Going to summer camp?

Sean finally got his Camp Lemonnier Survival Guide and I feel like I am sending a kid off to camp. I mean, it's not going to be all fun because he is going to miss ME sooooooo much (maybe the kids too?), but I did approve his purchase of a new hand held gaming device to distract him. He would only reveal was "pricey", leaving me to go find the price myself (much like green fees for Pebble Beach). Of course he will be working there, just not what he's good at as I have perhaps mentioned in previous posts, but still sounds like there may be some down time. Let me list a few things that I learned from his survival guide...

- all living quarters are wired for cable TV and internet

- people have been known to gain quite a bit of weight over there, so the food must be decent

- the example address given uses the name Snuffy Smith (Donna, this is for you! do you still have Snuffy???)

- you can check out a car to go off base (unless your wife forbids it- and I do)

- you can send text messages to the US for 30 cents (guess he will cut down on texting me movie quotes during the day though)

- going to need a "man purse" to hold keys, IDs and the beer card

- combat pay for the month is less than one hour of moonlighting

- hazardous duty pay for the month is twenty minutes of moonlighting

- the no income tax while he is gone keeps me from punching the guy who put him up for this mission, though someday we will have words, you can count on that

- MWR offers day trips to the cheetah refuge, the French Market, scuba classes, go-karts, swimming with whale sharks, and bowling. Who puts cheetah, whale sharks and bowling in the same category??

- free movies at the movie theater every night and all day Sunday (Sean's dream come true)

- there is a night club where everyone hangs out... USO shows, karaoke, ping pong and shuffle board (for the senior officers?? don't you have to be 65 to play shuffle board?)

- Poker. Tournaments. Make up that moonlighting money, baby! Yeah, take money from those poor enlisted service members.... that wouldn't be cruel....

- subsidized trips to Egypt (NOPE), France (hmm, I would not be opposed to meeting in Paris) Thailand, Singapore, and Tanzania during the 96 hour "liberty periods".

- fitness center with the "latest exercise equipment" (unlike what we own) and has many classes like Thai boxing, salsa dancing and my favorite... "an abs class". Yes, just work on that 6 pack, forget the rest!

- haircuts are $5 and include a cranium massage, "so if you're sensitive about that kind of stuff, you've been warned". This makes me chuckle, must have freaked a few people out.

- traveling off-camp... "great caution should be exercised when driving off camp since many of the locals tend to ignore traffic laws". And then there is a photo of a man riding a bike with a goat like animal riding piggy back on him. Sean and I agree on our level of adventuresome-ness so do not expect Sean to go out in hopes of seeing that talent in person.

- since this is a Navy base it says that officers should bring their "summer whites" for official functions. Sean has a different army uniform of course but let's all chuckle at the image of Sean in the Officer and a Gentleman white uniform. Now lets add the crazy hat. End mocking.

- there is a big warning about drinking the beer rations outside the beer places... "do not mess around with this one... careers have been ended!" You mean, there is a way out of the military commitment that doesn't involve cutting off part of your index finger so you can no longer shoot a gun?? Oh come on, we've already established that I am not a good army wife. Of course we are rule followers though so Sean wouldn't do either of those things. He probably wants that finger for video games anyway.

The guy Sean is replacing will be gone before Sean gets there which is good news in that there is no "tag teaming". This means Sean's date to come home is pretty set, doesn't have to wait for someone else to show up. There is a clinic there that uses telerad so Sean may have the opportunity to help out there and keep his skills from totally eroding. He will have to wait and see though. After almost 5 years of working many, many hours at two jobs, this may actually be a little break for Sean to recharge, rest up, work out, and get some serious video gaming out of the way. Oh yes, the missions will be eye opening no doubt and great for the kids to hear about for years to come. Sean did just find out that he most likely would have gone in September to Afghanistan for a radiology slot if he wasn't assigned to this mission and we have not heard awesome things about that (especially lately, yikes), so we are definitely not complaining about this one now. Do I need to point out that it's not that some people are "lucky", it's that they have a good attitude? And I know it drives the whiners nuts!

