The Bachelor Creep

Piles.

If there was one word I could use to describe my perception of the life of the bachelor, it would have to be “piles.”  Most of the bachelors I have known in my life, whether past or present, have operated the “pile” method of organization in one form or another.  Myself included.  These could be piles of anything: clothes, papers, dishes, food, you name it, there was probably a pile for it somewhere or another in that bachelor’s pad.  Ladies, don’t let the clean and tidy apartment/home fool you.  Remember, before you are tra….er…married he is still trying to impress you.  Men already know that most women are cleaner than they are and that a dirty apartment is a major turn off.  The beauty of the pile system is that piles are portable.  You just pick-up the pile and move it to a place that can’t be seen. Or you just throw it out.

The beauty of the “pile method” of organization can not be overstated.  While it looks like a complete mess, the user of the pile method is usually able to find what he is looking for 87.7% of the time and usually rather quickly too.  That’s because the pile method, while it looks like a haphazard throwing together of random items, is actually pretty complex.  Done right, piles are usually not a tossing together of random items.  Generally they are organized by themes.  Themes like clothing, food, important papers, not so important papers, papers to throw away but I’ll get to it later, etc.  The advanced user of the pile method will also incorporate the geographical location of each pile to help with his sorting as well.  Pile of clothes by the bed? Wear later.  Pile of clothes next to the washing machine?  Sort.  Pile of clothes on top of the washing machine? WASH NOW!  What? Why wouldn’t you immediately wash the clothes next to the washing machine too?  Well, because you usually also implement the other pile method technique that bachelors will refer to as the “smell test.”  The smell test is used to help bachelors in determining whether or not a particular item of clothing can be re-worn again, or if a food item is still edible or not.  This technique, however, is not to be used on it own.  It MUST be used in collaboration with the thematic piling and geographic sorting.  The danger of the smell technique is when said bachelor never leaves his home and becomes accustomed to all the smells.  Very dangerous.

Anyways, why am I writing about the bachelor lifestyle?  Well, as you might have guessed, with my wife now being deployed it seems as if the bachelor is slowly trying to creep back.  Quick word here, my wife will probably not enjoy this post as much so appreciate the fact that I take much risk to bring this to you.  So yeah, it seems as though the bachelor is trying to make a come back now that my wife is gone.  The first sign of this is the piles.  Yes… piles…not pile.  It started out small at first.  On my side of the bed there is a perennial pile of clothing.  It’s always been a small pile and one of the few things that really chaps my wife’s behind when she sees it.  I know it has really gotten on her nerves when I come into the bedroom at night and see that the pile has been moved from the floor and onto the bed.  I’m not foolish enough to attempt to move said pile back onto the floor again because I’m tired.  Oh no.  My wife doesn’t even have to say a word.  That pile on the bed means, you’re not getting into this bed until you put your clothes away buddy.  As with the clothes, my wife has generally been the control over all my little piles.  Hey, it’s kind of hard to overcome 30 years of bachelor conditioning.  Ok…31.   So now that my wife is in Iraq, that control is gone and I found myself faced with piles again.  That pile by my bed had somehow grown and creeped its way around the bedroom.  Most of it was clean!  I just hadn’t gotten around to folding the laundry yet.  There was a pile of dishes in the sink, a pile of documents on my desk, and a pile of toys in the living room.  Not good.  At least, for the most part, I had contained my piles to the areas that I frequented and kept my daughter out of.  Not that it made okay.  Alright Honey, you can unfold your arms and un-purse your lips now.  I took care of the piles and “no” not in the way a bachelor would .  I really took care of them.

The thing I realized is that I stopped being a bachelor about 4 years ago and now that I have a daughter I REALLY can’t go back.  The problem is that the bachelor lifestyle is just really easy and at times can be really appealing.  It’s like those TV shows where you have a little devil on one shoulder and a little angel on the other arguing over your decisions.  In my case I’ve got a little bachelor on one shoulder and a responsible family man on the other.  Responsible family man is usually backed up by my wife but now that his back-up is temporarily gone he’s on his own for awhile.  So honey, if you come back and see a little pile of clothes (LITTLE) by the bed, or chrome and black pleather couches where our furniture used to be, or an extra gadget or 50, just remember that the responsible family man put up the best fight he could.  He really did! Really.  What?

YEAH BABY! Now that’s what I’m talkin’ bout!

A Martian Decides to Attack Venus

In this installment of the Air Force Husband’s Handbook (now to be known as AFHH because the military LOVES acronyms) we bring you the woeful, though not entirely fictitious tale of a lone Martian that, contrary to good judgment, thought it would be a good idea to attack Venus.   Obviously judging by that intro, you could surmise that it was a  failed undertaking as the Martian was beat back by the Venusians into a hasty retreat.

                                                    Don’t Mess With Venus.

