Happy Birthday, Mom

Happy Birthday to my mom, my best friend. I love you.

Hair Gel

Okay, so the pic of Nathan is from Thursday. He decided he needed to do his hair as a mohawk. So I hauled out all my hair goop, explained the different ones, and he said he could do himself. I made the mistake of leaving the room...... (Note to self - supervise next time.) He had taken a huge blob of hair 'glue' and glopped it on the crown of his head, and it was hardening before he could shape it into the mohawk. Lots of 'crap!' on both our parts. He starts trying to wet his hair down, and I'm trying to comb the extra out. He rolled off on his scooter to school, and I worried that he would be teased. He came home without any tales of woe, so I'm guessing it was okay. Eric was appalled that I let him go to school like that.

I'm now the treasurer for the cub scout pack. Wheeeeee. The old one passed everything over to me and said that by her tally we have $300 or so in the bank, but the bank statement says we have $600. And she hasn't kept all the receipts. Can't wait to straighten that mess out.

Looks like I'll also be doing something for the FRG (family readiness group). This is the support group for the families while the soldiers are deployed. Not sure just what yet - newsletter or treasurer or 'care support'. Hopefully my experience this deployment will be better than the last one. It should be a lot easier to communicate with Eric this time, via cell phones and computers. Of course, that brings up the whole 'op sec' issue (operational security). (note to self - find email from the last time between Eric and his mother about his return flight.)

The band is doing a parade today in Port Wentworth, but Eric wasn't needed. I can't believe they aren't playing the world famous Vidalia Onion Festival today!

Eric has almost 200 friends on facebook. He says it's better than a HS reunion - because he wouldn't actually GO to his reunion.....

Homework? Seriously?

Okay, who assigns homework for 1st graders over spring break? Seriously. Nathan is supposed to write in a scrapbook daily during spring break. I finally learned in life not to procrastinate. Nathan, however, does not want to learn this lesson. Granted, it would be easier to have something to write about if we had actually gone on a vacation, but we didn't. Don't get me wrong, Nathan has enjoyed his break - sleeping in until 9 or later, flexible shower times, playing with his buddies on the block.

But apparently that sameness seems to be stymieing the kid's creativity. "What did you do yesterday, Nathan? Just write that down." "I don't remember." "Well, you played capture the flag with Max and his brother. You rode your bicycle. You played with the kittens down the street. You played video games." "Those don't make any sense." "What do you mean, they don't make any sense?" "Those sentences aren't good enough." "Okay, well, make up your own." "I can't think of anything." This cycle rapidly devolves into tears, snot and enforced incarceration on the couch until he manages to think of something. Yesterday the whole fiasco lasted about an hour and a half. I left Eric to deal with it today while I went to the commissary.

Happy Easter!

Wow - I didn't realize it had been so long since I posted!

Went to the post Easter Egg hunt this morning. You see Nate dog and his loot. His personal best of 64 eggs. Much more organized than hunts at other posts we've been too. I surprised that he didn't want to do the inflatables and games, but it was a nice 45 minutes or so.

Right now he's out riding bikes and playing with the neighborhood kids. Band aids and scraps are a now a regular occurrence. This is a picture of him on his way to school - a Miami Ink extreme sports helmet, a Speed Racer see-through backpack, glasses, braces and his socks pulled up to his knees. He's definitely the big man on campus.

We're not doing track and field any more. One of the male coaches was laughing about how slow he was to another adult at a track meet. That, plus a couple of miscues about where he was supposed to be for 2 field events, made me so angry I was crying. (I hate that, because no one takes you seriously when you cry). They obviously have given up on him to focus on kids that are fast enough to make the state track teams. It would be different if I could see them working with him to improve, or to encourage him even when he comes in last. But they didn't. We talked about the message we were sending by not making him finish, but come on - if the coaches don't care, why should I force the kid to do an activity where he knows he's always going to come in last?

But he stayed in long enough that he did show improvement (at least to us) and he can get a cub scout badge for it. We'll see about either baseball or some beginning martial arts, instead.

His report card came in. Kid's a 'pleasure to have in class'. But we knew that already, right? He's adjusting to the braces. Tooth brushing is definitely a 2 person activity now.

I got contacts again. Hoo-ray! Plus a new bike! Hoo-ray! We might actually try a family bike ride tomorrow afternoon. Eric's cooking rib eyes for Easter dinner. And nothing says Easter like red meat.

Still no news on the job front. I've applied for several jobs on post. I've never applied through an automated system before - all my other jobs have been a small non-profit orgs. So it's been a learning experience to figure out the keywords to adapt my resume for every job. There's 3 jobs I've applied for where I've made it past the preliminary round and my application has been forwarded to the selecting official. And I have no idea what magic inbox they're languishing in, 'cause it's been over a month. Oh well. It'll happen....... eventually.

Eric is swamped at work. Things are gearing up the deployment in the fall. Apparently, however, either things change so radically between deployments (and the 3rd ID band has deployed 3 times already since 2003), or nobody took notes, because it seems like they're having to re-invent the wheel. Which is aggravating. But I seriously think Eric's temperament, life skills and his past experience during deployment is going to make a huge asset for his unit.

Spring time is beautiful here. The azalea blooms are so big and bright, they look like plastic flowers. I saw a japanese maple in bloom and was so struck by the red coloring that I actually googled it. (Because believe me, I didn't know what a japanese maple was 2 months ago.) The mugginess and heat is starting to creep up, however.