Those military wives.

Google "Military wives are...." and the first thing that comes up is "annoying."

I hate that, I really do, because it just hasn't been my experience. I am outgoing, probably to the point of being overbearing at times, but I admit that coming to Maryland for our first actual station (at 27, no less)  was terrifying. I was scared to death of these women with all the stereotypes hanging over them and the rank wearing and the gossip and catfights and backstabbing and judging. Scared to the point that I was slightly taken aback when, on our first day coming to homeschool group, I was invited to have lunch with two moms and their kids. There was no gossip, no cattiness. I let myself be a little relieved that day. Every experience from then on I left feeling more than welcome. I connected with at least one fellow wife per "scary" outing. I have met kindred spirits, total opposites, ladies who make me laugh so hard and ladies who make me want to cry with them about the ordeals they've been through. It's been three months, and I can say with complete honesty that I feel as though I've known some of these girls much, much longer. If you by chance read this: thanks for taking me into the fold, it has meant more than you know.

If my love can't be entered as evidence of the character of this group, here's something a little more solid: this week, our base housing was dealt a blow by way of a house fire. It's a disturbing thing to hear sirens on base, because this is a small town folded in half- if you don't know the person for the whom the siren wails, it's certain that you know someone who knows them.

Five families displaced, over a dozen people affected, and before all the details were even out, people were helping. Donating, asking, purchasing, rallying to help in any way they could. I have never seen anything like it, and these wonderful women shrug it off like it's nothing. Well, it's something. It's beautiful to see, and I will always be grateful to know such a community exists. There is of course a tie that binds here, the military "family," but you have to make the choice to be bound. You have to be open to it. Thanks for being so open, ladies, thanks for teaching me. Google is so wrong about you.

My homeschooling truth.

Here is MY homeschooling truth. Mine- it may not be anyone else's. But I suspect it could be. So here's the deal:

Homeschooling is hard.

Oh my goodness, it got said, and the earth didn't split open? Better not say it again, just in case.

But seriously, why is this taboo? Perhaps I was asking the wrong questions when I talked to homeschooling families. Did I say things in a way that implied I thought the day to day curriculum would be the tedious part? Was that why I was guided to lesson plans as assurance I'd be fine? I'm not sure, but in hindsight I feel like it was meant to be a secret. I just don't see why- something can be hard and still completely worth it. Completely. The torture of getting through that first day of long division was quickly replaced by the high of watching it click, the way Bug then took pride in solving those problems- something akin to letting go of the bike for the first time and watching them go. Telling me how hard it can be wouldn't have deterred me. In fact, the not knowing, the feeling like I was the only one- it was very discouraging. Those first couple of weeks were hard, and I doubted myself a lot. I'm thankful my aunt gave me gentle nudges as she went through it again for the first time in almost a decade, and that my therapist friend kept cheering me on, wanting me to succeed (perhaps as her guinea pig), and that Squid was endlessly patient with my back and forth, playing a very handsome Switzerland. If not for them, I think I may have quit after those first two weeks out of fear I wasn't doing what was best for Bug. Even after all my big talk, my social network declarations against the system, I was scared. The fear that I wasn't doing enough for him, being enough, teaching enough was heavy. I never wanted to stop for my sake. The days I wanted to stop were the days I felt like I was short-changing my child. I was too green to feel confident in anything other than the lessons plans, and he was burning through my carefully charted curriculum so fast I didn't quite know what to do with him. I woke up in the mornings with my stomach in knots about it. I went as far as to call the school he was zoned for. I just wanted. what. was. best. And I did not know what that was.

I'd like to tell you that I now have it all figured out, but I'd be lying. God's grace, time, and a tiny bit of experience now have me in a much more confident place- I do not ask myself anymore if I'm doing the best thing. I am certain that we are doing what's right for Bug in these circumstances. Next year is up in the air- as I said, I just want to give them their best shot, and I'm not too proud to say if that isn't me. But...maybe I also need to be confident enough to say when it is. I'm so sorry that this doesn't wrap up nicely, and I'm sorry if it leaves anyone unsure- that would never be my intention. In fact, I'm hoping that if you happen to be reading this and happen to be homeschooling and happen to have a day where you're tempted to just hide under your comforter and call "in-service", that you may remember someone else has felt that way and survived to teach another day. Here's what I can say: I can say there's not been a second of this school year that hasn't been completely worth it; I can say it is a beautiful thing to behold your child learning in a way that maybe you'd miss if he were in school for eight hours a day; I can say even a quick trip to the commissary can become a lesson, which to me and Bug is just plain fun because we're nerdy like that; I can say he is excelling, and I can say I've been humbled, which I hear is good for you. Oh, and I can also say that I think the teacher should get a Starbucks card for Christmas.

Welcome To Florida

I realize this is coming two months after our arrival, but now is a good time for me to remember, since we got our orders not so long ago, that the chaos does die down, you settle in, and life becomes whatever your new normal will be.

We moved in the middle of Tropical Storm Lee, on Labor Day weekend.

Gorgeous, no?

