Originally written 8/7/2010.

Last night it didn't seem possible.

This morning it all seems surreal. Sitting in my living room, which I had begun to stage for a move, but is now staged for a trip.

I've written about him a few times. I wish I had told you all more about the man that came to be my Daddy. He was my daddy. Since my biological one disappeared from our lives, my mom always told me that anyone could be a Father, but it takes someone special to be a Daddy.

He was special. He wasn't my father at birth, but he treated me as if he had been. There have been many times in my life where I've felt left out, like the "step" daughter who didn't belong, but NEVER, N.E.V.E.R. was he the cause of that feeling. I was never introduced as his step-daughter. Only as his daughter.

I know my kids won't mourn his loss, but I will mourn for them. I will mourn that they will not get to know this man, who though not grandfather by blood, was grandfather anyway. I

He wasn't one for many words, but the man showed his love for you by what he did for you. And with his great hugs. I will miss those hugs.

I can't imagine the earth without him here. I can't begin to imagine what my mother is going through. The worst part, for me, these past few hours, has been being so far away from the rest of my family. And knowing that I'm moving so far away in a short period of time.

It's suddenly clear to me now

I remember lots of jokes as a kid about toddlers, VCRs and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

I'm here to tell you now that those were not jokes. Jeff Foxworthy was not kidding when he spoke about the number of raisin boxes you can fit into a VCR. He knew. From experience.

We still own one of those archaic pieces of equipment and apparently Butterball has decided that it is her personal treasure box.

Tonight, in an operation that resembled one of those third world, fake, "no instrument" surgeries I pulled the following items out of the VCR:

2 nerf darts
1 Lego
1 outlet cover
2 extra long Lincoln logs
6 MORE nerf darts
1 something indistinguishable that may or may not have a part still in there

At least nothing was sticky and gooey. She won't be allowed to walk around with PB&Js or boxes of raisins for a while. At least not until this fascination with cramming strange things into odd hiding places passes.



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

MilSpouse Fill in #7

Another MilSpouse Fill-in thanks to Wife of a Sailor. :) This week's questions:


What is something you wished you’d learned to do earlier in life?
Be organized. This is no fault of my parents. My mom is desperately clean and organized, but somehow my house is in a constant state of chaos. We aren't hoarders, but toys are always scattered around the house, and there is generally a heap of papers on the desk. Every time I lose something, I can hear my mom's voice from when I was ten "If you'd put it where it goes, you'd be able to find it." Maybe it's nature that I'm organizationally challenged, rather than nurture? Who knows. I would love to have a house where everything is in its place. Maybe if we didn't move so often, things would be a bit better. Maybe they'll get better in our new Island Paradise? We'll see!

What is your biggest pet peeve with the military?
I am having a hard time answering this question. My answer changes based on where we are. Right now, my biggest pet peeve is all of the paperwork and craziness that go along with moving. And that even though THEY tell us to move, we have to provide several people within the military the proof that they've asked us to move, and get everything started ourselves. It seems like they should be able to just look up all that stuff in some central computer. Ask me about my pet peeve in six months, and it will be work-ups, and something dealing with the ship, I'm sure.

What tourist attraction near you have you never seen?
Right now we're in New England. We've been here twice, and somehow we've skipped visiting Block Island, Martha's Vineyard, haven't spent much time in Boston or on Cape Cod, and we didn't get to visit Six Flags. Oh well. Life is life, right? I'm sure we'll be back here again at some point!

What are you avoiding doing right now?
See Question 1. There are toys scattered all over. I've got a move-out inspection tomorrow. I really, REALLY need to get stuff cleaned and organized for tomorrow morning. But, I don't feel up to it. Maybe because it's 1000% humidity outside and our wimpy window a/c's can't cut it without bringing the temperature down to sub-zero. And none of that is good for my cold. blah. Anyone want to come clean up my trash heap of a house!?

Wine, beer or liquor?
This totally depends on the day. I can usually do a little Zin or Shiraz with dark chocolate. I don't care about wine pairings, I just eat them together and try to not to die from the loveliness. Or, Kahlua, which is really doesn't fit in either of those categories. But really, one of those two. I'll do a Corona on occasion, or sometimes a pale ale. But we really don't drink all that often. In fact, only the other day did I find out what the heck getting "iced" was, and why I should be carrying a container in my diaper bag.

The day from -- well, one of two places.

I'm still trying to decide who was messing with me today.

It started at 3:00AM when I began coughing. And coughing. And coughing. And truth be told, I hadn't slept well before then either. But I finally fell asleep around 6:30AM. And then I got up coughing again at 7:00, decided sleep wasn't going to happen and got into the shower.

After I got out of the shower, I noticed a little more morning junk in my eye than normal, and it seemed red. So I called the Dr to get an appointment. This cough and sick stuff has been taking over my house for several days. The Butterball has had green stuff oozing out of her eyes since Thursday (Note, I had called the Dr. Sunday night, and was assured it wasn't pink eye) and has been coughing a bit -- especially at night. It is 7:34 AM


I called the doctor, and got an appointment for Butterball close to lunchtime, and one for myself later in the afternoon. The problem with my appointment was that they could not address BOTH the possible pink eye AND the possible bronchitis. I had to pick an ailment to create the appointment for. Seriously. I had to choose breathing or seeing. I figured since Butterball was being seen, I'd know if it was actually pink eye by the time I got to my appointment and chose to fix my cough and breathing problem. 7:45AM


Little Monster woke up and wanted something for breakfast. And by something, I mean something in some language I don't understand. Something Kai eats, he says. Who is Kai? I have no idea. Probably his imaginary friend. The kid has a knack for stories. 8:07AM

