But I Do Love You.

Okinawa, Japan is 12 or 13 hours ahead of Naples, Florida & Cincinnati/Dayton, Ohio. It is an up to 30 plus hour plane ride. And not a day goes by that that isn't on my mind.

I never forget how far away Madison is from our family. Her family. She will be nearly 4 years old before our family is an active part of her life beyond a computer screen & phone calls.

Not as important, I can't go out and get an Arby's Beef N Cheddar. Bi-weekly "cheat" trips to Smithfields are out of the question. Cookout's greasy goodness does not drip all over my fingers, and will not be washed down with a blueberry cheesecake milkshake. I indulge in no skyline, and I do not repulse my husband with the smell of two white castle cheese sliders & a small order of onion fries.

I can't buy home goods at Kirklands and hope my husband doesn't notice when he comes home from being away. He can't offer to buy me an unexpected pair of wedges from Buckle as my eyes light up passing them on our way to Gymboree at the mall, let alone go to Wilmington on the weekends to get a better selection of clothes (and still come home with only 1 shirt because I'm THAT picky.)

Friday summer nights don't begin every night in Drew's back yard staying up way too late only to get way too early to go to the beach and sit on the back of a Jeep. Heck no weekend nights at all begin that way. We don't go to Chilis (again!) with Chelsea, Jake, "Sky", and Kali. No more movie nights in their living room. No more promising Sky a balloon (which I always forgot to buy but he didn't care) if he did this or that.

But, Okinawa, I do love you. And I know that these next three years are going to go by way too quickly.

The island is straight off of an internet "paradise" google image search. You have beaches, country side, caves, water falls, children's parks, amazing food, hidden shacks, and soaring building all on one small island. You can wake up and relax in a beautiful quiet park with a small stream running under an old bridge, then end up in a loud bar eating sushi and drinking sake by night fall. Nothing about this island, so far, had made me think "I could do without that." Every thing is so beautiful and I usually sit in the passenger seat for that very reason. More opportunity to view what a wonderful place I have been granted the pleasure of calling home.

The people are just as beautiful as the island they so graciously opened to us. They are genuinely kind & thoughtful. You rarely see a glum face-- and if you do, the moment their gaze meets you smiling and nodding hello their face instantly brightens up with a smile & twinkling eyes as they nod back. Madison is seldom passed without a Kawaii (cute!) or some serious baby googly eyes. They almost always HAVE to touch her cheeks or hands. And I don't mind one bit. Because 9 times out of 10 if the person is even the slightest bit sick, they wear a mask. The courtesy they share for one another is outstanding.

If you are expecting a deliver, and given a 2 hour time frame, typically-- ignore the last hour & a half they say. If they say there will be here between 10 & 12 they will either be sitting in the truck waiting for the clock to strike 10 or will be there before 10:30. Their word is their word, and rarely will any thing change that.

Parking lots, while smaller than Stateside, are typically guided by attendants, both in & out of the parking lot. Often there are men pointing you in the direction of a parking spot.

I have yet to see a trash or recycling bin anywhere outside of a place of business (and even those aren't in plain sight), but I have yet to see litter. Off base at least.

Nothing about this island ceases to amaze me. And I hope it is always that way.

Baby you're everything and more than everything I wanted, more than I deserve...

Five days. Five more days and my baby girl will be 1 year old. It does not seem like we've had her this long, but when you think about it, is 364 days really that many days? Not when you write it out in days, in my opinion. Even shorter a time when you write it down as only 12 months. Which is scary to think that 1 year is "only" 12 months. Makes me wonder how fast the next 17 years will go. Also makes me want to curl up in a cocoon & pretend I'm still in my second trimester (because lets face it, the first & third suck lol!) with this beautiful baby girl and she is still a long way away from growing up :/

She still isn't walking, but she's taken a few steps here and there so I don't think we have too much longer to go for that. I'm excited about it, but I know once she starts walking I'll hate it lol

She's gotten so much more independent it's sort of sour to think about. She's still needy half the time, where she just wants to be in our (well... my lol) arms, or needs me to sit next to her as she plays so she knows exactly where I am and that I'm not leaving her, but usually a couple times a day I will be sitting on the couch and she'll crawl into her room to play with those toy. She has two bins in the living room to play with as well, but a girl's gotta have choices! lol!

Oh, also... whenever she cries in the car, we only have to play this certain song to get her to calm down... and it's kind of embarrassing lmao. Headband by B.o.B featuring 2 Chainz haha!!! That's one to tell her first date. "When she was a baby we would play a rap song about tight lady parts and ganji! It'd make her happy as a clam! No pun intended, of course!

