my madness and I like it that way. However, having gone through the last move by myself and realizing that not all movers appreciate my logic, I am now reformed. I started packing Miss Chase's clothes today. I pick her stuff for a very obvious reason: it's EVERYWHERE. In her 4 and a half months of life, her chairs, swing, toys, and clothes have completely taken over our tiny apartment. I know my inability to control myself while browsing ramsteinyardsales.com is not the child's fault, but, c'mon, the kid NEEDS stuff. I can not describe the high I get after scoring 18 months worth of baby clothes for $40. It's really a mutually beneficial relationship: she gets new-to-her things and I feed my small addiction. This is what happens when the weather is always bad and I have full access to the internet.

Speaking of bad weather, I should have never posted anything about last week's sunny days. The weather god is punishing me for prancing around a little too smugly by dropping the temperature by about 30 degrees. Last Friday, Wil's work had mandatory fun time at the park, and we had to go enjoy hot dogs, hamburgers, bar-b-q chicken, and iced cold soda, you know, summer foods, in hurricane-forced wind, Forrest Gump's side way rain, and subzero temperature. Everyone kept sneaking back inside to regain feeling in their appendages and get hot coffee. It was a nice party, however a few months too late. It's the thought that counts anyway...

Now since I have absolutely nothing exciting to report, I shall get on with some cute pictures of the child.

This is her way of telling me that her bouncy seat is on its way out, which leads me to my next yard sale purchase...
Hello, Bumbo!
I know I'm totally biased, but my kid is freaking CUTE!
I just want to wake her up right now to kiss those chubby cheeks. I know I need to get out more. And what is up with that weird index finger?
Social workers everywhere just hopped into their cars after viewing this picture. Don't worry, she only fell off the counter a couple of times and is fine now. Mother, please, put down the phone. I know I'm not supposed to let the thing leave the floor, but she wants to see me wash the dishes... Not really, I don't wash dishes, but she does want to be physically close to those apple strudels. Aren't they, like, the third baby food?

A Good Weather Week

We got Chase an exersaucer and by far it's her most favorite toy. The first couple of times I sat her in it, she started to cry and wasn't really interested in any of the toys. A day later I woke up from a nap to hear her laughing and squealing very loudy. Wil had put her in it just to see if she might give it another go, and she just couldn't get enough of it suddenly. I'm constantly amazed how quickly she learns and adapts to new things. She's growing up too fast!

I can stand on my own!!!
Not sure where to start.
It's hard to say no to that face and those eyes.
Teething slobber, anyone?
Determine to gnaw off the chicken's head.

I felt like a horrible mother to the boys since we had not taken them out swimming once this summer. After the baby came in April, I was just so incredibly exhausted and pretty much handed over the boys to Wil. Poor little puppies. I had been trying to take them out to the lake for a swim on my own, but walking them alone near an opened body of water with the baby strapped to my chest was not something I was brave enough to test. This past week we saw a couple of warm and sunny days, which allowed us to take all the kids out for a stroll around town. The water in our lake was still rather low and gross, but I'm sure you wouldn't hear any complaints from our boys. I'm going to see if we can go to a nicer lake Eurolush recommended to us this weekend if the weather holds.

Happy puppies! Finally.
Chasing ducks is so last year...
Brutus was giving it his best trying to catch a tennis ball and ducks. Somehow, he still managed to keep the top of his head dry. On the other hand, Paddy relished making the biggest splashes and getting EVERYTHING and EVERYONE to smell like pond water. It was lovely.

Orange You Glad To See Me?

Chase LOVES food. Not just the liquid kind but also the solid ones as well. We have started letting her taste a lot of fruits that we eat, and she just can not get enough of them. Whenever we hold her in one hand and eat something with the other, she will literally launch herself at the food. It's so cute to watch her opening her mouth really wide then making a sad face when the food goes into the parents' mouths instead of hers. Her doctor recommends that we try to hold off on solids for at least another month, but I think it's going to be hard waiting that long judging from this footage. This kid is FUNNY.

