There are some holidays that I consider Hallmark Holidays; mostly made up by commercialism to get people to buy shit.  These Hallmark Holidays include, but are not limited to: Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Teacher Appreciation Day, Secretaries Day (think they changed the name of that one, though), etc.  Today is one of them, Military Spouse Appreciation Day.  It’s not that I think these people don’t deserve to be appreciated, I just think having a day to do it is stupid.  You should appreciate your mom, dad, teachers, secretaries and spouses, military or not, every day.  And Valentine’s Day?  Don’t even get me started on the commercialism of that shit.

Anyway, like I said, today is the day we are supposed to appreciate military spouses for some reason.  And this Sunday, two short days from now, is Mother’s Day.   Joe and I usually don’t do much for it, mostly because I am not his mother so I don’t feel he needs to get me a gift.  The twins have always done something sweet at school and that’s been enough.  I think last year, Joe took the boys out of the house for awhile and they eventually came home with purple flowers for me.   This year I will be getting a little something for both military spouse appreciation day and mother’s day:  Joe’s leaving.  Again.    And there’s an excellent chance  he will miss Josh’s birthday in the fall and possibly Christmas.   Is it wrong that I want to shout at every new military spouse to wait to have kids?

Filed under: Deployments suck, Esteemed, Home life, Married life, Military life

My husband is in the military, which makes me a “military spouse.”  Sometimes I’m cool with the title, but honestly there are a lot of times when I wish I could just say “my husband is a mechanic” and leave it at that.  Today has been one of those days.

Good ole Facebook brought me to the Military Spouse Magazine, and their website http://baseguide.com/.  It’s not all bad, they do occasionally have good info on Tricare benefit changes or have polls & articles that are at least worth a once-over.  But a few weeks ago they published an “article” titled “How to Talk to Civilians (Without Going Crazy)”.   It’s a list of a few suggestions for military spouses talking to non-military spouses.  I would first like to point out that military spouses ARE civilians.  I am not in the military, my husband is.  Therefore I am a civilian.   So lets evaluate this shit-list point by point (I have nothing to do for the next half hour).

1. “Drop the acronyms and lingo.” Okay, I’ll give them that this is kind of a big one.  Most non-mil spouses don’t know what PCS or TDY are.  But my husband talks to me in full sentences that I don’t understand because they are so full of acronyms and lingo.  Also a lot of the acronyms & lingo are different base to base.  For instance when we left MD we had to deal with the PPO (personal property office) for our move.  When we got here, it’s TMO (transportation something or other office) (movement, I think it’s movement).  Anywho, I do kinda agree with this one.  ”We just moved here” makes more sense to the majority of people than “we just PCS’ed here.”  Then again, because we are Marines and keep getting stationed on non-Marine bases, I usually have to explain things anyway.  Like what the JSF is. One example this article gives is to explain what the commissary is.  The military is not the only organization in the world that uses the term commissary.
2. “Be prepared for the public. Military spouses have two stereotypes: selfless saints or sluts living high on the government dime.” Really??  Really?!!?  Saints or sluts??  That’s all we get??  I think you forget: entitled bitches, regular bitches, officer wives, enlisted wives, dependapotamus’, baby makers, cheaters, nurses, lawyers, teachers, wives, mothers, daughters, sisters, etc.    We are just spouses.  There is no perfect group of people.  I do think military spouses get stereotyped for being cheating whores.  But, to be fair, there’s a reason that’s the stereotype.  I have lived in housing.  There IS A REASON for that stereotype.   I think a truer scope of how non-mil spouses see mil spouses would be:  cheaters, entitled bitches and ungrateful bitches.   No amount of sugar coating it will make it better.   I personally have been called ungrateful when I complained about the housing company never fixing the leak in our roof that caused mold to grow in our house.  I was told by a non-mil spouse that I should just fix it myself and be happy I have a house to live in for free.  But of course we were renting so I can’t fix the roof under the terms of the lease and my “free” house cost us almost $1700 a month.
3. “Carefully consider before you challenge longtime, local traditions.” This one I kind of agree with, kind of the ole “when in Rome” attitude.  But honestly, what kind of uppity person thinks everything needs to be done their own way?
4. “Whine cautiously. Don’t complain often about your life, expecting your civilian friends will “get it.” This is the first of two that make me want to punch the author.  How hard is it exactly to understand that your spouse is gone and life is harder?  My friends get it.  What kind of friends would they be if they didn’t understand?  They wouldn’t be MY friends, that’s for sure.  I have never understood why military wives think their life is so much harder than that of others.  A girlfriend of mine travels all the time for work, and I mean all the time.  I literally can’t keep track of where she is on a weekly basis.  She’s engaged but has no children.  If she chooses to continue her job after having kids, it will be just as hard on her spouse and kids as it is on me and my kids when my husband is gone.  My life isn’t any harder because my husband is military.  When he’s gone, he’s gone.  It doesn’t matter.  He’s NOT HOME.   Granted, I might be a smidge more stressed if he were in Iraq or Afghanistan as opposed to Chicago.   And what about the spouses of firemen and police officers?  They send their spouse to work in dangerous conditions EVERY DAY.  My husband is only occasionally sent into dangerous conditions.
5. This is the one that makes my blood boil:  ”Don’t dismiss civilian spouses’ complaints. Military spouses deal with things routinely that other spouses find devastating, like moving away from friends, finding a new job, or being out of contact with your spouse for more than 20 minutes. Learn this phrase: “It must be very hard for you.” Practice saying it sincerely. Nod with empathy. Pat the person on the back. Then call your military girlfriends later and laugh.” This paragraph is why military spouses get a bad reputation (that and the cheating thing).  For one thing, military or civilian, moving IS devastating.  Every move we make as a military family is away from friends who become family, away from jobs, further away from our real families.  And we have to do it ALL THE TIME.  You don’t get used to it.  It doesn’t get easier.   And “being out of contact with your spouse for more than 20 minutes?”  Are you fucking kidding me?   The last sentence is the absolute worst.   It has literally made me embarrassed to be a part of this particular online community.  I have stated so on their Facebook page and the actual website.  To encourage ANYONE to laugh behind someone’s back is so incredibly degrading and childish. It’s an embarrassment to the entire military spouse community.  It’s an embarrassment to the entire military community.

