Fortune Cookies

Mine read "Maybe you would like to have another baby."

Wil's: "A sorrow shared is a sorrow halved."

They might be on to something.

Wil leaves tomorrow for school. I feel guilty about whining about my husband being away for all of two weeks when my friends' husbands are serving in a war zone for 15 months. I've been very spoiled these past few years and it's going to really hurt when it's time to pcs back to the States.

I'm going to keep this short, so I can hang with my best bud and he can make fun of a giant zit on my forehead. Before I go, here are a few pics from our week.

Mari mentioned to me that roseola could be the cause of Chase's high fever last weekend that sent us to the ER. About 24 hours after we traded that conversation on Facebook, her fever finally broke and almost immediately these red rashes started to appear on her trunk. They looked super scary but didn't seem to bother her at all. She's doing a whole lot better now. We're still dealing with a few lingering stomach/congestion issues, but all and all she is sleeping and eating much better.

Steve and Mara stopped by to have dinner with us. I somehow never managed to get all of them together in one picture. Notice that my kid is wishfully staring at the food. The child definitely belongs to me. And I would like to add that the curtain came with the house and will come down shortly. I'm not THAT old yet.

Papa brought her a present for being a good baby.

Wil said I wasn't allowed to trim her hair until he got back home. It's getting super unruly and almost reaching her eyebrows now if I don't sweep it to the side.

Look who's feeling much better!

A house full of toys, and, of course, they want to fight over just this one Grateful Dead Bear Mara brought over. Kids...

I like big butts and I can not lie.

Please, Nice Baby, please don't...
...don't pull my hair...
...or play with my nails...

"Look at this Richard. Just look at it"

I was reading this while the three of us were having desserts of clementines. My baby girl and husband just sort of glance at me wearily when I laughed so hard there was no sound coming out anymore. I swear Chase was shaking her head at me while her father simply said "I know."

Life Happens

I'm just sitting in our living room shivering and pondering how ridiculously cold it is here right now. It is a cloudy and gray day in Germany, and even though the temperature has been just about the same all week, the lack of sunshine is really making me want to shrink up into a tiny warm cocoon and stay there until the summer. It's sad when I tell my mom that it's warm today because it's about 32 degrees outside.

Chase is doing a bit better today. She's still pretty fussy and has no appetite but is sleeping much better. Ahhh...sleep. She was starting to sleep through the night (from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m.) just before Christmas, then we had to move. With all the moving crazies and appointments, her schedule was all jacked up and we were back up to feeding once a night again. When we all settled in at our new house, Chaster Baby started to sleep through the night once more and I was besides myself. And then she got sick. Took another week to recover and get back to her old routine. I really thought we were back on the upswing of things as my darling baby was making leaps and bounds in the developmental progress. Then there was the second ER visit. This one really took a lot out of her and she's still pretty tired and not quite her happy self. I took her out walking briefly yesterday because being outside and getting to see things like horses (we have a couple that live behind our house), trees, and cooing German grandmas seemed to really lift her spirit.

Obviously, not so yesterday. And in case you are wondering, I was wearing Chase in our Ergo and had my ski jacket over the both of us. We were very warm. The old German folks probably don't see this much as they often stare and stare at us during our walk. No, Ma'am, I didn't eat my baby and left her head to hang between my boobs.

Anyway, back to my point (I do have one, really). I just realized today that what happened this past month was really not an exception. This is our life. We'll move again, her schedule will get messed up, and, unfortunately despite my best effort, she will get sick again. I know this sounds really dumb but I really couldn't see pass what was happening right in front of me. I told Wil today that, yes, it sucked to be a single-income family, but I could never imagine getting a job that I would never love as much as being home with my precious baby and having to pay someone to watch her grow up. It would kill me. I know the day will come that having me back at work will be financially wise for us, but right now I will take getting up every hour to cuddle a feverish child and rocking her to sleep in my arms over moolah EVERY TIME. That's how much I love you, Kid.

Soon She'll Get a Frequent Visitor Card

Another ER visit, this time only 4.5 hours long. Another catheter, another 103.5-degree+ fever, another long sleepless weekend. Wil leaves for the States for two weeks for school at the end of the week, and I'm dreading the possibility of having to visit the ER yet again--but without his helping hands and assurance when I'm on the verge of losing it. The ER nurse told us that for the last month or so, they saw an average of 60 sick babies/very small children per shift! And there's nothing we can do for her except trying to keep the fever at bay, which has been a real challenge. The doctor was giving her both Tylenol and Ibuprofen at the same time because her dangerously high temp wouldn't budge. I'm so tired.

