Today, Monster turns 4. As in, my baby is 4. I don’t have a baby anymore. There are no more cribs or diapers in my house. I am so okay with that. Yesterday, we had an Angry Bird’s party for 9 toddlers and I watched as my baby played and talked and opened cards. Instead of gifts, he raised almost $150 for the Soldier On Fund. You have not been reading long if you think I made these. Check out https://www.facebook.com/groups/108334602588902/ Today on his actual day of birth, I rostered in his class. Let me just get something out there. I hate rostering. Seriously, I may be a terrible parent for admitting it, but I don’t like a room full of preschoolers. I don’t like craft time or centers. I don’t look forward to the ‘opportunity to be involved in my child learning experience at school’. I just…. don’t. But it was his birthday today and I smiled through the singing, the gym time and the cutting out of 25 cardboard stockings. During circle time, I noticed that all the kids have their pictures taped to the carpet where they sit during class. Almost all of them. Along with a couple other kids, Monster’s picture is taped to one of the chairs beside the carpet and that’s where he sits. I had noticed this before, but I took my opportunity there to ask the teacher how come he sits in the chair instead of on the carpet. And the perpetually happy teacher (aren’t all preschool teachers simply the happiest people? I thank God people like them were…
There are lots of weird things about me I am OK with people knowing about me. Especially you out there on the interweb, because I can’t see you open mouth stare at the screen while you mouth the words “what. the. crap.” and shake you head when you read about me. Because eventually you close your mouth and write me nice comments. And I like your nice comments. So it doesn’t bother me to tell you a few things. I only wash my hair a few times a week. It’s naturally curly and it’s easier for me to wash it and straighten it and leave it for a few days than wash it every day and have to style it. At least half a dozen times a day I put my electric kettle on to boil water for tea and it boils and shuts off and I never make the tea. I check behind the shower curtain before I go pee every. single. time. Because you know that time I don’t, there will be someone there. All these things are weird, but they don’t cause anyone to send me an ‘I love me” jacket. Judge me all you want, really, bring it on. Like you never checked for a murderer hiding in the shower. Because when it comes down to it, I still come across pretty normal. I live in a regular house in a happy marriage with my 3 kids who I send to school almost always on the right days and usually wearing appropriate clothing for the weather. So this morning when I mention that I didn’t get a great sleep last…
I have no patience. None. It’s a virtue, I know. Something you should never pray for (or you will be given opportunity to test it, or so I hear), something that wise and strong people possess in abundance. I have none. When I want to lose weight, I don’t want to make small changes over time, I want to see results NOW. When I am shopping for something, I am way to easily convinced to buy it where I am than to check the prices and drive all over town looking for a better deal. When I write a blog it is almost painful for me to hit the ‘schedule’ button. I just want to post it. NOW. I have no patience. For the next few months I get the opportunity to build some. Which is funny, because I don’t remember praying for that. But hey, you get what you need and I guess what I need is the chance to see what it’s like living the next 4 or so months in limbo, not knowing where we’ll call home this summer. We could go west. We could go east. We will not be staying here. And by ‘we will not’ I mean, you know, probably not since we can’t be certain about anything. Wait. That’s not true. We can be certain that God will be in this posting season. Other people might have to consider trying to discern the will of God in where they should live. Conveniently, the army does that for us. Easy peasy lemon squeezy. We don’t have to make big decisions…
– I can put on all the make-up I want, make my hair up nice and wear a pretty dress, without DH I am still missing the part that makes me look my best. – I am a grown woman and I am actually capable of dressing fancy and acting relatively classy for a night, even on my own. – The fact that as a grown woman I borrowed my formal dress from the teenage girl who babysat for me can be our little secret. – The allure of dressing up is mostly lost after you make the Kraft Dinner for the kids and get out the boots and the brush to scrape the snow and ice off the mini-van. – Any sense of formality that might have been left is gone once you get out at the gas-station and hike up your dress to fill the air of your &*^%#& leaky tire that you haven’t fixed yet. – A good entrance is always important, especially when you’re aready nervous, so I don’t regret my decision to walk across the snowy parking lot in my 4 inch heels so that I wasn’t wearing my boots when I walked in. I also don’t regret how long it took my toes to defrost afterwards. – Some women might be offended by tradition that holds that no woman should walk around un-escorted. I am not one of those women. I made me feel just a little bit important. – I felt slightly less important when I had to announce my need to use the bathroom to the unfortunate guy who was assigned as my ‘escort’ for the evening, who then had…
This past week, I have been a mom on the edge. And I bring you now to this post. As I reminder I told you it would happen. Welcome to my mid-course meltdown. Take one upcoming posting (PCS for your beautiful American ladies) season and it’s questions, add one behaviorally challenged child and his case conferences and home visits, pile on a cold and make sure to include a Family Support meeting that I decided I had time to run before, didn’t eat breakfast early enough, almost lost said breakfast in front of the morning commuters on the road and then made myself a couple minutes late for… And you are left with Me,ver. 2.Crazy http://in-this-economy.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/freakout_sign.jpg Oh, and winter clothes. You are left with winter clothes. They are everywhere because I am in the middle of the Community Winterwear Drive. So my trunk, my front room, an office at the church I really need to get to and every square inch of the barely organized Community Closet is jam packed with bags of winterwear. This is a good thing. This is a very good thing because it started snowing today and the whole purpose of the Winterwear Drive is to ensure no families in our community are without winter clothing this year. Because, in case you live here and haven’t noticed, it gets cold. And in case you live in Hawaii (you know who you are), cold is when it’s -45 degrees Fahrenheit and your snot freezes to your face. In case you were wondering. So I am very grateful for the over abundance of winter clothing that is taking over…
