Seven is such a small number taken on it's own

Seven years.  It’s a life time for a kid, a year for a dog, and a blink for an adult mourning the loss of a parent.  Yeah.  Seven years ago today we lost my mom to breast cancer that went from curable to a death sentence in less than 6 months.

Growing up, my mom seemed this force of nature, a larger than life being that as I got older, made more and more intolerable mistakes.  The only good thing that I can honestly say the cancer did was to humanize her to my, at the time, young adult mind.  But all of us were still convinced she would beat it, that she would pull through and out in her yard again with dirt under her nails and ugly pants on.

It never happened.  Once mom broke her hip it was pretty much a downhill slalom of doctor’s visits, treatments, funeral plan notes, and hospital stays.  Her last summer not only did my Gran push her into a stroke, but it also saw my mom desperate for reassurances; “I should’ve never been a mom, I was too selfish, I was a good mom, right?”

Gods help me, after the hell she’d been through with her illness, her seeming apathy to what my brothers and I went through because of her bad choices in men, that she chose the yard and her plants over us, and that she usually chose what Gran advised over what we wanted, I didn’t have the heart to tell her no.

Being a mom has taught me, has shown me so many of the “whys” behind mom’s choices.  She was right, she was horribly selfish at times.  But she had her moments, too.  Part of me wonders if she had me come home in late 2001 because she somehow knew she was going to get worse, or to help me go to school. 

In spite of all the hurts, now that I’m an adult with children of my own that she will never meet, I miss her terribly.  Once I became an adult, we had a very fragile type of friendship developing that deep down, I’d craved for a very long time.  Once she was gone, the family seemed to dissolve.  For a while I stayed in California, but Vegas called to me again.  My step-father moved to his mother’s house, and my baby brother had already been back East for a while.

Mom was the rock, the defining force that kept us all together.  I haven’t seen my brother J in six years.  I saw my baby brother in 2009.  I miss them both, but I’ve got facebook and e-mail.  There are constant things that the kids do that I wish I could call her up and tell her about.

Mom.  I miss you so so much.  I was just getting comfortable being friends with you again.  You’ve missed out on grandchildren, and the family’s not the same without you.  I wish I could have another day, a week, a month with you, so that you could see your grandchildren, meet your namesake and marvel in all of them like I do.  I wish you’d taken as good care of yourself as you reminded me to.

Love

Me.

Like a turtle among swans...

 So, I’m taking an accounting class this month.  And unlike the other classes, I already feel really naïve and stupid.  Up is down and left is right with these terms.  At least there are practice tests that I can set a goal to take and then forget about, ha ha.  I’m pretty sure that if I were in an actual lecture class where I could take notes, I’d be doing better, but then there’s the whole rigmarole of finding a sitter for the kids and paying them for multiple nights a week.

I want to actually NOT choke on an exam in one of my classes.  I really would.  I did so well when I was chasing my associate’s.  Dean’s list when I didn’t have to take a math class, exams were pretty easy, blah-blah, yada-yada umpty-frats…  But this time, the exams, short as they are, are kicking my butt. 

The commissary is supposed to be having a case lot sale again, but when I called them last week, I was told “oh, in August or September.”  Really?  You’ve got no idea when YOUR PLACE OF EMPLOYMENT is going to run a sale that will have people under tents in the parking lot?

Once again legal stuff is on hold.  Seems there were mistakes in my paperwork, so it’s going to be at least a week.  I just want it done and over with.  I’m still not sleeping; I’m thinking that it’s a mix of D being gone, classes and this legal crap along with bills.

I really want to be able to go to Great Western War this October.  I feel like it would do me and the kids some real good, but again, trying to do events with the kids is really hard unless I’ve got a helper or three…  At least if I do GWW, I can bring the dog.  But again, it’s a matter of having someone to help out that’s killing me.  And the feeling of “Aw crap, it’s Alex and the kids” that I suspect happens when I show up to site.

I don’t know.  I’m just really feeling outta place right now.  And I hate it a lot.

Oh depression, how I hate you so so much!