Lots of Pictures

Chase is running temperature again. She threw up a few times as well last night but is looking a bit better today. I've known of so many babies coming down with RSV and some other nasty stuff and I'm just petrified. I just put her down for a nap and thought you might want to see some pictures from this week.

Auntie Mara came to visit last weekend, and this time she brought Uncle Steve! Naturally, I forgot to take their pictures together.

Fun with baby.
"Are you bored, Auntie Mara?"

Although she hasn't quite learned to crawl on all four yet, Chase can normally get to where she wants by shuffling, pushing, and Army-crawling backward :). Well, at least until she gets stuck anyway.

Who doesn't like Poang chair? And this picture should sufficiently explain why we don't have a house tour blog post yet.

Pasta with squash. Sure does taste terrible but is a lot of fun to play with.

Best friends!


Chase loves both of her brothers, but there's no denying that these two have a special relationship. Paddy endures all kinds of curious pokes and prods all day and still is the most gentle around her (considering how clumsy he is). I've said it before and I'll say it again, there are no better family mutts than labs.

And look who's working on her standing!?!

I owe you a real post about what we've been up to but I'm just exhausted. Bare with me and I'll catch you up soon.

Maybe There's Hope for World Peace

I've been really busy with Chase and the house and fell behind on keeping up with my blogroll. This one was on Dooce and it made me smile really really big.

We Won't Tell Her

Wil: I was just looking through Chase's baby baby pictures, and, you know, she wasn't as cute as we thought she was.
Me: Well, Honey, she was still red, swollen, and her facial features still needed time to land in the right locations.
Wil, in the most perplexed voice: Look at this one (pointing to a milk-coma picture of Chase)!!! She's not THAT cute!
Me: Would you please keep your voice down? She's looking at you.

I had a long post to write but am now nursing a big goose egg on my forehead as a result of a morning collision with the cabinet door. It's been 2 hours and I'm still seeing stars. Me so sleepy.

My 4-Month Project

I'm pondering weaning Chase. I had set a goal for myself to breastfeed her for 6 months when I was pregnant. Hitting that mile marker felt fantastic given the difficult start we had, and it immediately made me want to do better and set another goal for a year. I'm still planning to continue our routine at least until her first birthday, but I sense that weaning will be more difficult for the both of us than I had hoped. Chase is not a big fan of formula. She's coming along nicely with learning to use a zippy cup although has limited practice with it due to the fact that I don't really believe in giving her juice at this age. She gets plenty of whole fruits from her diet, and her current obsession with clementines assures that she never gets another constipation, which happens to be the only time I give her diluted juice. I've tried giving her formula in the zippy cup, and she practically spits out a mouthful she manages to take. EVERY TIME. She's eating three square meals a day now, nursing in between them for "snacks," and still nurses first thing in the morning and before bed. She's beginning to night wean herself and I'm just going to follow her lead and not force the issue, although Dr. Weissbluth probably would not approve. I just don't know how to progress from our current schedule without her cooperation. I'd hate to regress back to the bottle, but it might be the next trick I have to try. Maybe she'll humor me if I go with something like a Adiri bottle instead of her usual Dr. Brown? Any suggestions are very much welcomed and appreciated!

*Wil corrected me this morning after he read the post and said that it was called a "sippy" cup instead of "zippy." I think I knew that but it wasn't evidently clear to me at whatever early hour in the morning I wrote the thing. Momma is going to need lots and lots of naps today away from the babbling teething creature.

