Sooo, this post is not about marriage.  My marriage or anyone else’s really. It is about promises.  And a song I really like. I really like this song. It’s not really my type of music, kinda sappy, kinda slow, I am more of a Reliant K girl than a Michael Buble or whatever his name is type. But for obvious reasons, the beginning sounds a lot like my marriage.  I read that Andrew Peterson wrote it in a spare room after a big fight with his wife.  Note to men – writing a beautiful song to your wife that makes it to the radio is an excellent way to apologise.  Just saying. Either way, I find it touching and it makes me teary.  My dh, on the other hand, can’t get past the chorus about dancing in minefields.  “This is just a dumb idea” he says.  “Why would you encourage people to do that?”, Sigh. The fact that it’s a metaphor (or a simile?  I can’t even spell simile so I will stick with metaphor), or that most people listening to the song have no direct experience with land mines – totally irrelevant to him.  But I digress. I have had this song on my mind for the past few weeks, mostly because the Christian station here plays a lot of the same music over and over.  But the plus side to Christian radio – no Nickleback.  Just saying, you might want to consider switching. The more I hear this song, the more I hold onto the idea. “And it was harder than we dreamed but I believe that’s what the…

There is a lot of Blogging Pressure lately!  Okay, maybe only pressure from one of the 5 people who actually read my Blog, but it catches up, you know! So as I wait to pick my dh up from the airport this evening, it makes me think, three years ago this day I was picking him up at the same airport. Crazy how things work out, 3 years ago today I was as excited as I could possibly be, packing up our 2 children and waddling my pregnant self out the door to meet my dh for his mid-tour leave. And therin lies the Story of Monster.  The Surprise 3rd Edition to our family. In 2007 my dh was in predeployment training for his 3rd tour in Afghanistan, this as a Loader for a Leopard Tank.  We knew, going into the new year, that he was leaving.  We also knew there were several months of training he would have to complete in the spring before his summer departure.  We were as prepared as we could be, after all, this was the 3rd time around.  Freckles was turning 5 and Drama was turning 2 that year.  Not the end of the world, just another tour, nothing we hadn’t done before and couldn’t do again. Thing is, I had looked at each tour a little differently.  The first, I thought “okay, I’m pregnant, but I only have to look after me.  Nothing else to do.  No one else to care for.  I can do this.”  Second tour I thought “I have a child, but I’m not pregnant.  Just one child, I can do this.”  Third…

So I was going to save this post for my tenth anniversary this spring. But there has been some bitching about my lack of blog posting.  And I have been thinking about it a lot.  So here it is. I did it for 2 of the kids, I will do one for the 3rd on his birthday in a couple weeks, but for now, here is my hubby.  As seen by me.  I consider it a blessing he couldn’t grow a beard if he tried. I have many people ask me what dh means.  I use it a lot.  It serves several purposes for me – it’s habit, it’s short, it stops me from using his name when I am not comfortable, and well, honestly I forget I even do it. Years ago when I was a new military spouse, there was a term DW that referred, not always in a good way, to the Devoted Wife at home, the one who they didn’t have to worry about, who was like another piece of kit, given to the soldiers when they enlisted to watch the kids and the house while he’s away.  It was a throwback to the saying ‘If the Army wanted you to have a wife, they would have issued you one‘.  So many of the wives I knew, started using the term DH to describe their hubbies.  I believe then it means Devoted Husband.  Though I have been emailed guesses anywhere from Darling Husband to D*mn husband.  And really, I suppose then it depends on the day. We met in middle school.  We ‘dated’ for a year at 13-14…