Well, like I said before, he left last week.  And my depression, insidious bitch that it is, has kept me up at night, sleeping too much, and either not eating or stress eating among other behaviors.  Yesterday I was supposed to run errands, including mail off the stuff that he left here.  Nope.  Instead, I was up till 0530, was up at 0715, 0830, up from 1000 till close to noon (but that’s okay, cause I got to talk to D, which is what I needed – we just talked, which is nice), and then took nearly a 3 hour nap before the boy came home.  In his “uh oh” clothes.  I’m not saying how I know that my depression has kicked me in the ass; knowing it is enough for me, honestly.

The house is trashed.  Really.  It really really is.  There’s no clean towels, we’re short on dishes, and I can’t remember the last time the washer was run.  Add to that the cookies on the front room floor…  Sigh.  I am so not Martha Stewart.  And I wasn’t too great about housekeeping while he was here – it was super annoying to be doing while he was sleeping or on the computer.  If he was working, it would be a different story, but he was home; he could’ve helped.  I would’ve welcomed his help.  But it’s going to take time to readjust to one another again.  I know this, even if I’m not real happy with it.

Today I’m concentrating on cleaning once my school work is done.  In fact, if you see me on facebook or yahoo, please ask me if my homework and chores are done, cause I’ve gotta keep on task.  Just thinking about the stuff that will and won’t accompany the family when D gets orders is helping me.  S sending me “you are beautiful” nearly every day is awesome.  She’s an amazing “accidental” friend to both me and D, and I wish that she lived closer to us.

Cae’s nearly done with extended school year for the summer.  I don’t know how I feel about that, honestly.  The big kids go back to school at the end of August – Beckie is starting seventh grade.  And my sweet Cae is going into kindergarten.  It’s shocking how fast he’s gotten to this age.  All three will be starting swim lessons next month, too.  D wants me to demand to treat Cae’s like a “mommy and me” class, but he’s really too old for me to do that.  He’s 5, they may not let me.  Marion’s barely within the age range for “mommy and me” swimming class at 3.  I guess I’m just going to have to ask, but I’m not going to be that pushy mom.

Hello and Goodbye I

Well, it's been a month, and after a couple of days of flight delays, D's on his way back to Germany.  On the way to the airport, the optometrist’s office called to say his glasses were ready.  Great.  Okay, so something else to mail on Monday.  I check the mail when I get home and guess what's in there?  Yeah, his new driver's license.  DAMMIT    >.<  So Monday's already looking busy.

Classes are going okay, but I keep choking on the finals.  I've gotta figure that out, cause this is getting ridiculous.  So with D back in Germany in a matter of hours, the family's only real concern is getting S back to the bus station tomorrow, and whether or not D's going to be able to re-enlist.

He was supposed to go to a job fair this last week and completely forgot about it.  At least he was thinking ahead on what he's going to do if he can't re-enlist.  He's being smart about this, and I'm really proud of him.  He's pretty upset about being so far away for the amount of time he's got left in Germany, but I keep telling him “we've made it this long, we can make it this much longer standing on our heads!” 

He misses his kids...  The family misses him.  Honestly, what so many people don't realize is that we've got a generation of kids right now that losing at least one parent for at least a year at a time if not completely.  Regardless of how you feel about our country's foreign policy, you've gotta admit that this isn't healthy for marriages or kids.  But military families trudge along, dealing with separations, deployments, and homecomings.  I'm not going to say that the military deserves more compensation than they do – the economy's in the toilet, and military families are lucky to get what they do; what I AM saying is that those that say that military families get “too much” need to try the life of a military family, particularly the life of a family with at least one parent that's deployed and not yet at the rank of a higher non-commissioned officer. 

Why?  These families still qualify for government assistance, even with the “wealth” of allowances and benefits, while having to say goodbye to a spouse or parent more often than most would believe is fair.

Cae's White Baby

Ah mystery cuts, how I despise you… 

Somehow I have cut one of my fingers on the joint.  It’s little, but wouldn’t you know, the little ones always hurt the most.  Especially when you’re marathon cleaning because the man you haven’t seen in over a year will be coming home on leave sooner that I think but not soon enough.

