Recently

Patric snuck away for some Kansas sunsets.

And a little work on the ranch. 

While the deer remained in hiding, an eagle showed up for dinner one day. 

And seeing parents is always in order, pandemic or no. 

Meanwhile, we did a little painting in our boring game room. 

As usual, Elaine stuck with me to the bitter end. 

Ben and Alida were off to using the game room as quickly as possible. 

And the color makes it a bit less blah up here. Poor Ben is having to share the space now with more and more people.  A new couch is in order, which we'll get set up and posted soon. I guess after 23 years we can admit that our orange couch has given its best years. 

May Happened

Somewhere in Arkansas.

 

My hotel in Cincinnati.

 

Him at Ft. Hood.

Somewhere in there he went to Houston too.

 

Me in DC.

 

He in Grafenwohr, Germany.

 

Sometimes we weren't even coming and going and we were just going. One more trip to Nebraska for me and one more trip to Wisconsin for him, and then we're looking forward to running into each other again.

Reserve Weekend

Replacing National Guard Weekend

It's still a mess.

However, this one included unpacking the last box and sifting through the last of the crazy.

We're moved.

It's official.

What Time is it?

"Nicholas?"
"I'm making a clock mom."
"Oh."
"What comes after 12?"
"Um, 1."
(scoffing) "No, it doesn't."
"Yes, on a clock it does. (drawing a picture) See here is 6: wake up time; 7: school time; 8: breakfast time; 9: school work time; 10: play time; 11: clean up time; 12: lunchtime; 1: nap time; 2: play time; 3: outside time; 4: daddy and I pick you up time; 5: dinner time; 6: clean up and bath time; 7: Batman time; 8: bed time; 9, 10, 11, 12, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 sleep time. And then it starts again."
"But what comes after 12 mom?"
Breezing through the kitchen comes dad: "Well, actually Susan, in military time it is 13..."
"See mom!"
"Really? You really want your children to be mocked by their classmates?"
"What?
(Mock pre-schooler voice) "Well, ACTUALLY, in the military it's Fifteen-hundred right now, which is play outside time..."
"What? What's wrong with that?"
"Mom! What.Comes.After.12?"
"1."
"NO, it doesn't!"
"Well, that's because you put all your numbers in a quarter of the clock. You have to spread them around, and you'll see that 1 comes after 12." (pointing to the to-scale picture)
"Mom. Just tell me what comes after 12."
"13, Nicholas. 13 Comes after 12."

Coming Soon

I had my first chance to stow-n-go the other day.

After pulling the stuck lollipop off the floor along with some carpet and ignoring the other debris that had already made this new-last-November car disgusting, my parents helped me go pick up my Mother's Day gift to myself. Let's just say, it was so big that the trunk wouldn't close. I only had some twine to tie it down. The first speed bump we hit popped the sucker open. So, they drove, and I crawled in the back and wedged myself into our large load. Then we drove home with me holding the door down with the help of twine tied around the license plate. You would think such a well thought out car would have a place to tie off a rope piece of lousy twine. Good thing I have my daily strength training hauling people back and forth to time-out.

We'll have to wait for the great unveiling for Mother's Day weekend when I can get some folks around to do some construction. I am currently dreaming of creating gourmet meals while the children play outside. I'm dreaming of hours of free time in the kitchen as I watch the kids taking turns. I'm dreaming of our first trip to the emergency room...

While you wait, don't forget to go read me ramble on about deployment at The Good Stuff Guide again today. Sheesh, you would think I don't get out much the way I chatter.

The Week: Let's Review and Forget

Next week we'll have some long overdue randomness, for now let's enjoy a re-cap of this week...

Being the good mommy that I am, I dismissed Nicholas Monday night at bedtime as delaying when he told me his stomach hurt. I told him if he didn't feel good, he needed to get some sleep. Five minutes later he was in the bathroom throwing up. We were up several times during the night fighting the good fight. Tuesday we hung out together. It was refreshing to have just one four-year-old in the house. I ignored my own swelling throat and got a million things done as he watched cartoons in my bedroom.

Wednesday Nicholas was better, really. I, on the other hand, left work at 11:00 because I felt like junk. I was home and in bed by noon. I got a solid three hours of sleep before daycare called to let me know that Ben had thrown up in the library. I gathered him and we hung out and felt awful together for a little while that afternoon before getting everyone else.