I feel you judging me. You foodie mommies out there who grow your own organic gardens and who have toddlers who eat quiche for breakfast and their nutrient-rich green veggies at dinner. You pack extravagant lunches for your kids that you made from scratch the night before and at dinner  they plow through their spaghetti made with squash and mashed zucchini. Then you look over at my kids lunch and you silently (or not so silently) judge my parenting skills. Well BRING IT ON. Do you think I haven’t TRIED to cook my children something new and different.  Do you think I refuse to serve them anything else and and thereby am stunting their growth and probably dooming them to a life of menial labour as their poorly fed brains cannot handle anything else?  Ya, I thought so. Okay, maybe your not as judgemental as I think you are.  Maybe it is mostly my own embarrassment at my children’s eating habits that leads me to be maybe slightly a little bit defensive.  Truth is, I know many great moms who are also ‘foodies’ and who’s kids sit and much on cucumbers while mine eat their cookies.  But there are those out there who, for some reason, feel that it is their duty to show me the error of my ways and how ‘easy’ it would be to make the switch to healthier food for my little ones. Which leads me to a few questions. Have you ever tried to serve, day after day, week after week, different and exciting, time consuming meals to a group of children who will fight, scream and otherwise flat out refuse to eat it?  Every.  Single…

What most people remember of the movie We Were Soldiers are the battle scenes.  It’s real and bloody and scary and there is a lot of death and destruction.  When telling a male friend of mine that I don’t/can’t watch this movie ever again, he reiterated exactly that.  “Ya, it’s pretty gory.” I didn’t even remember that part. What I do remember is watching it and becoming near dehydrated through the tears.  But what made me that way, what caused the ugly, snotty, not-movie-pretty-tears, had nothing to do with the battle scenes. It had everything to do with a different scene.  A scene at home, where Mel Gibson’s character’s wife hears the doorbell.  And walking down the stairs she sees the letter at her door and she almost falls.  And she is crying and telling her kids to go back up stairs when she gets to the door, only to find out the letter is not for her.  And it begins the storyline of this character being the deliverer of these letters to each one of the wives as their husbands are killed in battle.  At least, that’s how I remember the scene and I can’t bring myself to watch it again to confirm I remember it right. So when asked by the media this past month what Remembrance Day means to me, as a military spouse,  that’s what came to my mind.  Not the services.  Not the Poppy’s,  wreaths, cenotaphs or memorials. It’s that moment on the stairs. Because if you are a soldier, it will…

There are many things Drama had going for her before she was even conceived.  She, for starters, is the only child that my dh and I actually made a conscious choice to have.  For the other two, well, we have heard everything from ‘unexpected blessing’, ‘wonderful accident’ and ‘special suprise’.  Let’s be honest, people.  The other two were not our idea.  But Drama, our gift of Drama was the only time us and God had the same idea about us having a child.  And I trust when she gets old enough to know that, she will rub it in her brothers faces at every opportunity. Also on her side – my dh had just returned from his second tour when we decided to try for our second.  That meant he had a stretch of time at home, or at least in country.  So Drama’s is the only pregnancy my dh has experienced up close.  The only time he would be able to attend ultrasounds, doctors appointments, and experience the cravings and all-around bitchiness that is me, pregnant.  Shocking that he didn’t stick around for the 3rd…. You may say I have never seen cute pregnancy pictures with all her belly out and looking all glowing…. That’s because those moments did not exist.  I looked like a beach ball with legs.  Swollen legs.  And the only glow I had was nausea.  So no cutesy pie preggers pics for me.  In fact, even looking for any pregnancy pics of me I had a hard time finding any, and considering I have been pregnant for a total of 110 weeks of…

So attending my first prenatal classes ever, after having 3 kids, has made me think a lot about my pregnancies.  Especially the first one.  Not many people knew me during that time, but it was a little crazy and wonderful and well, just like the rest of our lives, hey? All Part of the Plan (More or Less) When DH and I got married, he was 19 and I had just turned 20.  We moved into a 550 sq. foot PMQ with nicotine stains on the walls and asbestos in the ceiling.  After our rent was deducted, DH brought home $580 twice a month.   I had just graduated with a 2 year diploma in Social Work.  Finding a job that didn’t pay minimum wage proved difficult, so after a few months unemployed, that’s what I worked, making $7.50 an hour working as a Care Worker at a homeless shelter for women.  Working different shifts every few days, usually overnight.  Then 9/11 happened.  DH was put on 24 hour notice to move.  For a couple months we waited for the word of when, not if, he would be deployed on this new War on Terror. Needless to say, we felt the responsible thing to do was wait to have kids. We had a 5 year plan. We figured in 5 years, we would be more financially stable.  We would own a house.  I would have a great job.  5 years.  Made perfect sense. Deer in the Headlights 7 months after the wedding and 2 1/2 months after 9/11, we learn the plan is not to be.  DH doesn’t blink for days.  I am too sick…

