Walt Disney once said “All the adversity I’ve had in my life, all my troubles and obstacles, have strengthened me… You may not realize it when it happens, but a kick in the teeth may be the best thing in the world for you.” I sure hope this is true.
When it comes to my obstacles, I have been thrown quite a few lately. My daughter is already starting the “terrible two’s” faze. She laughs when being scolded, will spit out food she actually likes because she’s not eating on her terms, intentionally do things that get her in trouble for attention (messing with the blinds, spitting out her juice, stomping etc.), refusing to sleep when she’s tired, and the list goes on. The biggest obstacle has been her sleeping schedule. This caused an argument between my husband and I, which added an even larger obstacle; to prove I’m right. Nadia never used to have issues sleeping. She would take a nap in the morning around 10:30am, another around 3:30pm and go to bed around 9pm. She would usually wake up around 7:30am. I felt so lucky. Little did I know that as a child grows, certain things like getting in molars and many other teeth at once can cause screaming fits at night time. It was like an all out battle at night. Finally, I found out that having “calm time” before bed time was essential. Everything is low: the lights, the TV and our voices. I give her a long warm bath and follow that up with “calm time”. At that time (a couple weeks back) she had to be watching TV to fall asleep. I think I watched “Mickeys Twice Upon A Christmas” 100 or more times. It was all worth it though. She would pass out and then I could have “calm time” for myself. Usually entailed a hot cup of coffee and catching up on shows I’ve missed. Luckily, she has gotten over the screaming all out battle fits and having the TV on before bed. She got in 6 teeth at once. Now that they’ve all broken through her gum line, her bedtime debacles have ended. All she needs now is a quiet room, a song sung by yours truly while being rocked, and a wonderful night light she got from her grandmother for Xmas.
I’m still trying to conquer her juice spitting escapades. For some reason she will take her juice (either watered down OJ or apple juice) and spit it out on any available hard surface, which is usually our TV stand and then slurp it back up and swirl it around with her hands. Spreading it all over the stand. We’ve punished her by saying “NO” sternly and taking her juice away, saying “no” sternly while swatting her butt – nothing to hurt her but just enough to get her attention, after saying no, making her clean up the mess (she thought was fun), and what we are to now; juice lockdown. I only give her juice when she asks for it and then she has to sit down in my lap while drinking it. There are still times where she runs off with it and spits it out wherever she can, even on herself. I have no idea why she does this. All I know is, I hope she grows out of this sooner than later.
Exhausting all your options is something one does to overcome an obstacle. Nothing is more true than my husband trying to get his orders cut that are correct. As you might know, my husband Julian is enlisted in the US Army. He has been in a little over 3 years now, so this experience is fairly new but we’ve also gotten used to the “hurry up and wait” stuff. Having an issue with his orders was no surprise. However, our situation seems to be so unique that he’s been having issues trying to get it corrected.
My husband reenlisted last year and was given a new duty station. This is normal. I was super excited because it was in GA, which is about a 6hr drive home to FL where all of our family resides. Around Sept/OCT his orders changed to a deployment and we wouldn’t move til 2015. Of course I was disappointed, but his job is in the army not at some office. I got used to to idea and then his orders were canceled and we were told we will still be PCSing to GA. Our original “leave the island” date was Jan 2nd. He was informed in mid November, so we had less than 2 months to get things in order. Between then and now he’s had 3 different orders cut, all wrong and our move date was pushed back to FEB 12th. Either the date was wrong or my daughter and I weren’t on them. Currently my daughter and I aren’t on the orders. So, if they can’t get it fixed we might just have to pay our way there. I doubt this would happen, but hey who knows so we’re saving just in case.
Hopefully we will jump high over this obstacle and leave it to eat our dust! Keeping an optimistic outlook on things is typically my job since my husband just expects the worst. So, I’ll be here wishing and hoping everything will go as planned.
On the good news portion, I am an Aunt!!! I am so proud of my older brother James! He is becoming such a wonderful father. Him and his beautiful girlfriend Brittany had little Cash Tillman Clark November 8th, 2013.
Isn’t he just too freaking adorable?!! Ugh! I can’t wait til I can finally hold him!
On that happy note, I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday and a fabulous new years! Write soon 😉
My life in a nutshell..er blog! 