Jimanie's Crickets: May 2015

Saturday, May 23, 2015

The [March] Madness Continues

So for the second post in March, I mentioned that I didn't have any notes to share. But in the midst of the "madness" I hadn't realized that I had added all of my notes to a separate blog from the one that had the pictures. So - this may be old news now, but here are some fun memories from March!

Mason

- Was turning off lighted toys and saying he's Satan (Don't let Satan blow it out, I'm gonna let it shine!)
- kept saying "poo-poo" in the car and getting Jackson to repeat it. Both boys would giggle, giggle, giggle. Hilarious.

-"Did you say freezer meal exchange? That means all my friends are coming over to play!"
I just love to hear him say "freezer meal exchange" and actually know what it is referring to. (I coordinate a monthly event with our friends and we always combine it with a play date).

--for the same event he also said, "do they give us a meal and then you give them a meal as a thank you gift?" sweetness.

-he is BEYOND fascinated with "blowing cigarettes." That's what he calls smoking, and he says it so often it's hard for me to even remember to say "smoking cigarettes" when I'm answering his questions or explaining something to him. He wants to know why people do it, what it means to get addicted, why it's bad for you, and what it does to your body. And wants you to tell him about it over and over again.

- We've been trying out churches, and the one we've gone to most frequently (Anacortes Christian Church), we went two weeks in a row, and when I picked Mason up from the 3 year-old room, they said Mason "taught" the Sunday school message. They said he was so smart he already knew the story. I wanted to roll on the ground laughing! (We really haven't gone to church that much since he was born, and haven't been teaching him any of the stories at home). Apparently it was the same or pretty similar to what they had discussed the week prior (different staff each week), and he must have remembered a lot of it! Ha ha!

- In other news, Masons class picture was AWEFUL. It wasn't his scheduled day at school, so we just swung by to be part of the picture. I'm sure he would have been fine if I wasn't there, but he was clinging to me and SCREAM crying. I had to bribe him with a cookie at the grocery store just to peel him off my leg and get him to sit with his class, where he continued to cry hysterically with spit dripping out of his mouth. "Click click" picture done. I, of course, got online as soon as we got home and ordered one. Since months have gone by, I actually have the picture to share with you:

HA HA HAAA! Oh. Dear.
So, apparently the picture is too blurry, and they just recently did a retake.
I decided to send him to school for 1/2 a day on that day instead of just dropping in for the picture. We'll see if that made a difference!

Jackson

3/22: Jackson just took 4 steps!! I was down the hallway and screamed and scared him and he fell down. Oops!

3/26: Another apparently exciting moment to memorialize: Jackson drank a whole cup of milk at lunch today! #moveoverLarryJackson #theresanewJacksonintown
- Jackson hadn't really been drinking a whole lot of cows milk up until this. And if I haven't previously explained, Larry Jackson is the strength coach for the A&M football team who is renting our house. He told us a story about how he grew up drinking an entire gallon of milk every day, and ever since them Mason always talks about "growing big and strong like Larry Jackson" when he drinks his milk.

So there. NOW I think we can officially wrap up March. But the madness still continues in our crazy little life into April and beyond for sure!

Command Spouse Leadership Course

As you know, in Feb/March the boys and I had the opportunity to join Jim during his second week of the Command Leadership Course in Newport, RI. And the main reason we all went is because I went through a week of Command SPOUSE training myself. I didn't really know what to expect, and there was some nervousness and frustration on my part leading up to the trip with having reading assignments (ironically the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People) in advance that I just really didn't have time to do. It was ~~about all~~ more than I could handle just trying to get prepared to take a week off of work while watching the boys by myself for the week leading up to it as well as getting us all packed and ready for the trip. So when I received some surveys in the mail to complete before attending, I squeezed them in, but completed them in a state of distress with my mental focus set on a high level of productivity.
With all this said, I get to the training and we start grading/analyzing our survey results. One of the surveys we took was the Rokeach Value Survey where you prioritize the order of both your "terminal" and "instrumental" values, and then make note of what you selected as your top 5 for each. For my terminal values, from having taken the surveys at home while in survival mode I selected health, accomplishment, self respect, family security, and an exciting life as my top 5 terminal values, and logical, ambitious, responsible, capable, and self-controlled as my highest instrumental values.
So once I had settled into the week of training, and was out of my typical weekly chaos (that was MUCH magnified leading up to the trip), I decided to re-evaluate my priorities and re-take the surveys; considering more what was important to me, and not necessarily what I had been acting on lately. From this, I ended up with the terminal values of health, family security, true friendship, inner harmony, and a comfortable life, and instrumental values prioritized as responsible, loyal, loving, logical, and intellectual (seems like a more drastic difference in instrumental).