Okay… so maybe attack is too strong a word for the Martian’s actions and “beat back” mischaracterizes the behavior of the Venusians.  Actually, the Martian really only had good intentions to begin with.  He didn’t really want to attack Venus.  All he wanted to do is to take his cute little daughter to the playground on base.  How was he to know that the playground was the territory of the Venusians and their brood?

So, as you’ve probably figured out by now, I am that Martian and the “Venusians” are actually other military spouses.

That are fulltime homemakers.

And aren’t male.

We had just gotten done with our follow-up doctor’s appointment from last weeks “incident” (which went really well by the way) and were able to confirm no broken bones and prognosis for full recovery. Despite the screaming of baby obscenities at the x-ray machine, I felt that I should reward my daughter for being such a trooper through all this father inflicted grief.  I had taken some time off of work for the appointment and pretty much had the rest of a  nice and sunny day to spend time with her.  First it was off to the BX for some ice cream and then to the playground afterwards.

We made our way over to Baskin Robbins in the food court, made our selection, and sat down to enjoy our cup of Mango Mania ice cream together (is mania a flavor?).  It was at this point that I felt what seemed like some sharp stares on my back that caused me to look around.  I scanned back towards the direction I felt the stares from and found myself looking at an older couple.  The man was obviously retired military but had an oddly dumbfounded look on his face.  Noticing the expression on his face I reached behind me to make sure that my third arm was still tucked behind my head. Confirming, it was hidden from view, I tried to figure out what he was looking at (I’m joking).  It’s like he’s never seen a guy with his daughter, having ice cream together in the middle of the day (on a work day!), with no mom to be seen, and a big red back-pack stuffed with diapers, wipes, and Ms. Pinky the doll. Then I noticed his wife. She wasn’t dumb founded. Oh no.  She was in fact giving me the “look.”  It’s kind of hard to describe but it was like a look of disapproval and confusion all rolled up into one. Whatever I was, I was different and she didn’t like it.  The Modern Man. Humph!  What I didn’t realize was that I had just made first contact with the advanced guard of the Venusians and that this was just a taste of things to come. Oh well.  Whatever. I’m having ice-cream in the middle of the day with my daughter and not at work. Yay! 

It was still nice and sunny outside and after we finished our ice cream, it was time to let my daughter to run around and play a bit, so we made our way to the playground on base.  You would have thought that I would have learned by now that this playground is not any normal playground. What, with the freaky, freezing pavlovian kids and all.  Nope. Didn’t learn a thing.  I’m stubborn like that.  So we get to the playground and my daughter is making all kinds excited squeals and noises that only dogs should be able to hear.  She’s definitely looking forward to this. So I set her down to run off to play with the other kids.

I’d never actually been to the playground before during the work week and in the middle of the day to boot.  It’s really different.  Instead of screaming, rabid kids and their families playing there you have screaming, rabid kids and their Venusians…I mean mothers, playing there.  They were there with their kids, alternately wiping noses, filling their broods open orifices with snacks, yelling “No!" between “Stop thats!” and gabbing away at each other. 

They kind of looked alike too with their nifty sneakers, baggy sweatshirts, SUV like strollers, and an overall soccer mom-ish feel to them.  They were all just having a grand time.  A grand time that is, until they saw me.  Apparently my backpack of kiddie supplies was not enough camouflage for me to completely fit in. I even had snacks and sippy cups like they did!

Suddenly the chatter dropped to a murmur, kids were held close, some panicked and ran away hysterically.  Okay, I exaggerated a little there but the overall feeling was that they didn’t quite know what to make of me.  What is this? A man? Here? In our world? You’d think I’d stumbled on some secret organizations meeting or something.  Or had I?  Hmmm… I was, at this point, waiting for the torches and pitchforks to materialize from their overstuffed diaper bags. In reality some were able to offer a half hearted smile and greeting here or there but for the most part it seemed that they resorted to using their native Venusian language whenever I was nearby.

Telepathy. 

It reminded me of a similar episode when we first moved to this base.  For some reason I had gotten the bright idea that I should attend the “Spouse’s Orientation” so I could learn about the base and what it offers. We already know what my track record with “bright ideas” is.  Despite that,  I even called ahead to the program director to specifically tell her that, yes, I am a spouse and yes, I am a male.  Would it be appropriate for me to attend? “Oh, yes, yes. Of course! We’ve had a male spouse come through our program before!”  Notice the singular “a male spouse” there.  Hearing that reassurance, I figured that surely the military was a progressive entity now and recognized the existence of us male spouses and our needs.  So against my better judgment I decided to sign-up to participate.  That was a mistake.  Not only that but now I’ve given the program director the ability to say “Oh, yes we’ve had male spouses come before,” to the next sucker of a male spouse that dares consider attending.  Sorry dude. My bad.

