The Dinner Conversation Tonight

Me: Anabelle, in five minutes it's bedtime ok? Five minutes.
Anabelle: (hugging me) I love you Mom.
Me: I love you too Anabelle.

30 seconds pass

Anabelle: You guys are so cute (to Braden and I as we look at each other and roll our eyes at our little schmoozer).

a minute or two later...

Me: What are we gonna do in 2 minutes Anabelle?
Anabelle: You're gonna play with me? 2 minutes until you play with me Mom (as she hugs me).
Me: No, 2 minutes until you go night night
Anabelle:NNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

a few seconds later

Anabelle: You're a skinny mom (as I eat my 30th nacho)

The skinny line may have worked if she hadn't already called me "big fat mom" earlier. Which by itself would have been overlooked but a few minutes after she did that she began pushing on my stomach and saying, "Squish, squish". Yesterday she was calling me "churchy Mom". Not sure how to take that one. We put her to bed shaking our heads at each other, at a loss for words about that kid. What a character.

My geriatric 2 year old

Anabelle tries her very darndest each day to consume all of her calories via sipping from a cup. If she is forced to eat, and she is, she mostly insists on her basic three staples: yogurt, applesauce, and cottage cheese. It's as if she has already made the full circle of life in two years and already struggles with nutrition through a straw and bowel control.

We went to Wal-Mart yesterday because there was not much in our fridge besides condiments, cilantro and heavy whipping cream. I find myself waiting until things get that bleak because I consider grocery shopping with kids as much fun as salmonella-survivable, but crappy. I arm myself with 5 different snacks, drinks, toys, and I do not talk on the phone because I have found that when I walk through those doors, I am in the war zone, and I must have all my wits about me.

However, yesterday we happened to have a highly successful trip. By that I mean no screaming, no demanding, no angling my 3 mile long cart into the bathroom so that Anabelle can sit there for 4 seconds and say, "Never mind".

There she is sitting in the big part of the basket and she says to me:

AB: Mom, we need ogurt
She is right. I go to the yogurt aisle.
Me: Peach or strawberry?
AB: Stawberry. Can I have some please?
Me: No, I need to pay for it first
AB: Okay. Let's get some cottage cheese.
I get some.
AB: We needa get some abblesauce too.
I get the appleasuce
AB: Yeeeeeesssssssss! We got some abblesauce!

The rest of the trip was spent quietly eating pretzels and chatting about Christmas decorations. And we visited the lobster tank quite a few times. When it was time to check out, she stands up and begins putting items on the conveyor belt.

Me: Oh, are you gonna help?
AB: Yeah, I need to do it all myself. I need to exercise my muscles.

So this morning she asked me if she could have some abblesauce. Then she says, "No, I need to have some ogurt first". She eats the yogurt. "Now I can have my abblesauce". She eats the applesauce. Can I have my cottage cheese please"?
The girl knows what she wants and she will make it happen. I can respect that.

I consider myself highly blessed and downright lucky to get to hang out with that girl all day. I just put her down for a "nap" (I hear whistles blowing and ducks quacking) and as I did she hugged me, kissed me, and said, "Mom, I love you. We are cute together".

Last week she had an accident in the bathtub and as I was draining and cleaning the tub I heard Braden in the next room gently chastising her. She came in to where I was scrubbing and put her arms around my neck and said, "Mom, you're doing a great job! I'm so proud of you! Dad's grumpy".



Coloring her sister

Free zoo days and cheaper auto insurance

We found out last week that Braden got accepted into Officer Training School to be an Air Battle Manager in the Air Force. This is the realization of a childhood dream (his, not mine) and I am so proud of him. It is a flight position. He will be mission control from the sky. At the beginning of this year, he was in a job that he thoroughly hated and was miserable in and looking for a way to get out. The way out presented itself in April when he got laid off. Not quite what we were going for, but it turned out to be a blessing for several reaons. Hard, but a blessing nontheless. I was six weeks out from having a baby so it shook our lives up a bit. He waited tables and interviewed and put out resumes like crazy. He got a good job offer in Seattle right before I had Lila but he didn't feel good about taking it. After her birth and all those weeks in NICU we know why now. I remember him calling the Air Force when I was still pregnant to see if there was any chance at all he could do it. One guy told him no way. So he called another and the recruiter said they only accept 1% of their guys from the track that Braden would be doing. Braden got off the phone and told me that and I said, "OK, now we can move on". In my mind I heard basically no chance, what's next." Braden heard him and thought, "So you're sayin there's a chance". He began the process that turned out to be eight months and lots of work. In the mean time, nothing else seemed to work out. He was working three jobs at one point, Lila and I were in the hospital, and Anabelle was all over the place. It would be fair to say that there was stress. So he started doing some carpentry in the fall, which he loves and is good at and we've been waiting to hear. There have been plenty of small miracles along the way and although we have never known how or what was going to work out, we have always known and felt that the Lord would take care of us. And He did that mainly through friends and family. I am happy that Braden started this year in a job that he hated and is ending it in his dream job. He has worked really hard for us this year and it says a lot about him that he was accepted. We were looking at the credentials of the other candidates and they were far more impressive and decorated than Braden's resume (Master's and PhD's, great gpa's from prestigious universities). He had an interview with a Colonel as part of the process and the guy that typed the notes of the interview told Braden's recruiter that the notes read, "I want this man in my Air Force".

Now to be honest, I am scared for me. I have never been a fan of him joining the military. I don't enjoy single parenting. And anyone with a spouse understands that it is best when they are on the ground. So I'm trying to feel good about what life will be like for me. Part of that is because I really don't know what it will be like. Hopefully we'll get some more info soon. We know that he will go to Officer Training School for 13 weeks at Maxwell AFB which is about an hour from here. We don't know when he will leave. So I'm thinking I might just pack up the girls and catch an AF hopper and hop right around this ol country for a few months. After that we think we will be in Panama City for two years. ON THE BEACH. That helps take the sting out of deployment. A little. Hoping to get more concrete info soon. In the meantime, I'm doing a funky little celebration jig on behalf of Braden's total awesomeness.

Yay Braden!