So, my room isn’t clean.  I’m sweaty as hell, the bathroom’s at a halfway point, but the sink finally is draining again.  Class site is buggy again, oh joy.  So the plan once Cae’s on the bus is to take my meds, eat something, get dressed and clean till the class site’s up.

Cae got on the bus this morning and freaked out because he was expecting his driver from last year, Miss R.  Imagine his surprise when it was Mrs M?  I’ve got a strong suspicion that Mrs M was one of my drivers when I was in elementary school, but I digress…  He has a meltdown after showing Mrs M he can do his own seatbelt, thank you very much, and she is freaking brilliant!  She asked me to go get his favorite toy – White Baby.

Yes.  My sweet sensitive little guy loves his baby dolls.  Cars are cool, blocks are interesting, but when he’s having a meltdown or feeling like he needs a cuddle but doesn’t want to be around people, nothing beats a baby doll.  His favorite is a beat up generic dolly with a white body suit and socks that he calls “White Baby”.  Yes, he’s five.  Yes, I think it’s healthy.  No, I’m not taking it from him, because when he gets the freak outs, White Baby fixes it.  He’s a good “daddy” to White Baby, and there are times that White Baby is a power ranger, or cries, or is sleeping.  Much like brown fuzzy, his favorite blanket, White Baby doesn’t get washed often.  It’s body suit is more grey than white right now.  It’s got smears of chocolate on it’s head, too.

But White Baby is well loved, and makes him happy, and that’s all that matters to me…  There are no gender specific toys.  Really.  If your little boy is playing with dollies, or wearing your shoes, don’t flip out.  It’s no big deal.

What. The. &$%*!!!

Okay, so I’m sure that everyone HAS to have a crap day at least once a week.

Today is Monday, it’s the beginning of June, and today is another hell-day.  Marion was up before seven, yelling at me.  She doesn’t appreciate two baby gates thwarting her plans for world domination through destroying the kitchen and flooding the fridge.  Cae’s home from school today.  He goes to a summer program that I thought didn’t start till the end of the month.  SURPRISE!  His driver that was supposed to call during her dry run last week didn’t call till this morning to ask if Cae was going to school.  WTF???

My school website is down, it’s been outta commission since early last night, and I’ve got 2 team assignments and an individual assignment due by midnight tonight.  I need to play “what’s that smell” with the kitchen.  Gross, yes, but it’s a game that many in the desert play because of the heat; it still sucks.  Oh, and we’re counting the HOURS till airport time and Daddy’s visit; I still have a crap-ton of cleaning to do before he gets here so that I don’t feel like Peggy Bundy when he walks in the house.

GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!!  I so need a helper once the site comes back on-line!  Hell, I need a helper NOW, lol!

Cue the William Tell Overture... Or "I'm late" from Alice in Wonderland

As usual, I’m running late.  But really, this time it’s not completely my fault.

I’m running on something like five hours of sleep.  Both Cae and I had insomnia last night.  And then just as I was getting tired, I remembered that I had to do the final draft on a team assignment.  Fast forward to this morning.  I got up the first time after 2 ½ hours of sleep to get Beckie up.  Marion woke me up an hour later to demand that I not only open her oranges, but put them into a drinking glass and turn on the TV because “Oomie Zoomie, Mom!”

Cae was still passed out, and since I had an appointment anyway, I figure, “Okay, I’ll just let him sleep and drop him off on my way to Nellis, I’ll have time.”  Suuuuuure I will.  So I get up an hour before the appointment and things just start going nuts.  In my brilliance, I had forgotten to get D’s most current check stub before this morning.  He was listed as “on-line”, so I’m thinking “Yay, is SOMETHING going to go right in the morning dash?”  Nope.  As soon as I ask for the LES, he logs off and things go downhill from there.

Thursday I missed my morning meds.  It took me till Sunday to even out.  So there are no clean “public” shirts in my closet.  They’re all in the dryer, along with most of Cae’s underwear.  Okay, no biggie dealie…  Crap, everything’s still damp.  And smells kinda…  off.  Craaaaaaaaap.