So I show up to this thing and the “place setting” at my table has lots of gifts for us spouses.  Potpourri, soaps, pretty, flowery tins, etc.  You know, all the stuff a man could ever want.  This was an ominous beginning.  Then there were the other spouses.  I looked up and around and, yup, all women, and yup they all looked like I had just read their diaries and published their deepest secret on the internet. Lots of looking away, lots of awkward fidgety-ness.  Oh no! A man is here! What is he doing here? Doesn’t he know this is for spouses only?  Uhmm… so I’m a spouse too? I think?  I have a feeling that much telepathy was transmitted that day. On top of that there was the “Protocol Officer” as one of the speakers who was there to teach us about the ins and outs of formal military dining.  He had lots of helpful hints about the types of dresses to wear, where to buy the dresses, which fork to use and when, that you should stand on your husbands left and not right so he could salute a superior, and even had us practice shaking hands.  How to shake hands? Seriously?? At this point I was wishing the fork diagram on my “place setting” were real so I could poke my eyes out.  And the Protocol Officer? Yeah, he pretty much refused to acknowledge my existence the entire time I was there. I tried to get his attention though.  Looked him in the eye (he looked away), sat up taller.  “Was he going to talk about suits?” I wondered.  Nope.  I think I made him feel “uncomfortable.”  Welcome to the club, bud.  Though, if he had made us practice curtseying I think I would have punched him in the face.

So what’s the point of writing all this?  I dunno.  I guess it’s just to rant a little.  Sometimes I feel like the military and the military culture looks at me and other male spouses and believes we’re these mythical unicorns living over the rainbow frolicking with leprechauns.  But then, when confronted by us in reality, our third arm sprouts up from behind our heads somewhere and they have no idea what to do with us.  I guess that’s the main thing.  They have no idea what to do with us.  This has been made especially clear to me during my wife’s deployment.  I keep getting these e-mails about all these programs and support activities for spouses of the deployed but guess what? They’re all during the work day or involve some artsy, crafty stuff. You know, stuff that any guy would enjoy.  Oooh…I need to make sure I save that coupon I saw for Michaels!  Sure, there may be some stuff that’s supposed to be gender neutral, but based on my experiences so far of who goes to these things, no thanks.

But, back to playground.  Fortunately, my daughter had a great time and was spared from the feelings of being “different.”  All the Venu…er mom’s loved her.  It’s probably because she’s awfully cute (and no, I’m not even going to qualify that with a “to me,” because she is. So there.) and because they probably all knew that one day she would also grow up to be a Venusian as well.  NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!

 

Tip of the Day: The military likes to use all sorts of code, acronyms and jargon to communicate.  For all you male spouses out there, it’s key to remember that in military talk “Spouse” really means “Wife”. So “Spouse’s Clubs” are really “Wives' Clubs” and anything advertised for military spouses really means wives.  If you remember that, then there will be no surprises.

“I will call those who were not My people, ‘My people,’ and her who was not beloved, ‘beloved.’  And it shall be that in the place where it was said to them ‘You are not My people,’ there they shall be called Sons of the Living God.”                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            -Romans 9:25-26

A Tale of Two Cities…

Sometimes it’s easy to forget that I’ve married into the military.  In our last assignment (our first) we lived in the San Francisco Bay Area.  Because my firm had a satellite office there  I would commute in the city for work.  The base my wife was stationed at was about 45 minutes north of San Francisco so naturally we chose to live in a town that was sort of in between both of our jobs.  It was a pretty good arrangement.  I could take a ferry from my town into the city thereby avoiding that infamous San Francisco traffic and my wife would commute north, going in the opposite flow of traffic.  It worked really, really well and we really, really enjoyed our life there.

That life was also, for me, relatively military free.  Due to the fact that we lived way off base I really had very little reason to ever go there.  As far as I was concerned we were just the average professional couple with our own separate careers.  The only reminder I had was the fact that she wore BDUs everyday to work whereas I got to go in my business casual affair. 

Here it’s different.  If it weren’t for the military there really wouldn’t be any reason for people to live here.  Sure it’s got its nice beaches at Eglin but other than that there’s really not much out here.  I was told by many that I should be prepared for the “Redneck Riviera” when we moved here.  Boy were they right.  Only here could pick-up trucks, gun-racks, mullets, and colorful beach umbrellas mix so seamlessly.  But back to the military.  The military here is EVERYWHERE.  If you look at a map of the area we live in you basically see our town with the Gulf of Mexico on one side and Eglin AFB on the other three sides.  We’re literally surrounded.  Everybody here is either in the military or in some sort of business to support the military.  That means we also live really close to base.  About 10 minutes door-to-gate. 

Today I was reminded again about this military life of ours.  Because it was a holiday, I had my daughter at home with me today so I decided to take her on some outings.  Our first stop in the morning was a shopping complex that had a toy store and a playground.  I wanted to get my daughter some blocks to play with and give her a chance to run around because the weather had finally turned nice.  After we left the toy store we walked over the playground where there were lots of other kids playing.  Being in a shopping center music was being piped through some loudspeakers mounted on palm trees.  It was rather nice as we played in the sun and grooved to nice, jazzy muzak and Colbie Calait.  We had a great time playing out there and I actually had some difficulty in getting my daughter to leave when it was time to go.

