We're on the Spin Cycle

My life in a washing machine? Right now, we're stuck on spin cycle.

It all began last Tuesday, when I woke up and crept out of bed to leave my two little dreamers asleep in their beds so I could get myself ready for the day! One step, two step, squish, squish, SLOSH!!! Bleary-eyed and mildly disoriented, I recounted the thorough cleaning of my carpets the day before. I had borrowed a carpet cleaning machine from my dear friend, Lindsay, and spent a couple of hours getting my carpets sparkly clean. I remembered them being a little damp before going to bed, but with the dehumidifier running in my room, surely they'd be dry. And that didn't explain why I was standing in a puddle in my bedroom. "HI!!!" shouted Lawson from his crib. Two pairs of smiling eyes greeted me and snapped me into reality. I looked down, water above my toes. Hmmm. Slosh, slosh, splash. I opened the door to see that this puddle in the carpet of my room was really just the lake to the hallway's river. A lazy river, but a river just the same. And the mouth from which this river was fed, was the mighty Throne Ocean. AKA: my toilet.

A little geography and background on the Throne Ocean before I go any further. It is known to gurgle and bubble without explanation, is a bit tricky to flush at times and prefers to run continuously if not manually shot off. Well, this turned out to be a really bad combination.

Upon discovering the steady waterfall cascading down the side of the toilet, I shut the water off immediately then stood in the middle of the river (hallway) staring at the lakes to the south and the east of me. We'll call them Lake Used to be My Bedroom and Lake Living Room. There was a third and yet undiscovered Lake Unfortunately Messy Closet, but luckily I didn't have to think about that lake yet.

So, here's the scenario for me at that point: our wood floors had been finished just three days prior, which meant that everything we owned (minus the kitchen items) were all crammed into our small downstairs and small garage. I had two small children with multiple immediate needs, such as fresh diapers and food, and I was standing in a river fed by my toilet, overlooking carpet lakes. By the way, standing in water first thing in the morning only adds to your need to pee, which you can not do when the toilet would only spew it into the river flowing into your bedroom. Not cool. Oh, yeah, and it was just me at home to deal with this thanks to Dustin having left the week before. Just call me Captain Kim. I would have made a much better Skipper. Truly!

So, at that point, I did the only thing any confident, seasoned captain would do. I called my mom. About five minutes into explaining my disbelief and inability to figure out what to do, I realized that calling my mother, who lives in an entirely separate state, was not actually helpful. So, I called the Commanding Officer of our squadron's wife, Maureen, who was literally the North Star guiding this captain to dry land. She was on her way over (as soon as she could organize what to do with her four kids. Yes, four kids and she's on her way over immediately. Amazing.) While I waited, I called insurance to, thankfully, find out that we were covered with our home-owners insurance and began throwing every towel in sight into the river then into the spin cycle over and over.

Before I knew it, Maureen arrived and spent the next 12 hours helping me care for the kids and carrying all of our stuff either upstairs to our newly finished floors that I was scared to death of scratching or into our garage, which is now the stuff that nightmares are made of. Tell me that is not incredible! Words can not even convey how thankful I was and am that she came to my rescue!

Halfway through the day, we discovered Lake Under the Stair Storage and I almost lost it staring at my giant wet Pottery Barn Box full of my not-yet-used Christmas Decorations. There were cuss words muttered and tears held back. I'm not proud of it, but there it is. I made it through un-medicated 32 hour labor only cussing once (It was mid-contraction and I believe it went something like, "Back Labor Sucks! Piece of $h!t!") but mess with my Pottery Barn Decorations and I truly took on the role of a sailor. It was at that point, I also realized that I was in too far over my head and only had Maureen for the day. There would be more days on this journey and I needed help.

Enter my saviors. My mother and father-in-law. The dam burst when I got on the phone with my mother-in-law, Brenda. I actually only got the words, "I need help!" out of my mouth before bursting into tears that left me unable to talk for a minute or so and surely left her imagination running wild as to what was wrong! And bless their souls, they were on the road within an hour with an arrival time of 1am. Yes, one in the morning. By then, we'd cleared out all but the big pieces of furniture from downstairs. The terribly heavy and awkward king size memory foam mattress was a group effort! My friend Lindsay brought us pizza after a LONG first day at a new job then helped carry the giant mattress and box springs and frame up the stairs. That's a good friend, if you ask me! The clean-up crew was still hard at work getting the drying out process started when Jim and Brenda got in and finally at 2:30 am, we waved goodbye to the clean-up crew and sprinted toward our pillows.

So, in the annoying words of Alanis Morrisette, Thank you spin cycle. Thank you C.O.'s wife. Thank you. Thank you in-laws!!! Thank you insurance. Thank you happy kids! Thank you, my awesome friends!!!