I was asked to make a video for a Church Service for Remembrance Day years ago, then in subsequent years for the community Remembrance Day Service. And I did, I made what has turned into this video. This video is mostly for me. Every deployment the idea that if something happened to DH, all the world would see is that death photo that they take before they go (for those who don’t know that’s the picture in uniform of them in front of the flag. I’m sure it has another name, but the only time you would see it is on the news, when they are killed. So it’s always just struck me at the death photo). When I look at my kids I see my youngest son who watched some collegues of DH bring a armoured vehicle to our church playschool, while his dad’s been gone a couple months now he is simply wanting desperately the attention of the men who look like dad because to him, in that uniform, they all do. I see my daughter who proudly carried her first wreath at the school assembly for Remembrance Day with only the vaguest idea of what it meant. And I see my oldest son, who decided to wear his dad’s spare dogtags to school today and told me he tried really hard not to let anyone see him cry during the tribute video at that same assembly. When it comes to things like this they have to be a little braver than your average kid, but they each love their daddy for who he is at home, not what he does at work. DH is not just a uniform…
Sunday, Drama turns 6. For those of you who are on the facebook page, you may have seen my re-post this week of her birth story. It essentially tells the story of Drama entering our lives. The day Drama took over. Now, that was 6 years ago. Drama is no longer a Dramatic little baby, she’s a Dramatic grade 1er. She’s big(ger). One day, she might even make it out of a 5 point harness (yes, I am aware legally she now can. But she is still more than 5lbs away from the recommended weight to move to a booster and I suppose I am willing to forgo how very much simpler my life would be if she was in a booster seat for a little while longer until it’s safer.) Drama wants to be an artist when she grows up. She draws all the time. On everything. In an effort to steer her into the right direction with her art (and encourage her to look at options that don’t involve her spending her life selling portraits on the street corner) we once made a joke that she should be a tattoo artist. She is ALL OVER THAT. In fact, she’s even come to a few consults with us so she could check out the room and has asked some amusingly insightful questions to the artists about exactly how it works and what they do when they don’t like what the person wants drawn. My 6 year old, the aspiring tattooist. Sounds good to me, I just need to wait 12 or so more years for free ink! As you can tell from the…
I made something crafty. I KNOW! I was shocked too! I have A LOT of jewelry. It’s embarrassing, really. And it usually sat in this terribly useless pile of tangled mess at the bottom of a jewelry box. I never wore it, because I couldn’t find it and didn’t even remember what was there. Then I saw this post by Stephanie a while ago, but utterly failed at making it. I mostly gave up at that point, but still had the vague idea in my head that I should really do something about that mess. It takes a long time for me to get from ‘I really should’ to ‘actually doing’ something. A very long time. Hence why the trim in our house is still unfinished. But amazingly, I actually did something this weekend and I made a cool display/organizer for my jewelry. I know it’s awesome. (I also know the ribbon is crooked. But a nice person wouldn’t point that out.) I thought, going into making it, that I would kill 2 birds with it. I have a TON of scarves from Afghanistan. I thought I could use one of them to make this. But when it came down to it, I just couldn’t staple something that pretty to corkboard. So I used this scarf from the dollar store. Stapled to a corkboard with dollarstore ribbon stapled on top and decorative tacks used to hold the necklaces. I know, I know, you are amazed at my ingenuity! It also made me think about all my jewelry. Let me just start by saying I’m okay with…
In Canada, when a soldier serves 12 years of Service (you know, without getting in too much trouble or breaking any laws….) they get a medal. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Forces_Decoration It is called the CD. Canadian Forces Decoration. You don’t have to do anything beside be a soldier for 12 years to get it (which, don’t get me wrong, is a pretty important!). Once you recieve it, you even get to put a C.D. after your name on important documents. Pretty fancy shmancy. Needless to say (or this post would have no point but to bore you with military medal trivia), DH reached his 12 years last weekend. That doesn’t mean he has the medal now, that will take however many months of paperwork and the like. But, it means he is eligible. 12 years ago he walked into the Recruiting Center with his mom and dad, having completed his enlistment process while he was still in highschool and stood there just after his 18th birthday to make the final step… Swearing his Oath to the Queen and Country before shipping off to Basic Training. October 8, 1999 And I remember it then, because I remember him then. I didn’t get to go to the Swearing In. It was for family only and I was just a girlfriend. A highschool girlfriend, no less, I am sure that it was assumed the relationship would be short lived once he was actually out the door. But I was there for everything else. I was there the night before he got on the plane, sitting in a park by ourselves when he asked if I was going to wait for him and I cried. Oh, how long 12 weeks…
So as Canadian Thanksgiving comes around this weekend, I am reminded of how most of the people who read this blog are American and have to wait another month for Turkey! And I realize I kinda like our Thanksgiving, it’s farther away from Christmas, more time to digest the meal and forget about how much you ate before the holidays start. But mostly, I remember that despite my whining and occasional completely uncalled for hissy fit, I have so very much to be grateful for. There are obvious blessings. A roof over my head, food on my table, an awesome marriage and 3 great kids. But there are many other things I am learning to give thanks for. The Bible teaches us to love our enemies, because anyone can love their friends. I believe in a less obvious way, it also teaches us to be thankful for the things that don’t look like blessings right away. Cause everyone can give thanks when it’s clear we have been blessed, but it’s harder to find the blessings in the difficult moments. This Thanksgiving weekend, like the one before it last year and, well, most others before that, DH is not home. You (I) would think this isn’t a blessing. And I’m notsomuch grateful for his absence. I would love to be all together, to invite friends who don’t have family around over the holidays, cook a big dinner and fill our weekend with fun family activities that include DH. Instead it’ll be just me and kidlets and while I could cook a turkey, well, I really don’t want to spend that kind of time only to listen to…
