Haven't done this in a while! My Husband Rocks!!!!

I haven't done a MHR post in over a year. Not because he doesn't rock, but just because my desire to write just hasn't been that high in the past year.

Nevertheless, my husband ROCKS! Yesterday. Valentine's Day. Traditional a day that's never been that big of a deal since my birthday comes two days later. But yesterday. . .

I left for work before either Jeff or Jude had woken up for the day and was about half way through a lesson with the group of kids I meet with for reading intervention, when in walks my little man with a rose. Followed closely by his daddy, of course. They hung around for a while, until I was done working with my group, so then we got to have a nice visit and Jude drew me a picture.

Then I came home to find a clean kitchen AND all the carpets vacuumed. Additionally, Jeff washed and folded almost all the dirty laundry.

I'll say it again, my husband rocks:-)

"My Husband Rocks!" Friday, on Saturday, and quite a bit late!

So, my husband DOES still rock even though life has been so crazy since the end of September that I haven't sat down to think about WHY he rocks. Jude was sick, then his 1st birthday, out of town family visiting, a 14 hour car trip north to meet Daddy's extended family, the loss of my great grandmother and another 11 hour car trip north for the funeral, Holidays, illness, illness, and did I mention illness?

But as I was preparing to shower this morning, I was reminded of another reason why Jeff rocks. They say that the average person loses 200 hairs a day. Well, if that the average person, I must loose upward of 500. It's awful! My hair is everywhere! It totally wraps around the vacuum brush, toes, socks, the tub drain. . . Where ever you don't want to find my hair, you will.

And it is not like I intentionally rinse my hair down the tub drain. I promise that I collect as much as I can in my fingers as I "wash" and condition my hair. ("Wash" because I no longer use shampoo in my hair. See Curly Girl for an explanation. My hair has never looked better than it does now!) But it never fails that about every two or three months the tub starts to drain slow and we bring up big wads of hair.

But it dawned on me that I haven't noticed a slow drain in at least half a year. Telling me that my sweet husband has just accepted this fate and has just been quietly de-clogging the drain on a regular basis. Have you ever seen a hair clog? They are so freaking gross. My husband rocks for doing my dirty work;-)

Don't forget to visit Katy Lin at The Great Adventure if you want to sing the praises of why YOUR husband rocks!

"My Husband Rocks!" Friday

Oops! Or Saturday. . .

But, none the less, Jeff still rocks! I wanted to take a picture of all the leaves he will be cleaning up from the yard (from only two trees! Two very, large trees, but still, only two trees!) but it was too dark when we got home tonight. (Grr! Day light savings!)

During this time of year, trying to keep the leaves out of the yard is like trying to hold 100 ping pong balls under water. As soon as you get some of them cleaned up, there are just as many on the ground again. And on the roof. And in the gutters. And in the elderly neighbor's driveway. You get it.

So, in additon to everything Jeff has to keep up with on his off days around here, now we are in leaf season. Fall is kind of a love/hate thing. But my rockin' husband never complains. He just does what needs to be done.

Yeay, Jeff!

"My Husband Rocks!" Friday

Whew! What an October we have had! With Jude's first birthday, our trip to Wisconsin with Jeff's parents, and then having to make an unplanned trip to Chicago when my great grandmother passed away. I think we slept in our own beds a total of 14 times this month. And between that and my switching back and forth between the guest bed and my own (due to its proximity to the boy and Jeff's intermittent snoring) there have been several mornings this week where I have woken up and had no idea where I was.

So, all of that to say that I have been missing from MHR for the last few weeks. But never fear! My husband does still rock! I mean, gee, he rocks simply for turning around 4 days after a 13 hour car tirp home to drive us 11 hours back in the same direction to go to Chicago. He rocks for supporting me through my grandmother's funeral. He rocks because even though my nephew hasn't seen him in 5 years (because they just moved back to the States from a 4 year station in Japan) you can still see how said nephew adores him.















He also rocks for passing along his awesome genes to our little man. Jeff's so laid back and I see that characteristic ALL OVER Jude. Jeff smiles all the time. Jude smiles all the time. Jeff even had Jude laughing less than one minute after his HIB vaccination this morning. Of course, my son rocks because he never acts like shots even phase him. (A HUGE answer to prayer! Mama freaks out about such things.)



















P.S. This is an aviation display at The Chicago Museum of Science and Industry. We did NOT fly to Chicago. We both WISH we did, but it was more cost effective to drive. . .

