Category Archives: military life

09.09.09
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Toddler Convicted of Torturing Soldiers

We’re decorating cookies to send to Bill. He’ll eat one and then share the others, since he’s working hard to maintain his girlish figure.

Anyway, these cookies are supposed to look like Army guys. The Army’s black beret has a blue flash in the center. This is what my table looked like last night before we ran out of black frosting and started working on licorice mouths.

I detained all the little soldiers in a holding cell last night. They were on the kitchen counter waiting for their noses and cheeks. But Mary got to them first.

Chocolate chips eyes were plucked and apparently eaten. Mouths ripped off. I’m quite certain this is against State Department protocol. At least there was no evidence of water boarding.

I’m going State’s evidence. I had no idea things would get this out of hand.

09.09.09
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Is it naptime yet?

I’m having a tough, frustrating time right now, mainly because Mary has been very clingy. No matter how interesting the activity, she will not participate unless I am right there. Hence, she has been watching a lot of videos on my computer so I can at least do laundry or make dinner and be somewhat productive.

This attachment coincides with the weaning which I finally ended on August 29th. Eleven days later, and she has asked to be nursed every.single.day. I guess you can’t consider a tot weaned if she still asks for it, right?

I have found an outlet for my thoughts which pester me day and night through blogging and other writing. But Mary is not interested in sitting long on my lap while I type awkwardly around her. So, I read to her. Or I make “fish kiss” faces and she laughs and says more more. Or we play peak-a-boo. And then I do school or my work, and she makes messes or climbs precariously on furniture, and I finally turn on Kipper the Dog.

And there is no time to blog or to write emails to my husband beyond “Miss you. Love you. Girls started ballet today. More later.” More later ends up being “I’m tired. I’m going to bed. Will try to write in the morning.”

This too shall pass, I know. But in the middle of it, the days are too long and naps and bedtime too short.

08.20.09
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Time

I’ve noticed that evening comes earlier now. Rocking the baby to bed at 830 pm, it seems to be pretty dark out. These steaming days of late August will carry on into September as usual, but they are but the opening notes of Summer’s grand finale.

I welcome autumn. I won’t miss the humidity, or the mosquitoes. I won’t miss the stress of taking non-swimmers to the pool. I won’t miss these “relaxing” days of summer that, frankly, this summer, were not.

Maybe I just don’t know how to relax. Maybe I just can’t relax without my husband here to take care of all the worrying and fussing and the what-ifs.

At the grocery store yesterday, Katie had a non sequitor question: “Mommy, is it almost time for Halloween?” I told her no.

“Then why is all the Halloween candy out?” And I looked up from trying to keep Mary pinned to the seat while selecting bagels and checking my list and reminding myself not to forget the half-and-half which I did later, after all, forget. Sure enough, the seasonal display had heaps of orange and black wrapped treats.

“They do it to drive mothers nuts,” said a smiling woman pushing her own child-filled cart in passing. I then lost myself in thoughts of how brilliant these marketers were to put the candy out early, so you buy it so you don’t have to think about it any more, then you eat it, or you forget that you bought it, and you buy more – genius! I almost missed her second line, which I heard with perfect Doppler Effect:

“They’ll have the Christmas candy out before you know it.”

Oh, I hope so. More than I welcome the cool days of fall and the beauty of changing leaves and the comfort of a school routine and the return to hot food to warm chilly bodies, I long for the approach of winter and the return of my husband. May the days fly by.

He left seven weeks ago today. We have 19 more to go. It’s not that long; we’ve survived worse, I keep reminding myself. Not too long ago, seven weeks seemed like an eternity. Now, it seems like nothing compared to what I have left to do. In twelve weeks, seven weeks will again, likely, seem like an eternity.

But it will come. And then I will hope once more for time to stand still.

08.19.09
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Check it out

The best jobs are when somebody pays you to do something you do for free most of the time anyway.

Maybe I shouldn’t admit that?

P.S. That photo is my second oldest son hugging my husband when he returned home from his year long deployment in 2004. Bill’s friend came with him for our private reunion just so he could take pictures for us. It was another 10 days or more before the friend got to see his family.

08.12.09
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Cookies to the Front

Last weekend we made cookies.