Wednesday night, we hunkered down to bed with little formality, no baths, no stories. Ben came to bed with me in case he got sick during the night. Nicholas said he was scared to sleep alone but passed out quickly and the girls went down fast. Then around 11:00 Alida found me and complained that her pants were wet. Yes they were, wet with throw-up. Cleaned her up, got her back in bed. Two hours later, the same thing again. One hour later a magnificent storm blew through and rocked the house waking us up again and blowing two breakers. Ben looked over at me and asked, "Mommy, what's that racket?" He still hadn't thrown up.

Thursday morning and Elaine was the first out of bed, as usual, but at a late 5:45. She had throw-up caked in her hair. The poor thing had thrown up during the night and didn't even get out of bed. (Oh, yeah did I mention that I'd had my own round of this during the night as well?) I toyed with the idea of taking Nicholas in to school just to get him out of the sick house, but gave up when I realized I could barely move. I laid around half coherent Thursday morning while most of the kids did the same. Nicholas, I discovered later, had found Halloween and Christmas decorations somewhere, unraveled an entire roll of scotch tape, taken off all of his clothes, painted his face like a warrior with my eye-liner, lined up some toilet cleaner and bubble bath in the shower. He had drug out the toilet plunger (did he use it? I don't know), and drug a stool into the extra bedroom and found my one last Chapstick the girls hadn't previously destroyed that I'd hidden high.

By Thursday afternoon we were feeling somewhat better if not still puny. Today, the kids are good--as far as I know, and I'm home licking my wounds. Grandma and grandpa may be re-thinking their weekend visiting plans right about now...

GOOD MORNING!!!!!

This morning, the first e-mail I read was something like this:

"Good Morning,
Today is going to be a good day! I'm starting out with a very positive attitude.

Blah, blah, blah, work stuff.

Thanks. Have a good day today :)"

Um, I changed three, yes three, poopy diapers before we left the house this morning at 7 ish. Dealt with one melt-down because I wouldn't let the princess wear her play shoes. Dealt with another melt down because I was accused of losing a piece of paper that one boy child dropped in the seat of the car. Dealt with another melt down because I was mean enough not to carry everyone into daycare in my arms, on my back, clinging to my legs--whatever way they could get a ride. Then I hit traffic. I got another sad e-mail from Patric this morning about a soldier losing a family member in Afghanistan. And, what on earth is going on that EVERYONE beat me to work this morning and took all of the good parking places. I'll be leaving early as well to take Elaine back to the specialist.


Right now, I just want to do like Nicholas: sit alone at the table and eat my breakfast of a tube of Girl Scout cookies alone in peace under an umbrella.

Starry Nights=Bah Humbug

Reverse with me to New Year's Day.

Cooped up all day together, it finally dawned on me that a drive through the local park to see their light show was in order. You may remember that Emily had such a good time. You'll also see that Emily's mommy has much better skills with her camera than I do. (of course, they may have slowed down and perhaps even stopped to take a picture. You'll soon know why that was not an option for me.)

Before we got into the park, I had to pull off into the pitch blackness to rebuckle Elaine who had gotten loose. Seeing her loose made the boys think they could get loose, and we had mayhem. I pulled way off into the darkness and put the emergency lights on while I rebuckled, double buckled, lectured, and attempted to maintain my cool. The cop sitting at the entrance to the park had put me in a bit of a mood. When his lights started flashing behind us, my holiday spirit was officially spent. It was awesome when he walked up to the car and I couldn't remember how to roll down a window. Finally he lectured me kindly, admonished the children that mommy could get in trouble, and then gave us directions to get turned back around. Ben turned directly to everyone and announced that mommy was going to jail.

As we pulled up to join the rest of the world that had come to drive through this thing, the kids could not stop talking about--the moon. Yeah, the moon over there. I paid our 20 bucks to drive through the park after I realized there was no turning back. Twenty bucks? It was on the tip of my tongue at that point to argue the charge with the person standing there with a bucket, but I kept my trap shut. She gave me a ticket. I drove forward 10 feet and handed my ticket to another woman with a bucket, who then handed me a booklet of advertisements. I nearly began a lecture on the stupidity of that entire exchange but I kept my trap shut.

Determined, I flipped on some Christmas music after paging through the advertisements to see if they had a preferred station. (They didn't, but they could tell me where to purchase a very nice watch.) About 5 seconds into the choirs singing, Ben begins yelling from the back as if the sound is burning him: "Turn it OFFFFFF!" We then sampled every station on the radio until we landed on Classic Rock. I ignored the hot dog stand, determined to get this over with. As we crept along, about 2 minutes into it, more than one child started asking if we could go home.