Filed under: Kate, Military life, WTF??

I’m not up for Mother of the Year anyway, so here goes.

I have a set of twins who will be SEVEN tomorrow.  This is mind boggling to me.   One might say the twins were  a bit of an accident.  As in “Doctor, or so you call yourself, I’ve been taking these pills that you prescribed me to turn my eggs into shriveled little unfertilizable blobs and these five sticks I just pissed on say you are a complete asshat.”    Followed some weeks by “WTF DUDE TWINS???  TWWIIINNNSSS?????”   Then as soon as they were born it was obvious they are fraternal which means TWO eggs somehow managed to not shrivel under the prescribed drugs.   I didn’t go back to that doctor again.

So anyway, I had the twins when I wasn’t really in the mindset to have children.  Plus I was young and semi-stupid.  I did everything by the book, which at the time I thought was the way you do it, but now I think I should have done it my own way.  So I never rocked them to sleep for fear I would have to break that habit, times two.  I never co-slept for fear I would have to break that habit, times two.  I never held them too much or ran too quickly when they cried, for fear that those habits would have to be broken, times two.  I also worried if I was holding one more than the other.  The usual things like changing diapers and feeding were more like chores to me, but I think that was more due to my not wanting to have kids (but let’s face it, it IS a chore when they are small).  I don’t think I got over that for a long time.  I thought that once I had them, I would fall in love with them immediately and everything would turn into rainbows & butterflies.   The only thing that happened was that I did love them immediately, but I didn’t love having them, if that makes sense.  And sometimes I thought I only loved them because I had to, but that was just my guilt tricking me.  I did love them and I do love them.    I’ve seen many other women have “whoops” babies and they all seemed to handle it better than I did.  ’Course none of them had twins so I’m going to use that excuse rather than I was a terrible parent.

I think I was a good parent, but maybe I wasn’t such a great mother.  But it all worked out in the end.  The twins are thriving, I fell in love with them over time.  I think it helped when they started to develop their personalities.  Just like they had to grow into their personalities, I had to grow into being a mom.

These thoughts have kinda tugged at me over the years.  But they’ve really come to light now that baby Josh has arrived.  He was planned.  I wanted him.  I wanted him for about a year before efforts were made to make him.  There was a few weeks when I found out he was a he that I didn’t want him, I admit it.  He was supposed to be my girl, but apparently I don’t know how to make girls.  Or Joe doesn’t.  Whatever.    But having him has been a completely different experience.  And not just from the logistical aspect of having one baby vs. having two babies, although OH MY GOD is it easier having one.  I find myself enjoying him so much more than when the twins were his age.  We all enjoy him, even the twins.  Alex invites people over and says “come see my baby” or “this is my baby.”  He is well loved and well spoiled.  For the first few months, I never wanted to put him down.  He slept with me half the time and I loved it.  He would nap on my chest when he was small and I loved every second of it, and now that he’s too big and squirmy, I miss it so much.   He is still enjoyable now, of course.  He’s just shy of 6 months old, already scooting & rolling around, laughing and smiling.  And of course I find it so much easier with one baby than with two babies.    I am enjoying him so much I find myself thinking thoughts I swore I would never have.   Thoughts of possibly doing it again.  At this point there are only three things stopping me:  1. Joe doesn’t want to.  2.  I can’t handle the disappointment if I had another boy.  3.  I really, really can’t handle the disappointment if I had another boy.