Rather, I made cookies.
I have realized that I am a selfish chef. I do not like to have my children helping me in the kitchen. I find cooking and baking to be a gloriously solitary pursuit. I’m working on this. I do consider competence in the kitchen to be a prerequisite for adulthood, and it is my responsibility to teach it. But for these cookies, it was mostly just me.
I made three different types: crinkled molasses cookies, peanut butter with chocolate chips, and a variation on snickerdoodles. I have a different recipe than the one listed here, but they are all fairly similar: it’s a sugar cookie rolled in cinnamon sugar. These were a favorite from my childhood, and I make them every so often for my kids. Sometimes, I make what I call cinnerdoodles instead, and I put the cinnamon in the dough and just roll them in sugar. They are a bit more cinnamon-y. That’s what I did this time.
Of course, the cookies weren’t really for us, they were for my husband. I hope they survive the journey.
We saved some for us, too.
Yesterday we headed to the post office, and I asked Fritz to carry the heavy box out to the van.

“What’s in here?” he groaned.
“Cookies, M&Ms, magazines, your dad’s Cincinnati Reds hat, a cigar cutter…”
“Cigars?!?“

“Yes, I ordered your dad some cigars for his birthday.”
“They’re allowed to smoke there?”
“Yes, honey, they can’t drink, but they can smoke.”

“That doesn’t make any sense! Smoking is much worse than drinking!”

These are the life lessons my kids are learning. Of course, the drinking that goes on here is very moderate. I grew up with a dad who smoked a pipe, but rarely drank – not because he thought alcohol was bad, but because it just wasn’t his thing. I considered (still consider) pipe and cigar smoking, in moderation, as a harmless and rather pleasant pastime, but as a kid thought drinking was dangerous and even bad. Interesting.
08.06.09
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Ten Minutes

“Go get the phone,” I told Fritz as I was putting Peter’s shoes on so we could leave for VBS. He dutifully ran for it. “Answer it!” I yelled after him. Normally my kids fetch the phone and let me answer it, unless the special ring indicates it is someone they know. There was no special ring, and I had no idea who it was, but I knew if he didn’t answer it, it would be sent to voicemail before it got to me.

“Hi, Dad!” I heard him say. So glad I sent him for that phone!

We talked for just ten minutes – I had to go. But as I drove to church, I realized I had a smile on my face, and the day, rainy and cool though it was, seemed so lovely and bright.

All because of ten little minutes.

07.26.09
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Nostalgia

Fencing is an expensive sport, especially at the beginning when you have to buy the equipment. And when you have two beginners needing equipment, the outlay can be quite painful. For Christmas, the boys received all they needed to “dry” fence, that means to fence without all the fancy electrical equipment. They got a jacket, mask, sword, and a bag to carry it (they already had gloves). We spent more on them for Christmas buying that than we normally would spend on them in all. They didn’t get much else.

Now we’re moving them to an electric class which requires an electric sword, a body cord, and a lamé – a vest with metal filaments.

Ouch. I think I spent the same amount that I did on their Christmas package. And I guess one of them complained that the poking of the sword into the chest was uncomfortable, so the coach told them to get a chest protector. This plastic shield straps to the chest and costs so much that I wondered if it was bullet proof too. Personally, I think a painful poke in the chest will help make you a better fencer. It’s the Dodgeball method of improving your skills: If you can dodge a wrench, you can dodge a ball. If you don’t like getting poked, improve your parrying.

But besides the physical pain of buying the equipment, I didn’t expect the emotional pricks. My husband prefers épée, but when I met him, he was fencing foil because that’s what the team needed. My boys are fencing foil because that’s “classic” fencing where you really learn all the basic moves. Considering how much money I just spent, they will be fencing foil for quite some time. Their coach sized them up for blade length and decided that Fritz was ready for a full-sized weapon. We already own adult-sized foils. All I really needed was a right-handed grip. Grips are $5. Swords are over $100.

But I don’t know about the condition of my husband’s old equipment; I don’t know how to test or clean them; and I don’t know how to put them together. I sighed and not for the first time wished my husband were the one doing this or was at least just a phone call away.

I turned from blade selection to see Billy trying on a lamé. Suddenly, I was transported back nearly twenty years and there was a very young version of my husband suiting up for a bout. I don’t know if it was the way he zipped it or his demeanor or his physical appearance. But whatever it was, the memories of those early dating years rushed in for a brief moment.

Boy, do I miss this man.

07.24.09
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Too long to go

Yesterday I drove south down the George Washington Parkway which runs parallel to the Potomac River. Reagan National Airport is along this route and inbound planes line up with the river as they make their descent. We pointed out to Peter plane after plane that we spotted lowering itself to the runway. He was very eager to see them and finally started asking, “Do you think Daddy is on that one?”

Sorry, buddy, I wish it were so.