While the kids were quiet I took a second to look at my phone and see what I had in front of me for the day. There were approximately 3,934 emails and notifications having to do with things with our house in Virginia that we are trying to sell. The power had been turned off, rather than transferred. However, since the power had previously been in Daddy's name, I couldn't turn it back on without an extended credit check, blah blah blah. There were several more emails and items dealing with our house that needed to be taken care of right away as well. I texted Daddy with the number, hoping he'd have a few seconds to wait on hold for hours to deal with the power company. 8:27AM

By this point in the morning, I was already frustrated. I walked into the kitchen to find Little Monster attempting to dismantle the camcorder. While covered in syrup from his pancakes. I lost it my friends. Lost is so bad that I smacked my hand into something and popped a blood vessel in my finger. And then I really lost it. The fact that I thought we all were going to get pink eye because I'd let stuff ooze out of Butterball's eyes for days thinking it was just part of her cold, the pain in my finger, the lack of caring on the part of the bureaucracy that deals with my health care, all of the jerks who have screwed their spouses over meaning I couldn't start power in my husband's name. It all hit me at once. 8:43 AM

My mom started her day with a nice little phone call from a grown-up kid sobbing like a baby. It was only 7:43 AM for her. It was great.

Can you sense the sarcasm?

The day did seem to get better. I, sick as I was, had to run an errand and decided to stop and buy a little gift for Daddy. And I did. Because I love him, and after a morning of temper tantrums, lost tempers and things spiralling out of my control, I needed something nice. Even if it was just doing something nice for someone else.

I ran my errand, and headed to base to get my fake Starbucks coffee, and get Butterball to the doctor. As I approached the gate, I went to grab my military ID out of my wallet.

And then when it wasn't in the slot where it goes, I passed the gate and went straight home. And I searched my diaper bag. And my house. And my car. I tore apart my wallet. I tore apart the diaper bag again. I tore apart my wallet. I searched in all kinds of odd places a baby girl could have possibly hidden the spoils of an earlier diaper bag and/or wallet dismantling.

I didn't find the ID, so I called the doctor. They cancelled my appointment. Butterball's eyes were pretty clear all morning anyway. No big deal. We came inside for lunch. We were out of milk. And bread. And pretty much EVERYTHING you need to make children some sort of lunch.

Off to Burger King we went like a herd of sick and hungry, whining turtles. Butterball's eyes had surged back into full oozing weeping disgustingness. Of course. As I leaned over the seat in the drive-thru so many prayers of the morning were answered. I could see approximately 1/50th of the ID card I'd spent all morning tearing everything apart looking for. It had fallen between the center console and the passenger seat. At least I'd be able to make it to my Doctor's appointment that promised to cure half of what ailed me. It was the turning point of the day. Surely things had to start getting better right? I know that about ninety percent of the problems from today stemmed from the days and days of coughing and nights and nights of no sleep.

I showed up to the doctor's appointment not expecting a whole lot. It was one time today, when my expectations were wrong. I don't know if the doctor could sense my desperation or if she could see the lack of sleep and sick crawling all over me. As Butterball sat in my lap, oozing from her eyes, she asked who the appointment was for. I explained that it was for me and told her about the loss of ID leading to the cancellation of her appointment for earlier in the day. (I had already rescheduled the appointment for the next day.)

Butterball was on my lap, and as the doctor looked in my ears, and listened to my lungs, she also did a quick 'once-over' of Butterball. Which turned up an ear infection. And this angel of a doctor, figured out a way to take care of not only MY pink eye (nothing), MY chest congestion, but she also took care of my baby. They dug and dug through their computers, trying to find an appointment time to slip Butterball into so that the doctor could prescribe the medicine that would fix Butterball's ear infection. And they cancelled the appointment we had scheduled for tomorrow. Because they were angels. And probably mothers who could read the look on my face.

I almost cried for the second time today. Only this time the tears would have been tears of gratitude.

And so, tonight when Butterball stood in the tub and let feces fall from her behind, I was able to laugh. Because, how else should my day end but with a tub full of poop?

The beginning...

We've begun the moving mayhem around here. Notice has been given, things are getting lined up for a very large, complicated move. Shipments going with different companies at different times to different places. It should be fun. Seriously.

Meanwhile, we are all trying not to die from whatever microbial organism that has decided to take up residence in my lungs. I'm not super happy about being kept up at night by an ugly green mucus monster. I've got two much cuter monsters who enjoy keeping me up nights without a third one moving into my body and making me sound like someone who has been smoking for 80 years.

Speaking of smoking -- it isn't fair. I smoked for a small period of time a long time ago, in a land far, far away. And I enjoyed smoking. Yes I did. It kept me skinny, because I was never hungry. Ah, nicotine. And while I didn't enjoy the residual smell, there was something in the initial scent of the cigarette first being lit that still gets me. If, somehow, I could have all of that without the stink that gets all over everything, and you know, the total destruction of your lungs, I'd probably think about smoking again. At least if I smoked, I'd have a reason to sound like I do.

In the meantime, I'm busy trying to de-clutter and organize our household. I'm trying to enjoy the last few weeks I have in New England, and the last few weeks I have with friends here (No thanks to the Mucinex Monster in my chest).

I hate this part of moving -- the organizing, the packing, the leaving, the un-doing of everything. I keep going with a smile on my face because I know in a few weeks a new adventure will start. In a short while I will be in the middle of my favorite part of moving -- the unpacking, organizing and setting up of our new household. I am trying to picture our new house, how our life will be when we get there. And that's what keeps me from curling up into a ball and hiding from all of the things that need to be done.