Today is the day

Dave has been working out of town a LOT this month.  He started out with working 4 days in Idaho Falls and then home for 3 days.  He did that for 2.5 weeks then left for Las Vegas for a week.  He's coming home tonight for a 4 day weekend (so very thankful for Pioneer Day).   Tatum has been asking me every day, "daddy?"  It breaks my heart to keep telling her, "no, daddy's at work."  She must be so confused because he's been gone for so long, but I haven't found any other way to tell her that she'll understand.  Thankfully, Nana and Papa were a good distraction over the weekend.  This mom has missed Dave too, especially how good he is at wearing our toddler out in the evenings after work. 

Tatum is growing up so fast! She's only a month away from being 2 years old.  She's really into baby dolls and taking care of them lately and pushing them in strollers.  She is so kind to give me one of them to take care of too.  We can't have one of them feeling left out or uncared for.  One of my proudest mommy moments had to be when she saw someone crying and ran to me saying, "sad, sad, sad."  I was amazed at how she can pick up on people's emotions so easily.  She went right back to them to give them a hug and loves.  

I'm not sure when it happened, but all of the sudden Tatum started telling me the letters of the alphabet.  Whether with the foam letters in the tub or the magnetic ones on the fridge, she knows a lot of them.  She is showing me every day how much of a sponge she is in learning new things. She's been picking up new words left and right.  The other day she said water, but it came out as "wader."  I was so excited and kept asking her to say it about 10 times later and a few high fives, she was on cloud 9 with me.  She loves going swimming and water in general, so is shouldn't have been a surprise she picked up that word so quick.  She's loved swimming at Nana and Papa's this summer and is our little fish.  It doesn't matter if the water is in a pool, bathtub, or sink.  

With Dave being out of town, I have a lot more time to talk to a toddler and think about things.  I have started scrapbooking a lot more lately which has helped.  With that brings along the reminiscing about when we were younger or first married.  One of the ideas we had when we first got married was that we wanted our kids 2 years apart and we wanted to wait 2-3 years to start our family.  Well, we met those and exceeded each one of them.  We were married for 5 years before having Tatum and our 2nd child will be AT LEAST 2 years apart from her.  We have figured out that having another child is so very out of our hands and can't be controlled.  With Dave working out of town and me being diagnosed with PCOS 3 years ago, having a baby isn't so easy.  Tatum was a miracle.  We really don't want to think about fertility treatment options at this point.  So I've grown a hard exterior to protect the pain it causes and there are days the pain leads me to think Tatum will never have a sibling.  Faith and hope are keeping me away from that. 

Going back to when Dave and I first got married, we were so strict on using birth control and still worrying each month if we had an "oops baby" (thanks to my PCOS).  Think of all the money we could have saved if we had known it would be so hard to get pregnant.  Hindsight is 20/20, right?!  This has all given us so much more knowledge and experience.  I'm thankful for that.  We wouldn't be who we are and know what we know if it weren't for those first few years of our marriage. 

Well, that's all the sharing I'm up for right now.  Hope you enjoyed a snapshot of our personal lives.  :)