It was a long week trying to get organized to come down to Oregon, but we made it. It's been wet down here, but it's much more fun getting wet during a morning walk/run with a good friend than when you step out of bed in the morning. And I'm having a much better time spinning out wet clothes from a walk than wet towels from the Hallway River.

GIVEAWAY!!!! C'MON PEOPLE!!!

Okay, so you may remember a few posts back that I'm having a GIVEAWAY of a free years' subscription to ClickinMoms.com!!! Well, so far only two people have entered. It's free stuff, so I'm like, hmmmm..... apparently I've made it too hard to enter (or I'm the only one that would get excited by a giveaway and would want to win this). So let's do this: Leave me a comment on the original post and you're entered. The end. Oh, and did I mention it's free stuff??? And just in case you were wondering, you DON'T have to be a mom to love this sight at all! Okay, I'll leave you alone now.

Free stuff.... I'm just sayin'!


free.

The Cutest Pumpkin of All

The days leading up to Dustin leaving were nuts, to say the least! There was flooring to be laid, tons of tools and furniture to move off the wood floor so it could be sanded and finished, odds and ends to tie up around the house, trips to Home Depot, packing and preparing for his detachment, and finally, trying to squeeze in a little family time. Well, we squeezed it in, barely, on Saturday night before sunset. On the way home from Home Depot, we passed the pumpkin patch and decided to go. We hurried home to get in warmer clothes and then raced back to play for a while before the sun went down. We parked, I put Naomi in the sling, then Dustin says, "um, where did you put his shoes?". Um, yeah. "Can't say that I put them anywhere." We soon realized that our tag-team effort to hurry out of the house left each of us thinking the other would put his shoes on. Luckily, it's only 5 minutes to our house. Dustin left with Lawson to get some shoes and I got 15 minutes to snap a couple of pictures with Naomi before they arrived. She fell asleep the rest of the time and it ended up being a really good time for Dustin and I with Lawson (and his shoes). We had the corn maze all to ourselves and ran around in circles, getting lost a few times, only to finally emerge and make a beeline for the pumpkins to claim our own while we could still see! Lawson hopped into the wheelbarrow and we headed down the middle of the pumpkin patch. Not five minutes later, we had a wheelbarrow full of cute pumpkins and some great memories! I'm quite sure I already had with the two cutest pumpkins, though....

My, What Big Eyes You Have

The better to melt you with, mommy!!!

And melt me, she does! One look at me with those big blue eyes and I turn to mush. And if those eyes fill up with tears, you may as well wipe me up off the floor cause I'm done for. The girl has me by the strings and she already knows how to pull them. And, I just may be a wolf in mom's clothing, cause sometimes I just want to eat her up!

GIVEAWAY

I love photography. Love. it. I've only fallen deeper in love as I learn more about it. One of the best resources I have found for honing my skills and expanding my knowledge is Clickin Moms. For just a few dollars a month, both wannabe and professional photographers use this forum-based sight to share critiques, tutorials, deals, free goodies and so much more. I can't say enough about how great this sight is! So, I'm really excited to be giving away a FULL YEAR'S SUBSCRIPTION (a $50 value) to Clickin Moms! Woohoo!!!

Here's how you enter: Go back to your blog or your facebook page and post your favorite photo that you have taken. Explain what it is about the photo that makes your heart sing and link back to this giveaway post. Then come back here and leave me a link to your photo as a comment! That's it! The only fine print is you cannot already be a member of Clickin Moms. Entries will be accepted until October 31st and the winner, drawn at random, will be announced on Nov 1st. Good luck!

Excited

The theme at I Heart Faces this week is "Excited". There are a few moments where I remember being so excited I thought I was going to blast off to the moon. This was one of them. The day of my wedding was kind of an out of body experience as I floated happily through the day. The moment this picture was taken, however, the veil had just gone on and I was snapped back into my body. I was getting married. To the man of my dreams. Today. This was the first day of the rest of my life. It got real. It got exciting. And maybe a little shocking as well. This was that moment of excitement. I can remember that feeling so well when I see this picture. Pure happiness!

HARVEST

HARVEST by Kimberly Laird.

It's like Christmas in the fall around here! Our wood floors are officially laid down in the entire upstairs and tools are headed back down to the garage so the floors can be finished! Dustin did an amazing job on the floor! I'm so proud of him. It's almost like we have a new house now. One that we will get to enjoy for six months or less, but it looks a heck of a lot better than it did when we bought it two and a half years ago! I'll post before, during and after photos when the floors have the finish on them.

We also have pumpkins on our front porch from our trip to the pumpkin patch yesterday (more to come on that, later), which is so much fun!!! And to add to the fall decor around here, I made the picture above to frame from a photo I snapped in the corn maze. I'm digging this harvest season so far!!!