The weekend before this past weekend Madison has her 1 year pictures taken, and smash cake pictures! She didn't get to wear exactly what I wanted her too, because it was too cold, but the pictures are still wonderful, regardless of what she was wearing, thanks to a friend of mine who is an amazing photographer! I cannot wait for our family to get the pictures!! If you're on, or planning on coming to Okinawa any time within the next year & a half or so, totally look into her stuff-- I cannot rave enough about her!!

Photo credits:
http://krystalynnephotography.com/
https://www.facebook.com/krystalynnephotography

They Say It's Your Birthday...

  Happy Birthday Marine Corp... okay I don't really G.A.F about the fact that it's their "birthday" lol... but I do care that I get to get all dolled up! This past Saturday we had our Birthday Ball! For the first time, I actually wanted to stay the whole time! Maybe it was me being a mom, and actually enjoying just being around adults without worrying about poopy diapers & if it's nap time yet. Either way, it ended too soon and I wish I could go back and replay the night (with a few differences, of course, but we won't get into that lol)
  I always enjoy the slide show, but typically after that I slug through listening to a long boring speech, eating crappy food, and then we high tail on out of there once the dancing starts. But the speech was actually pretty good. There were some parts that went in one ear and out the other, but for the most part it was enjoyable (it helped that for the first time the guest of honer, the person who does the main speech, was fun to look at for an older man haha!)
 And the food! Oh man, it was actually warm! And that wasn't the best part... it was GOOD too! "What's that you say!? I must have misheard you!" NAY, my good friend! It tasted like something you actually were glad you paid $35 dollars to come to this play for! And apparently the booze was nice and strong, too, which my husband enjoyed (a little too much I might add lol).
 And lastly, the DJ actually did a great job picking songs! He was smart enough to start everything off with songs that had actual dances attached to them so people would
get out on the floor (Cupid Shuffle, Line Dancing, etc.) and once enough people were on the floor he changed it up to free dancing songs. I didn't hear any slow songs, but apparently those came after I left, according to Mark's text "Of course a song I would want to dance with you to comes on"... obviously -___- He never dances anyway, so whatevs, I'm used to it *shrug*. (Mark ended up coming home with his gunny. I left a half an hour or so before him so I could let the baby sitter go home at a relatively decent hour.)

Oh, and speaking of birthdays! Madison will be 1 year old in 5 days! What. Thee. Ever Loving. Hell!? How did this happen!? And why am I not twig bitch skinny again by now!? Gah, I started Herbalife up again way too late lol what a slacker. I'm down 10 pounds, though... so that's a plus. Now that I fit into my gown, though, I know I'll be slacking more, which sucks... but at least I have plenty of time, even with slacking, to get bikini bod ready ;D
Her party will be on the 17th. This weekend we go to finish up her Birthday shopping, and to get decorations for her party.
Her birthday Party will be a "Royal Affair" where she'll be dressed up (and the guests/their kids if they'd like!) like prince & princesses! We still don't know too many people on island, so it will be relatively small so it will just be in our apartment :)



Now on to a separate and much longer Madison Update in a new post!

It's Good To Be Bad.

I am a bad mom, and I'm perfectly fine with it.

Madison Brianna is 9 months old. She has no designated nap, bath, eating, bed, or wake-up time. She has no schedule, and 95% of the time she is happy.

To most people now days, no schedule for a baby is horrible. Society constantly tells you how to raise your child the best way. How you need to put them on a schedule, or your life will revolve around them and nothing more or less.

My daughter is a baby. She is not a clock.

She wakes on her own for the day between 6:30 & 8:30 and she goes to sleep for the night between 8:00pm & 10:00pm. Sometimes she wakes up between 3:30am & 5am for a sleep feeding, but for the last week she hasn't been waking at all in the middle of the night.

Bath day is every 2-3 days (depending on if we go in the heat or if she is otherwise dirtier than usual). Sometimes it is in the morning. Sometimes it is in the afternoon. Sometimes it is at night. Her bath time is whenever I decide "Okay, I'll give her a bath now." Usually right before we leave if we have things to do that day, whenever that may be. Her bath is not a cue for bedtime, or wake time. It is a bath. It is when I splish and splash her while she splishes and splashes herself. It is not a time for her to relax, it is a time for her to play and have fun while momma does her thing with that cup & washcloth that sure do look like fun toys.

She eats when she is hungry. Sometimes that is every 3 hours. Sometimes that is every 5 hours. Her breakfast is whenever she is hungry after her first morning bottle. Her lunch is whenever she is hungry in the afternoon. Her dinner is when we eat (which varies depending on when daddy comes home.)

