Do your kids creep you out?

    The Monster has recently let his personality shine through and it's awesome, but sometimes he does little things that creep me out such as::

I wake up and the kid is just staring at me.  Not one blink or even shutter of the eyelid.  I tried not to notice how disturbing it was at first by rolling over and trying to go back to sleep but then the Monster climbs over my shoulder and sticks his nose in my ear.  Let me tell you if you think heavy breathing behind you is weird try having it literally right in your ear hole.  Sometimes I get lucky enough to get the cool sensation of drool running down the back of my ear and neck

As a Mom I always find myself wanting to clean his face- in particular- his nose! I really can't stand it when his tiny little nostrils are rimmed with crust or ooze.  Or worse, that one little booger that didn't quite get cleaned off and every time he breathes just flails in and out of his nose like a Pentecostal on Sunday morning. Sometimes, I see it from across the room and if he see's me looking at him it's like he knows what I'm thinking and will stop whatever he's doing to shake his chubby little slobber and banana covered feeler at me in a "no-no!" motion.  So to keep him on his toes I throw him for a loop and ask him if he wants a cookie which he always come running for, but he may just not want me to know I'm on to him.

More recently, though, he has taken his creeper status to a whole new level. 

Expert: Creepster McCreeperson.

After a long day away from Dad, when we hear the keys outside the front door I always ask the Monster "Is that Daddy?" to which he replies with a GASP! *shocked face* runs over to be in view of the front entry way (if he's not already there) squats just a little bit and waits. Which is cute when the door opens because he starts running in place waving his arms frantically with an occasional clap and grunting "OO-OO-OO! DA! OO! ANUHNUHNA!" (we still haven't figured out why he shouts anuhnuh [banana] when he gets excited.) So why is this eery on a whole new level? Well because he has started to do this when no one is at the front door he'll even run over to the computer desk or the couch.  Then, just when you think thats disturbing enough he does a slow turn all wide-eyed to look back at me straight in the pupils as if to say "I can hear them mommy dearest can you?!" Makes me coil back shaking my head and outwardly reply with "No, I don't hear them you adorable little lunatic!"

I recently posted about this on Facebook and had 14 people like the status and even had one friend comment "Thank god I'm not the only mom who thinks my kid talks to ghosts!!"  I mean, I know I was a weird little kid but straight creeper like this? Must come from my husband or something.  What weird or creepy thing do your kids do? Or did your parents ever tell you how weird you were when you were little?

Probably about to share food with that dead girl who was poisoned in the 6th Sense 

where am I?!

UGH! Seriously I feel like I don't know what's going on anymore
I have been sick- constantly since about the end of September and I am just now feeling a little bit better.
So to update you all here's what has gone on since I was last able to write::

   Them monster turned ONE! seriously where did the time go? It's like he was just in his cool little tanning bed just yesterday and now he's grown so big and KEEPS GROWING! Someone stop the madness!

This little boy has done one incredible job of showing me what I was born to do. I kept trying to do a video for him on his birthday and yet all I could do was start crying, maybe I'll never get it done but I sure will try!

   We came back in October and I went to San Francisco for a day to work the Marine Fleet Week's high school band challenge. It's a pretty cool event where Bay Area high schools get together and show off their best performances including their color guard.  It was pretty fun and I got some pretty good video for the recruiting station up there. I was really impressed with all the performances and the city- seriously you guys got it good up north! 

   

   The rest of the month passed in a pretty big blur until I realized holy moley and a half it's halloween next week! The Mr had to work that night so it was just me and the monster- we were a circus act he was a dancing bear and I was the animal tamer- i didn't really get any pictures of me but I made darn sure I had the monster bear.  We went to go visit Dad at work that night, the monster told him "I'll do the paperwork Dad, you can go out on patrol!"    