Later in the day, after my daughter’s nap, I thought that it might be nice to go out and play again.  This time, however, we decided to head to this nice playground they have on base.  So off we went.  When we got there it was pretty similar to the our experience in the morning.  Lots of kids playing, my daughter having a blast on the swings and the slide, and parents looking on.  The only difference was the lack of piped muzak on palm trees.  But that didn’t last long.  For some of you reading this you probably are all familiar with what happens on base at 4:30pm…oh sorry, 16:30.  At precisely 16:30 loudspeakers all over the base fire up and you hear trumpets that then leads into Star Spangled Banner, our National Anthem.  This was something I’d forgotten about. 

So at 16:30 the National Anthem comes on and EVERYTHING STOPS.  Cars are required to stop moving.  Non-uniformed people outside are supposed to stand still and if a flag is nearby, look in that direction.  Uniformed personnel are required to stand at attention and salute the flag.  Kind of neat but today it kind of creeped me out.  You see, when we got to the playground there were a ton of kids there.  And kids being kids they were running around, screaming like banshees.  It was loud, it was wild, and it was chaos.  But as soon as those trumpets sounded an amazing thing happened.  All those little Tasmanian devils stopped in their tracks and became silent.  These same hyperactive, hypersonic kiddos were now patiently waiting in place, waiting for the trumpets to cease, which, as soon as they did, those same kids transformed back into the Tasmanian devils they are.  It was weird. 

I felt like I had stepped into the twilight zone for a brief moment there.  I mean, I know adults are supposed to know the base regulations, but those kids.  It kind of weirded me out for a brief moment.  To see a scene go from chaos to pure silence and back again was surreal. It also reminded me that yes, I am married to the military (of whose service I’m very proud and grateful for), and yes, the military world is just…different.

Stopping to Smell the Roses…

Wow… What a week it has been.  A week that I definitely would not care to repeat again.  I think I was about at my limit in terms of all things that happened this past week and my capability to handle things.  Between my daughter’s visit to the ER, subsequent hospital visit (all traumatic for her, by the way), freaking her out in the bathtub, and just the craziness of my regular job along with the household stuff; I’m amazed I’m still conscious.  I have never been so low on energy as I have been at the end of this week.  So much so that I actually did something that I haven’t been able to do in quite a long time.

I took an afternoon nap.

You might be thinking “What’s the big deal? People take naps all the time.”  Not this guy. I don’t know why but I’ve never been able to fall asleep while the sun is up.  You can ask my wife.  She always thought that I was just weird for not taking advantage of the Sunday afternoon nap.  I just thought that she liked to sleep… A lot.  But today was different.  I had no reserves left and after I putting my daughter down for nap, I laid down and then was out cold.  But that’s not the point of this post.

In the midst of all the busyness of the week I began to realize something.  Time was flying by.  There didn’t seem to be enough hours in the day for everything.  The seconds were zipping by and this deployment of my wife’s was going to over before I knew it.  Good thing right?  Well, yes and no.

While it’s good that time seems to be moving faster, the reason for that is because my days are just so jam-packed.  This causes another effect in which I’m so pre-occupied with all this “stuff” going on that I don’t really have time to think about how much I miss my wife.  I realized that today when I finally seem to have time to breath.

In some ways this is a good thing.  It forces me to be active and in turn prevents me from wallowing in my own self-pity and sense of loneliness.  But the weird thing is, I want to miss my wife at the same time I don’t.  I don’t because frankly, well, it sucks.  I do want to miss her because she’s my wife and I love her. It’s only appropriate that I miss her. Long for her. Wish she were home.  So today, when I finally had time to stop for minute, when things were finally calm enough at home for me to have time to myself, I found myself missing her.  A lot.  And I didn’t mind it one bit.

Sins of the Father

                                                     I am…your father….

My daughter seems to be recovering well from our recent excursion to the ER that I wrote about last time.  She’s been able to walk around and move about pretty well, albeit with a slight limp.  She’s a little trooper, she is.  Still, I think I’m still carrying around a bit of guilt and sometimes I wonder if she thinks of me the way ‘ol Luke up there did when he discovered Vader was his father.  It didn’t help that we’ve had yet another “episode” during the week.  Again my fault but I’ll get to that in a minute.