If you want to participate in MHR, see Katy Lin's blog, The Great Adventure, to see how it started and what to do. Happy Friday:-)

"My Husband Rocks!" Friday

If you want to know why Jeff rocks you will have to click this link here for Atlanta News Channel 2 and read the article and/or watch the video. He is one of the two "unnamed" firefighters that the news anchor mentions. Also, the young boy, Corbin, and his dad rock! And, so does the victim for all that she has survived in life. I have a feeling she wasn't about to let any flood take her out, anyway!

"My Husband Rocks!" Friday

Time for another edition of My Husband Rocks, hosted by the fabulous Katy Lin at The Great Adventure.

Anyone who knows Jeff probably knows that he has a real problem with tests. He can study for hours and not pull off a really high score. I know because I have watched him do the studying.
Well, this week Jeff rocks because while he has been gone ALL week (and all next week and we miss him terribly!) at relief driver training, he has been calling me every day giving me reports on his accomplishments. Every test he took this week, he scored 100%. And, he only hit a few cones with the fire truck on the driving course test.

So, if he has to drive to your house to put out a fire, you might only have to hide, say, your trash can, not your mailbox and all your lawn ornaments:-)

Good job deary!

"My Husband Rocks!" Friday

Remember to check out Katy Lin at The Great Adventure if you would like to participate in My Husband Rocks!

The reason Jeff rocks this week has to do with fish, but I am having some trouble getting good pictures of them. You see, we had these two mutant fish in our back yard. I mean it. I was successful at killing off all the other fish in the pond (indirectly: not cleaning the filter, not remembering to feed them, etc) except these two. As Jude began crawling and we anticipate his soon to be walking, I decided I REALLY want that pond gone. But, I didn't want to just off the fish, so I have been waiting, and waiting, and waiting for these freaks to die. I haven't fed them since November!

Finally, Jeff gets the brain child that maybe we can put them in an aquarium in the house. Two fish; 5 gallon tank, right? So he gets the thing all set up and brings in the first goldfish. Um, the thing takes up nearly the whole tank! What the hey happened to the two inch goldfish that were in that pond when we bought the house?!!!

MMM-kay. Dump the fish back in the pond and head to wally-world for a bigger aquarium. So, now we have two MASSIVE, mutant goldfish in the house. They prefer to be called X-fish:-)

And Jeff rocks because not only did he set up the aquarium twice, but now he has to dig up the pond and fill in the hole!

Jude checking out the fish in the too small tank: (you REALLY can't tell how big it is here.)
















Here's a better picture of Fish-zilla:
















And, here we have Bill and Ted in their permanent (until they kick the bucket) home:

"My Husband Rocks!" Updated clarification

After a comment left by a very sweet reader suggesting that I put up a linky, I realized that too often I forget to give Katy Lin credit for My Husband Rocks. It's her blog carnival and she lets anyone who wants to participate link up to her blog roll. Check her out at The Great Adventure to learn how!

Thanks Katy Lin for heading this up! As Teresa said, it is a wonderful way to honor our husbands each week! (Just don't forget to tell them in person, too!)

Stay tuned for a post in the next few days as my vacation comes to a close for a post called Why I Hate Disposable Diapers where I give the anecdotes of how this vacation would actually have been easier if I had just brought our cloth dipes with us!

"My Husband Rocks!" Friday

Jeff rocks this week, for sure. We are on vacation in Florida, visiting with family and after a bit of a debacle last night about computer use, he has taken me to Panera so I can connect to the internet (and consequently, blog about how he rocks!).

My husband rocks because he is willing to put up with all my silliness, my moodiness, my, um, fits of rage. And in the end, he always has a good solution to the problem;-)

"My Husband Rocks!" Friday

Need I say more?

"My Husband Rocks!" Friday

I didn't get to this earlier because I have been sleeping during my free time today. Mr. Jude decided to wake up every hour or so the last two nights. I.HATE.TEETHING!!!

But Jeff did a beautiful thing this morning. At 5am, after Jude had been fussing for an hour and a half on and off, Jeff took Jude out to the living room to play so mommy could get some sleep. I did notice that the lights weren't on in there and at 8am when the boys came back in our room, for what I assumed was Jude getting ready to take a nap, Jeff said he just woke up. I don't know how Jeff got Jude to sleep for those three hours, but I am so thankful for it.