Marion’s fighting getting dressed and can’t find her other “dancey” shoe.  Cae doesn’t want to take off last night’s pull up, doesn’t want to make his bed and most definitely wants to camp out in front of the TV.  I’ve found out the hard way that that my shorts choices are the shorts on the floor with the lotion on them or the shorts on the floor with the dog hair (and yes, that’s a story for another time).  Marion’s finally dressed, refusing to do anything with her hair, and is convinced that “Why-on” and “Teddy” have to go with us even though the rule is one toy.  Being reminded of this rule sparks the first tantrum of the day.  It’s not even 0930 yet.

We get to the van with everyone and no falls, only to have Marion spot “blue juice” cups.  They’ve been in the van long enough that they’ve started to leak, so they have to go to the dumpster.  Cae chooses right in the middle of this insanity that he’s forgotten how to put on his seatbelt, but as soon as I crawl into the van to help (because Muttley is ancient and only has one sliding door) he starts shrieking “NO I DO IT!!!”

We finally get on the road to take Cae to school only to find that the turn lane to the freeway is closed.  Cynical me makes the command decision to switch lanes – good thing, because the drivers in the lane next to the turn lane are a mix of directions, and, as usual, are inconsiderate as hell.  We get Cae to school, and Marion decides that she can’t leave the car without a hat.  Lucky lucky, under the winter coat that has a smashed furry piece of fruit and broken zipper that Cae refuses to wear is Marion’s Sponge Bob hat.

So all the school attending kids are where they need to be, and my constant short companion and I haul it to Nellis.  To recap, I swear that I can smell myself, my shorts are covered in dog hair, I haven’t had a shower yet, and my shirt smells “off”.  Add to this that all I’ve eaten today are my meds and a glass of water and I’m wearing flip flops with untrimmed toenails (forget painting them!), no make-up and I’m rocking the stereotypical E-wife look.

We get on the freeway only to get cut off by a van that turns out to be driven by an Asian guy (from what I’ve heard, they are stereotypical rotten drivers, this is why I mention it).  He takes the turn wide, then goes back to the lane he should’ve turned into in the first place.  He then does another wide turn cutting me off once again.  I get off the freeway only to get stuck behind a semi, a truck towing a cement mixer and a delivery truck.  I get around them, I’m already late for my appointment…  Amazing, there’s no line to get on Nellis.  But the guard tells me “You can pull up a little more, you know.”  Get to the appointment nearly 20 minutes late only to be told that the LES’s I do have aren’t enough, we’re going to have to re-schedule AGAIN.  Okay.  Fine.  Don’t care now.

We do our thing at the BX and as I’m loading Marion, some lady in a newer SUV pulls up next to Muttley and as she’s passing me, she slaps and scraped her keys on my van.  Now, I do realize that Muttley is old, usually filthy, and basically, on a bad day a dumpster on wheels, but come on!  He’s mine, paid for in full, has a banging stereo and perfect AC.  I LOVE Muttley - the kids and I even sing a "Muttley song" when we're going out to the parking lot to get into it.  The kicker here?  Chick didn’t say a word, just kept walking.  FINE.  Karma's coming for you and your gas guzzling shiny black SUV, too.

So, as usual, we hit Burger King before we leave base.  The salad I should’ve ordered was ignored in favor of a burger whose only claim to fame is being a third larger than McDonald’s Angus burger.  I’ve got coffee that is the only thing keeping ME from a tantrum that Marion’s trying to steal like the French fry she sniped off of some airman’s tray WHILE HE WAS BEHIND US.

I did make it to SSI and Marion got a nap, but I have to do a walk in appointment to fix that bit of government funded stupidity.  I got the illegal cupcakes to Cae’s school for snack time, but Marion mentioned them at the front desk and one of Cae’s teachers and I ended up lying to the principal’s secretary; seems baked goods aren’t allowed at school for any reason per the principal.  Cow.

I still have to do Cae’s party invites by Thursday.  My “business proposal” for class is horribly lacking (don’t care about that one…  I don’t do “pretend you are…” real well when it comes to assignments)

And they say SAHMs have it easy…  CRAP I’ve gotta gas the car again?!  And start out even earlier tomorrow?  DAMN.