Well this is getting ridiculous.

In just over 24 hours, Patrick is supposed to be on a plane headed overseas.

We still have no orders. The comedy is not lost on me, but the frustration is winning out. We've been on this roller coaster of "Yes he's going. No he's not. Yes, he is." and on and on since June. Just once I would like what I have been told and the actual outcome of events to sync up.

In the meantime, we've been filling our time admirably, with trips to a pumpkin patch and the zoo, buying last minute things Patrick might need, and generally just trying to enjoy the time he has if he is on that plane tomorrow. Sidney has started taking steps and is turning into quite the comedian. Tonight we're going to make some more pumpkin treats from our farm fresh pumpkins, let Patrick finish packing and try not to panic too much about the uncertainty tomorrow still holds.

Family Pictures

We had family pictures taken the last week of September right before Patrick was scheduled to deploy. We'd been meaning for a long time to get a new set done, and deploying was the final shove I needed to schedule an appointment with the local cheap Walmart studio. They're not gallery worthy, but I am so glad I have these. Now I just have to remember to schedule portraits for Sidney's first birthday...

PS - Dad, if you want any of the portraits let me know, I have other shots; some 8x10s and 5x7s as well as wallets I can spare.

Patrick was bumped. He'll be home a little longer, tho deployed before the end of the month. Right now it's just a matter of when, tho we don't expect to have him home more than a few more weeks.

Today we took the kids to Build-A-Bear to pick out a deployment bear for each one, to cuddle while daddy is gone. It's usually our birthday activity to visit build-a-bear, but we decided to make a special exception.

We've heard back from the school district, and now we're just waiting on them to evaluate Gyven and Kyra and determine their eligibility and placement. Right now the soonest they could be in a classroom is sometime in November, just because we're going to have to wait a bit for an available evaluation time. Gyven and Kyra are both very anxious to get into school, Gyven has been asking about it constantly since we turned in the paperwork to the school district!

Sidney's diaper here's outer layer is made from the same material as his daddy's ACUs, and we borrowed his patrol cap for this picture. We cloth diaper for lots of reasons (from economical to skin sensitivities), and one of the later reasons we added to the pile was the cuteness factor. In my opinion there's not much cuter than a sweet baby in a cloth diaper. Sidney has made a few milestones this week, he's tried taking a single step, started standing alone without encouragement, and waving. Gyven and Kyra are both only a few interviews away from being enrolled in school before the end of the semester. I'm looking forward to them getting to interact with more people and learn some new things.

We've spent the last week preparing for Patrick to deploy early tomorrow morning, and it's been busy. We're hoping the whole thing goes smoothly, tho at this point he may be bumped to the next flight at the end of October. We won't know for sure until the morning.

And some pictures

For a long time now, everyone had been operating under the assumption that Gyven was on the autism spectrum, as that was what we had been told by our previous developmental pediatrician, and that's what fit based on the knowledge I had acquired. Borderline autism. Well, today the developmental pediatrician we're seeing now sent a shocker to us. Gyven no longer fits that diagnosis! While he does still have delays in the areas of speech and social skills, he's not a good fit for a diagnosis of autism. We're going to continue to pursue speech therapy, and work on getting him in a preschool setting (probably through the public school's special education department). It's looking better and better that by the time he's in elementary school Gyven may be able to function on a similar level to his peers.

In other news, Patrick has been given orders and today reports to a new unit. This unit is currently deployed and under strength, so it is very likely that sometime in October Patrick will receive deployment orders and join the main body of the unit for the remainder of their time in Iraq. Patrick was at first very dismayed, as this extends our stop loss until 2011, but now he's prepared to go if called upon and actually looking forward to some aspects of deployment, tho he will miss us very much, and we will miss him.

Pictures like this really show off how tall Sidney is! This morning at the pediatrician's he was measured in at 29 inches, which is 90th percentile for his age group (meaning 90 percent of kids his age will be smaller than he is). He weighed in at 26 pounds, which was 99th percentile. He's a big boy! He loves the bathtub, so when he's not in a bath, he has to investigate who is and what they're doing. He got his own bath not long after Kyra was done with hers.

Kyra had her second set of dental work done today, but with a twist. Instead of a root canal, the dentist decided that they could save the tooth as there was no decay, and applied a sealant. If the sealant doesn't hold the dentist will do the root canal and crown later, but with the cost of the sealant subtracted from that bill. Kyra also had a filling done. She did so well! Hardly cried at all, opened her mouth good and wide when asked, and she actually fell asleep in the chair while the work was done! The dentist is very good with kids and has done a great job on Kyra so far, I'm very happy we were referred there for Kyra's work.