Baby Love

We had to make a quick trip to Baumholder a few days ago to tie up the moving loose ends and met up with a few of our friends afterward to have lunch. Chase hasn't really been around any other babies or kids since birth, and I was really beginning to feel like I was doing her a disservice when I had to answer "no" to all of the ER doctor's questions concerning her environment. "Is she in a daycare?" "Is she in a playgroup?" "Is she around any other children?" "Does she have a life?" "Do I sense an overprotective parent?" Ok, maybe to the last one. Anyway, our friend Sabrina and her little boy Christian just came back from the States and we couldn't wait to have the babes hang out a little bit. They had met once before in the summer when Chase was only a few minutes old and Christian was about 8 or 9 months (Sabrina, am I in the right neighborhood?). Christian smiled brightly when he saw her and reached out his chubby little baby hand to touch her cheek. I thought it was the sweetest thing I had ever seen and immediately made a mental note of him as her possible first boyfriend. I think Wil also made a mental note to run a background check on that poor baby. Here are some pictures from the babies' reunion:

My kid has a bad case of Baby OCD. She has to touch EVERYTHING with her left index finger before she can eat it/play with it/gnaw on it. I guess at this age, she probably thinks that Christian is a plaything that is about her size, for once.
I have to post this picture because, first all all, hello, they are adorable. Secondly, my child is a spitting image of her father here. I have a baby picture of Wil and you'll be amazed as soon as my Commo husband gets around to fixing our scanner and you get to see the said picture side by side with this one.
She either plans to slow dance with him or roughs him up. The intent is not quite clear.
Auntie Mara is planning Prom 2024 with fervor.
Christian giving Chase a hug. He was so cute about it, Wil actually took a moment to awwww and forgot that he had been whispering "boys are stinky, you don't like them" in Chase's ear.

Speaking of Auntie Mara, don't you guys all rush to the phone at once to call her. The woman is busy. Steve is finally home on his well-deserved R&R!!! Woohoooooo! Welcome home, Steve! We can't wait to see your tanned self. We even bought a grill in preparation of our bar-b-q. No, not really, we got that one for us, but I personally used our get together as an excuse to get a bigger one.

Warm Puppies + Snow = Happiness

Speaking of puppies, guess who really likes Cheerios?

A Little Break

I haven't gotten the time or the drive to blog much lately. I know our family and friends really come here for Chase more than anything else, and I apologize for holding your beautiful grandbaby/niece's pictures/videos hostage. Lately, there's not a quiet moment around our household. I'm beginning to feel the full effect of what it's like to have a husband, who works long hours and can't come home for lunch to give me a helping hand with the baby :O. Yes, you military wives out there may now roll your eyes. I was totally spoiled last year after Wil got to spend so much time at home during his recovery period and subsequent stay in WTU. Plus we were living on-post and he was literally 5 minutes away at any given moment. Now he leaves before sunrise and comes home just before the baby goes down for the night, if I intentionally stretch her routine long enough so that they get to spend a little time together. Have I mentioned that we moved into a house with a big backyard, which quickly filled with poop that had turned into poopsicles, which I had finally pick up today? I'm going to leave the logistic of collecting 2 weeks worth of poopsicles that have been partially buried under the snow to your imagination. Yeah, I haven't even thought about unpacking these past 5 days except for that one time when I had to go dig for a pair of clean pants. Life has been routinely hectic in a way raising a young family always does, and I don't see it changing any time soon. Not complaining here. I'm loving every second of our new life but it's going to take a little time for me to learn to better manage my time/schedule.

I do want to make a mention of a wonderful man we had to say goodbye to this past weekend. Uncle Bill was Wil's grandpa's youngest brother and one of a few great father figures in his life. Grandpa's cabin is about a stone throw away from Uncle Bill and Aunt Mary's house, and I always hear stories of how Uncle Bill would make him grilled zucchini sandwiches while everybody was away and together they would watch some World War II documentary. My very first welcome into the Steinhauer family happened at Uncle Bill's house. It was a rainy December night, we got in late, and I was very nervous to finally meet Wil's family. I think everybody else was still at church except for Uncle Bill, who wasn't feeling well that day. Wil introduced us, Uncle Bill gave me a big bear hug and proceeded to offer me his seat by the fire. And as they say, the rest is history. When I was younger, I grieved differently. Death was to be feared and always seemed unfair. Now I think I tend to look at it as a way to celebrate life well-lived. And well-lived Uncle Bill's life was. We always enjoyed his Navy day stories, had shared laughs over Aunt Mary's famous potato soup (Wil's favorite), and witnessed a quiet respect everybody paid to him when he extended a firm handshake to them in church. He helped raise a man, who was to become my husband, and for that I am thankful. There is no one better to model a life of a loving husband and a doting father. Uncle Bill, rest in peace. We'll dearly miss you until we meet again. Save a seat for me by the fire!

