Too Hooah

You Might be a LITTLE too hooah If....

- the only time you and the spouse eat without the kids is at the unit "dining
out".
- you always back into parking spaces.
- you have to look up your parents phone number, but can dial the CQ, SDNCO,
company, battalion and brigade with no problem at all
- each page of your vacation atlas has two routes marked.
- your favorite author is Mike Malone or Tom Clancy.
- when your kids are too noisy, you announce "at ease!"
- you don't own any blue ink pens.
- your leave always occurs during the last week of September.
- you keep a box of MREs at home and in the trunk of your car in case of
emergencies.
- when talking to relatives by phone, you end the conversation with "out ."
- you refer to your spouse as "Household 6" or CINC House."
- you've seen Patton enough times to memorize his speech.
- CNN or FOX is your favorite program.
- you call the Post Locator instead of Information to find your friends.
- you take the family camping with no tent or sleeping bags.
- your kids can speak three languages by age eight.
- the only suit you own is your Class A uniform.
- you carry your cell phone to the shower.
- your vehicle is registered on post and in two different states.
- you have more money invested in TA-50 than in your car.
- you tell your kids to go to bed at 2100 and they try to explain that it's
only nine o'clock.
- the allotment column of your LES has more entries than the entitlement
column.
- no one understands the stories you tell because of all the acronyms.
- you can explain the Gettysburg battlefield better than directions to your
house.
- your kids know the words to "she wore a yellow ribbon."
- your two-year old calls everyone in ACUs "daddy".
- the phone book lists your rank instead of Mr.
- your spouse hasn't unpacked the good china for ten years.
- your monthly BAS goes to the mess hall.
- you ruin the movie for everyone around you by pointing out the unrealistic
military scenes.
- you live on post so you can hear reveille every morning.
- your family calls you "Sir."
- all your jokes begin with "there was this soldier, a marine and an
airman..."
- you feel compelled to get a haircut every five days.
- all of your shoes are military style, except for one pair and that pair is
your running shoes.
- you are convinced that coffee is a nutrient.
- your home town is convinced that you are a foreigner.
- your first impressions of civilians are that they all need haircuts.
- civilians exercise and you conduct PT.
- you feel guilty about leaving work at any hour.
- you only wear those dorky military glasses or the geeky aviation glasses.
- when your kids categorize other kids as either military brats or civilian
slugs.
- if the phones in your home resemble the standard military version.
- if you answer your phone at home by explaining that the line is unsecure.
- if your spouse owns several military cookbooks published by family support
groups.
- if half of the mementos in your house are from Korea or Germany.
- you don't leave the house, you sp
- when your spouse tells you the dishwasher isn't loaded according to sop

I Miss Germany

We left Germany just about a year and a half ago. When we left I was sooo ready to get back to the States. I missed Walmart and being able to buy whatever whenever I needed it. I had really started to hate feeling like a foreigner. I felt a huge weight lift from my shoulders when we landed in Dallas. It didn't take long for me to start missing things about Germany. I miss the beer and the country dining (pork, pork, and more pork.) I really miss our quarters, sigh, we had really great quarters. At the time we were stationed there I took some things for granted. It really drove me nuts that I couldn't go places without someone noticing or commenting. I always saw someone I knew at the commissary especially if I didn't take the time to shower or if I was feeling grumpy. We lived on a pretty small installation, so now that I live on a very large post, I miss knowing the person at the checkout at the PX. I also miss having people who cared if I left the house and was gone all day or even if I hadn't left the house in a week. I miss my neighbors that lived on the street. Here no one hangs out on the street, everyone is to themselves. I miss the guys that worked in the training room. Now when I go to my husband's office, the guys know who I am but hardly anyone speaks. I miss the CDC, I particularly miss Miss Darla. If you were stationed in Vilseck and you had small kids, you know Miss Darla, she was the best teacher/caregiver I have met. She was awesome!!!
Even though the familiarity of living in a small community made me nuts sometimes, I really miss it. I miss the friends I made there. I have been reading the blogs of some ladies that were living where I was and I feel like I missed out on some great people. I think sometimes when you are out of your comfort zone it is difficult to see two feet from your face. Two deployments surely didn't help!! I am not sure how I would have gotten to know some of them, but I marvel sometimes at how much I have in common with them and how interesting they all are. It makes me appreciate being an Army wife and having the opportunity to meet some really great women.