3 beers and a whale

Sean finally talked to someone who has been on this mission before so he has some idea of what he's getting into. Trips to the beach for snorkling, scuba driving and whale watching anyone? Also, the beer ration is three beers a day which is how many he has drank in the past year. What I want to know is, can he sell those? Plenty of time to work out apparently which will be good for keeping the beer gut at bay.

It will of course be Kansas summer hot there the whole time, and perhaps a little warmer at points, like 118 and 90% humidity. He will eventually get his own little trailer thing to live in but I'm pretty sure they still don't let the family come over to visit. Also, I don't like to travel farther than Kansas City with the kids, learned my lesson last year going to altitude sickness Colorado.

So while our tax dollars pay for Sean's African adventure (they will fly him all over to other countries there doing various missions), they will also pay a civilian radiologist $2000 a day to fill in for him here. That is at least five times more than they pay Sean in case you were thinking that it is Sean's civic duty to go on a deployment like so many others. No, I think working for a small fraction of the civilian salary is a good way to serve our military. Too bad someone up the command chain did not feel the same. Wait until they get questioned about the hospital budget. Sean's partner is thinking this is a good deal and may volunteer for the next shift of this deployment mission. In the meantime Sean is moonlighting like crazy to boost the emergency fund as I suspect this is the summer for a new a/c unit, wheee! Think I could convince the kids to move to the basement for the summer if that happens and put off buying a new one? Then use the emergency fund for summer beers at the pool, where I intend to spend every single day....

Making it work

We love this house so much that when we bought it we didn't really think long term about bedrooms, other than when the three girls wanted to stop sharing one room then some of them could move to the basement bedroom. Of course everyone hates sleeping in the basement and no one seems ready to be down there on their own (or even the big girls together down there), but it's getting tight upstairs. Emily was waking up and demanding that Megan get her out of the crib and put her in Megan's bed for a while there. I never heard her but Megan says she was always "yelling". So for a while Megan would be bleary eyed in the morning from Emily kicking her all night.

Then I put Emily's crib mattress on the floor and told her it was her big girl bed. She did stay in it for a while, seemed to be working, but lately she has started crawling in with Megan again. Then I told Megan to just go to the crib mattress when that happens so she can sleep. Yes, tall Megan, curled up on a crib mattress with many pillows, blankets and stuffed animals, definitely nesting. Well, the other morning I came to wake up the big girls for school and couldn't find Emily. Nothing but the quilt left on Emily's (formerly Megan's) bed and at first it didn't look like she was with Megan. But yes, upon closer inspection I could see that she had whittled her way into the crack between the bookcase and the crib mattress, with all her blankies and little pillow. Ever since then they have been doing musical beds, not to Megan's delight. Meanwhile, Anna never hears a peep and gets plenty of sleep. I thought I could maybe put Emily in with Patrick soon since she can defend herself now but he sleeps with his light on. I don't know if she can sleep like that. Ah, we'll see how things go with Sean gone...

Butt up

Patrick's new phrase is "butt up". He uses it in lieu of "shut up", thinking it won't get him into trouble. Interesting theory. He is really into inertia these days and it's nearly impossible to get him to leave the house for anything, even stuff he loves to go do. I have gone as far as to pull the car out of the garage and pretend that I am leaving without him. So then I go back in to see if he has noticed. Oh no, just hiding under a blanket, still in just underwear. After a lot of yelling he will finally get dressed and go get in the car. And then spend a few minutes screwing around in there, playing with everything in the back, and then get in his seat and slowly buckle. Chocolate does motivate him but it would result in a lot of chocolate over the course of a day which he obviously does not need. Getting the girls to school every morning with the littles in tow will be interesting, especially since they are both going through a sleep late stage. Unbelievable, right? Pretty sure that will end as soon as school gets out and we have no place we have to be.