The Travelling Gong Show I learned long ago that the best way to deal with life’s disappointments is a little perspective and a lot of laughter. Let’s start with perspective.  My Summer Vacation was…. less then ideal. While I was crying over broken transmissions, whining about uncomfortable car rides and bitching about plans that didn’t work out, almost 2000 people died in Pakistan from the flooding.  20 million are homeless and lacking in even the most basic of human necessities.  THAT’s reality.  Let’s laugh about my little, insignificant issues, shall we? To start at the beginning: The (Proposed) Plan We are blessed to take the only kind of vacation we can afford every year.  The kind we don’t have to pay much for Usually, it’s a week in with my inlaws and then a week at a Cabin my parent’s rent in BC with my parents and usually my brother and his girlfriend (It’s a very big cabin, really, it’s a house). This year, it seems my cousin was getting married on Vancouver Island, so there was a slight change in the usual plan.  The new plan was as follows: 1. Go to In-Laws from August 1st to 5th. 2. Leave August 5th in the 7 seater minivan with my parents and Auntie Suey.  Leave kids at In Laws. Drive to Kamloops.  Spend the night there. 3. Leave Kamloops on August 6th, drive to Parksville.  Stay there until August 8th. 4. Leave Parksville August 8th.  Drive to Kelowna.  Spend the night there. 5. Drive Back to the In Laws August 9th. 6. Bring kids with us…

Just like to put it out there – Some days I am very sure that Posting Season was sent to make me miserable. I mean, I guess there’s some upsides. I’m not in the mood to see upsides. Most military postings happen in the spring, thus the term “Posting Season”.  It is when you start wondering ‘Will I get sent to some random place this year at the whim of the Canadian Armed Forces?”.  Well, I suppose you only wonder that if you are a military family.  The army doesn’t post many civilians, or so I hear. Now, this is a fair idea.  When you enlist, you know that you will move when you are told.  Fact of life in the military.  And I can’t even say a word on the subject, with 10+ years in the army, my dh hasn’t been posted since he was sent here after training.  We are an enigma.  He hasn’t been home from Afghanistan long enough to be posted.  And I’m okay with that, we are in no hurry to go anywhere.  But we wait, every year, wondering if it’s our turn.  And when that day comes, I just pray it’s somewhere with a Starbucks. But today, today I’m not as accepting of the whole idea as I’d like to think I am. Because today I said goodbye to a friend.  Not the first or last friend to be posted.  Being here this long has meant we have seen more than a few of our military friends come and go.  Some are here longer…

Upstairs making pizza for dinner when Freckles starts yelling.  If you have read my previous posts, my response should be obvious. What?  Stop screaming, honestly!  What is it?  Then I look down the stairs to my living room.  There is something on fire on the carpet next to the three wick candle stand.  Again, my response should be obvious. Are you kidding me? I go downstairs and look at the smoldering paper.  I look at the kids.  I go in the bathroom next to the small fire, find a cup, fill it with water and pour it on said paper.  I look back at the kids.  Monster sticks his face right next to the mess and says ‘hot?’.  I resist the urge to rub his face in the ash like you would with a dog that just messed on the carpet. I clean up the mess, still pondering how the child got the paper into the covered holder of the candle, and then out of the holder and onto the floor without burning himself.  I realize I don’t even care. Now, I used to be able to have nice things.  I didn’t ‘childproof’ my house all that much, my kids knew what stuff was not for playing with, or they learned quickly.  They may have coloured on one wall, got in trouble, didn’t do it again.  We have a 4 level split and we didn’t have babygates. While getting in trouble like most kids do, they were never…what’s the word…. desperately destructive. Until Monster.  Why?  WHY?  Why is the unexpected third child whom I love…