I don't have too many pictures to share as we've been filming our Chaster a bit more lately. She's just a constant giggling and babbling machine and snap shots just don't really capture this tiny delight anymore. But since it's now 5 A.M., you are going to have to settle for these:

Lunch with Auntie Carol and Jessica.
Jessica snapped this picture of us and I loved it so much I made it my Facebook profile picture.
Isn't she just gorgeous?
Playing with one of the toys/wearing one of the outfits Santa dropped off. I should add that she has mastered the four keys since Christmas, when this picture was taken, and now prefers to flip the piano over and uses it as a bongo. A resourceful prodigy!
See why it's been hard photographing this child?
Auntie Mara and Sampson came to visit us.
The littlest Mutt showing them her funny face.
Soooo happy Brutus lets her sit this close to him. AND he's sharing his toy!

This is a new thing she does. She used to do this to see if Brutus and Paddy were on the floor, but now it's turned into her favorite way of playing peekaboo. And we were supposed to lower the crib last week...


We still don't have a land line and I'm still "borrowing" my landlord's internet connection. I told Wil to tell his new boss that he was on the verge of being kicked to the curb because he hit the ground running at the new job and didn't have time to get his high maintenance wife a phone and a mailbox. We'll see how long that would last.

Rebecca Made Me Do It

Rebecca tagged me to post the fifth picture from the fifth folder on my computer. I pulled this up and started laughing a nervous laugh because I really didn't want to shove this in your faces again. For that I apologize. Better not be drinking coffee while you're looking at this. Again. I'm sorry.

Miss Chase in her cocoon at 20 weeks. I was already a big cow and starting to pack on some back fat. Gotta love those comfy Old Navy maternity pants.

My Sad Little Cuddle Bug

I've heard from other moms before about how a sickness can transform even the most energetic and rambunctious child to a small quiet baby, who just wants to be cuddle. Not that our Chase doesn't enjoy being carried around in our arms, but she is definitely one determine little baby and always wants to stretch her independence when awake. But last night in the hospital was different. She was so incredibly exhausted from all the throwing up she'd been doing, and, perhaps in an attempt to shield her eyes from the hospital bright lights, nuzzled in. I always love those fleeting moments after she finishes her night nursing and just lays her little head on my chest and lets me fill my lungs with her sweet baby smell. I'm guilty of lingering a little too long before putting her back down in her crib since she starts to sleep through the night occasionally. Last night in the hospital, she fell asleep in my arms and we sat up together for hours in a naked hospital bed, whose sheet was soiled from her upchucking. Then today she fell asleep with me on the couch for the first time in months. With her soft little body laying on my chest, I couldn't help but getting a little sad that those first three months that she would only sleep if she was on either my chest or Wil's couldn't last for all eternity. I wouldn't have gotten anything done or taken a shower again ever but it would still be worth it. Is it weird to miss your baby even though she's sleeping in her room that is only 10 feet away?

Sweep This!

Chase, Wil, and I spent 7 hours at the emergency room last night. Chase started throwing up and running high temperature, and we did our best to get her to the doctor as soon as we could. The problem was that for some reason, there was ONE ER doctor last night. One. Landstuhl, this is the first time you've disappointed me. With that said, I have to say that it is a military hospital and doctors would be assigned to take the most serious cases from downrange first. You wouldn't have known that my kid was running 103.5 degree temp, had thrown up 6 times, and been up all night if you just looked at her, which I think was the main reason the triage nurse ranked her rather low on the priority list. She literally was laughing in between puking. Oh, and puking there was. She SOAKED my shirts (twice), sweatshirt, her own clothes, diapers, and burp clothes. I've got enough dirty laundry to start one pukey wash load. This was the first time that she got really sick besides a few cases of the sniffles she had that went away quickly. Eight and a half months was a good long run. The good news is all the lab works came out perfect. The bad news is she's still sick. Doc said it was a viral infection and just needed to run its course. Damn you, Virus.

We came home a little after 5 A.M. and at 8:45 a chimney sweeper came knocking on our door. Inhale and exhale.

Joy to the World, We Are Home Again!

It's been a rough week...

Some handle it better than others...


Slowly but surely we are beginning to settle into our new home...

More to come soon. We've missed you!