I would not say we were LIED to about what floor our apartment was on, but perhaps I would say that we were "mislead"- what was made to sound like a few steps maybe up to a porch ended up being an entire level up, over twice the amount of steps we were told about. That is the cost of moving blindly. All in all I love our apartment very much, but I hated it for my father in law and my grandfather, and Squid. Lots of steps, awful winds and tons of rain, and yet everyone was in a pretty great mood. When we first arrived, I left the kiddos with everyone to go "get Squid real quick".

Ha. Right. 

Here's the thing: when your husband has been isolated not just to a military base, but a specific section of that military base save for two or three bus trips out, he is not the person to give you directions to navigate that base. Things he may find distinctive are in fact at every intersection. His base is not a small one. I was almost in tears by the time I finally found him, almost an hour later, only to get lost going back as well. My trusty GPS constantly asserted that the road I was driving on did not exist. Not the best  start! It took little to no time to sort the base out- maybe a week of coming back and forth, but to all who go after me: get a map, get directions from someone who has seen more than 1/5 of the place. You won't regret it. And don't blame your sailor, he honestly doesn't know any better. Try to remember that also when he points you down a road that leads to officer housing and then says over and over "We're not supposed to be over here." Oh my.

We did eventually find our way back, spent the next couple of days getting unpacked and spending time with our families that were so kind to come help us, said our goodbyes to them on Labor Day, and got into the business of truly settling in. The wonderful thing was, it happened really quickly. Once Squid's "Brown Bagger" status- his permission to live at our home and not at the barracks- came through, everything was pretty well as it should be. We spent every single weekend at the beautiful beaches until the water was just too cold to dip a toe in. We saw every kind of animal Bug could dream of, and even had an unfortunate encounter with what his doctor believed to be a man o'war- that part was more of a nightmare...

 All in all though, we've loved our time down here. It's been nice and calm- the opposite of what I imagine our permanent station is going to be- we are heading to the DC area. We are so excited, and I'm ready to embrace whatever comes next. I can always feel secure, wherever we are heading, because after our stint in Florida, I know one thing for sure: home is always- ALWAYS- going to be wherever the four of us are, together. 

A few things.

I wish I could fully explain why I haven't been blogging. It's not that I haven't had anything to say- in my absence we have had a move during a tropical storm, all sorts of eye-opening experiences, and plenty of thoughts on settling in to our new albeit very temporary home. The truth is simply that there have been things going on, things outside of Squid, the kiddos and I, that have been troubling me, and when I write all sorts of things want to pour out, but some things just do not belong here. To go back through and filter them would have felt like a lie, and I hate lying. So, I chose not to write at all. I hope I get to the point where I am better at separating it all out. Having said all that, I'm back to chronicling this journey, and happy to be doing so!

We're a month into living this the Sunshine State life, and I have to say that so far it's been wonderful. I was completely shocked and delighted to see how quickly the kiddos adapted- they love everything about it here, aside from missing our family back home. I was also shocked and delighted at how soon we all four felt settled, how somewhere we had been for such a short time could feel so much like home. I'm sure it had a lot to do with being reunited at long last with Squid. It was a couple of weeks after we arrived that he actually got permission to live with us, but once he did, things took on a state resembling normal. Even typing that word makes me realize that normal is a funny thing unto itself. What seems perfectly normal now would have been totally bizarre months ago- terror threat levels posted on grocery store doors, jets flying so low over our apartment that it literally shakes, making big lunches because that's the only meal Squid gets to sit down and share with us, having to bring my car to a complete stop in the middle of an intersection because there is a bugle playing over giant speakers, Squid leaving the house every day looking like one of Bug's action figures- not saying I mind that, of course. Life is good, but life is definitely different. Do remember that Squid and I have been married for almost nine years, all of those "civilian." I must say that I am glad for that; we didn't go through all of this to live exactly like we were living before. Pretty shortly, Squid will be getting a piece of paper telling us where we're heading next. I'm excited for the next chapter, but it will be sad to leave this place with the beautiful beaches and glorious weather, and the place that we first realized how different this life would be, and just how fast we could get used to it all.

This, of course, doesn't hurt the process.

I promise very soon to write on what I wasn't told about homeschooling, getting Lee as our welcoming committee, and why I cried the first time I made my way onto the base. Try not to bite your nails off.

"He didn't tell me how to live; he lived, and let me watch him do it." - Clarence Budington Kelland

I believe the saying goes, "Anyone can be a father, but it takes a real man to be a Dad."

I'm beginning to think being a military dad takes an even more rare breed.

To the outside world, Squid cannot win. Truly he can't. On my side of the fence, there are those looking over and feeling that he left me and the kids to fend for ourselves, off doing his own thing while we cope with him being gone, checking out of this full-time job of parenting. On his side, there are those that cannot understand why he doesn't just leave me to it, why he stretches himself across the miles and dedicates so much of his so little down time to making sure our children know he's here even when he's not here. I mean, your wife stays home, right? Can't you just let her take care of it?

But this is where I have to use my soap box as a step, get on top of this fence and say to those looking on in either direction: to quote the great philosopher Taylor Swift, "You don't know what you don't know."