So the guilt part.  Although I know that my daughter doesn’t blame me for any of this, every time I see her walking around with a little limp it just sends these little twinges of guilt through me and “I’msorryI’msorryI’msorry” just rushes through my head.  This morning  I got her dressed for daycare and I put some extra thick socks on her (we’ve been having a cold spell) which of course, makes putting on her shoes a little more difficult.  The top of her foot is a bit tender still and with the thicker socks fit inside the shoe is tighter.  She whimpered a bit when I tried to put on the shoes.  Twinge of guilt.  Okay, no shoes. Then there was when she first came home from the ER and was wearing that splint (which went all the up to her knee) it just made me feel so bad.  Twinge of guilt. What’s worse is that splint is toddler sized and you know, all toddler sized things are cute.  I thought it was cute.  I took pictures.  I felt guilty for thinking it was cute and taking pictures.  I’m a bad, bad man. 

Then came the other episode this week.  One of my daughter’s favorite things is bath time.  Every evening we’ll ask her “You wanna’ go take a bath?”  and she’ll respond “Ba!!” while pointing to the bathroom.  I’ll get the water running and start getting her undressed and she’s literally squealing with excitment and doing her little dancey, dance (kinda’ like she needs to pee real bad).  We bathe her in the master bathroom and it’s a nice big jacuzzi tub with lots of room for her bath toys.  She’s having a grand time, splish splashing around and pretty much getting me soaked in the process.  We’re having fun.  Then she discovers a button on the side of the tub.  She LOVES buttons.  If something has a button on it, she wants to push it.  So she’s discovered this one huge button on the side of the tub and she’s trying to push it.  So I, in my infinite wisdom, think, “Oh! This might be fun!  Maybe she’ll enjoy the bubbles and the jets.”  You probably know where this is going now. 

So I help her push the button.  Now, our jacuzzi tub is not quiet.  It’s rather loud and obnoxious and the jets are a bit strong.  I did not think about this.  As the button is pushed the tub starts to hum and then gets on to full on rumbly, earthquake mode.  Then the jets start going.  So I’m looking at my daughter and smiling and going “Look! Bubbles!”  Only she’s not looking like she’s having fun.  Instead she’s looking around, then looks at me with eyes as wide as saucers.  Then she freaks the heck out.  What was once a fun innocent bath time for her is now….

That was on Tuesday.  So last night it was bath time again.  I didn’t really think about the episode on Tuesday anymore supposing it was a one time thing.  I just won’t turn on the jets. Lesson learned.  So we’re going through our same routine and she’s doing her little dancey, dance getting ready to go in the tub.  She’s excited to bathe and she’s covered in ketchup from dinner so she needs to bathe.   I put her in the tub and she’s starting to play.  Things seem back to normal.  Not more than 10 seconds later she begins to look around. All of sudden you see the look of recognition come across her face as she realizes where she is. And then… she freaks the heck out.  She’s crying, she’s reaching for me but she needs a bath!  So despite her crying I’ve got to scrub her down and wash her hair.  It was definitely not fun.  Bath was quick and I took her out to towel her off.  Guilt, guilt, guilt.  I’ve now ruined bath time.  Then I noticed, as I was bundling her up and drying her off, through the bundle of towels she was giving me “The Look.” You know that look.  The one where only a woman can truly give.

The Look?

Tip: Hey Dad, your bright ideas aren’t always so bright.  Think your “cool” ideas through before you try them.

White Coat Syndrome

This past weekend did not end well.  It started out as promising as any other weekend but ended with a trip to the ER on Sunday night.  Like a said, it was not a good ending to the weekend.

Basically, what happened was that I was walking down the stairs with my daughter in my arms I lost my footing and fell.  More like I slid on my behind for about 5 or so steps.  It was one of those “time in slow motion” moments from the second my foot slipped out from under me.  Had about a hundred thoughts and visions in my mind in a span that probably lasted no more than a few seconds. Thoughts such as,

“Oh, I’m falling.”

“The baby! Keep the baby up!”

“Don’t let go of the baby!”

and  “This is going to hurt.”

These thoughts were accompanied by simultaneous thoughts of how to best position my body to best protect my daughter from injury and horrid visions of my being incapacitated when I’m the sole caregiver of my daughter while my wife is away.  Not good thoughts. 

The fall now over, I did a quick check of myself and other than sore bum didn’t seem worse for the wear.  My daughter, on the other hand, didn’t fare as well.  She was crying inconsolably.  I could not get her to stop and she was grabbing my shirt as if for dear life.  At first I thought she was scared from the fall but she wouldn’t stop crying and that was my first clue that something was wrong.  Then I noticed her right foot looked slightly bigger than her left but couldn’t really tell if it was swelling or not. There was no discoloration and otherwise no other outward appearance that something was wrong. Then she tried to walk. 

She took one step and immediately grabbed the ottoman in the living room that she was standing next to for support.  Took another few steps all the while limping and holding on the ottoman.  Then the crying started again and I decided to take her to the ER.  One of the good things of being married to a doctor is that she has a lot of doctor friends.  On my way to the hospital I was able to get a hold of one those friends who was able to answer my questions and affirmed my decision to bring her to the ER.