Comforts

There is a crispness to the air as I wake up each morning to find myself deeper into the fall season. Halloween is around the corner and leaves are beginning to crunch beneath little feet shoved inside colorful boots. I love this time of year as the coats rotate back into the closet and smoke starts billowing out of chimneys. Something about this season draws me to life's "comforts". Crackling fires, warm cups of coffee in my favorite mug, roasts in the crock pot, and snuggling under a blanket together on the couch. This fall will bring all sorts of changes around our home. We'll be moving back upstairs to enjoy our newly finished wood floors that Dustin has been working so hard on, for one. But that leads me to number two, which is that by "we" I mean Lawson, Naomi and I. Dustin leaves on Tuesday for his final detachment with VQ-2. It's always hard to say goodbye and this is no exception. We'll have to enjoy the finished floors and playing in leaves and drinking coffee under a blanket to the tune of a crackling fire all by ourselves. Seasons bring change and so does being in the Navy. Luckily, this is our last detachment this tour and the next few years will be sans detachments!

So, while I'm not looking forward to the "big bye bye", as we explain it to Lawson, I am looking forward to all the fun this fall has in store for the kids and I. And I'm looking forward to the end of our final detachment! No more goodbyes sounds pretty good!!!

Family Photos

Back when Lawson was a mere two months old, we had some family pictures taken before Dustin went out on Deployment. A few hundred dollars later, we had a couple of good pictures. I was horrified figuring the cost of getting pictures done as often as I would want. A few bazillion dollars later, I should have documented the kids pretty well! That figure, combined with loving to take pictures, is what lit the fire under me to figure out how to do them myself. A good camera and some self-schooling is a heck of a lot cheaper and way more fun than dressing the kids up, marching them to a studio and crossing my fingers and toes we get a good one! Well, I figured out how to get pictures of the kids, but a family picture was a little more complicated. Without a costly remote, it's near impossible to take a picture of the whole group. The 10 second time just doesn't cut it when shooting in manual. Enter my great friend Lindsay. She did me a giant favor by tagging along with us down to the beach on a blustery evening to click the camera for me! She posed as me in as I set up the shot on the camera end of things, then we switched and she tried to click at just the right moment so it wouldn't look like Lawson was growling like a dinosaur or jumping out of the picture! He was, in fact, doing both. He also had CRAZY hair due to the wind and Naomi is looking like Kenny from South Park with her hood. It was a little colder than I'd anticipated. We ended up with a few good shots though and I am so happy to have them before Dustin leaves again and Naomi is mobile, too. How we're ever going to get a family picture with both of them acting up and trying to escape is beyond me! Thank you so much, Lindsay!

My two favorite boys!

And one of my main man, for good measure!

Fifteen Pounds of Teething Baby

I picked Naomi up a few mornings ago to find that a chubby, nearly-sitting giant version of the baby I'd put to bed the night before had been put in her place! Take a look at the picture below and I'm sure you won't be too shocked to hear that Naomi is a portly 15lbs already! I've got my very own Thanksgiving turkey sized baby! The baby-wearing is getting slightly less frequent as each pound she puts on is making my urgency for getting a massage reach new levels. My back is pretty much cussing at me when I get out of bed each morning, so I'm thinking it needs a bit of an attitude adjustment, via a really good rub-down! That's beside the point, though... the point is, Naomi is getting huge. See below:



Besides getting large, she's also getting teeth already! A few lucky hotel-dwellers got to hear the two hour beginnings of her teething at 11pm one night last week as I waited for Dustin to return from the dining out that I did not attend due to having a toddler on my hip and a baby on my boob. (Note to self: it is near impossible to get a toddler to sleep on a blow-up mattress in a hotel room. It's also pretty hellish, if not a little comical, to be awake at midnight with a grumpy toddler and a screaming baby serenading the nearby rooms. Hope no one was trying for a romantic getaway. Nothing "screams" romance like a loud, unhappy baby! ) So, there are two bottom teeth waiting to poke through her tender baby gums. No longer will this toothless grin greet me when she wakes up...



This is how Naomi spends much of her days, lately. Munching on what ever she can get in her mouth. Usually a few fingers, her sleeve or a combo of the two.



Moral of the story is that Naomi is the drooble queen as she awaits her first two teeth. As always, she eats incessantly and is therefore reaching giant proportions. I am fine with both and will allow her to grow her teeth and continue her frequent feedings under one condition. No biting! Naomi, please don't be a biter. Please??? Oh, and as for the sitting up part... here she is with her boppy as a support, plotting her impending adventures getting into all sorts of trouble with her brother.