9 Months

It's been 9 months since Joe's R&R and since I last posted. I know that so well, because our BABY #3 that we conceived during R&R is due any day now. On St. Patrick's day, to be exact. So I thought I'd update this blog before I surprise everybody with baby pictures.

The pregnancy
While we are happy to welcome our third child, it was a little bit of a surprise to find out that I'm pregnant. Joe and I had been joking that I would send him a T-Shirt downrange to let him know if I got pregnant. Well, since Joe redeployed 2 days after I found out, I still sent him a T-shirt (It said: "I went home for R&R and made a baby"), but to Hawaii instead. He received it at a friend's house who reports that he looked a little shocked when he told her the news...
There has been more nausea and more exhaustion with this pregnancy, but all in all it went pretty well. Midway through we found out first that I have a marginal umbilical cord insertion, which caused the doctors to order ultrasounds every 4 weeks to monitor baby's growth. Four weeks later they told us that one of baby's kidneys was enlarged. But at the last ultrasound at 38 weeks of pregnancy it turned out that baby has outgrown any problems. The kidneys look normal again, and baby was already 7 pounds 5 ounces, which means at a very healthy weight. Now we just wish the baby showed more of his/her German heritage and would show up slightly early rather than late. And no, we don't know what we are having. This time it's a surprise!

Our new home
After finding out that we are expecting, we changed our plans and Joe secured on-post housing for us. We were lucky to find a really nice, big house with a fenced-in backyard. All the important locations (child care, playground, school, commissary, PX, friends) are in walking distance! The house doesn't have air condition, but most of the time we don't miss it at all and just open our windows to let a fresh breeze through. The only minor disadvantage: right behind our house is a PT field, so during the week we hear hundreds of soldiers grunt and yell every morning at 6.30 a.m.

A new job
Well, kind of. Joe became the SP, that is the Standardization Pilot for his unit, which means a lot more responsibility (though not more money). He has been working hard, but his efforts are recognized and he likes what he is doing. Now we are hoping that despite some unfortunate rule changes he'll get promoted this year.

Holidays
Not only the kids, but I as well got to go trick-or-treating last Halloween for the very first time. I pulled them in a little waggon, Michael dressed up as a fire fighter and Annika as little Red Riding Hood. It was interesting to watch them, as they were more mesmerized by all the decorations and costumes than by the candy.
Thanksgiving we spent with good friends at their house where we had a fantastic turkey. It's just kind of odd to celebrate such a traditional holiday in shorts and T-shirt when you are used to fall and winter being cold. Of course we were most thankful for our men having come home safe and sound.
We celebrated Christmas Eve with the same friends at our house, with my family's traditional cheese fondue. And... we had our first Christmas tree!! It looked pretty nice with all the ornaments we had received as gifts during our first 5 years of marriage (but since they were fragile, they were all on top). The kids loved it too, and it was awesome to watch them Christmas morning when they found all the presents. While we missed our extended families, it felt great to be together as our little family.

Visitors
So far we were visited by both our sets of parents. Unfortunately Chuck and Diane didn't get very lucky with the weather. It rained A LOT, 12 inches in two days in the beginning, but hey, better than snow, right? We are hoping they get to come back and make it to the beach more than the two times this visit.
Then my parents came, and this time the weather permitted a few more trips to the beach. They were only slightly disappointed that grandchild #3 didn't decide to come a little early to greet them...
We are also looking forward to my brother's visit in May/June, Karen's & Jay's visit in July, and friends coming in September. We got a nice guest bed room, so make sure to secure your spot early! ;-)

A birthday party
Joe turned 40 this year, so I thought we needed to celebrate that big time. But when I asked him, he said he didn't want to. So I went ahead and planned a big surprise party! It's still hard to believe that we pulled it off, but Joe's parents as well as his whole troop was invited, and almost 50 people showed up for a great evening, without Joe noticing anything in advance. We told him that we would get together with friends who were in Hawaii for a short vacation, and so he walked into the building totally unsuspecting. We had an awesome luau buffet, and as entertainment some heart-warming toasts, an interesting quiz about Joe (thanks for everybody who helped me putting the questions together, and a slide show that I made with pictures ranging from his early childhood to the recent deployment. Everybody had a really good time, and thankfully Joe enjoyed it too!

Michael & Annika
Both of them are doing great. They were hardly speaking any English when we came back to Hawaii, but both of them picked it up very quickly. It helped a lot that about three times a week they go to the hourly child care here on post. Michael is also on the waiting list for half-day pre-school, hopefully it won't take much longer until he gets in. Their language skills also improved a lot when the grandparents were here, first their English, then their German. As before, Annika is more advanced than Michael was at her age, but Michael has a skill that she doesn't possess (yet): he is like a walking dictionary, and can give you the correct word for an item both in English and German. He'll tell you: "Daddy says apple, and Mama says Apfel." Pretty neat!
While we didn't meet our goal to have no child in diapers for a while before the new baby arrives, at least Michael is now potty trained (though still wearing a pull-up at night). Phew! What a relief. We tried with Annika, and when you put her on the toilet she'll do her business, but somehow she still misses the "notice the feeling and tell a grown-up" part. Oh well, now we are going to wait until she has gotten used to the upcoming changes (the baby) and then we'll try again.
Annika now weighs more than Michael, although she is not chubby at all. It's just that Michael is so darn skinny! We do feed him, but looking at him you could think otherwise. Annika is also very tall for her age, and nowadays we often get asked if they are twins.
Both of them are very healthy, we only had to deal with the regular colds and a stomach bug these past 9 months. Oh, and we made our first trip to the ER! On the evening of Thanksgiving day Annika dropped a plate and then tried to pick up the pieces, which resulted in a deep cut at the bottom of the thumb. At first she cried a lot, but it seems more because she can't stand to see blood than because she was in a lot of pain. At the clinic they glued the skin back together and put on lots of bandages. I think she enjoyed the attention and was definitely all better when they gave her a popsicle in the end. She was however very disappointed later at the regular doctor's office, when she didn't get a popsicle there.
They also found new best friends, Cade and Calleigh, the children of one of the pilot's in Joe's troop. Luckily Mama likes to hang out with their Mom too, so everybody is looking forward to another playdate. When the baby comes, they'll get to spend even more time with them, as they have graciously offered to take care of Michael and Annika when we have to leave for the hospital.

And that's about all! I'm out of time for now, but if baby makes us wait a lot longer (hopefully not!), I'll post some pictures too!