Day Two

Mostly smiles between last night and now =)
20 weeks pregnant today.

Last night, I received a text from my husband telling me he was safely there and that he loves us. I was too cheap to text him back lol (we live in Germany and have German phone plans, he is in another country so it will be costing us). I cried a few tears of joy because I really wasn't expecting to hear from him so soon. Went to bed with the boys and slept quite well.
This morning was the first morning back to school after a lonnng (albeit much-needed) 4-day weekend. Gotta love the Army life for that. We get at least one 4-day weekend per month for the soldiers (most soldiers, those on high-priority like the military police, however, don't reap that benefit.) It's worth celebrating when the school schedule falls in line with that as well, and it really could not have come at a better time with him leaving and all. So anyways, I wasn't looking forward to getting up after being able to sleep in, but I got up and took a nice refreshing shower. I made sure to shave my legs and promised myself that would be a regular thing to kind of keep things regular. Just because my husband is gone does not mean I don't have to take care of such things. Brushed my teeth, moisturized, lotioned up the belly, got ready and continued on the normal morning routine of preparing my son for school. I find that doing all that for myself also helps me to feel confident and good about myself rather than just falling into a state of drab. Anything I can do to help keep my head up, I will do.
It was rainy again today, really not so cold, but altogether miserable. Did I mention I'm originally from Virginia Beach, VA and all this coldness and such short of a summer is really not my thing? I took Hayden to school, came back home and tidied up the house. It really needed it after all my "self-entitled laziness" all this weekend lol. I watched a movie and played with Brayden, and then my cell phone rang.

There is only one person with that particular ringer- my husband! I couldn't believe he was calling me because of the charges (we don't know how much it is, but I'm going to hold my breath when I open our bills at the end of the month lol.) I answered anyways of course and was as giddy as I used to be in high school when he'd call me =) We talked about our days, how we were, how things were there, what to expect, and what we were going to do about this whole calling situation. There is a cell phone provider where he is, so we may end up going that route. He will not be provided with the best calling capabilities. This is nothing like his 1st tour to Iraq where he had internet and could call me on skype at any time. It was really soooo nice getting to talk to him. You really don't know what you have until it's gone, and I miss him so much already. Unfortunately, I had forgotten to charge my phone so about 17 minutes into the call I lost him, but it still was a nice 17 minutes.

From there on I rested with Brayden (my 2 year old) as I was still super tired from the earlier schedule until I had to pick up Hayden (my 6 year old) from school. From then on we went to our phone place to see if I could do anything from here to change my husband's plan to allow him to call, but can't do that unfortunately. Then, went to the PX to get the boys new snow boots for this year but could only find Hayden's size for now, and also replaced his jacket since his one from last year ripped. They had really good deals, though, so it wasn't bad. We then went on to the commissary for groceries and I had coupons in hand. I am going to crack down on using coupons from now on. I'm glad I did because I had a 21% savings on my groceries (I'm not Extreme Couponing status, yet, but one day...one day. Although here it is near impossible to do because all we have in the commissary so no double-couponing, no in-store "MVP" card, etc.) Came home, did the dishes, cooked dinner, ate, then pulled out my son's homework. Something very interesting was in that stack of papers- a permission form for this year's flu vaccine drive at his school later this month. I was a bit blindsided because I had asked someone in the main office if they would be doing that again this year and she said no, but apparently something changed or she was just misinformed. To put it straight, I do not vaccinate my kids (Hayden is fully vaccinated at the moment, but will no longer receive any shots, and Brayden has never received a shot), and the flu vaccine is definitely a no-no for me. Just as I did last year, I wrote my DO NOT CONSENTs all over the form, will be picking up his waiver tomorrow, and will not be sending him to school those 2 days. I do not want him bringing home all the shedding that's going to be going on during those 2 days because of how sick it could make me and endanger the baby, and I don't want to take the risk of having them inject him anyways, even with my non-consent.


To my surprise, about halfway into writing this, I got a call on the house phone. "Who on earth would be calling me this late?" I thought to myself. It was a strange and short number on the caller ID. I answered, and it was my husband again! This time, he was calling through the government phonelines, so no charges for us! It was so nice to hear from him again. We talked about our days and how I started this blog. He wished me a happy 20 weeks as he does every Tuesday when I reach a new week (which I love btw, even if he does have to look at an app on his phone to remind himself of my progress lol). We talked about Hayden's vaccine form and he fully supports my decision which is awesome. Chit chatted a bit more, but he had to give up the phone for everyone else to make their calls. I hope we figure something out, though. It would be nice to have open communication with him, but it won't be the end of the world if it's old-school Army while he's gone.

Anyways, it is way past my bedtime. I will have to close this here, and come back tomorrow.

Goodnight.