What I mostly gained from this experience, was my personal struggle with work-life balance. Too focused on production, not enough attention on the special moments and feelings, or time for family and friends. One other task we had to complete was to create our own personal vision statement, so I used the acronym BALANCE to prioritize my values for my personal vision:

Best friend to Jim in all situations
Advocating for my kids at every opportunity
Loyal to friends and family
Allowing myself personal AND down time every day
Never letting email and phone distract me from the present
Creating fun life experiences for myself and my family
Educate others to be healthy and fit

For the most part, the week was about learning about the structure/function of the Navy, different positions/ranks, and the types of tasks/issues our Commander spouses will be dealing with during their tour. However, another fun task that Jim and I got to work on together was our Command Tour Charter. This was assigned to be a visual representation of us and how we will handle the command together (and all of the stresses, responsibilities, and potential social obligations), and what our areas of focus will be. Surprise, surprise, we decided to do a PowerPoint presentation in order to present our project representation of the iPhone with carefully thought out apps and organization:

You can kind of see the Darth Vader head in the VAQ-209 patch as our background

The bottom row of always easily-accessible apps are all based on communication - our most important element. Making sure that for our family life/ease, we are in constant communication about our schedules, using calendar invites to add events to each other's calendars.

The left column is all about making sure that we each take care of ourselves in our busy and hectic lives (work-life balance!!). Specifically throwing in some things we enjoy doing together - working out, going for a run, and throwing in some individual activities like reading and solitaire (also to remind me that Jim needs some time to himself to recharge).

Family and friends are a large priority for us as well. Keeping in touch with FaceTime, sharing pictures and updates on PhotoStream and Facebook, and making sure that we get babysitters and go out on dates to continue to strengthen OUR relationship as well.

Financial security for us and our boys.

Making sure we are making wise choices now to allow for a comfortable future.

Even though we are (BOTH!) now finished with our formal education, our accomplishments are definitely something we carry around with us, and hope that it will provide us the experience and knowledge we need in our current positions and whatever is next to come.

Looks like we're in this together!

Thursday, May 21, 2015

April Showers

Mason:
- Started swim lessons this month. I wasn't sure how they would go, knowing that we had a hard time at gymnastics once I wasn't supposed to be on the floor with him anymore and he had a new instructor. So we hyped it up, took some easter candy bribes with us, and gave the class lesson a shot. Sure enough, I couldn't even get him to get into the water without holding on to me, and then he just cried and didn't want to leave the side of the pool :(. There were some other frustrations that I don't think helped matters, such as the 2nd instructor hadn't even arrived yet, and they didn't really "intro" the class and ease the kids in even though it was the first day (though other students took lessons the previous month). Anyway, I was commenting to an instructor on the pool deck that someone just really needs to get in and pull him off the side and make him move around... and so he did! (Pictures below). So we decided that for April we would switch over to private lessons with this knight in red with white-cross armor to get the ball rolling on swimming with a non-family instructor.

Jackson:
- He is walking all over the place and talking about anything he can, he is such a mimic! He copies everything other people say and is really picking up words and even songs. 'auce (sauce), 'uffs (puffs), up (both open and up), he loves pointing out "hat" (on every stranger wearing one) and "hot" (whenever there is smoke/steam), balloon is "a-booooooo!!!!!!" (always said with a high level of enthusiasm), dogs say "ff ff" (instead of woof woof), sheep say Baahaaahaaa (like you are laughing out loud).
- We stopped nursing this month. That was a hard decision for me, because I'm pretty sure this is our last baby, so this is the end of an era for us. There's a lot of excitement in that, but also some sadness. Sweet moments cuddling with my babies, providing nutrition and comfort to them in a way that only I could. But I knew we had another trip coming up, and it would be easier for us there if he didn't need to nurse, and also take one of the stressors away from my work day. So we started by trying to take out his mid-day feeding and keep the morning and night time ones. But that seemed to make him want to nurse more and more often, so we ended up just stopping cold turkey and that was only a struggle for a few days. He seems great now, eating solid foods with an amazing appetite, and has really increased his drinking of cows milk.

- This kids love for balls and balloons does not waiver - he points them out on movies and in books, and will keep flipping back to the page to see them instead of wanting to read ahead.

- One day, he was apparently dreaming of balls at school, they thought he was awake and asking for a ball, but apparently he was saying "ball, ball, ball" in his sleep!

Balls and walking!

Mas and Jack both had the stomach bug one day - throwing up all day long. Poor sweet Mas barely ever got off the couch (he enjoyed 2 days of LOTS of movies). Jackson on the other hand was still able to muster up enough energy for a few Danger Ranger stunts.

I tried to get Mason to do some egg dying, but he really wasn't too into it - I know he still wasn't feeling that great (and I imagine the vinegar smell doesn't help).