You don't know about this man who refused to leave his son even at the cost of getting in trouble until Bug had calmed down over "See you soon." You don't know that despite his busy and erratic schedule of classes, firefighting, watch, and duty he does bedtime- listens to their days, long stories, and occasionally when Sug' is *extra* sleepy, the incoherent rambling, prays with them, and tells them how much he loves them. Every single night, and the two times he misses it is completely disappointed. You don't know about this man who used his time that I imagine could have been spent getting well-deserved sleep in boot camp to make his children RTC-style birthday cards. You don't know that he took his first weekend away from that place and did training he didn't have to start till Monday to get to be with us that much faster. You don't know that he juggles enough for a single, unattached sailor to get overwhelmed, and then dives head-first into being there for his family, and never complains. And for those who say he doesn't have to do all this...you don't know the unbridled adoration that radiates off of our kiddos when they so much as hear his voice.

You may be reading this thinking, "Well no, I didn't know all of that, but how would I?"- and that's fair enough. I guess my suggestion to you is not to make assumptions one way or another...at least not until you've talked to Bug or Sugarplum Fairy, who will tell you without hesitation, as they do to both Squid and myself daily, that they have the most amazing dad on the planet. Bug had eight whole years of him being home "full time" and yet his opinion hasn't changed- do you wonder how that can be? I suppose the answer lies in that, maybe by God's provision and grace in knowing we'd face this, no one in this family seems to focus on how much he is away, but rather how much he does with the time he has, and he does more in that time with our beautiful kiddos than a lot of dads who sleep 50 ft from their kids seven days a week, twelve months a year. He is teaching them that he will take time out from ANYTHING he possibly can to listen to them, talk to them, make them laugh; and when they're face to face, wrestle and tickle and just play. They know they are invaluable to him, he makes sure they do, and that is just one of many things that makes him so amazing, and one of the things that let me know we could do this militrary life. I hope Bug and Sug' not only grow up knowing what they mean to him, but also that they learn something of being a parent from his devotion, and Bug something of being a man.

Any guy can be a father, tell his kids what they should do, how they should love, how hard they should work.

It takes a real man to lead by example.

There are many forms of thirst. ~William Langewiesche

I've tried to be flippant about Wednesday.

I really have. But the truth I can no longer hide is that Wednesdays are serious business. They have a gravitational pull so strong that they drag Tuesday down a bit. Maybe sometimes a little more than a bit.

Wednesday is the day that my mailbox- the real one outside with its red flag and numbers- is faithfully open just a crack from my mailman not knowing to lift then pull. Wednesday, dear friends, is letter day.

Before this all truly began, I had an idea that the hand-written, once-weekly letters would be romantic in a way. Not so much their contents, but just the novelty of the envelope, the inked words, and the fact that my often stoic SquidRecruit cared enough to use his rest time to share his week with me. I had no idea just how much they would come to mean. Once a week I get his thoughts passed along, when for almost ten years I've been used to hearing them multiple times a day. Want a crash course in not taking your spouse's words, thoughts, opinions for granted? Give boot camp a spin.

As precious as these letters are, they adhere to the law of diminishing return. By Tuesday, you really have pored over every detail, every possible tone, learned his bunkmate's name and sleeping habits by heart. You get this antsy feeling. The letter that made the whole world a better place six days ago is no longer adequately quenching your insatiable thirst for all things informational and anecdotal. You need more. And really soon, or you just may  fall out in a room full of people from communication dehydration. It's a serious condition. So you sit, or work, or play, or blog as normal but inside you are just fidgeting, twiddling, wondering when Mr. Postman will look and see if there's a letter waiting for me. The Marvelettes know what I'm talkin' about.

Then it comes- God love that precious USPS worker!!- and you so carefully steam the envelope open  tear that poor envelope to pieces with shaking hands to see the most wonderful handwritten "I love you"s and stories and interesting new phrases picked up from colorful RDCs, and you forget how parched you felt. This one will sustain you more than six days! No way your skin will be crawling in six days!

...except that you can clearly see what day of the week I've written this on.

_______________________________________________________________________________
I miss you, SR. Your words, your time, your effort- I see it and I cherish it. Thanks for taking what little bit of time you have to let me and the kiddos know just what we mean to you.

I have some infinitely wise advice for you.

If you should ever hear a phone ring, and you look down at said phone and happen to see the area code 847, drop everything; pick it up right away. It is a magical number that will take you back in time to a day maybe six months ago when your husband could have called you on his way to his next job. Or whatever normal thing your husband was doing six months ago, before boot camp. After four weeks and two letters, I got to hear SquidRecruit's voice, in all its exhausted wonderfulness. He is doing well. He's kept his sense of humor but sounds like he's playing by the rules just fine, which I knew wouldn't be an issue. I can't explain to anyone who hasn't received that call, or one like it anyway, how it felt to just hear him being him. Saying goodbye  see you later was hard, but getting to talk to my best friend for 40-something glorious minutes was so worth it. The next call I get will likely be the "I'm a sailor" call, and by then we'll be heading to Chicago to watch him graduate and then abduct him for as long as the US Navy will let me. I'm counting the days...