My daughter is not a robot. She knows when she is hungry and/or tired. And she knows how to tell me that.

Now, if you put your baby/toddler/child on a schedule and it works for you, more power to you. But that does not mean it is what everybody should do. It works for some people, and others (while it will still probably work for most) prefer to let their child tell them when they need things.

My daughter is not in charge. But I am also not in charge of her basic human needs. While she is a person made from two people, she is her own. I will continue to let her be her own person so long as I am able.

Now That We're Here, Now That We've Come This Far

Well. Here we are. In our new temporary home. Camp Kinser Towers. Right in front of the beach... but of course our apartment is on the wrong damn side so we just get a nice parking and other tower view with a sliver of city skyline lol. I can't complain, though. At least during typhoons I won't have as big a clean up on the balcony!

We've got a 2 bedroom, so we're needing to store things smarter without a third bedroom to use as a "throw all room", but it's spacious enough for us to fit everything we need with a couple extras and still maintain an uncluttered home. Plus there are closets and cabinets EVERYWHERE lol.

I've already began hanging things. Some of the walls are concrete, so I need to have Mark drill into them for me before I can drill a screw in, but other than that, today I plan on hanging everything else.
We bought a printer, but I need a damn cable so the frames will have to deal with old pictures until I can get better pictures printed on base, shipped from online, or the plug since this computer doesn't have wifi and my macbook isn't compatible with it.

Madison is so happy to have her crib back! She is going to bed without a fuss, and so are we! For the first time in 2 months I've had a sleepless night (well 2nd night... we got everything bed two days ago after sleeping on hotel beds and air mattresses for the two days we were here without things lol).

She has her own little area with cubes full of her toys to play with in the living room so hopefully she isn't as "HOLD ME MAMA" all the time. I plan on replacing it with a chest or large wicker basket.

It's so nice to be able to actually cook a dinner now. Granted, we have to sit on the couch and eat it, but it's food by golly and I cooked it! No more eating out or surviving off of simple or frozen meals. I have a damn oven again!

Pretty much everything in the common areas is put it it's place and tidy, except some things in the buffet that I need to find a place for so we can have the government take it back (government furniture). The bedroom & nursery are pig stys lol I plan on tidying those today as well.

I've been scouring facebook for sale pages & booko for a cheap bedroom set for awhile now, so hopefully I find something soon so we can have the government pick up all of the furniture they put here for us to use until we got our own things. First pick up is free, otherwise we have to take it back ourselves or pay to have it taken back... so we are just going to wait until we can give it all back at once.

So yeah, that's that.

You're Gunna MIss Me When I'm Gone

So it's been awhile since I wrote. We've been out of our house since mid June, living with friends, then family, then friend's again... and now. In a hotel. A hotel in... DUN DUN DUN DUUUUNN Okinawa, Japan! We've been here for a week now, and although I haven't seen much at all, I am in love.

We went to the airport on our original flight date. After an hour of waiting we were told the flight was going to be delayed half an hour... and then another delay which made us miss our connecting flight to seattle. Missing that flight meant we had to wait to leave because they only flew out of Seattle to
the airbase here once a week. We ended up having to leave Saturday morning at 5am instead of the Thursday at 4pm. We got one more day with friends, so whatevs. The sucky part was we went from a 15 hour airplane day to 30. Fuuuun!

It actually wasn't even that bad. It seems like it went by so much quicker than 30 hours. I'm glad we ended up flying commercial the entire way.

At LAX we were invited to go to the first class lounge before our flight to Tokyo. They had free internet, sushi (which I wish I would have known before we got Panda Express! lol!), alcohol, cappuccinos, Japanese newspapers... it was awesome. Madison slept mostly the whole time, so we stayed there for about an hour to charge things and get online. When she woke up we left so she didn't start getting loud and talking while people were trying to rest. The JAL (japanese airlines) attendants put in Madison's carseat for us, so we just strolled her around in their stroller.

At the security all the Japenese woman lost their minds over Madison. Apparently they LOVE American babies. Especially if they are blue eyed. Give them a blond to boot and you might as well send an ambulance lol. One of the women, you could tell had baby fever. She kept poking Madison's cheek and squealing whenever Madison smiled or giggled at her. It was so cute! Madison was eating the attention up!

