Hunter's First Party!

Hunter Boo went to his very first party today. Greg's co-worker and friend Evelinda threw a party at Chuck E. Cheese for her beautiful daughter Layla, who turned five. Hunter, as usual, was an angel and a charmer. He had a few bites of pizza, which he thought was yummy, and had a little bit of cake too, which he thought was too yummy, so when I took it away from him he got mad. However, he has the attention span of a 9 month old, so he quickly forgot about the cake once I handed him to Daddy. We had a blast. Now, I'm not normally a people person, but I am really coming out of my shell with Hunter. I talked to the other parents there without a care, and surprise! I actually enjoyed it. Gawds, I'm such a Mommy!


There was a beautiful little 3 month old named Alexis there. She was tiny wee! Her mother was a real sweetheart too, and we started chatting about military health care and the like. You see, here at McGuire, we dependent wives are given little choice (not that we're told at least) about who we go to for our OB/GYN care. In addition, we can only choose from two different area hospitals for giving birth. Apparently Alexis's mom had a previous pregnancy where she went to Rancocas Hospital, the place where I had Hunter. Unfortunately (and this would break my heart so bad that I hesitate to even type it), she lost the baby in her sixth month of pregnancy, and the Rancocas staff had no bed-side manner whatsoever. I can't even begin to imagine her pain, and my heart went out to her. Anyway, we discussed the other hospital, Virtua, and she said they improved over Rancocas a million fold. She got me thinking about my time at Rancocas, and honestly, but for two nurses over a four-day period, the service there stunk.

In October, when Hunter was only 4 weeks old, he caught a pretty bad cold and did some hospital time at Virtua. See the picture to the left, taken at Virtua while Hunter had his cold. Greg and I might be smiling, but we were terribly worried about Hunter. He turned out to be just fine, though. The staff at Virtua were awesome to Hunter and myself. The only reason I had chosen Rancocas for the birth was because they have private recovery rooms, but from what Alexis's mother said, so does Virtua. Thus, my next baby will be delivered at Virtua, private room or not. I remember one day at Rancocas paging the nurse for juice. I was breast-feeding, and I was always thirsty. Greg was asleep at the time, and I was really thirsty. I paged her and she hit the intercom and asked what I needed. I told her; she said she'd bring it. An hour later, no juice. Paged again, same response. An hour later, no juice still. I hadn't gotten any juice by the time her shift ended, and by then, Greg was up and got it. I'm just not assertive enough. I should have raised a stink. But I was so weary and aching that I really didn't want to give the effort. On the other hand, my experiences with nurses at Virtua were all positive. In fact, when the nurse caring for Hunter found out they weren't delivering me food (yuck, hospital food), she went down and filed my menu for me and made sure later that my meal was delivered. Of course, I hadn't really been starving---Greg had been bringing me food from restaurants, which was much tastier.

What's up with hospital food anyway? Yeah, I know it's gotta be bland because people have different tastes, blah blah blah, but GAWDS!! You can take bland too far. Who on the bloody earth wants to eat paper?! I mean, REALLY! Here, eat this cardboard---I mean chicken---after drinking nothing but liquid for two days. Oh, and here's one little wee packet of pepper for seasoning. Bleh. OHMYGOD, that brings back a memory from my time at Rancocas. See, I was starving, and Greg mentioned that he saw these wonderful little ice cream parfaits in the freezer that the nurses were giving to the Mommies. So, I got all excited, thinking I was getting a treat! Sure, I had been a gestational diabetic, but I regulated my blood sugar with diet, and a little splurge once in a while never hurt me. Plus, I already had the baby, so what's the big deal? Then my treat came... a pack of graham crackers and some juice. Wooo-frickin--hoo. That's ok---Greg snuck me in something better anyway.

Ack, I've gone off on a tangent now, haven't I? So, back to Hunter's first party. He rode the toddler rides, which he loved. Here's a picture of him on one of them. He also loved sliding down the sliding board. We got a little computer sketch of him too. He was flirting with all the ladies, of course. Unfortunately, he's got a thing for boobies, and he kept groping all the ladies, hehe. Greg, of course, was like "That's my boy!" Sigh. Men! I can't wait for Hunter to be old enough to have his own party there. It won't be long!!

Grammy's coming in a week. She'll finally get to see all the improvements I've made to my house. I'm so proud of it. I've done both bedrooms upstairs as well as both the upstairs and downstairs hallways. I love decorating my house. It makes it feel more like my very own home. We got our new living room and bedroom set too, so our house is actually starting to look like it belongs to grown-ups! Yay! I want Hunter's home to be something he's proud of.

Well, I'm going to take a pregnancy test this week. I'll let you know what happens. If I'm not pregnant, I might put off getting pregnant until Greg comes back from Germany. I know I haven't gone into detail about Germany yet, but it's a tough topic. Ah, what the heck. Greg might be going to Germany for 4 months in September, missing Hunter's first birthday, Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. And, if I'm pregnant, a large portion of my pregnancy. I shouldn't complain. It could be for longer, and it could be to Iraq. So I'm counting my blessings, but it still is a little sad. While he's there, I'd like to go visit family to kill time... Maybe visit California so Hunter can see his Daddy's family and Winky and Sarah, and spend some time at Mommy's too. California is a matter of money though, so we might not be able to afford that... (plus, I'm a little afraid of flying by myself with Hunter, but I'd manage, I think). I wish Greg didn't have to go, but we've been blessed. He hasn't gone anywhere for more than a week or two since he got out of basic training. Plus, we've been on the same base for six years. So honestly, we truly cannot complain. To do so would be ungrateful for all the blessings we have had.

Well, I'm going to go have some personal time playing video games. Yeah, that's my hobby. I suppose scrap-booking or crocheting would be more suitable for a Mommy, but I like video games. (And reading---I suppose such an intellectual pursuit balances out the gaming.) As Ryan Seacrest would say: Loribug out! (Well, I suppose he would actually say "Seacrest out," not Loribug, but who cares anyway?)

p.s. Who reads these things anyway? Hehe.