Oh, I MISS GERMAN BEER!!!! I was pregnant or breastfeeding most of the time we were in Germany, so I definitely did not get my fill of the beer.

Woman vs. Wild

I am not sure if you have seen the show Man vs. Wild, but it is about this guy aptly named Bear who is dropped off in various remote areas and has to survive while he gets himself back to civilization. While I definitely have a leg up on him in the food department, I've never eaten roots or bugs, I do not know if he could actually survive three children under the age of four. I have particular doubts about his ability to survive a 3 1/2 year old and a 21 month old finger painting.
On Wednesday, I decided that it would be great if we finger painted. So, the three of us, C. was napping, decided to go into the kitchen and shut the gate, thereby confining the boys to the kitchen. They were thrilled to be painting, but things quickly deteriorated and I mean less than ten minutes. The boys were painting on large pieces of paper on the floor, so feet became involved. This was great, very cute until the paint was all over the floor and everyone started to slip.
I quickly figured out that there was no way I could leave either child alone in the kitchen while I took someone to the bathroom to be hosed down. So I put H. on my back and S. clung to my front. A split second before I put my foot down on the beige (ridiculous color for a living room with small children) carpet I realized that I had paint all over my feet. Luckily there were two plastic shopping bags on the counter. I put one on each foot and off we went to the bathroom. The paint came off there bodies very easily. As soon as I had them cleaned up and out of the tub. I started working on the kitchen. If you ever doubt the amount of surface area that your children touch, let them into the kitchen with paint on their hands. You will have a new appreciation for the amount that you must clean and sanitize.
I will not get into the gory details, because recently someone pointed out that I talk about poop a great deal in my blog. S. walked over to the gate and held up a brown finger and said one word, "MESS." Needless to say I abandoned cleaning up washable finger paint. S. strikes again. YUCK!!
I wish I had some beautifully painted pictures to post on the site, but everything just ended up a part of the mess. I think we will wear beach shoes next time.

TGIF

Whew, what a week. I am certainly glad that it is Friday. S. got into his diaper again, this time while he was supposed to be napping. I had no clue he was awake. When I finally heard him I walked into his room and my nose was assaulted by the smell of poo. Believe me, when your almost 4 year old tells you he has poopy on his toe, he probably does. Earlier this week I stepped on some of S.'s poo and I knew immediately that it was poop, so why wouldn't H. know he'd stepped in his brother's poo. S. had smeared his poo all over the crib, including the rails. He also tossed some out of the crib which is how H. got poo on his toe. All I have to say is Ewwwwwwwwwwww!!!!!!!!!! After I was done cleaning S. up, I walked out of the bathroom and caught my pinky toe on the door jamb. Ouch!!! I broke my toe and now my foot and toe are black and blue.
I think I will hunker down and lay low until Sunday.