On the flight from LAX to Tokyo we had AWESOME seats. Since they were positive if her carseat would fit we got the bassinet row. We had SO MUCH ROOM. Mark could stretch out completely without his long legs being restricted, so I know he loved that. We eat had our own TV that had movies, games, and aerial views from the plan the whole way. On take up and landing the screens towards the front of the plane (one of which was RIGHT in front of us) showed the front of the plan
so yo could see yourself taking off and landing. It was really neat. We had seafood rice snacks, which were kind of like the snacks you usually get on American flights, only these were seafood flavored. They were really good. Mark isn't a fan of fish, though... so I'm sure he didn't appreciate them as much as I did. For the on flight lunch he had roast beef with a roll and I had some sort of eel & rice dish. We both got noodles & sauce, a fruit cup, kimchi, salmon (raw) with I think it was cabbage, and sorbet. For dinner, to be honest, I don't remember what we got. But it was still good!

Originally our flight from Seattle to Okinawa would have been about 13 hours on a AMC flight (military flight). Which meant no awesome Japanese meals, no awesome chairs, awesome personal TVs, or awesome display showing us taking off or landing from the nose of the plane. It was really awesome and made the time fly by.

So far, we are looking at a 5-7 week wait for housing. Mark's command, I guess, is trying to expidite that process. I think he said they were successful before in making it quicker, so hopefully it's the same for us. As much as I LOVE living in a 500 sq ft hotel room (we got upgraded! lol) I would really love to have our own place so I can start making our concrete floors and white walls more homey and less hotel impermanent. I just want a home again. My bed. Madison's room. All of her toys. All of our clothes. All of everything.

We already bought our first car. A Subaru B4 with Twin Turbo. All of the cars over here are old, so ti's a 2003. No sense in buying anything newer when we are only going ot have it for three years... We already have everything for it set up, but here you have to go through a bunch of other stuff so we don't actually GET the car until Thursday. I mean, not that it mattered. Mark JUST got his license yesterday (I got mine almost a week ago, but the car has to go in his name since he's the active duty and I'm just here on a sponsorship.)

So far (off base) we've only been to CoCo's Curry house. I had Cream Croquette Curry with Crab. It's basically curry, with white rice (which comes with every meal) and the Cream Croquette with Crab meat is like a hashbrown made from creamy crab meat. It was sooo good! For dessert we bought an ice cream bar from there. It was basically an ice cream with hard chocolate in between two layers of vanilla ice cream, and the whole thing was wrapped in a semi soft ice cream shell that looked like a big waffle. It was pretty dang good. I mean, it tasted like normal ice cream, but it was still neat lol

I'll be sure to update as I can. The internet at this hotel is horrible, and as I said, it's going to be a while until we have our own place with reliabl
e internet :/

Madison is 8 and a half months old :)

Madison Update :)

I have no doubt that she will be walking around by her first birthday. She is growing so fast, it seems like every time I turn around she is doing or growing something new.
She now has five teeth. Yes, five. I know what you're thinking "How the hell do you breastfeed a kid with FIVE TEETH!? Well.. I don't. Unfortunately, while we were bouncing between places the stress took it's toll and my supply all but disappeared. I was producing so little that all I kept hearing was how she's gotten smaller, she was wanting to eat every 2 hours still (even with solids) and I just couldn't keep up with her needs so I made the decision to switch to formula. I'm glad we made it as long as we did, but I'm also glad I don't breastfeed any more. You might have heard me say before, it was just more stressful for me than beneficial for the both of us. I was resentful of my husband, to be honest, and I know this is best for myself and my daughter. We made it 7 and a half months, and we've been 100% formula for a month and she's already packed on the
pounds. She's going longer between feedings, and sleeping more soundly day & night. Every so often I would try to give her my breast but she would refuse altogether so my plans of hopefully reestablishing my supply once we settled here in Okinawa went down the pooper with a quickness. But, like I said, I am happy with the decision and so is Madison. And that's all the matters :)

She is full throttle crawling, no more row boat action. And standing, too! She walks along furniture and every so often she will let go, or pop up from my lap and stand for 3-5 seconds at a time before plopping down on her butt.

She eats pretty much anything me or Mark have (that she CAN eat at least.) Every time we have food she stops in her tracks, crawls her way over, pulls herself up, and begs like a little puppy dog. Personally, I blame daddy lol. Bananas are still her favorite. She loooves diluted apple juice and bread as well. If you want to do something (like write a blog) just pull out the puffs and as long as there are

some on the floor next to her, she will not bug you lol

Her favorite toy is still her little monkey jungle joystick toy thingy... very descriptive, I know. But how the heck do you give a toy like that a name? lol She's also taken to playing with the wheels of our suitcase. Her favorite toy that isn't a toy (that she still likes more than her actual toys) is her wipes. She will sit there and crinkle the plastic on them for every and be perfectly content. You have to hide wires from her, too. She can't help but pull and yank on them. Like now...

She loves Mickey Mouse Club House & when Geometry Wars (a video game that Mark plays on occasion.)

I think that's about it as far as an update for her... now.