November brought the 237th Birthday of my beloved Corps.  The Sgt and I decided instead of going to his units Birthday Ball and mine too, we opted for the one with cheaper tickets- and even though I was bummed I didn't get to wear a dress to his we both had a great time.  And just ten day later we celebrated our two-year anniversary. Sgt just couldn't wait to give me my present so we ended up exchanging gifts two days early- usually I'm a stickler for celebrating special dates on the actual date but after seeing my gift I definitely didn't mind!  We spent a nice cozy and quiet thanksgiving together.  I shared my slice of pumpkin pie with the monster- his very first slice and taste of cool whip! The month ended with us heading out to Julian for their annual christmas tree lighting- which unfortunately wasn't too spectacular and the best pictures of the night were of the monster feeding the Sgt.

During this whole time I was in and out of medical and going to appointment after appointment and having blood drawn, and then getting more blood and more blood drawn they finally decided the reason for my illness was probably my gallbladder seeing as I had cholestatis of pregnancy while the monster was still in my belly.  Well they took a look at me and saw there was no blockage but there was a crap ton of stupid huge stones so they said hey you don't need that anyway and I was like "well I do need a faster run time why don't you take the appendix out too!" (just kidding no one will remove your insides just so you can run faster) I had surgery last week and they finally took it out and now I have four little incisions on my tummy held together and healing under some kind of gorilla glue.  Thankfully my father-in-law came into town to help us with the monster while I heal and he helped us decorate the tree!

Honestly the end of the year has gone by so fast and I have a busy beginning to the new year! So wish me luck and I promise not to leave you guys hanging again!

we look good for 237 years old eh?

When we got married neither one of us had a lot of money and he bought me a smaller ring with just one stone, he hated it and I loved it- but I'm a very big fan of this one too ;) 

And his anniversary gift a new lid for riding- he's wearing it because it also has a bluetooth headset so he can answer the phone when he rides just by simply saying "Hello?" cool huh?!

mmm PIE!! a bit blurry but forgive me it was taken with my phone

kettle corn Dad?

Don't make any sudden movements I'm pretty sure I just saw Santa

three in a line and one right under the belly button

Ok Papa a lil more to the left-that's it just a liiiiiittle more

My bra & chonies match- isn't that enough?!

I felt like I had a lot of it all put together.  Working full time, being wife, being mom, and still finding time to go to the gym at least twice a week, and holy shit I put on a purple bra and just so happened to have pulled out some purple undies!
Yet, the other day I felt like a bad mom, a bad wife and not really doing good at life in general.  I am constantly tired so I go to bed early, and I get woken up in the middle of the night by a crying child and so I tend to oversleep.  When I get "free" time I don't really feel like going out, I feel like putting on something comfy and reading (and catching up on) blogs, writing, facebooking, tweeting and/or pinning.  I mean, is that so wrong?  Hell, at least I walked out of the house with pants on in the morning and didn't cuss out or punch anyone (who I shouldn't have) at the end of the day, what more do people want from me?!!

But when the Sgt. said something to me that made me think, "Man where did I go?!"  I, first of all, got all butt-hurt for about half a day.  Then, I revamped my thinking. I made old goals/regimes new again and I thought of ways to get ME back, which is really hard when you got a little one who you want to devote all your time to ensuring he becomes an A+ Student/Popular/Well-adjusted/Class President/rock star/Olympian/astronaut/heroically good Samaritan.  The number one thing that came to mind though was I enjoyed myself more when I made time for others and brought joy to them. Now don't get me wrong, bringing joy to my son is loads of awesome, but sometimes doing stuff for other people besides him is super rewarding too.  Really, isn't that what life should be about? Helping others, enjoying others and doing what you can to put a better foot forward? So I'm making a better effort to get back in contact with those ones important to me and that keep me going (unknowingly) with their positive attitudes, and doing things for them in return and hopefully I'll find that happiness again that brought me renewed energy every day, and gave me the motivation to get through my week.