A Classic Army Move

So a little while ago Wil was presented with an opportunity to have a new job that would allow him to stay put and recover. There were a few different European locations that were mentioned, but ultimately we decided to stick around here for many reasons. Wil is still healing from his surgery and being only half an hour away from the best military hospital in Europe is a big plus. We also hadn't really explored this region and its neighboring countries since I was really too sick to travel the whole time I was pregnant. Although Wil didn't have his order in hand, we were pretty certain that the deal was done. Really should have known better by now. Today we found out that we were going somewhere else. Italy to be exact. Well, Italy was the place we turned down in the first place, so it's come full circle. I know I'm going to get all kinds of emails and phone calls now asking if we were in our right minds to say no to Italy. My main concern was Wil's recovery and access to the best medical care, and Wil's main concern was making me happy, which resulted in us deciding to hang around here. Well, it didn't work out that way, but we can't really say we're unhappy about it. Wil thinks that the move should be happening rather quickly, and we should probably know more by next week. I wasn't going to say anything until I got that piece of paper in front of me, but Mr. Man just couldn't wait one more minute to share the news. So here it is, friends and fams. Two moves in two years. We are on a roll.

I don't know why I'm having so much stomach problem lately. Wil keeps saying "gall bladder" every time he sees me hunch over holding my midsection. Well, since our time in Rhineland-Pfalz is quickly coming to an end, we'd probably be traveling every weekend if the weather holds and my body is not falling apart. Do expect lots of pictures from us!

P.S. Chase is handling her shots much better this time around. No fever so far, fingers crossed.

4-Month Well Baby: 12 lbs and almost 24 inches

Verdict: Ridiculously gorgeous (the doctor's words), small, but a healthy Baby!

Chaster had her 4-month check up today and everything went just fine. She still screamed during the shots, but this time I didn't cry :). She's alright now and asleep with some help from infant Tylenol. Chase had a new doctor today and we really liked her. The kid's weight and height were still in 10th-20th percentile, but she told us to not worry as the baby was perfectly healthy and proportional. Oh, her head size was still around 75th percentile. The doctor had to remeasure it just to make sure they got the right measurement. Like I said before, it's the brain matter...

Halo, Teutunia

We spent most of the weekend looking for the perfect stroller for the kid. Wil and I have a serious case of first-timer syndrome, which meant that nothing was good enough for Chase. I had made peace with the idea that the stroller that we needed to handle cobblestones would be enormous, and I could count lifting the thing up and down the stairwell as my workout as long as she was comfortable. We visited a few baby stores and didn't really find anything that we both absolutely LOVE--until yesterday. We dragged the poor child out of the house, and interrupted her naps yet again, to visit a few more baby stores in Trier. If you remember, Trier is the oldest city in Germany, which can be dated back to the Roman days. It's also a sizable city and I was hopeful that we would get to play with a few models I had read about. To make a long story short, the first store either went out of business or moved to a new location without leaving a forwarding address, and I was already bracing myself for disappointment before we pulled up to the second one. As it turned out, the stroller god was smiling brightly upon my child as this was what I saw as we stepped into Trier's BabyOne store:





It was like being inside of a baby WalMart. If you could dream of it and it's baby related, BabyOne has it. I got to play with almost every model I had in mind and then some. But really, it was love at first sight. Of all the ones we "test drove," this apple green monstrosity was a definite winner:



Short of ordering our child a hovercraft, we got her into the smoothest ride possible. Wil made sure the wheels were huge, the shocks could absorb an earthquake, and the seat was as comfy as my uterus before her legs got too long. Well, maybe not quite like my uterus, but it's pretty dang close. So what if it's built like a German tank and weighs approximately the same? When folded, it's still the same size as a large luggage, but nothing could beat watching the kid fall asleep in her infant cot while we took the machine out for some off-roading at Trier's historic Coliseum about half an hour after we paid for the stroller.


Testing out the screen.



The gladiators walked through this tunnel over 2000 years ago!

After the Coliseum, we ran over to Porta Nigra and walked around for a few more hours.

I'm constantly amazed how much money European parents are willing to spend on their kids' strollers. There were tons of Bugaboo and Quinny. Made us feel better about going over our budget by a mile for her Teut.




Where's Chasey?




The last time we were at the Dom, Chase was still inside of me and Wil was in the field. I was really sad to be there without him but suddenly felt very calm and at peace once I stepped inside the cathedral. I remember asking The One Up There to take care of Wil and the baby that was growing inside of me. So I had to come back to say thank you for my perfect baby and husband.
Her first taste of mango gelato.
She liked it so much that she actually screamed when I took it away. I have created a monster.
It was a great but very long day!