It’s been so long…

Yes, I’ve been MIA on the blog scene. I have no excuses. You can flog me with a wet noodle if you want. Or, you could just read this extremely brief update of our last 15 months.

We’ve had 7 birthdays in our family since my last post. The Cat has actually been here for 4 of them. So he’s made one birthday for each of the kids in their lifetimes. At least they can’t say the Navy schedule plays favorites. Thing 1 is 4 years old now and Thing 2 is a sassy 2. T1 is in preschool, and, of course, she loves it. T2 begs to go to Gma’s house every day.

It is a big change living near family.We ended up buying a house 1 mile down the road from my parents and 1 mile up the road from my sister. A little closer than we planned, but sometimes that’s how things work out. One of my brothers lives 10-20 miles away. so holiday plans are always a mess. But in a fun way.

Our house is older. I think it was built in 1974. So keep an eye out for remodeling posts in the near future.

I’m working part time. I’m in the office one day a week and have to fit another two days worth of work around the kids schedule. Luckily, they are somewhat self-entertaining and only occasionally scream or pick up the other phone when I’m on a business call.

The Cat is still on sea duty, although he only is deployed for 2-3 months, not 6, now. Plus, another crew takes the sub out, so sometimes it’s like he just has an office job. We like having him around.

The new place is still a mess. Maybe even worse than before, with two kids running around, a part time job, having a babysitter (Gpa) so I can play soccer 1-2 nights a week, and adding a few hundred square feet I need to clean. Yeah, I don’t really see that happening anytime soon. At least here in Washington we don’t really have to worry about cockroaches and stuff so much. Just rain and such. Still, life’s not bad, if a bit messy. But hopefully not so messy I go 15 months between posts again. I guess time (hopefully not as measured by the wall calendar) will tell.

Memory

So, it turns out Thing 1 really was checking up on me. Every night now she asks me what I’m going to do downstairs while she’s sleeping. Usually I give her one to three things on my to-do list: cleaning, relaxing, sewing, whatever. She repeats them back to me, perfectly. Then, the next morning, she asks me if I did each of them. She’s too little to see the dishes in the sink, so I can say yes. After all, in my world when The Cat’s gone getting the dishes to the sink counts as cleaning.

She’s not yet three, but I can’t believe how good her memory is. In fact, I try to avoid playing Memory with her anymore and stick to Candyland. I was tired of getting beat. It was so sad to see my four pairs to her eight game after game. I suppose I could’ve put more pairs out, but somehow I don’t think it would work out in my favor.

The thing is, I used to have a good memory. It’s the mommy thing that killed it. But I feel like I’m being a sore loser when I point out that she’s the reason I lose. Plus, the guilt trips don’t work that well at this age. Maybe in a few years…

I miss my memory, and I’d like it back, but at least I can take comfort in my daughter’s good memory. In fact, I plan on taking more than comfort, I’ll be taking advantage of it soon. I’m going to start giving her my to do list every morning. Then she can remind me what it was I was supposed to be doing. It’s not all bad for her either. I’ll have to get her a cell phone. That’s what every three year old wants, right? I just hope the preschool teachers don’t turn it off. I might forget to pick her up.

SLR spoiling

Gma – my mom – spoils me so. First, when I needed to take photos for my magazine articles (see this work photo post), she sent me two SLR film bodies and, I don’t know, maybe 5-6 lenses. Plus filters, flashes, and miscellaneous other camera accessories. I love the photos from SLRs, with the choice of lenses and depth of field (I can blur out the mess in my house!), but the expense of developing film for my own use was starting to get to me. But we were waiting to get a digital SLR, maybe as our Christmas gift if we could afford it.

So 10 days ago or so, an unexpected box came in the mail addressed to The Cat and me. Curious, I opened it. It was a Sony dSLR. And on the packing slip it said “Happy Birthday” to both of us. Mind you, our birthdays are in March and September, so I guess June does split the difference, but the gift was a surprise for more than just that. I hadn’t even been talking to my mom about camera stuff for awhile. Plus, my mom’s not very good at keeping secrets. (I had just talked to her. She hadn’t even given me a hint by asking if we’d gotten any packages lately.) Plus, dSLRs are on the expensive side for her to be doling out as birthday gifts.

The Cat’s reaction was a little different. He wanted to be mad, because she had spent too much money on us. Then he tried out the camera. After that he was upset he didn’t have more time to play with it and shop for accessories for it. Anyway, thanks, Mom. The camera’s great, and all our Minolta lenses work with it, which is quite a boon. And for everyone else, I’ll spoil you with some photos giving you a little taste of the Things in Hawaii:

Yeah, the color’s a little flat in these, but maybe my photos will get better once I get the instruction manual out. Yes, surprise to those who know me, I started using something without reading the instruction manual.

There’s a reason military families get health care

Last week was not good for me. It started going downhill Monday around lunch, with a sore throat. By Wednesday I was in the doctor’s office with a strep throat infection with so much pus on my tonsils everyone wanted to come in and look at them. Then the cough started. And runny nose. By Friday night I had pinkeye in both eyes. And on Saturday, I went to the doctor’s with laryngitis. The laryngitis was probably the most difficult to deal with, since Thing 1 is in her “Why?” phase and Thing 2 is just learning what the word “no” means. At least I’d like to thing he’s learning.

It’s a good thing all of these doctor’s visits are covered by our military health care, because I blame the military for my current condition. Yes, I believe stress and anxiety brought all of this on. After all, I’m not one to get sick too often, but the last few weeks of military life have been more stress-inducing than normal. I’m used to the military treating The Cat however they want, but at the moment they are messing with my family and our future, and the fact that there is nothing I can do about it has me lying awake at night steaming. We’re supposed to leave here in 6-8 weeks, but we can’t get anything in writing so we can make our plans. I have no idea if The Cat will be around to help with the move or have time on the other end to help shop around for a house. (We’re planning on buying our first house, another stress factor.) So here I am, feeling crappy, with a trans-Pacific move upcoming at an undetermined time that I may be doing with just me and the two kids. I’m not ready for this.

The Cat, bless his heart, has been trying to get this taken care of for months, to no avail, because others just aren’t doing their jobs like they should. And now, since there’s no official word on when we’re supposed to go, The Cat’s boat will probably take him out to sea and keep him here longer. Ugh. I really don’t like to complain about the military, after all, it is our bread and butter, plus I’m as patriotic as the next guy, but I also hate it when my life gets screwed up because some paper pusher hasn’t done what they should’ve done months ago. Okay, rant done. I’m going to take all my meds now. At least they didn’t cost me anything.