The Sgt. noticed he was in a rut too and so we've been pushing each other to get into the gym and re-working our schedules when we get home to not immediately veg out on the couch.  We have been putting a bucket list of things to do in San Diego as a family or just as a couple before we get out of the Marine Corps and move to, well, actually we haven't figured that out yet, but we won't be here forever. The thing is sometimes with life, you get stuck. Unfortunately it can also creep up on you and you don't even know you're stuck, but the best thing to do is get up, shake the crap off of you and get going.

Does anyone else feel like they unknowingly get into a rut like I did with becoming a mom? How do you get yourself out of it? Is it personal journey or do you tell others and they keep you accountable?

Some incredible people (Christine Candelaria, Lela Davidson, Celena Gill, Jim Higley and Stephanie Dulli) I know have some tips for getting their families moving and away from the every day blahs

How to Remove Obstacles that Keep Our Families from Moving - iVillage 

I'm Dying- I'm also a hypochondriac

  I don't like going to medical unless it's absolutely necessary- such as an annual check up because I always think I'm dying.  I  Goweki search (research/study via google Web MD and wikipedia) what's going on with me and I'm 100% convinced I'm in dire need of getting my will in order. 
Once I have found the sentence "COULD be an underlying _______ problem" I hear little me inside my head saying
                -"Yup, you have an underlying liver and kidney problem, brace yourself for your next Dr appointment, and while you're at it go ahead and try making that triple layer cake you always said you would, finish the scrapbook you started, take more pictures of yourself having fun with your son so he won't forget you and tell your husband you love him, but if he moves on too soon you'll hang around to haunt him."-
 
  For instance, when I was pregnant with my son I developed Cholestasis, which is a liver disease onset by pregnancy.  The Internet said it could be an underlying liver problem.  I shrugged it off considering the monster and I were perfectly healthy- except for him being about 5 and half weeks early and me having a fever during labor, we were great.  So when a few months ago (after I stopped breast feeding and my body knew it wasn't supplying anything internally anymore for the boy) I started getting extremely sick when eating any kind of gluten, and if I had anything spicy or any kind of alcohol within a 24 hour period of eating bread and the like, well I could forget about retaining those nutrients! So I made an appointment which meant I had to make another appointment with the gastroentorologist to get my blood drawn- he also informed me I was slightly anemic- and then wait a month for my next appointment.
  So during that time, off I went on my little Goweki research party and found that celiac disease (which is the disease of being allergic to gluten thus having to alter your eating lifestyle) can also be caused by an underlying kidney problem.  SO of course there it was in plain sight.  In a very stretched-over-analytical-worrisome plain sight, I had underlying diseases laying dormant in my body for so long and were just then coming to take over my body and take my life from me. It was a horrible couple of weeks.
  I finally get back to the hospital, where the doctor seemed too busy to see me and said all my blood and liver levels were just fine, and I probably had heartburn.  He then received a call and when he was done asked if I had any questions, when I said no he showed me the direction from which I came and he was gone. I was fine, I was going to live...but that's according to this man.

I don't trust 'em! Any of em!!

No longer Heads or Tails

I have used the trusty coin flip to make some pretty major life decisions. I use it to help me make the decision I really want to make, you know, if it lands on heads and I didnt really want heads I knew tails was the way to go the whole time and vice versa.  For example, when I was going through college I just couldn't do it anymore and told my self on the way to class one day as I pulled a quarter out of my pocket "Heads, I join the Marine Corps. Tails, I stick with college and home and see where it goes."  Well, one look of the honorable Mr. George Washington and 5 1/2 years later here I am, a sergeant of Marines and pretty happy about it.  However, I don't think that's going to work now.
I'm coming to a fork in my career path in which I must make a pretty big decision again, but it's too big to make with the flip of a coin this time, especially since I have two major componants in my life that are deciding factors of every decison I make. The Sgt and The Boy.  Should I ask for orders up north where I have a bigger chance of FINALLY being deployed? Or do as I ask to just go down the road where the opportunity is still there but not as great? 
Before The Boy came along I had never deployed, but always wanted to and tried every chance I could while stationed over seas, now that he's here all I want to do is hang out with him and wacth him grow and learn and not miss a single moment of his life. Hell, just four months before he was born I re-enlisted with a happy heart- thinking I wouldn't be changing my mind about wanting to deploy. The minute they put him in my arms though, I was done. I was madly in love with someone I JUST met and all I could think about was how I would never leave him- crap, I just signed up for four more years of people in higher positions than me telling me where I will be going.
Then there's the Sgt.  This man has vowed to stick by my side and support me in whatever endevor I choose, but he might be getting out and going into a job that will take him away from us for a good amount of time before we can really settle down and my decision of where I go will affect our family life and goals we sat down and talked about months ago.  Do I try to stick as close as possible or just throw caution to the wind and go up north and hope things just work out?!