Once at the ER we were able to get an X-Ray and ultimately left with a splint on my daughter’s right foot.  Or should I say lower leg.  They actually molded a splint that went from her foot, all the way up to just below the knee.  By the time we were done it looked more like she had a broken leg than a sprained foot.  It is also a very good guilt producing implement.  Seeing her looking miserable like that just made me want to crawl into a hole. 

One thing to note, my daughter does not like hospitals.  I’ll be amazed if after all is said an done, between the ER, the x-ray lab, and the exam rooms that she doesn’t end up developing White Coat Syndrome.  While that x-ray table probably doesn’t look too threatening to us, to her it probably looks something like this:

Needless to say she was crying. A lot.  And I felt terrible.

After bringing her home she thankfully fell asleep and slept peacefully.  I decided to take a sick day off of work the next day just to watch her and give her comfort.  I brought her by to see the pediatrician and he confirmed that there were no fractures evident in the x-rays.  He also didn’t think that she needed such an awkwardly molded splint and advised that it was better to take it off. 

Since then my daughter is much happier after removing the splint.  She’s actually able to put weight on the injured foot and may take a few steps but not comfortably.  Hopefully she’ll recover quickly and forgive her old man for his clumsiness.

Tip: When you’re spouse is deployed and you have kids, keep a cell phone on you at ALL times.  Just in case something happens to you and you need help. You’re the only one they (your kids) can count on so you have to stay healthy.

Also, don’t fall while walking down the stairs and holding your child.

Blessed be the Lord, because He has heard the voice of my supplication.  The Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in Him, and I am helped; therefore my heart exults, and with my song I shall thank Him.

                                                                        Pslams 28:6-7

A Wee Problem…

This is a T.M.I. post.

 

So one day, as I was changing the diaper of my daughter, I thought about how nice it would be on the day where she’s potty trained and could pretty much take care of herself in that respect.  No more being nervous of a surprise attack until you get that new diaper on.  No more struggling with a wriggling baby. No more Diaper Genie and its sausage of poo to discard.  Yes life would be good at that point. 

So, naturally it got me thinking about potty training my 17 month old.  Surely it can’t be too far off now could it?  Like any guy I immediately began to think about which tool or gadget I could buy to make potty training a snap.  Don’t they have those kid potties that sing and play music?  I’m sure there’s a self-cleaning kind.  I know! I need to get a potty from Japan! They have the BEST TOILETS IN THE WORLD!  If I had one of those I could just plop her on the potty, stick my mp3 player in the cradle, stick a Yo Gabba Gabba DVD in the slot, wait 10 minutes and magically have a potty trained daughter, all multi-media like.  This was going to be easy.  I just needed to get myself to Babies R Us or a plane to Japan.

It was time to do a bit of research on the ol’ interwebz on how this potty training business really works.  Basically, most of the websites all say that you’ll know when your toddler is ready for potty training when she begins to show an interest in it.  Okay, she’s not showing any interest yet, so maybe I’ll have to wait.  The websites go on further to say that one of the ways they learn how to go and how they develop interest is by watching their parents go.  Okay, got it.

Wait.

What?

Oh no, no.  NO! This is NOT going to work! It’s one thing to have a set of large wondering eyes stare at you while you go about your business (uncomfortable as it is) but it’s entirely another thing when it’s a daughter watching the father in order to learn how to pee?!?!  Well, one big problem with that is how guys pee and my daughter’s current fascination with running water.

Yup.  Let’s just let that sink in for a bit.  Guys do their business standing up. My daughter likes to grab at running water. ‘nuff said.

The other issue is that she doesn’t need to know the guy method of going to the bathroom.  She needs to know the female method.  Standing up vs.. sitting down.  Again, as a guy, this just hurts me to the core.  Guys do not sit down to pee.  It’s just not right.  I have the most unamused look on my face when just thinking about it.  Compounding the problem is that she’s a 17 month that gets into everything and therefore, cannot be left alone.  So either I hold it until she’s ready for a nap or bed, or I…I…(sigh) sit down with her there with.  Arrrrgh!

Yet another reason why having a deployed wife is no fun.

 

I could always train her on a “Go Girl” but my wife probably wouldn’t like that.

The Go Girl Funnel

Mission Ready

*Not my kid. 

Kitchen is clean. Dishes washed. Dinner is cooked. Laundry is washing. Baby and Daddy happy.

And NO BROCOLLI.

Mailing it in.

I slacked yesterday.

Big Time.

And today I’m paying for it.  I decided that I just didn’t want to do the chores that I should’ve done before I went to bed last night.

