After 7 weeks...

HIS HAIR IS STILL RED!!! 

 "I'm a happy baby!"

 "This is my serious face. Lucy, get out of my picture."

 "What's over there?"

 "Look at the pretty lights...."

"In my spare time I model for GQ  Parenting Magazine!"

Dear Levi,

Well here we are... week seven.  It's shocking to think you are nearly two months old.  This week you had your first trip to the zoo.  You slept.  You also dropped your 10pm feeding this week.  You eat 2-4 ounces at 7am, 10am, 1pm and 4pm.  Then we get you ready for bed and you eat 5ish ounces at 7pm.  After reading your favorite book "The Going to Bed Book" you are out like a light.  You've been waking up once between 2am and 4am.  But I'm thinking that you will drop that feeding soon.  Last night you didn't even cry when you woke up, just sort of talked at me until I noticed you were up.  You stay awake for about 30 minutes to an hour before most feedings and then just a few minutes afterward.  We've found it works better for you to be up before you eat so you can play without spitting up all over yourself.  

If you read this one day... you'll know that this week we found out that daddy is getting deployed.  I know you will probably never remember this time.  But I feel this huge burden to make sure that yall have a good relationship before he leaves and makes sure that you learn who he is and how much he loves you so that when he gets back you will know him.  My biggest fear about deployment is that  your daddy will get home and you will be afraid of him as if he is a stranger.  If that happens, I know it will eventually be okay.  But I know it will break your daddy's heart... so I'm determined to make sure you know him.  

Alright... enough of the sad stuff... You continue to be such an amazing baby! We couldn't love you more.  It's been so much fun to see your daddy come to love you and figure out how to show that love to you each day. (Not that he didn't before... but you know dads... they just don't know what to do with babies at first.) And of course, I love you more each day.  

Love you little man,

Mommy

Going to the zoo!

Well, first let me start off by saying that it was William's idea to take our 6 week old to the zoo.  And despite my thoughts like "He doesn't care about animals" and "He will just sleep the whole time", I figured what the heck.  William won't get to take Levi many times to do things like that until after he gets back from Afghanistan so we might as well go now.

I was right though, Levi slept all but like 45 minutes of it.  We had a nice time walking around though.

 Look out Levi! There's a penguin behind you!

 Can you spot the scary looking Mandrill (kind of like a monkey)?

 Daddy loves pushing the stroller

 Well hello there Mr. Elephant

 Daddy letting Levi "see" the Lion... although if you know anything about babies you know he can't even come close to seeing that lion!

My favorite animals!

Table of Contents

If our life were a book, I feel like the table of contents would look something like this.

Table of Contents
Chapter 1: 1998-2001 Middle School - Memorial Middle School
Chapter 2: 2001-2005 High School - Stratford High School and Memorial High School
Chapter 3: 2005-2008 College - Wellesley/Baylor and Texas A&M
Chapter 4: 2009-2010 College/Graduate School - University of Texas at Dallas and Texas A&M/Dallas
Chapter 5: 2010-2012 Jobs - Richardson Schools and wherever the heck William got sent (West Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas) also 6 month stint of active duty in Arizona
Chapter 6: 2012-2013 Baby and Deployment

Here we go again....
A new chapter.
I'm pretty sure I'm going to like this chapter the least of all of them.
Which is sad. Because it started off pretty great.
Since 2005 William and I haven't spent more than 2 months in the same city.  Those 2 months were during summers in college.  Since 2008 we've barely spent a few weeks in the same city.  Some how we make it work.  Things were looking up.  We got a house, had a baby... William had 5 job interviews in the past two weeks for office jobs... where I would get to LIVE with him all the time.  Then the inevitable took place. William found out he is getting active duty orders.  He will fulfill his military obligation this year.  In a big way. 14 months away from us.  My precious son will be three and a half months old when his daddy leaves and doesn't come home for at least 14 months. It's a terribly painful thought.  I mean he won't remember.  But we will.  I have about a million feelings and fears. I feel like so many of my dreams for my family have been dashed by this news.  But I know life must go on.  And I'm going to have to put on a brave face for our baby.  And I will.  I'll hate it, but I will.

We've made several quick decisions because of this news.  Since everything is happening so fast and we have no time to move or anything like that, Levi and I will stay in Dallas.  I'm not sad about that.  I love my job and we have lots of friends up here.  I'm also not going to go back to work this year.  That was a tough decision since I love my job so much, but we need time together.  My district was nice enough to grant me three extra days of leave to make this happen.  I'm sure many other things will happen and change but for now these are the biggies.

Obviously this blog will continue to be where I write whatever I want.  I'm sure it will be deployment related.

"Non Sequiturs"

I really need to call the roof people and get them out here and I really wish Levi would take a nap today.  There's a plant on my back patio that is D.E.A.D.  and maybe I should start vacuuming more often.  Levi's formula smells really bad and I need to go to the dentist.  My Jason's Deli float is really good and I forgot to put the trash out for pick up this morning.  If we sell our house I'm guessing we need to put some sort of furniture in the empty guest room and I really need to hire someone to trim our trees.  There's a big stability ball in my living room leftover from when I was in labor and I should probably run to get some more formula this afternoon.  Maybe William will be home for dinner and since I forgot to take the trash out I could add that dead plant to the bag.  I have a thank you note to deliver to my neighbor and Levi is FINALLY sleeping.

*Idea for this post was stolen borrowed from Pioneer Woman.  I doubt she'll mind.

Always the unknown

When will our life "settle down"?

New jobs... moving... deployments... or maybe just staying put.

I just wish I knew what next month held for us.