Mice

If you have never had mice in your house or in your garage, thank your lucky stars!!! My first mouse encounter was in Germany. While my husband was in the country we had no problems. However once he deployed to Iraq for the second time, it was as if a beacon was sent around the county or at least it was beamed into the field by our house, "Come one, Come all, a woman is on her own with a small child." I went into our detached garage one day to get something and discovered little black pellets. Let me tell you once there have been little black pellets in your life, you will never look at debris the same way. Just a second ago I found a black crumb next to the keyboard and had to analyze it to make sure that there had not been a mouse computer party. Back to the garage. The mice were into everything. Basically they'd made the garage into a boom town. They'd made a nest in the bike trailer that I used to pull H. around town in. I'd made the mistake of leaving a lolly pop in the trailer. It was disgusting. My husband's golf bag had become the local Mouse Motel. Some mice were running a bar out of one of my husband's boots. Totally Gross. I completely and totally FREAKED out. I admit it, I lost it. I put H. to bed for a nap. I grabbed rubber gloves and garbage bags. I threw everything away. Everything. I didn't even ask before I threw my husband's golf bag away. I borrowed a neighbor's truck and tossed everything they pooped on. Some things I cleaned. I scrubbed my husband's golf clubs and anything else that could take being bleached. Thankfully I could retreat into the house and be safe from the GERMS. Incidentally I used D-con because the mice were out in the garage, just be forewarned, the mice will poop green pellets before they die.
Fast forward to Fall of 2005, I started noticing these little black pellets in almost every room. To my horror, we had mice inside the house. Talk about crawly skin, freak out feelings, I thought I was going to go nuts. One evening I was cooking for a bake sale, when I saw a flash of a tale. Fortunately I was able to catch the little buggers using glue traps. Late one night my husband and I were in bed, he was sleeping soundly while I watched late night tv. Sure enough I start hearing screeching and scratching. After everyone was in bed I would place traps in front of every one's door. S. was only four or five months, and H. was about 2 1/2 so they were both in cribs. To my horror I realized that if I needed to get to either child I would have to *gasp* step over a mouse stuck in a glue trap. Holy moly, there was absolutely no way that was going to happen, not to mention the fact that the poor creature (only now can I say poor creature, at the time in my mind the had horns and evil leers) was screeching loudly. So I woke my husband up even though he had to get up at four, I woke him up. He got up and disposed of the creature, thank goodness he is such a good husband, he has to be to put up with my insanity. After several months of catching H. and I. (husband) in the traps, we finally got rid of them all. At least I think.
So this past summer I started thinking of offensive strikes. I was not about to be infiltrated by the nasty buggers again, oh no, I was going to strike first. I knew that I could not use poison, which would have been the easiest thing to use, but not with children around. So I bought an ultrasonic device. Not sure if it works, but we seem to be mouse free this year. I was contemplating the purchase of red fox urine, because the red fox is a natural predator of the house mouse. I thought long and hard and googled every aspect I could think of. Finally I decided against the urine because I was afraid that I would attract the natural predator of the red fox. We live close to a nature preserve and it wasn't a far stretch to imagine bears and cougars knocking on the door asking for reservations at Chez Fox. So I bought something else entirely, a mouse repellent that you put around plants in the backyard. Well, I should have googled the ingredients on the label first, but I was desperate, it was getting to be mouse season and I was about a month from giving birth to our third boy C. So I step outside and shake this stuff all around the foundation of the house. Not smart, not a good idea, because the main ingredient was naphthalene, yes oh yes, mothballs. So within minutes the entire house smells like mothballs. So I googled naphthalene and of course come upon a laundry list of horrible side effects from smelling mothballs, nasal cancer being one of them. So in my pregnancy induced insanity I send my husband to the store for a bag of charcoal because it was Sunday night and everything was closed I knew the odds of getting activated charcoal would be slim. While he was gone I used the hose to dilute the pellets with water. When he returned we went around the house depositing charcoal. My husband held the bag and I placed charcoal, mainly because I didn't like his charcoal placement, he was tossing haphazardly and I just knew that if we were going to get rid of the odor the charcoal had to be on top of the pellets. By the next day the odor was gone, thank heavens. Now, can you imagine being our neighbors and looking out your window and seeing a woman 9 months pregnant placing charcoal all around the house??
Long story short, I do not like mice.

Wow!

I am not even sure where to start. It has been a while since I blogged last. So much has happened. The worst thing is that my Grandfather died. My Mom keeps saying that "it is a sad thing not a bad thing." I think that hits the nail on the head. He was not doing well and he would not have wanted to live the way that he was living or would be living if he'd recovered. It was a sad day, but my Mom and her sisters were there when he died. My youngest and I were there as well, but after he passed I took the baby out of the room so they could be alone with him. It seemed like there was a moment to be had.
My Grandmother has alzheimer's. It was really good to see how good she looks. My grandfather did not look like himself at all. So it was so good to see my Grandmother look like herself.
I left the two older kids with my husband, so I had a break from all of the madness of being at home. I was so grateful to be back at home with the kids. I missed them so much. My husband went straight into the field, so things got hairy quickly. Bedtime is very tricky. It is difficult to get everyone in there pajamas and tucked into bed while putting the baby to sleep or trying to nurse. At bedtime I miss having my husband's help. I cannot wait until he has a different job. His current job in the Army is very time consuming. However I am extremely grateful that he is home and not deployed. He has been to Iraq twice and I am sure that he will go back again soon. For now I am thrilled to have him home.
I realize this is a jumble of thoughts, but I haven't had much time to sit down and blog, so I have a ton of things bouncing around in my head. I am hoping to carve out some more time this week.