And Don't Say I Never Gave You Anything

An Evening with Ms. Chase from UMA STEINHAUER on Vimeo.

Uh Oh! from UMA STEINHAUER on Vimeo.

My Laziness is Your Gain

Vimeo is funking out today, but here are a few new videos that can be viewed right now. I know I owe lots of pictures and a long post about what we've been up to, but look at the talking and jumping baby!

In Case You Were Wondering What Her Name Was from UMA STEINHAUER on Vimeo.

A Slimy Game of Fetch from UMA STEINHAUER on Vimeo.

Jumping from UMA STEINHAUER on Vimeo.

Cute Videos

There'll be more pictures from around Christmas time, but we have to get ready for our sushi dinner tonight! Trust me, any kind of good seafood in Germany is something to be celebrated. So here are a few cute videos of our One and Only to tide you over till then. Enjoy!

Almost a Christmas Miracle from UMA STEINHAUER on Vimeo.

Cheese Box Sleeve Hat from UMA STEINHAUER on Vimeo.

All Clear

I can't believe that as I'm writing this, we're already a couple of hours into December 29th. Lately, I've been feeling particularly exhausted. Mentally, I just can't seem to rest thinking about how the last few months have changed our lives, worrying that Wil's back is going give out every time he sneezes, and how I would completely lose it altogether if he is to be admitted one more time this year. My mental state was held together by a paper clip and every tiny hiccup in our day caused the waterworks to flow. I constantly yelled at Wil because I was petrified that whatever he was doing, besides laying down on the couch, was surely going to put him back in the hospital. I couldn't even fathom that there might be light at the end of the tunnel, and everything became a bit more bleak with each passing day. To cope I gave myself milestones to which I could look forward. 2-week post-op appointment, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and 6-week post-op appointment. The first few came and went fairly quietly. Christmas was a big one. Presents were sent out, the house was decorated, and there were meals to prepare for the company we invited over. Two of Wil's single soldiers called at the last minutes asking if they could bring a couple of single friends over for the Christmas dinner. I had enough food to feed the whole battalion of soldiers and was actually thrilled to have a little less leftover to deal with. It struck me as I was studying the faces of these young men, who were all injured downrange and somehow found themselves joining our table on Christmas day, how lucky I was to be sitting there with my husband, who was making a great recovery progress, and a beautifully thriving little daughter, who was, and forever will be, the light of our lives. Things could have gone bad, but they didn't. Life went on, new friends were made, and I needed to rid myself of the traumatic memories of this year. The day after Christmas, I could feel the weight of angst being washed down the shower drain knowing that the time to prepare for worst case scenario was over. Today (or technically yesterday) Wil had his 6-week post-op appointment. The surgeon was very pleased with his recovery and said that everything was exactly where it should be. Wil can now ease back into lifting things that are heavier than 10 lbs. Our baby is about 24. He can change her diaper, get her out of her crib, and pick her up when she demands a big bear hug. Not that he hasn't done that once or twice these past three months, but now I don't have to grab the phone in a panic to dial the surgeon while swearing at him for DOING THAT to us AGAIN.

He's okay.

We're going to be fine.

It's okay for me to sleep again.

Next post will resume happier writing about the cutest baby in the world doing something astonishingly adorable. And so for now, good night.

In Which I Tried to not Complain

I'm really tired of hearing myself bitch about the crappy weather, but not making a note about what happened over the weekend would totally be nuts. Last week our washing machine, which was located in the basement, just quit working mid rinse cycle. I discovered this little unpleasant fact nearly midnight when the temperature outside had dipped way below freezing already, so imagine my joy when I had to stick my hands in frigid water and hand wring a load of very wet clothes. When I started to feel like frost bite was coming on, I yelled at Wil to come down and join in on all the fun I was having in the basement. I called FMO first thing in the morning (FYI: FMO = Furniture Management Office, who loans us all major 220V appliances here since we weren't allowed to bring ours), and a sweetest lady apologetically informed me that they were so booked up during the holidays already and couldn't send a mechanic to our house until the 29th, which at the time was about 2 weeks away. I tried my best not to simultaneously laugh and cry before thanking her and hanging up. The greatest gifts my husband has ever given me, beside that Little Mutt, hands down, were our washer and dryer, because he knew how much I hated doing laundry and how much more I hated lugging our dirty laundry to the laundrymat. And there we were--five dirty laundry creators, two of whom have four paws a piece that tend to be covered in mutt and snow. I procrastinated the dreaded trip with the toddler and the gimpy husband long enough that we accrued 10 loads of laundry by Sunday when we experienced the first bad snow storm of the season (the storm didn't reach our area until we got to the laundrymat, isn't that convenient?). Couldn't postponed the trip any longer either since most of us were already out of clean socks and underwear. To my husband's credit, he singlehandedly tackled the laundry, while I drove around post looking for a place to change a poopy diaper, a task simple enough had the said child not been in a pair of snow boots, tights, a bodysuit, a snowsuit, a hat, and a pair of mittens. Do you know how hard it is to change a BAD poopy diaper on a tiny changing table in a very small public restroom with one hand while trying to keep all those article of clothing away from the crabby and hungry child's hands so she didn't shove them in poop in protest? If I had access to Wil's meds, I would have dumped the whole thing in my mouth right then. After we came out of the bathroom, we found that Santa was visiting the commissary. Chase got another picture taken with him with little fuss mainly because she was on the verge of passing out from exhaustion and hunger. I carried my baby out of the store on my shoulder, in heavy snow fall, like a sack of potatoes, and she was out cold even before I got through the drive-thru window in an attempt to feed her something other than snow. Since she was sleeping so peacefully, Wil told me to wait with Chase in the car with the heater running while he finished up the laundry. In just under an hour that I was sitting there quietly singing karaoke and looking up our moon roof, nearly 3 inches of snow quickly turned most things that were already white from the last snow even whiter and fluffier. I get it--snow is pretty to look at--but if and only if you are warm and inside. Driving back home was beyond nerve-wrecking. Having been born and raised just above the equator, I, most of all, had no business or the skill necessary to drive in red road condition. The snow was coming down so fast that the autobahn looked like it wasn't plowed at all. I ended up driving at about 25 mph the whole way home because at any higher speed our SUV would fishtail wildly. It didn't matter that we had 4-wheel drive. I could have been riding in a horse drawn buggy, and we would have spun out just the same if I was going any faster. It was a very long way home to say the least, but what ended up to be 11 loads of laundry was done! Today brought good news from the nice lady at FMO, who took pity on me after hearing about our adventurous laundry trip over the weekend, and magically found us a mechanic that could come to our house tomorrow! Maybe a working washer is our Christmas miracle this year.