Sean has instructed me to not tell people I will be "just fine" with him gone, for fear that everyone will know that he doesn't help around the house. First of all, people want to hear that we'll be just fine so of course that's what I'll say. Second of all, how much we will miss him is in no way related to the amount of housework he does. Complaining about how he rarely does the dishes is like giving up candy for Lent: it's something a child does. I could not care less if he helps with chores around the house, they aren't that hard to do. I can unload the dishwasher practically in my sleep and that's exactly what happens most mornings while I am making my tea and not really awake yet. I appreciate if he makes an effort to help because I know he'd rather be doing something else but instead is trying to make me happy. However, I'm not mad when I do it all myself and thus when he's gone and I will always be doing it myself, I will be fine. I will increase how much the kids help around the house though but really, that's for their benefit. Definitely easier for me to do it than train them to do it and nag them to do it...

Speaking of what children give up for Lent, Anna told me she is giving up lying for Lent. Oh good, so I can expect her to go right back to full on non-stop lying after Easter?? If only Patrick gave up some of his bad behavior...

Where Sean is going

NY times article that does a good job of explaining where Sean is going and how the military is changing. Also note, he will get beer there. He's not a huge beer fan but I suspect he will come around. Just click on the words "NY times article" at the beginning to read it. After many years of blogging this is the first time I have managed to include a link. It's the small victories.

Deployment Budget

Things I will save money on while Sean is gone:

Bacon

Dr. Pepper and Coke

Vegas trips

Tortilla chips

Video games

Golf

Steak

I can just funnel that right into the babysitter fund...

Too bitter?

Sorry if I scared everyone with my bitterness. I really won't lash out if you see me in person. We do realize that this is by far one of the best deployment opportunities that Sean could get, just disappointing that he can't do what he does best over there. Such a waste of talent. And in case you think I am just making assumptions about Sean's skills because I am his wife and support him, he has constant feedback on the studies he reads for moonlighting and thus he has proof that he does a great job. He mostly does preliminary reads on the various studies from ERs all over the country and their staff radiologists come in the morning and do final reads on everything he has done. They are more than happy to point out any mistakes and it's pretty rare that they find anything. Now one did file a complaint because he didn't know how Sean could have called appendicitis on one study, he just didn't see it. So they followed up on the patient to see how it was resolved. Oh, it was appendicitis. So.... the day time radiologist was complaining because Sean was better than him? Hmm... Now we are just hoping that his skills don't get too rusty from not being used for 6 months.

We are planning some fun stuff to look forward to when he gets home, like a Disney trip. Will probably give the kids some time to adjust before Sean and I go anywhere without them. Plenty of bribes and TV while he is gone no doubt and Patrick will be thrilled to sleep in my bed every night. He always seems to know when Sean is working nights because he sneaks in then, so I suspect that will be a common routine. I keep hearing that I won't have to bother cooking and cleaning as much without Sean around to notice but he's not that type of husband. I cook and clean for ME. I'm that kind of crazy, have to have a clean and organized house. And I cook and clean when I am stressed so let me tell you, we are eating good right now, thanks to pinterest inspiration. And I'm doing the weird cleaning that no one notices like baseboards because it lasts longer than picking up kid junk. Hopefully our great sitter will stick around so I can run errands, workout and shower in peace. Other than that we will live at the pool I suspect and eat many meals there...

Thanks, taxpayers!

Thanks for footing the bill for Sean to go do service work running a humanitarian medical clinic in Africa. There isn't much need for radiologists at most charity clinics since they don't have the expensive equipment on which to shoot the studies, so until this point we had just been donating part of his moonlighting money to help run those clinics instead. Sean did some primary care rotations ten years ago, so not sure if he is actually qualified for this job but army needs a warm body that hasn't been over-deployed already. They will now pay him tax free which is a huge break for us. Less tax dollars for the government to spend though, so it's not us sponsoring the trip. Also, as a radiologist, he is one of the highest paid people in army and no doubt the highest paid humanitarian aid worker ever. Doubt we would have ever taken 6 months to do charity work for free, truth be known. Oh, and they will pay a civilian contractor $200,000 to fill in for him while he is gone. But the hospital felt that Sean was the best candidate to fill this role (again, the role of a primary care doctor or if he is just going to do the admin tasks of running the clinic then ANYONE could have done it). I don't know why we have such a big budget deficit in this country, by the way. It's certainly not from overpaying primary care doctors though, who are much abused and taken for granted. No wonder army can't keep most of them around.