There were no emergency exits on the Starry Nights trail.
When we were finally through the park, the children all conked out for the rest of the drive home. I shuttled them in one by one to the living room and snuggled them up on the couch, still drowsy.

"Mommy. I love you."

Well it wasn't all for naught then was it? Well that and all of the great pictures we got.

The Year In Review: 2009

We started with a bit of snow early in the year. Little did we know it was the pre-cursor to monsoon season.

We took you for pizza on those cold days. We are usually pretty good through the appetizer bread sticks, then it's time to go.

Valentine's Day: you began sneaking to the counter to sneak food.

Your daddy had laser eye surgery and at the follow up visit, you all did really well when we had to take you with us because no one else was around to drive him.

And the boys three-year-visit and the girls 18-month visit was dispensed with all at once. Yikes.

The boys got actual beds.

Ben seemed a bit unsure of it at first. Many nights these days he sneaks down and sleeps on a couch in the middle of the night. No idea why.

The Radio Flyer Wagon. One of the best gifts we have ever received. And it was put to use the second the weather started to clear.

We loved playing with daddy's uniform at the beginning of the year.

And we stayed outside as much as possible even a bit before it was warm enough probably.

The girls couldn't wait to become stuntmen though.

We "celebrated" Easter.

Grandma and I made a trip to Texas with everyone to see Aunt Lori and Uncle Brian and grandpa while Patric was at a long training session.

But daddy always came home. We always loved seeing this uniform show up.

Because it meant there was another workhorse in the house.

Sometimes the kids would make their own rocket ships though.

And sometimes they even played with their toys correctly.

Grandma and grandpa came to visit a lot.

And in May, daddy took all the kids to Kansas for a week so mom could have a little surgery.

And they traveled pretty well on the long solo trip with dad.

Elaine--you were the one that started to hop out of cribs.

The Kings spent a lot of time with us clicking pictures of children.

And then we found Nancy with a pool and no one to swim in it. We were happy to make the place look lived in.

I tried Alida. I tried to get a good picture of you this year.

You played in the pool as much as you could.

Daddy was here for the Fourth of July and we spent it at a fireworks show--the boys loved it; the girls not-so-much.

And we celebrated the girls' second birthday--already?.

Since daddy was at National Guard so much, we just went ahead and followed him there one weekend and had a great time at the hotel pool.

And then monsoon season set it. And we went outside anyway.

And we made a visit to Shiloh National Park, where we read on the way out, you aren't supposed to climb on those...

Member night at the zoo was fun.

And the boys started wearing uniforms...in preschool.

Whatever.

There were two days that mommy had to be out of town , so daddy saddled up the crew and took them swimming with Aunt Cynthia.

We visited everyone in Minnesota.

And learned about making fires.

And gave Aunt Lori a workout.

All made possible by our current favorite method of mass transportation: Amtrak.

We used our imaginations: when I took away their Transformer toys, they just made themselves into Transformers.

Grandma Montana came and visited.

And this happened more nights than I would have liked this past year, but they just keep piling in sometimes. It's really not as efficient as it looks now that they're bigger.

And all I remember about this picture is that it was an VERY long weekend that ended in five minutes of world peace that amazed me.

Grandpa and grandma came to town a lot to wrangle children.

And I made my first solo outing with the kids to public places. And we lived. And we'll do it again.

And we attempted a family photo...

And the girls were not terribly excited about their toddler beds.

I tried Alida, I really did.

And daddy always came home after being away. And it was always a wonderful reunion.

Elaine grew by like 5 years.

Ben got six stitches that didn't hold the skin together after they were taken out. So it popped open anyway and it'll leave a mark.

Ah, Halloween. You wanted to quit after two houses.

And grandpa airplane flew you off with daddy for a last day together on December 1.

That was right after the Thanksgiving weekend emergency room visit for Ben, who turned out to just be really sick.

And we did a lot of passing our time with new activities this year.

And daddy came home for Christmas. And the last time we saw that uniform at the end of vacation, we all knew that we were tired of what it meant to us.

But we are proud for what it means to the world.

So, off we go.

2010 awaits us.

Daddy will go for one big, long time this time. And then he'll be back and we can close that chapter for awhile.

Daddy has likely changed his last diapers.

Lucky.