I'm going to leave you with a couple of videos that probably will not be interesting to anyone besides our immediate family members, but, of course, you are more than welcome to watch these of our cute kid. Seriously, I don't think anyone can make them more precious than us. Yes, my kid is cuter than yours, and I'm not even sorry I said that. Ok, maybe very little.

Will Work for Gummies from UMA STEINHAUER on Vimeo.

And We Didn't Forget the Rest of You! from UMA STEINHAUER on Vimeo.

Pictures for Kun Yai

It's Time for Bullet Blogging

-For the first time since Wil's return from a deployment a few years ago, and my second attempt ever, I'm Christmas decorating the house. This involves hand making fresh evergreen garlands and wreaths and lots of sewing. It is as much rewarding as it is painfully slow. We just got our tree last night and might be spending today decorating it.
-Wil continues to progress in his recovery. He still needs at least 15 pills a day to get by, but he's mostly independent around the house. Still can't bend at the waist, and he will not be able to for the next 3-4 months or so, but Chase is well-trained now in picking things up for him off of the floor.

Miss Chase needs her own section:
-She is the funniest little person on earth. She says and does things that constantly crack me up and is quite a little imitator. We have to seriously watch our language around her after we overheard her saying something that sounded dangerously similar to "oh, sh*t!" while trying to figure out a piece of her toy.
-Her clean vocabulary library is expanding at an alarming rate as well and she understands and complies with most of my requests and suggestions. Her favorite word right now: money. Caught her today with a $20-bill in her hot little hand, and her father had no idea how she snatched that out of his stash. Uh oh.
-My kid loves to booty dance, especially when she's simultaneously playing her piano and keyboard while singing at the top of her lungs. Double uh oh.
-Still sleeping 12-13 hours a night, eating like no one has ever fed her before, still has a giant belly to show for it even though she is thinning out everywhere else. It boggles the mind that we'll have a two-year-old on our hands in less than 5 months.
-If you ask her "Baby, what is your name?," you will get "Che," as an answer. I can never get a good video of her anymore because, as soon as she hears the beeping noise that signals that the power is on, she runs over and demands that I turn the screen around so she can see "Che, babiee," which is always accompanied by a pointing hand gesture to her chest just to make sure that Momma doesn't confuse her with other "Che Babiee."
-I think she has 7 teeth now and is working on a molar or two? I'm not sticking my fingers in there anymore--she bites.
-Still adores her brothers and loves to cuddle with them, although has a very soft spot in her heart for...cats. I don't even know what to do with that one. We have a few friendly kitties that roam the neighborhood that she gets to pet occasionally, and yesterday Wil caved and bought her a stuffed animal--a furry big Cat, whom Papa named Charlie and Chase called "Char". Both Brutus and Paddy have already tried to kill Char a couple of times today, which resulted him needing a quick bath to get rid of the slimy slobber. Keeping Char in one piece will be challenging.
-My lovely little child is going through her naked phase. She refuses to keep her pants on when we're home and is constantly walking around the house with her pants around her ankles. She asks to be "nekkid" when she's on a changing table, and as soon as the clothes come off before bath time, she dives into the boys' bed in her naked glory. I'm pretty certain it's the highlight of her day.
-She's convinced that every time I'm in front of the computer, I'm looking at pictures/videos of babies. In her defense, many of our friends are having kids left and right and I do spend a lot of time looking at pictures/videos of them. She always demand that I let her sit on my lap and show her some "babieeee."

Wil's turn:
-Uma has gotten over a pretty bad cold/flu thing that made her very miserable and those around her did not enjoy it either. She has been crazy about this whole decorating thing, but to her credit her wreath looks awesome and the felt food that she has sewn is pretty incredible. She is crazy with so many more projects that she wants to get done before Christmas I really cant wait to see them.
- I am procrastinating on finishing my Eng. class and really should get around to it. My problem is that I only get a few min. of mindful clarity between taking my meds. My professor has been very understanding. As soon as I start to read anything I fall asleep. With Uma under the weather and not feeling up to cooking I have had my choice of what to eat lately. Now since I can not be so mobile due to my surgery this is not a good thing. I must say the whole thing about putting on weight due to the holidays, yeah that's my excuse.