I was tired.  All that talk about routines and structure? Yeah. Out the window.  It was back to my “whatever type that isn’t A” personality.  I figured I didn’t need to be on top of it.  That I didn’t need to get to things like dishes, laundry, and cleaning right away.  I mean, what could it hurt to let it slide a little. I deserved a little R&R especially after a full day of work too.  Well, it’s pretty amazing what you can choose to ignore when your feeling lazy.  I awoke this morning and almost called the cops when I walked into the kitchen.  Ok, maybe that’s an exaggeration but it looked like someone had broken into the home and pretty much ransacked the kitchen.  Utensils, dirty dishes, pots, pans were all over the place and they all need to be washed. Ugh.  What was I thinking?  Compounding the mess was the fact that for last night’s dinner I had to call in my personal chef, Ettore Boiardi.  Most of you know him as Chef Boyardee.  So not only were there dishes, pots, pans, and other kitchen paraphernalia strewn about the kitchen, it was all coated with the nice red sheen of tomato sauce.  Any parent will tell you that feeding a toddler tomato based products is a sure fire way to make a mess.  It did, however, made me think that my daughter would enjoy finger painting.  Water based of course.

But that brings me to my dilemma.  Not only did I slack-off majorly in terms of cleaning yesterday, I also pretty much mailed it in when it came to preparing my daughter’s dinner last night.  Sure the can says “A Full Serving Vegetables” on it, but come on, that’s like me drinking a V8 and telling my wife that I’d eaten my vegetables today.  I  never convinced her of that and usually got a bop on the head for my efforts, just like in the commercials.

By the way, don’t let that ad fool you.  Ravioli is NEVER as neat and clean as that picture would have you believe.  That kid isn’t about to eat that piece of ravioli.  Oh no. He’s trying to fool everyone into thinking that while calculating the best trajectory to fling that pasta projectile at the camera with maximum splattage. My daughter, on the other hand,  is more of a ravioli ninja (so proud, sniff). I was sure I was watching my daughter the entire time but she somehow still managed to get ravioli under her and smear it all over her butt without my noticing.  She went for maximum smearage instead of splattage.

But I digress.  Back to my conundrum.  Using the Chef is reserved as my last resort.  But here I was, 6 days into my wife’s deployment and having to use my last resort.  I was tapped out. I had run out of ideas on what to feed a 17 month old whose teeth haven’t all come in yet.  What do I cook for her? What is she able to eat? What could I make for myself that she could and would also enjoy? I mean, if I could cook for myself like I normally would she’d be eating steak or some form of red meat ALL THE TIME.  Or BBQ. Or something deep fried.  You get the point.  I’m pretty sure she can’t (and probably shouldn’t) handle that yet or ever (reason #1,923,234 why my wife is awesome, she keeps me from eating myself to death).

She’s got to be tired of steamed broccoli by now.

I know I am. :-/

High School Never Ends?

So there’s a song by Bowling for Soup called “High School Never Ends” that I find witty and catchy but my wife thinks is stupid.  It’s basically about a band making the observation that to them it seems like the world is like one big high school. They feel like even though they’ve graduated from high school, they can’t seem to escape the sense that nothing has really changed.  It’s just a bigger stage.

Why am I writing about this?  Well, the other day I caught myself waiting desperately for word or contact from my wife.  Just wanted to hear from her.  I would set up the computer so that it was always within arms reach in case she wanted to Skype.  The phones (home and cell) never left my side.  Every little blip, bloop, or beep brought running back to the computer to see if it was something from her.  I would go back and re-read recent e-mails for hidden messages.  Gaze and moon at pictures of her.  In short, I was acting like an angst ridden and rather emo teenager all over again. 

I was sitting there feeling sorry for myself and suddenly thought “Hey…all this feels kind of familiar.”  Then it hit me.  I was having flash backs of the days of being young, single, and pimple ridden.  It kind of sucked.  Those days of unrequited love (love? more like crushes) were pretty pathetic and here I was feeling the same way and acting like a teen again.  I had to snap out of it.  Back to the routine, back to being Mr. Roboto and keeping busy. 

Fortunately, these days I think I have better handle of myself and was able to find more constructive methods of occupying my time rather sitting around like some moody teen (Back in my day “emo” wasn’t a word yet so I was just “moody”).  ‘sides…it’s not like I have to wonder how she feels about me.  (BTW…quick note to all you single guys out there. Man up and tell her how you feel already.  You’re driving her nuts and probably making her mad too. Bad juju.)

This blog helps.  Being pro-active about sending her messages helps (and guys…we need to be taking the lead here).  Figuring out new ways to communicate helps.  I just realized this morning that I can actually record and send private videos via facebook to my wife and have it be for her eyes only.  One of the things we talked about was doing a devotional together but being oceans apart and having a 9 hour time difference makes it difficult.  With this I was able to upload a video of me reading the devotional, express my thoughts on it, and upload it to her via facebook.  Love technology and yet another thing to keep me occupied.

Tip of the day: Grow-up and do something about it already.

Domo Arigato Mr. Roboto…

So I’ve been told by many people that one of the best ways to handle the separation of deployment is to get myself back into a routine and really focus on the tasks at hand.  It helps to get your mind off the fact that your wife is in a far off land in a war and the routine itself becomes a comfort after experiencing the upheaval that comes from deployment. 

