Daddy's Back in Town

When Matt arrived home last night, you would have thought he had just returned from another long deployment. The girls were ecstatic! They both ran to him and threw themselves on him with great force, attaching themselves to him permanently until bedtime.

When we asked Olivia what she wanted to do with Daddy when she woke up in the morning, she said, "Um. I want to go to the beach and swim and build sandcastles."

Here's a slide show of our trip to the beach this morning:

Oh No! A New Addiction!

I have enough addictions. I'm addicted to chocolate, Internet browsing, blogging, red wine, coffee, squandering my time and so on. I don't need to add to the list.

However, when I was browsing my cloth diapering board the other day, I noticed, for the millionth time, a mention of a website titled, Etsy. My interest finally peaked, I decided to take a look.

It's a site selling all things handmade. From cute baby bibs and matching burp rags, to infant and toddler hair clips, to neckties for little boys, to handbags and diaper bags, to art, quilts and children's toys. A little bit like eBay (remember, all handmade here as is not the case on eBay) but without the bidding!

You all know that my somewhat crunchy-self appreciates handmade products. I'm all about supporting the work-at-home mom, and since I've been avoiding most plastic toys like the plague for several months now, this site will be my go-to site for baby shower gifts, and toy and clothe shopping for my girls. This site will certainly go on my list of favorite sites I have listed on my sister site.

Since yesterday, I've ordered doll diapers and hair clips. I've only spent $20, including shipping. However, I am in big trouble here! I've already sent an email off to my sister asking if she'd like me to buy her son a necktie I thought was cute. I've also linked my mother. This site is grandma-friendly as it's free to sign up for an account, easy to search the site and place an order.

Am I behind the times? Have you all been shopping here for months or years?

Busted!!

Last night, after Lila was in bed, Olivia and I were reading, "How to Speak Politely and Why."

Matt bought her the book on one of his trips with the Navy. I don't like this book. It kind of bores me and is just too much grammar in one sitting. However, Olivia loves the stick figure drawings and begs me to read it. I've gotten into the habit of skipping over a few pages. Since this is a new book, I could get away with it. Until last night. It went something like this.

"Okay, Olivia. All done. Let's go to bed.

"Mom, let me see the book." I hand it to her.

"Mooooommmm. What did you do? I think you missed a page," she says as she flips through the book and looks over several pages intently, her brow creasing.

"MOM! Look at this page. You didn't read this page. Read it, please. Now."

After I finish that page, she continues to flip through the book.

"Mom, why did you do that? You missed a lot of pages! Why, mom? Why did you do that? You can't do that, mom!"

So busted!

The Case of the Missing Taggie

Well, after a not-so-exciting weekend of rain, constant begging to go to the rainy park, and a lot of mommy ignoring her kids while face-in-book, we had a little bit of excitement this afternoon.

My husband takes great pride in the fact that our children never used pacifiers (especially now that we're in Portugal where all babies have pacifiers and it's very common to see four-year- olds with bottles in their hands and pacifiers in their mouths and six-year-olds being spoon fed dinner by a parent). He felt (more so than me) that our girls were such easy babies, that it would be pure laziness on our part to use them. They were very easily comforted (true). There were times I felt that way, but, there were also times I would have appreciated a "plug" other than my boob.

What my girls do have, instead, are Taggies (see above picture). They don't sleep or travel without them. When Olivia was 10-months-old, we lost her first one on a plane. I quickly bought a new one and she's had it ever since. When I was pregnant with Lila, I bought two and had her name embroidered on them. If she ever loses one, she has a "backup."

Taggies are "sensitive" items and Matt and I have been teaching her to always take accountability of said "sensitive" item. She's older now, after-all. We've been encouraging her to leave Taggie in the car or at home.

Today, she was in a mood. Matt's away and I'm at the point now where instead of an annoying song sticking in my head, I hear crying. I wake up in the middle of the night often thinking I heard crying. Crying, crying, crying. I've been on mommy duty, without a break, for over a week. I know it could be so much worse; I've been through worse. But, it is what it is at this point in time. The girls miss Matt and we have a week to go. I'm fine, they are not. And, so it goes. Olivia does not want to be without Taggie. So, I let her take it to our Monday morning playgroup. During which, was packed away in the boxes during clean-up.

We had a good lunch, both girls were exhausted and we headed home. I got Lila up to bed, grabbed Olivia and asked her where her Taggie was. "I don't know. Where is it, mommy?"

I began to feel very ill. I'm not ready to wean her from Taggie. Especially when she's missing Matt. I jump into "mom on a mission" mode, and a million phone calls later, shortened naps and a trip back to NATO, we find it. She hugged it tight, bunched it up, sniffed it and, after a bit, says, "Mommy, I love my Taggie!"

The End