Did you hear that?

Ahhhhh. 

That was a sigh of relief.  Because folks, daddy is home.  He is back.  After 5 very, very, verrrry long weeks, Paul is back stateside AND in our house!!  No dramatic ship rescue efforts, no weather delays, nadda.  I almost don't believe it myself, but he's sitting right next to me catching up on the 85.76 hours of DVR'd shows he has (praise Lord for the DVR, can I get an amen?)

It has been blissful today.  Sure, the little baby didn't take any good naps (we're back to square one with sleep.  seriously.  ugh.)  And the big baby was her usual toddler self, which means if we didn't provide go-sha (translation: goldfish), MILK! (translation: milk) and any other thing she needed rightthisverysecond, she proceeded to melt down and lose it.  It was still amazing.  Because I had help!  Reinforcements!!  And was reminded yet again that somehow I managed to survive 6 months of very little daddy reinforcement time.  How in the world did I swing that? 

It always makes me smile when people say things like, "I don't know how you do it.  How do you do it?"  Um...well, the baby is here.  So is the toddler, obvi.  I don't really have a choice.  I get stares, side eyes, second glances, etc. pretty much everywhere I go.  (Sometimes people even ask if they're twins...I'll let you do the math on that one.)  I guess I don't really see this as that big of a deal.  Sure, there are days when I am pretty much exhausted by 9:30 a.m., but I think that would be the case whether I had 1 baby or 10 babies.  It's hard to be a mama.  But it's also amazing.  Nothing beats the "Hi Mommy!" I am greeted with each morning when I get Amelia up, or the way William grips my neck and hugs me close when he needs just an extra bit of snuggle time.  I love these babies, more than I ever thought possible.  Every day I thank God for the blessings He's given me........

....and plead for the patience to deal with those blessings.

Anyway.  My point?  I am SO GLAD Paul is home.  It may not be long until their next underway period (it's only a few weeks away).  And that means it really isn't long until the BIG deployment (erggh I don't even want to think about that...though it's around 70ish days).  So we're going to focus on the time he IS here.  The things he DOES get to see, which hopefully include William sleeping through the night, eating solid food and crawling (in no particular order, though if we could get that sleeping thing down, I'd be deliriously happy).  We're going to enjoy it all!!