I'm not just myself anymore. I'm a wife in a young marriage still trying to get use to each other and see what works for us. I'm a mom to a nine-month-old and it's kind of a full time gig.  I'm like a grown-up now and I have a bunch of crap to consider before making choices, I think I'll just go take a nap.

The one that got away

I'm a mom, I get frazzled.  I'm human, I get frustrated.

I start by saying those because over the weekend I realized a couple things.   One, as my monster was sitting on the floor crying I started thinking "Man, it'd be great if you'd just stop crying." That's when he started crawling toward me and then hugged my legs and lifting his arms up motioning for me to pick him up. So with him be just undeniably adorable I bent over picked him up and wiped away his tears, and just like that he was over it smiling and clapping. 

Now to understand what made me feel like a complete a-hole about this I have to tell you about me, the me I was in 2008.  I had come into the Marine Corps just a year prior and had a boyfriend, not the kind that wanted to know my family, and kind of not really the kind I wanted my famly to know. But alas, we were together for the wrong reasons and I ended up pregnant. When the Dr. told me I was indeed pregnant, I was scared but I was pretty happy too.  So I accepted the fact that I was going to have a baby, and kept checking all the online baby calenders to learn about my new one's progress. A couple weeks later, while in the middle of class, I started getting really bad cramps went to the bathroom, if you have no idea where this is going I'll just say I was definitely bleeding.  I finished class and then went to our detachment Sr. Enlisted Advisor who then had another Marine take me to the ER. The ER Dr couldn't confirm it since it was early on in the pregnancy and said the test didn't say if the cell count was going up or going down so I would need to wait a week and go back for tests. I didn't need to go back to know what I already knew.  I lost the baby. I spent the entire next day either sleeping or crying.

At my follow up appointment the next week, the doctor took me into a small room and said "I don't know why they made you come back, you're not pregnant. And if you were you are not pregnant any more." Then she hurried me out of her office and went back to the waiting room packed full of patients...just like that completely dismissed as a single active duty female who was probably just too dumb and miscounted her cycle.  What that doctor didn't know was, I wasn't some dumb floozy who got knocked up and would have been relieved by the news I wasn't pregnant. I wanted more than anything to be a mom.

I'll be honest that was one of the two things that made me kind of forget myself. Forget who I was and where I cam from. I became selfish, moody and honestly- a total bitch. I could go into everything I felt in those following days, months and years, but I digress.  Those weeks I told myself I would welcome the cries and messiness of evrything that a baby brings when I finally did have a kid.

And when the monster came up to me crying like I was never going to come back and just wanting nothing more than to be in my arms and I got frustrated- I stopped. I remembered what it was like when the first one got away and I leaned over picked him up and hugged him, told him I loved him and even though he didn't know I was frustrated I told him I was sorry kissed away his tears and boom he was all better.

And two, yeah I'll admit, there was time a while ago when I said "I just want someone to want me and need me desperately (and it wouldn't hurt if he was just out-of-this-world-cute)" and as my little monster of a son came crawling up to me crying because he wanted to be near me I thought to myself, I definitely got what I wished for.