The one thing that all babies do the same, whether you have 1, 2, or 3 at once, is grow up so fast.  My babies will be 7 tomorrow, and my baby baby will be 6 months a few days after that.  Soon he’ll be a year old, the twins will be in high school, then they’ll all be gone.    And I’ll be stuck with Joe and his proficient farting skills.

Filed under: Baby news, Home life, Kate

Since it has been so soooo long since I’ve posted here, I should probably update with some pictures of my adorable & smart sons.

Joshua, 4 months

Nick & Alex at Alligator Alley in Alabama

All three boys

Joe & Josh, 3 days old.

Filed under: Alex, Baby news, Joe, Josh, Kate, Nick, Twins

I have had friends who’ve had 5 year plans.  Graduate from college, get a career job, get married, have a baby, etc.   I guess I had a five year plan at some point, but the college part alone took 4 years and I already had babies by then and was divorced soo..  my five year plan was pretty fucked from the start.  Anywho, it all worked out in the end.

Now that Joe and I are married, I went to college and we had a baby, we’ve started talking about our five year plan.  But because Joe is in the military, it’s more like a 2 year plan because nobody knows when we’ll be moving again.  And really there’s no planning of anything because we never have any idea what we’re doing or where we’re going.  A lot of our talks go something like this:

Joe: Do you want to get a job?
Me:  I don’t know, when are we moving again?
Joe: I don’t know.  Could be two years, could be three years.
Me: Okay, well where will we move?
Joe: I don’t know.  Could be South Carolina, could be Arizona.
Me: I don’t speak spanish so how about we go to South Carolina, can we do that?
Joe:  I don’t know.

Last night we had this semi-related discussion:
Me: So what the hell am I supposed to say when someone asks me what your command is?
Joe: *insert random numbers and letters here*
Me: uuuuuuhh… what?
Joe: Just say Headquarters, Marine Corps.
Me: Like in DC?  Why don’t I just say POTUS?
Joe: That’ll work, go with that.

Then he went into a lengthy description of the unit structure of the Marine Corp vs. the Air Force and how he’s actually part of a detachment from Texas or some nonsense and I almost fell asleep leaning against the counter.  So right now, our 5 year plan is to wing it until Joe retires.  And keep our fingers crossed we go to South Carolina.

Oh and the twins got their interim reports yesterday.  Alex got 6 A’s and 1 B.  Four of those A’s were 100%!  Nick got straight A’s.  We had Papa John’s to celebrate their smartness.

Filed under: Alex, Edumacation, Esteemed, Home life, Joe, Kate, Married life, Nick

Holy crap, this is still here?

One might say I’ve “forgotten” to blog.  One might also say I’ve been busy.  I’ll go with option two.

Let’s see, since my last entry in November of 2010 I turned 30.  And by 30 I mean 22 again of course.  Then 2011 was busy; we got busy and around Valentine’s Day found out we were expecting a little bundle of joy, due around Halloween.  The twins turned 6, finished kindergarten, we went on vacation to Charleston, SC, the twins started first grade, Joe deployed very close to my due date (he made it home in time, though!), Halloween came and went, then finally we welcomed baby Joshua in November (11 days late), then there was December and all the holidays associated with it,  Joe received his new PCS orders for March of 2012, he deployed again in January, then we stressed for the next 6 weeks over the move, I spent 18 hours on the road with three kids, Joe spent 18 hours on the road with two cats, and we all arrived safely at our new home.   So I’m blogging from a new state now!  So far we are enjoying our new home in the south, the beaches are beautiful, the weather is hot  and the highways have bear crossing signs.  The twins are doing well at their new school and Josh seems to be learning at lightening speed as well.  We have a more open living room now so he’s living it up by rolling and scooting all over the place.  He is almost 5 months old now and cute as a button.

Maybe I’ll keep up with this, maybe I won’t.  We shall see.

Filed under: Baby news, Deployments suck, Esteemed, Home life, Joe, Kate, Married life

I’m sure I must have bitched about my birthday being a week before Christmas before, but honestly, who gets tired of bitching?  Not me, I have a vagina.

