I have a few options, now that Grace is down for a nap. Not that she's actually sleeping, but she's in her crib yammering to herself. At least she's happy.
So while she's napping, I can do housework -- like folding clothes or cleaning the bathroom (which sorely needs it), sweeping the floors and mopping them... or, as Kurt says, "sweeping and swabbing." Maybe he's been in the Navy too long.
OR... I can play on the computer. Hmmmmm... which should I choose??? :o)
The sucky part is Kurt has duty today. That's not so bad -- being on a frigate pretty much guarantees a six-section duty (right, Caroline??). I'm okay with him having to stand duty; it's part of his job.
But he had to work yesterday as well. And it was a Saturday!!!
His ship is in the midst of this huge remodel and inspection process at the same time. It's probably not a good idea to do both at once because they have to run simulations sometimes because of the remodel instead of actually doing what's required for the inspection.
But because of the inspection, Kurt's working some insane hours. He was off Monday because it was a federal holiday, but Tuesday he didn't get home till 8:30pm. Wednesday he didn't bother coming home because he didn't get off work till after 7pm. On Thursday he got home at 8pm, and then on Friday he made it home by 7:30pm. And of course, he worked yesterday.
If he had a civilian job, he'd get some sort of compensation for all those hours. My sister Michele sometimes loves it when Ben works such long hours (although she misses him dreadfully when he does) because he gets paid beaucoup bucks in overtime. Kurt doesn't get overtime. He doesn't even get compensation days off, which I would gladly take over the money. Instead, I just get to be a single mom.
In some ways, this work schedule is harder on me than Kurt being deployed. If he's out to sea, then I don't have to sit by my cell phone waiting for the call to tell me he's coming home. I don't have to wonder if I can go to Target with him tonight because he won't be home for several months. I can make whatever plans I want to for whatever time I want to because I'm not anxious to have him come home from work. I don't have to worry that if I go out at 3 or 4pm that I might not have dinner ready when he gets home (yes, I'm sort of old-fashioned like that... I love having his dinner ready when he gets home from work!).
Also, it's easier to accept his absence when he's gone for so long at a stretch. Of course, it's a dull ache in my heart to be separated from my husband and the father of my child, but at the same time, it's something I learn to live with after a couple of weeks. I get into a routine, and time starts flying by. I couldn't believe how quickly his last six-month deployment zoomed by. When I'm in this situation where I don't know if he's coming home tonight or not (well, tonight he has duty so he's not coming home, but he might not come home tomorrow night either), it's actually more difficult to deal with. And not being able to see him is more painful because he's just right there, only thirty or forty miles away, not the thousands of miles he's away from us when he's in southeast Asia.
Plus it's his 32nd birthday next week, and he doesn't even know if he'll be able to come home from work that day.
Basically we have to fly by the seat of our pants right now and just go with the flow, but that's just very hard for me to do since I don't like not knowing what's going to happen. I guess it's good for me in a way, though, because it teaches me to let go more and just go with it. But it's hard...
Anyhow.
One benefit to his having to work yesterday is I got the chance to go to my favorite mall in the area, the hoity-toity fancy mall on the other side. I walked across on the ferry, and Kurt met me on the other side in my car.
First we went to lunch at this little mom-&-pop Italian & Greek restaurant, where I had a Greek calzone (the Zorba, if you're looking at the menu). Oh my word, was it good!!! Gyro meat with feta cheese, olives (which I picked out -- I try them every few months to see if I like them. I don't), a little bit of spaghetti sauce baked inside, served with a side of tzatziki sauce. It'd been baked in a hot oven very quickly, and bread was crispy on the outside and chewy on the inside... to die for!! It was SO DAMNED GOOD!!! Kurt had the Edmonds Special pizza that he shared with Gracie, and apparently it was very good. I was too stuffed with my calzone to try the slice he saved for me.
Then it was off to one of my favorite stores -- Babies R Us!!! It was packed, too!! It was like everyone in the northern Puget Sound had decided it was time to go to Babies R Us with their babies, and some kids were screaming and some kids were laughing, and it was just a complete madhouse. But Gracie got some new sippy cups with straws, which I am in love with because they have an extremely wide mouth when you're filling it. She likes ice in her water, and some of the sippy cups have such a small neck that it's hard to get the ice in it when using my ice dispenser on the fridge. Amazingly enough, we didn't get much at Babies R Us. Usually we can't get out of there without spending at least $50, but this time we were good.
Off we went to Nordstrom's!!! I figured out what was wrong with my fancy French bras, the ones I had had to return on my birthday because the wire had popped out. That day, the wire on the nude-colored bra had started to pop out as well. The Nordstrom's lady had originally fitted me to a 34F, which proved to be too small for me. I had read on another lingerie website that if your wire pops repeatedly, you're wearing the wrong size bra, and I knew the 34 was just too snug for me. Besides, the Nordstrom's lady had measured me to a 36 off the bat but didn't like the way one bra fit me in the 36 and so sold me the 34s in the Chantelle. So I went to Nordstrom's with some trepidation since I had already returned one bra to get a new one. But the saleslady was extremely kind, and had no problems with returning my bras. I was just going to go with the same bra, in a 36F, but I didn't like how it fit. So she conned me into trying on the Le Mystere that Oprah swears by, even though I'd already tried it on when I went to Nordstrom's in December and had hated it.
But this time I fell in love. So I went with the Le Mystere, one nude and one pink -- and it's so lovely to get a large sized bra in pink!!!! I'm so excited with it.
One thing I did have to get used to is Nordstrom's offers full-service fitting rooms, at least in the lingerie department. So when the lady came back to give me the 36F in the Chantelle, she came into the fitting room with me, and hooked and unhooked my bra for me. I'm so not used to it, as I normally shop at places like Target and Mervyn's, places where the fitting room attendants just hand you the number plaque for how many garments you have and go back to manning the phones. But it was nice to be pampered a bit.
We attempted to do a bit more shopping, and I even managed to get some new Bare Escentuals eye shadows at Sephora. But then Gracie got extremely tired, and nothing we did made her happy. We'd gotten her a harness at Babies R Us, which she didn't mind too much at first (though everyone stared at us for having our kid "leashed"), but then once she got overtired she wanted nothing more to do with it. We'd left the stroller in the car since she is really getting to hate it, so my only recourse was to put her in the sling. For some reason she wasn't happy about that either, so I was stuck with a squalling toddler in the middle of a busy mall. I was so embarrassed. Finally she settled down, which was good, but she never fell asleep, even though she looked like she was going to, time after time. But we cut the shopping short just so we could try to get home sooner to put her to bed. It's like she needs even more sleep than she did a couple of months ago. Yesterday she'd gotten her morning nap, and she's usually fine if we skip her afternoon nap as long as she's had her morning one. But yesterday she just didn't want to be cooperative, and she was totally overtired. The odd thing is when I tell people she's still taking two naps, most people are shocked. Most kids are down to one nap by the time they're a year and a half, and Grace is almost there.
Well, I'm not going to wish for a one-nap baby, not yet. It's nice having two different time blocks per day to myself, especially when Kurt's not available to help out as much as he'd like.
Have a great one!!!