We have talked a lot these past few years about our spoiled children who take everything for granted and how we could get them some perspective. Even driving them through the "not good" neighborhoods around here wouldn't work because all they would notice is that a lot of those people have more toys and pets in their yard than us. So this will actually be very good for them to learn all about where Sean is going and who he is going to be helping. They won't be happy that he is missing Anna's first communion and that we will probably cancel all vacations until he gets back in the fall, but we'll get on a schedule and get used to it. We are NOT telling the children this news for a few more weeks to lessen the crabby time. So please do not bring up this subject around them.

The bickering littles

Patrick and Emily act like some old married couple who bicker all the time. Let me point out that Sean and I are too tired to bicker so I don't know where they learned this. Emily is talking a little more these days but it's mostly so she can yell back at Patrick. They also poke and kick each other the entire time they sit on the couch to watch TV. But then they will sometimes be cutesy lovey together and have their little rituals like when I pull onto our street and Patrick unbuckles against my wishes and then goes and sits on Emily's lap and she gives him a hug and squeals. Mostly they just fight over anything and everything that the other happens to want.

We did finally have a couple days with actual snow but Patrick decreed that it was too cold to go outside (the second day it was in the 40s, hmm) and thus he only ventured to the front steps to get cups of snow. He did bring one to poor sick Emily, being sweet for a moment. I will be impressed if someone ever convinces him to go skiing. The girls volunteered to shovel the driveway and since the company we hired hadn't shown up yet I let them start and told them if they finished and we didn't need the service then they could have the money. Well, they did part of it and then it started melting and then they did a little bit more to finish the second day. And they wanted $75. Ha ha! I took them ice skating instead which they had been begging to do. We had the rink to ourselves but the girls had to learn all over again how to skate. I don't think they will beg again until next year. Now they are bickering over TV shows, computer time, and what to play together (they can never agree). I think it's time to give up TV and computer for Lent... Not me, just them!

Inspired by the Great Wolf Lodge

The girls got Patrick all tatted up tonight, ready to head back to the water park. Did I mention all the sympathetic looks I got from others there? Yes, poor me... I can't afford any tattoos. Anyway, the girls just finished up all the Valentine cards and used the leftover tattoos on Patrick. That's right, I bought the cheapo commercial Valentine card packs from Target. Last year Patrick took all his Buzz Lightyear cards to bed with him for weeks so I figure that is what the kids really want so I am not going to make the super cute photo cards that everyone else does. I love getting them though and hang them up but sorry, your kids are getting the crappy ones in return. No candy at least... like they need more of that. I just tossed the stuff they had leftover from the school carnival.

Even Steven Again

We caved in and paid the price for Great Wolf Lodge since we'd been promising the girls for years that we would take them again. I don't think we have been since before Emily was born, maybe it was that summer when I was pregnant with her and Nana got some spider bite there? Anyway, high time we went again and the kids had a great time. Well, except for Emily who wasn't feeling well so I tried to contain her germs in the room, which just led to me getting her germs of course. I took her into the park for an hour each day where she refused to wear a life jacket so I just followed her around the splash area. Patrick chatted up every boy in the slide area and tried to turn everything into a race. He finally wore himself out with 15 minutes till closing time. Sean said he just sat on the edge of the pool, zoned out. He still claims that he did not get tired there. The girls were old enough to go on the water slides themselves so they loved it. Of course they all fell asleep quickly and Sean headed out to the new casino there and won enough at poker to pay for the whole weekend. And yet I wasn't in the mood to shop....

