An appalling lack of blogging.

I'll blame the move.  I now have tremendous sympathy for all those families with children that complain about moving with the military...previously, I had oft thought to myself  - c'mon, you're in the military, it's part of the deal, what's with all the b*#ching?  Then we moved 29.4 miles from Seabeck to Gig Harbor, and needless to say I am extremely sympathetic.  When do you put stuff away?  When the kids are asleep?  How does that work if the kitchen is the problem and the kids are right down the hallway from the kitchen?  Argh!

Thank goodness for Pat, who single-handedly established our kitchen.  And Theresa's office.  And helped us stay sane the first 2 weeks with great advice and another adult set of hands. It really does take a great friend to help you move.

Then she left.  Doh! For several weeks, coming home was just depressing.  Every room I'd look, piles of stuff to be dealt with. No peaceful or project-free room in sight...and unlike when we were tackling the zillion little projects Camp Seabeck needed to be livable, now we can't start working til 8 or 830 and we've put the kids down, and by that point we're beat.  Ugh.  But slowly, occasional evening days and after weeks of some occasional weekend time, it's coming around. And it's great. We love living in a neighborhood we can take walks or runs in, love being on a quiet cul-de-sac, love being a 3 minute walk (ok, more like 8-10 at kidspeed) from a beach, love being in a house whose temperature is only indirectly related to the outside, love living on a single level, love a kitchen bigger than a closet, and with a garbage disposal, love having a bathroom we can use after the kids have gone to bed, love having a laundry room (and not having piles of dirty clothes be the first thing we see when we walk in the door), love having useable closets for OUR clothes,  love having great water pressure....the list goes on and on.  We'll likely never have a view as stupendous as Camp Seabeck again, but we're growing to love our view of Henderson Bay and Mt. Rainier (or Mt. Reindeer, as Madelyn called it initially) and strangely, I haven't mourned for Seabeck's view at all (the neighbors - absolutely...but extricating from Camp Seabeck was so painful, perhaps that undid the view for us).

But I digress, you're not here to hear me ramble on about our new digs.  A few cute things:

Isaac and Madelyn both still run to greet me when I get home. That never gets old.  Isaac likes to affirm my arrival and confirm my presence, patting me on the chest and saying repeatedly "Baba Home!" Then he'll start squeezing my cheeks or pulling at my nose or hair or prodding his chubby fingers in my eyes while he names them...more for the perverse fun of it than because he doesn't know them.  He knows where his sternocleidomastoid and philtrum are, for crying out loud...)

Madelyn loves to "work."  Every day she loves to go get the mail, demanding that she get her share, then inspecting and subsequently folding each piece as small as she can.  Occasionally, she'll get a minute at the computer on Mama's lap, at which point she likes to emulate Mommy, and look down at one of her "work" papers while pretending she's typing.  And if you want something of her?  "Hold on, Madelyn working" or "Hold on, busy working."

Isaac is intermittently fascinated by his penis.  In the bathtub, he'll occasionally pull and play with it, and he likes to try to pour things into his penis when no one is looking.  It's often the first thing he'll grab once his diaper's off (some days, he really helps, holding his legs up, lifting his bottom up so you can slide the diaper...it's funny, he's reminding me more and more of the way Madelyn was when we got her, which is appropriate since she was 27 months, which Isaac turns this month).    Hard to believe she's potty trained now!  Last week, to test her, T asked her to go to the bathroom and get started, and she walked there, pulled down her pants and panties, and was going #1 when T walked in - Whoo Hoo!)  But back to the little mister...2 weeks ago, after learning that Mommy and Daddy were putting packets of sugar/sweetener into their tea to make it taste better, he pantomimed pouring it onto his penis.  He's going to be popular all too soon...

Isaac has lost stick privileges.  The kids love going on walks and finding rocks/sticks, particularly at the beach.  Madelyn found a 2 foot long 1/4" dowel that had floated ashore, Isaac was fighting her for it so she let him have a turn...several minutes later he tried to jab her in the face with it, scoring a glancing blow on her chin.  Now, every time he tries to pick up a stick, we ask him to put it down, he says "Why-ee?", we ask him why, and he'll say "poke Mei-Mei".

Last week, Isaac gave us a scare.  Not eating well one day, no real localizing symptoms such as a URI or diarrhea, seemed a bit warm in the morning, T got home and measured - rectal 104.5   Yikes!  Madelyn measured 99.5 rectal, and per T didn't mind getting measured since she liked the attention (which Isaac's neediness and desire to be held that day had been precluding).  T stripped him down, gave him Tylenol, sprayed him with a misting water bottle, and he perked up that evening and ate half his meal...we had called Lauren Gist, our pediatrician of choice for advice and reassurance (never mind she recently left her job at Navy), and by the next day he was much better.  That night, though, he woke up at 930 and 1130 and 5am, and at the 1130 he got a bit of water and to read a book...at which point the solemn little dude astutely observed "Mei-Mei one night-night, Isaac two."  If you're well enough to be competing with your sleeping sister, you must be on the road to recovery!

And finally, the most important news we've learned lately is that Alissa will be staying on with us for the next year!  She had interviewed at a private Christian school, and was in the running for a math teaching job, but it seems like it wasn't the perfect fit from her end, so she decided to let that go and commit to us.  We had been sweating bullets, T had 3-4 candidates lined up to interview, none of whom would likely hold a candle to Miss Liss, and all of whom would require building the trusting relationship that's required for someone to hang in one's home and take care of one's kids....all we can say is, a week later, it's still a wonderful load off!

Here's to hoping it'll be less than 2 months before the next entry...