And in more Jude news:

WE'RE MOBILE!!! Life in the Roerdink house will never be the same. Put on your running shoes, daddy. You're going to need them!

"My Husband Rocks!" Friday

Don't ask what my problem is! This is the second week in a row that I didn't get this done on Friday.

Jeff rocks this week because we have barely seen him.

Yep, you heard me. We barely saw him all week. But that is because he began his class to be a relief driver on the fire truck.

Tuesday started with him taking the entrance test, and if you know Jeff, you know he has major test anxiety. But, he passed. He should have; he worked so hard studying.

Then he went to the first full class the day after a shift. Actually, this part did not rock. It sucked because we didn't get to see him until 6:30 pm last night after he had been gone 27 hours previously.

But, relief driver is just one more step toward becoming a Firefighter III and a driver engineer, which pays better;-)

If you think of us, pray. Especially in September when he will be gone for two whole weeks.

"My Husband Rocks!" Friday

Jeff ROCKS this week because of his superior ability to keep this one:














entertained!

Overheard while I was cleaning the kitchen this evening:

Vickie: **playing boxing on the Wii**

Jeff: It looks like you are getting good enough to fight me.

Vickie: No! Don't try to trick me!

Jeff: C'mon

Vickie: I can beat you! I'll fight you any day!

"My Husband Rocks!" Friday

Um, if I participated in Not Me, Monday, and if this were Monday, I would be saying, "I certainly did NOT forget to post MHR last Friday!"

My husband totally rocks because he never even mentioned that I forgot. I SURE hope he (or you) didn't think that he didn't rock last week!

This week, Jeff rocks for the totally AWESOME job he did helping me clean up this house, which has not had any a deep cleaning since before the boy came along! We now have livable space in every room of the house!

And, I know how much my husband HATES hanging up clothes, (as much as I hate doing dishes!) but he made sure that every item of clothing that he owns was either hung up or put in drawers. This was our deal when I began being a stay at home wife/mom, that if I washed, folded, and put the clothes on hangers, he would make sure his got put away. Before I started staying home, we each took care of our own washing. Needless to, there used to be a lot of piled up clean man laundry in the house.

And, today, we are heading out to do that thing I mentioned two weeks ago but couldn't go into detail. More on that tomorrow!

"My Husband Rocks!" Friday

****Don't forget! It is FREE CHOCOLATE FRIDAY!****

Jeff REALLY rocks this Friday. Why? Well I am glad that you asked!

You see, Jeff has been studying and getting ready to enter the class for Relief Driver in August. And who ever knew all the work it is to drive a fire truck?! You have to know more than just how to go forwards and backwards and how to turn corners. Did you know that one needs to know MATH to drive a fire truck?

And how many of you out there know Jeff? Well, if you do, you know that one of his biggest struggles in life has been related to math. I'm not much help in this department because while I can do math, I can not quite explain it and I am a bit sloppy about it, so sometimes while I do the right thing, I come out with the wrong answer.

So, Jeff has been plugging away learning the formulas that he needs to know to operate the fire engine. He called me yesterday to tell me that the lieutenant had put up 20 problems on the white board for him to work through after a call. It made me chuckle that he was working problems on the board at work.

Way to tackle your struggle, dear husband!

"My Husband Rocks!" Friday

In case you don't remember, MHR (My Husband Rocks) is the blog carnival hosted by Katy Lin at The Great Adventure.

This week, Jeff rocks because of how intentional he is with his family. He tries to talk with someone from his family every week. Whenever we get out near Hamilton Place, he always asks Jude if we should check to see if Aunt Heather's at work. He calls his parents and makes arrangements to visit with them at least twice a month. He calls and e-mails with his brothers.

I, on the other hand, and very lackadaisical when it come to calling people in my family and returning e-mails. Not because I don't love them or don't want to hear from them, but simply because I am bad about letting all kinds of other things get in the way.

I really need to take a page from my husband's book here and learn from him in this area. He is going to be a great example to Jude of how to interact with family once Jude is old enough to notice!

"My Husband Rocks!" Friday and the pool!

It's Friday again, so let me tell you how Jeff rocks this week!