Frigid temps and outdoor shopping do not go well together. I went to get us takeout and the traffic and parking and crowds were so bad that it took me an hour and a half-- and this was a mile away? I should have just driven to another area. I will never complain about parking in Manhattan again. So spoiled here that if I have to walk a couple blocks for anything I am all annoyed.

We are also stressed about army stuff and thus I didn't want to spend any money until that is resolved. Army is getting ready to waste buckets of tax dollars, due to their poor planning and their refusal to offer a proper salary to primary care doctors, most of whom endured multiple deployments. What is shocking to no one but the brilliant minds in charge, is that now there is a shortage of primary care docs. So they are going to take specialists and force them to go do primary care, in glamourous places like Korea. I know what you're thinking, hope I don't get those docs. Come on, it's only been 10 years or more since these docs have done any primary care, I'm sure they remember it all! But wait, who is filling the specialist slots left behind? Civilian contractors making $400k a year. Thank you, taxpayers! And guess what, now the specialists will all flee the army the second they can, thus resulting in a shortage of specialists too. Bravo army, BRAVO. Sean reads three times as many radiology studies as some other radiologists, so naturally it would make sense to pull him and put him in a position he would hate and isn't qualified for. Mimosas for breakfast for mommy?? No clue when we'll hear anything, 4 month deployment to Africa sounding better by the minute. I wasn't going to blog about this but thought I should so people know why I am so crabby.

It's not Disney!

Trying to book a room at the Great Wolf Lodge and it's $450 a night. Right... Working on plan B. Spring break is a no go this year so we want to at least have a fun weekend at some point for the kids. Help!

Krewe of Allegawaho 2012

We changed locations for Mardi Gras this year and took it underground for a speakeasy 1920s theme. The krewe called in favors from all over to make it happen, from finding a random basement warehouse downtown, to getting enough chairs for 200 people. We even ended up buying old silverware from Harry's which was cheaper than renting. The creative artistic people had the vision and spent endless hours planning how to make it happen, because let me tell you, when we first checked out that space I was a little overwhelmed. I'm more the type to order the tables and plates. I'm also the type who won't wear a drop waist 1920s dress because it's just not flattering, but I did pick out a dress that is supposedly vintage style. My hair was done in a 1920s style which wasn't super flattering in my jeans at the grocery store, but looked better with my mask and dress.

Since it was a speakeasy it was in a hidden location and hard to tell people where to go. We ended up having a jazz group playing outside the service entrance to the building, with an old car and krewe flag hanging out. I hope everyone found it... Then they took the elevator down to a junk filled room with a path that wound around to a bookcase (which is what Sean wants in the next house) which opened to reveal the speakeasy. Keeping with the New Orleans Mardi Gras theme we had cajun food from Cox Bros and it was outstanding, and I'm not just saying that because I was on the food committee or because we were starving. They brought the whole hog too. Yes, I was the first one through the line, trying to motivate people to get that part going, such a good role model.

I'm not sure what crazy drama went down after 11:30pm because at that point my feet hurt too much to dance, it was too loud to talk, someone was offering us a ride home, and our sweet babysitter was expecting us. Cell phone reception not awesome in the speakeasy so we were hoping they all survived the night. Now I need to wash out a can of hair spray and go teach Sunday school, wheee! Oh and then go clean up the speakeasy... and hear the good stories of what we missed!

To top off the awesome night

Patrick came home and peed his pants in the bathroom, making more laundry and cleaning all at once! I made him take a bath then, also because on the way home the smell of his feet were making me sick. He's four, just how much worse are those feet going to get?? I was literally trying to figure out what could have died in the car to produce such a smell.

