Saturday, May 30, 2009

Mommy Scam

Not only did I just pull off a great deal, I think I just pulled off the best Mommy Scam ever!

Amelia and I have been "trying out" vacuums for weeks. To keep her close to me as I shopped around, I always let her try and push the vacuum back and forth and asked her if she liked it or not. Sometimes she would tell me "too hebby, momma"... or she'd keep on pushing it down the aisle until the cord yanked her back. All in the spirit of keeping her cheerful and involved while I was trying to decide, I asked her opinion on colors, sizes, you name it.

So when I finally picked up the funky purple vacuum with a ball that makes the vacuum pivot last night, she was really tired of vacuums and wanted to go home. SO I said, "tonight is the night we buy your favorite vacuum! Mommy's buying you a vacuum cleaner tonight!!!"

To which she replied, "Oh, OK!! LET'S GO!!!!!!"

Seriously. She said that.

So off we went and came home with it. She was jonesing all today for me to open it up and when we finally did she was dancing around, singing, "YAY YAY!! MY BAKUME CLEANER!! " She could hardly wait to vacuum. And she did - the whole front hallway. My sweet two year old... brought a tear to my eye. She was so diligent! I was helpful too... I kept pointing out spots she missed and WAHOOOO if she didn't go back and get them.

That makes it officially worth every penny. If I can just keep this up until she's out the door to college, one of my dreaded chores will be just a distant memory. hee hee heee

Friday, May 29, 2009

WOOOOOT!!

My new vacuum!

Deal of the century. I've needed a new vacuum for about a month now. I have spent a LOT of time researching vacuums, checking websites for pricing, waiting for sales, going to stores and trying out different vacuums. I compared getting a less expensive vacuum (but with the added cost of new bags, filters, replacement parts for the inevitable loss of suction) with the Dyson. While they are more expensive to begin with, in the long run they are much cheaper. I finally checked with Rafe to see if his head spin off if I bought it and got the official okey dokey.

And then... I just happened to go to Sears tonight to see if they had the DC28, just out of curiosity. They had accidentally put the wrong price on a sticker for a sale that ended yesterday... but the sticker was still hanging above a DC25 Animal demo model. So they had to sell it to me! But the new one wouldn't be in for a week; so I went to the Base Exchange out of curiosity to compare prices. Base exchange price was actually higher, but they have a policy of price matching within a 50 mile radius... I showed them my ticket, purchased one off the shelf and came home with it... TAX FREE.

My walk away total was 467$. I know that is a lot higher than my normal thrift store purchases, but 1) those thrift store purchase savings helped me pay for this and 2) I'll never have to buy another vacuum, or bag, again!

Thursday, May 28, 2009

My New Favorite Quote...

From a friend of mine - she knows who she is!!

but some people just need people to take charge of things so if they have to call us bossy THEN BOSSY IT IS!

Helping Hand

Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Radio Silence

The past 6 weeks have really kicked me to the curb. Either Amelia or I have been sick the entire time, and not with pansy illnesses either. I've had to throw out a few of her clothes along the way that just weren't worth washing out. I have a reactive airway disease that seems to have gone into full blown asthma, so that is annoying to top off everything else.

Knowing Rafe is coming home so soon is both exciting and depressing. This is actually a common emotional combination at the end of deployments for a multiplicity of reasons. There is even a regular military informational session every month called "Beyond the Brief" for spouses of soon to be returning deployed Marines. It goes over the post deployment emotional cycle, how to integrate as a family again and generally what to expect, both positive and negative. Just knowing some of the reactions are to be expected and normal can be stabilizing.

One of the reasons it's depressing because we miss him now more than ever. We accidentally mentioned to Amelia that "daddy is coming home soon"... and you can imagine what SOON is to a two year old. She talks about him constantly - the things he will do for her, with her, teach her and has already taught her. It doesn't matter if Daddy had nothing to do with it at all, in her world right now, "daddy teach me". He apparently bought her all the toys she now has and taught her how to stand on her hands with one foot on the ground and one leg stuck in the air.

She is assessing her friend's daddies... and luckily, we play with her friends during the day when most of the dads are gone at work. She mostly thinks that every house has a mommy and some kids, but only some of them have daddies. Unfortunately, she put that together one day and told me, "I don' haf a daddy". Things like that break my heart. She meant that she didn't have a daddy living with us, but for a minute I thought that she truly thought she didn't have a daddy. That's when being a mom and wanting to protect your kids really takes over. You smile and laugh and talk about Daddy like it's normal for him to be gone and tell her all the things he says and does to stay close to her while inside you just want to cry. She takes her cues from me, and sees it as normal also.

Sometimes when a plane flies overhead, she says, "There goes Daddy" and I agree with her. She's done this ever since he came home on leave in January and we picked him up at the airport. We watched his plane come in and saw him get off and so we wave to every plane that flies overhead. I tell her that Daddy works very far away but he flies over us as often as he can so he can check on her and see how she is doing. This seems to make her very happy.

Waiting for the two of them to be reunited again is really what is dragging me down. I see her longing for him in a way that is almost palpable. She'll pick up her toys off the floor and clean them with baby wipes, telling me "Daddy like a clean house". (Too bad Mommy isn't as diligent). She goes to the room his gear is stored in and tells me it's "Daddy's room". She'll walk by the quilt his aunt made him and tell me, "Daddy's quilt NO TOUCH!" (We have it hanging as a piece of art in our hallway and she knows not to touch it) I've had to work a bit to get her to remember that when Daddy comes home he sleeps in "mommy's room", otherwise she would probably think they could take turns sleeping in with me. :)

I haven't taken pictures of Amelia for weeks and weeks; the longest I've ever gone without taking pictures of her. I'll be posting some old ones soon from Easter and try to take a few new ones as we start feeling better.