So yesterday I almost had a melt-down in front of 23 Kindergarteners. And their parents.  And my husband.  It would be mildly embarrassing except I don’t care.  Yesterday was some kind of parent-appreciation-day at the twins’ school.  So Joe and I dutifully showed up to be appreciated.  We were both sitting in Nick’s classroom helping him and his table work through some sentences (my sons can write sentences)  (sob).  They also had to write their name and the date on the top of the paper.  Nick wrote “11-17-10.”   Well actually he wrote:

11-17
-10

but whatever.  He’s gettin’ there.  Anywho, it dawned on me that I now have one month (oh god, less than that now) before I turn an age I don’t want to be.  Sixteen was awesome because of the whole driver’s license thing.  Eighteen was cool ’cause then I could say “I’m 18, you can’t tell me what to do!”  Then 21 brought the booze, legally anyway.  Twenty-five was cool because my car insurance premiums dropped.  But after that, what do we have to look forward too?  Nada.  Getting wrinkles and saggy tits, that’s what I have to look forward to.

Plus my friends are starting to not believe I’m 22.  Bitches, all of ‘em.

Filed under: Home life, Kate, WTF??

Joe likes to make up situations in his head.  Ya know, as a “wouldn’t it be funny if this happened” kinda deal.

So today I asked him if he could meet me at the clinic for an upcoming ob/gyn appointment.  He asked why and I told him that the doctor is a man and I don’t feel that comfortable with the situation and would like my husband to be there, and added “if you could look menacing, that would be great.  And wear your ribbon that says you’re excellent with your rifle.  And bring your rifle.”  He pondered this for a few minutes and then said:

“You know what would be an awesome exchange at that appointment?  If I just walk in there and say ‘which of you is going to be looking at my wife’s vagina?  You?  YOU?’ and then the doctor guy says ‘well, Staff Sgt, don’t worry, I’m a professional, I’ll be wearing rubber gloves so it’s not sexual.’  and then I get to say ‘you mean to tell me that when I wear a rubber, I’m not really fucking my wife?  Next you’ll be telling me that if I wear a bathing suit in the pool, I’m not really getting wet.’”

Another fake conversation we have joked about involves Joe’s sister.  She is a teacher at a military high school back home and is always telling Joe he should drop by her class and talk to the kids about being in the military or whatever.  I have joked that he should show up in uniform, run into the room violently, pick up the nearest desk and throw it at the kids, then proceed to get up in their faces and ask “Do you want to fuck my sister?  Which one of you wants to fuck my sister??”  Reminiscent of Full Metal Jacket.

Living with a Marine gets interesting sometimes.

P.S. Due to a ridiculous mountain of spam, you now have to log in to comment.  Deal.

Filed under: Esteemed, Home life, Joe, Kate

The area I live was just dumped on by a rain “event” (that’s what the weather peeps call it) and the remnants of a tropical storm.  We topped off with over 14″ of rain between Wednesday to Friday.

Because on Thursday afternoon it was still pouring it’s ass off, I drove to the bus stop to pick up the twins.  We drove home and I rushed myself and them back into the house.  Because of the rain, I never checked that they shut the car door all the way.  Which they didn’t.  So on Saturday when the sun finally came out, I went to run the errands (mainly going to the bank) I had been putting off because of the rain.  Except my car wouldn’t start because the battery died.  And not only that, but the entire passenger side of my car was soaked and the side curtain airbag light was on, indicating a malfunction.   So after a couple tries, we got the car to start with a jump and went to have the battery checked.  Even at almost 5 years old, the battery was fine after a solid charge.   I made it to the bank with 3 minutes to spare.   It’s been raining ever since so I haven’t been able to air the car out so now it smells really, really bad.  Really bad.  Tomorrow is supposed to be sunny, so I’ll be out there with the Febreeze.  The air bag seems to have fixed itself, at least the light went out.  Hopefully I’ll never find out about that.

So to celebrate not having to buy a new battery, I bought new tires this morning.  One tire had a pretty sizable tear in it, about an inch long, that we noticed while changing the brake pads a couple months ago.  That tire started to loose air the last couple days, and rather than play the game of filling it with air twice a week, I just decided to replace them.  They were due for a change, with 55k+ miles on them.  It’s amazing what a difference in driving the new tires make.  Steering with my knee is so much easier!  Not that I do that, Mom.

Filed under: Home life, Kate

Things that have happened since I last updated this page…

• I got older
• We had our second wedding anniversary
• I went to New Orleans for Mazzy Maz’s 30th birthday and was lucky enough to be there when the Saints won the Superbowl (so friggin awesome!) and back home was being smothered by many feet of snow
• Derek died
• Kinda fuzzy for a few months
• Joe got promoted
• Joe got older
• The twins turned 5
• The twins finished preschool and we all survived
• Joe went to career course in VA for most of the summer
• I finished my degree and am currently waiting for my diploma to be mailed to me
• I did a summer internship which turned into a job which I am undecided about
• My babies started kindergarten

Filed under: Edumacation, Esteemed, Home life, Kate, Twins