Oh yes, and the cake walk... I sent in Barefoot Contessa peanut butter chocolate chip cookies that I had made for us but then remembered I needed to send in baked goods for the cake walk. And what did my kids pick out when they won at the cake walk? Store bought cookies of course. Not even the good ones, one container had, I kid you not, Chips Ahoy cookies in it. Well, thanks for the reusable container I guess.... Don't worry, I am getting my calories tonight from beverages.

I'm a sucker

Tonight was the family fun night for Catholic Schools Week and I got to run the sucker tree game. Sean isn't a sucker and he magically was assigned a moonlighting shift at this exact time. So I had all the kids and at least two of them were very crabby and one was close to bedtime but I couldn't leave her home. I volunteered to run a game back before I knew Sean was working but I figured the littles could just hang with me while I did it. Has anyone seen a two year old in front of a "tree" of suckers, next to a huge box of suckers? Emily sampled about 27 of them, thankfully tossing each one after just a few licks. I still feel like I need to sneak in and brush her teeth yet again while she is sleeping.

Anyway, the sugar crash was ugly, I had to force Megan to help me with them for a while. I believe she used up all her tickets to pay her friends to help her find Patrick at one point. At the end Emily disappeared while I was turning in my ticket apron and it took a while to find her. I knew she hadn't gone out the door but did start to panic after a few minutes. Megan found her playing in a preschool room and when I made her leave a baby doll behind it was a full on tantrum. I was so glad to find her...

Oh but the sucker tree is so stupid because it involves giving the tickets back based on the color on the stick. Even a second grader figures out that this is a win-win game and just keeps going and going and going. Tickets are flying all over, just a mess. The last ten minutes when I just didn't care, I don't even know what happened. At the very end, when I still had an enormous box of suckers and I was just letting kids take them. Some gave me tickets, I didn't care. Oh my God, just leave me alone and let me go home to my sweet, sweet bottle of hard cider. Do you think the right person will find this post and not ask me to volunteer next year??? I did feel like a sucker as there were quite a few families walking around both the mom and the dad with their one precious child. Really?? I am the one volunteering while my own kids run wild and/or don't get to play games because they are helping me by babysitting. Apparently not everyone else feels the Catholic guilt and responds to the pleas for volunteers. Clearly there are people who do WAY more than I do and props to them, but I think I am taking a pass until my kids are old enough to not need an eye on them every single freaking second. Sean stayed home to make the money to cover the donations we give, I will not cave to the guilt again. I'm out. Should I blog while I'm having my cider? It's an over sharing kind of night...

Perspective

So I won a local contest this week and when I picked up the prize they insisted on taking my photo. I was on my way to help set up for the mardi gras party so my hair was pulled back and looked fairly heinous. I can't do the fun ponytail, only the "work out" ponytail. Before I can even get home to find out if they posted it on facebook, I get a text message about it and asking if I got my hair cut. Oh dear. And then I see that the photo is even worse than I expected, so much so that Sean concedes that it's not the best shot of me. He blames the lighting. Thankfully they did not "tag" me so it's not showing up in my newsfeed but they did put my name. I don't dare comment on it and alert people to this post. Anyway, the worst part is that someone I don't even recognize comments that we are nice people and a good Catholic family. What? Someone recognized me from that horrible photo and remembers us from mass?? I'm sure I make quite a spectacle yanking my misbehaving children from the pew and the lighting is bad in there... so I guess this isn't totally shocking. The prize is a necklace from Tiffany and I feel kind of bad about winning it because I'm sure others would have loved it more. Let me point out that I never won anything back when we had no money for nice gifts like this. So I am trying to decide what to do with it. Offer it to the person who can convince this particular business to take down my photo?! And no, I will not reveal the business and those who know do not post in the comments. I'm so vain, but really, who isn't?

In the midst of all this someone sends me a message with a photo he found on a funny blog facebook page. It is of 6 guys posing like they are pregnant with their bellies sticking out. Umm, nude. With the boy parts tucked away. That over 1500 people commented on. And we know one of the 6 guys! Suddenly bad lighting doesn't seem so awful... I hope he got a Tiffany necklace too!