Two More Weeks

Daddy comes home in about two weeks. I am so excited. The boys know he is coming home soon, but I never tell them the exact day until he actually calls that he is about to take off on that last airplane. His travel record isn't that great, and I don't like to get anyone's hopes up until I KNOW he will be here. This has seemed like the longest deployment ever. He has been on much longer deployments, and he has been gone while I have been pregnant before, but this one just drags on and on. It has gone especially slow in the last week or so. We are all ready for him to come home. Caden still tells him to come home at the end of every phone conversation, and sometimes he gets upset about it and sometimes he just says it.

Caden is still working hard on his potty training. He has learned in the last week how to stand and pee and I think he really feels like a big boy when he does. He seems to have the nasty part of the business down, but still has the occasionally pee accident. Of course we are completely hit or miss on the nap times and bed times. That will come in time. We bought him a radio flyer scooter this week so that he would have a scooter to ride when the boys ride theirs. He tries to push theirs around and really doesn't do bad for his age, but this new scooter is perfect. It has been warm enough this week for the boys to get out and play a little more and Caden has spent a lot of time on his scooter and in his powered race car. Caden also LOVES to play with the dogs. He loves all the dogs. He and Zeke spend a lot of time playing with them. Since I could not figure out how to salvage his doggie hat, I threw it away. Then the next day he was wearing it. I told him it needed to go in the trash and he said, "it not trash -- my hat". So, he is still running around wearing his half chewed up doggie hat.

The puppies are weaned now and getting ready to go for their first vet appointments. We discovered today that the one we refer to as Star (the runt) has eyes like her daddy. She has one blue eye and one brown eye. Everyone else has 2 brown eyes. Additionally, while there are a couple that will technically be called long haired Midget has more hair than even his mother. He is definitely a hairy booger. They have had a couple trips outside this week. We could only go out for a few minutes, because it is still quite cold for them. Amazingly they all went out and did their potty business right away. They are also doing really well with the paper training.

This is a really busy week for us. Russell and Zeke have testing this week. Russell's starts tomorrow and then Zeke's is Wednesday and Thursday. After testing is over this week we are going to a park up in Maryland to see how Maple Syrup is made. The boys are really excited because they show the whole process from tapping the tree to bottling it. Even have a pancake breakfast you can attend if you want. The last big event this week is Evaluation night for Upwards Soccer. I hope I will survive the week. It is a lot more than I am used to doing and getting up a lot earlier than I have been.