First, let me just say that I am tired. Plain old wiped out. I don't why I did not struggle with this too much in the beginning, but something about the boy sleeping through the night for two solid weeks and then deciding it just wasn't for him so not doing so in the past three weeks is kicking my beehiney. Therefore, all things domestic have been suffering. There has been a lot of pizza ordering and fast food getting and not a lot of cooking, dish washing, clothes laundering, grocery shopping going on here in at least the past two weeks.

Three times in the last two weeks, Jeff has taken Jude out with him when he got up and left me sleep. This is a major deal because it is not exactly like he gets tons of sleep either. Here's his week in a nut shell: Day 1 wake up at 4 am to drive to the fire department. Day 2 wake up at 6:30 to drive home from the fire department (maybe he got to sleep all night or maybe he had calls all during the night). Day 3 Wake whenever Jude does. Day 4-6 Repeat days 1-3 infinitely forever and ever.

Then this morning, when I finally got out of bed (glorious 8am!) and was eating my breakfast and entertaining the boy in his saucer, I heard a bunch of clanking in the kitchen, and there was my dear husband doing the dishes. Whatta guy!

We've actually had quite an adventurous day today. One of the things that I love about LaFayette is that there is a public pool where people can go and pay by the swim or buy a family plan for a pretty good price. However, if you have an infant or toddler, you can take them into the kiddie pool for FREE. I sure love free:-) It's a nice little pool, too. Probably 2 feet deep. I don't think it is 3 feet because Jude was standing with his feet flat on the bottom and there was still some of his chest above the water.

It took Jude a little time to warm up to being in more than six inches of water, but once he did, he seemed to enjoy himself. I am sure he would have enjoyed it quicker if it were not so close to nap time, but what are you going to do when the kid goes down for naps every two hours and the kiddie swim hours are only from noon - 1:00 on weekdays?

Here are some shots of Jude getting acquainted with the pool.





























































And this one is Jude letting us know how much he enjoys eating the baby food I make for him.

My Husband Rocks, Extended

Yep, I know I posted yesterday about my totally rocking husband, but something happened last night that made me want to add to it.

I was FINE all day, so I have no idea where this came from, but I was hit from the migraine from HELL just around bed time. Not only did my Imitrex not make it go away, but it felt like it was making it WORSE! Any time I moved, the pain seemed to flare out angrily in all directions. It felt like a steam roller was rolling over my head. Unlike my usual migraines, this one was not just localized behind one of my eyes, but the pain went down into my shoulders and back, up the back of my head, and around the front.

I have never had one that kept me awake, but this was the one. After I lay Jude back down from his one night nuring session, the pain was becoming excruciating. I must have had labored breathing because Jeff woke up and asked me if I had a headache. After I explained, he got up and said to switch sides of the bed. Then he came back in and put a heating pad across my shoulders and an ice pack over my eyes. An odd combination, I know, but for some reason, I was finally able to sleep after this.

Oh, Jude rocks, too because he did not do his sometimes stunt of whining several times in the night because he couldn't find his paci. He slept solid until his 1:30 nursing, and then again until his 5:30 nursing. Then he slept solid until 7:30 which is half an hour after he usually wakes up for the day. At this point Jeff took him out and I was able to sleep until 8:30! That in itself is a miracle!

Once again, I felt totally taken care of. My guys rock!

"My Husband Rocks!" Friday

Why does Jeff rock this week?

Hmmmm, where to start? Well, first he does ALL of our yard work. In the household I grew up in yard work (i.e. lawn mowing) was considered "man work" (grunt, grunt, scratch, scratch). Now, I know that in the 21st century, this doesn't hold true, but I am not all that opposed to allowing that outdated assumption to continue.

In addition to doing our yard work, Jeff also mows and does various other yard related things for a dear older friend of ours who is a widow. He knows that if he doesn't do it, our very stubborn friend will get out on that mower herself and she is prone to sever asthma attacks, random fits of passing out, and a host of other illnesses that she has acquired from her years of tireless service in third world countries.

And, as if that was not enough, Jeff has now taken on mowing his dad's yard, too.

So, in the midst of all this mowing, I have no idea when I am actually going to SEE my husband, but he rocks for his attitude of complete selflessness.

"My Husband Rocks!" Friday

Simply put, Jeff rocks today for staying home to take care of me when I am not feeling well. O.k. really he is staying home to take care of the boy, so that I can mostly focus on taking care of me and only have to worry about feeding the boy. But, still, when I am sick, that is the one thing I need more than anything right now - to make sure the boy is well cared for. Otherwise I won't rest.