For me, while establishing a daily routine has be helpful for having the day go by a little faster, it is actually more of a necessity for survival rather than a tool of distraction. There would be absolutely no way for me to handle the responsibilities of taking care of my daughter, my job, and managing a home unless I had some plan or structure.  This is all kind of new to me because I’m not a “structure” kind of guy.  That’s my wife.  She’s the type A personality.  I’m the “whatever type that isn’t A” personality.  Despite that, I’ve come to rely on a routine to get me through the day and to ensure the house isn’t a disaster, my daughter doesn’t go hungry, and I can keep my job.  Like I said, it’s a matter of survival.

Having a 17 month old makes it even more critical that I have something established because she doesn’t understand it when I explain to her that I can’t play with her right now because Daddy has to cook your dinner. I need to you sit here and not move for the next 45 minutes of so.  Her normal response to that is an angry look and a “nnnnrnnnrrrrrrggghhh!!!!!” type sound.  Followed by much wailing and gnashing of teeth (that would be me).  A 17 month old sitting still is about as elusive as a male military spouse and they (the 17 month old) require ALL of your attention.  So, to help facilitate my spending quality time with her, my schedule goes something like this.

1. 6:00am Get up and get ready for day.
2. 6:30am Get baby changed and dressed and give her a morning bottle.
3. 6:45 Off to day-care
4. 7:15 Work starts (also make coffee here)
5. 11:30 Lunch but really it’s to run errands like going to the store.
6. 3:00 start making dinner (still at work though – I work from home full-time, my firm is awesome.)
7. 4:15pm sign-off of work, go pick baby up from day-care.
8. 5:00pm play with baby
9. 6:00pm warm dinner
10. 7:30pm bath-time for baby, play with her some more.
11. 8:00pm Skype with wife for a bit
12. 8:30pm put baby to bed
13. 9:00pm dishes, clean kitchen and all the food the baby has thrown on the floor.
14. 10:00pm sleep

Rinse and Repeat.

Tip: Don’t Panic!

Then the Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone; I will make him a helper suitable for him”  Out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the sky, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called a living creature, that was its name.  The man gave names to all the cattle, and to the birds of the sky, and to every beast of the field, but for Adam there was not found a helper suitable for him.  So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then He took one of his ribs and close up the flesh at that place.  The Lord God fashioned into a woman the rib which He had taken from the man, and brought her to the man.                                           

                                                                                                                            - Genesis 2:18-22

…and now nothing seems right.

Before I get started I am going to apologize in advance for what I believe will be a melodramatic and overly sentimental post.  You see, I don’t see myself as a sentimental guy, well, at least not in public.  I’m the kind of guy that will pick a brainless, rock’em, sock’em sci-fi movie over a drama/chick flick any day of the week.  My wife already knows to expect one guy movie for every chick flick that comes in our Netflix delivery (okay..maybe two).  She also knows to not expect me to watch said chick flick with her (fair play also dictates that I do not subject her to my guy movies either!).  Give me Michael Bay’s Transformers and you can have The Notebook, thank-you very much.

The thing is, lately I’ve been feeling more Notebookish than Transformersy.  I don’t like it but I have a very good reason for it.  You see, my wife was deployed to Iraq on Friday January 1, 2010. Some New Years eh?

This is our first deployment.  We knew it was coming and we knew to expect it.  It’s a fact of life for every member of this military   community and something that all military families eventually have to deal with.  I just didn’t expect it to hit me so hard.  All the while leading up to deployment I was focused on reassuring my wife to not worry about the home front.  We made plans and arrangements so that I would be able to effectively care for our 17 month old daughter.  We invested in technology so that we would be able to communicate effectively.  I was so focused on doing whatever I could to help ease the pain of separation for my wife and my daughter that I forgot to think about how I would cope.  I mean, c’mon, I’m a guy. I can handle it right?  Well, sorta.

In terms of the daily stuff of managing the home and caring for the baby, well, I feel that I have a pretty good handle of things so far.  I have a regular full-time career so the baby already goes to a day care during the day.  Her routine won’t be changed too much.  We’ve hired a house-keeper to come every other week to help with the home so it’s not a bio-hazard by the time my wife comes home. I was already doing most of the cooking so that shouldn’t change so much either.  So in terms of the day to day logistical stuff, I think I’ve got it pretty well covered.  What I didn’t account for was my emotional response and how much my wife leaving would impact me.  She’s so much a part of my life and a part of me that watching that part of me in the form of a pretty, petite blonde dressed in BDUs and fly 7000 miles away on a plane felt like having a pound of flesh ripped from my body.  It literally, physically caused me pain.

Now, I’m not writing this to cause guilt to my wife (who reads this) but rather to express just how much I love her and how much she is a part of me and why I’m feeling the way I am.  Lord knows she’s just as upset about being away from her family as we are. But since that Friday morning when she left nothing has seemed right.  There is a void in our lives where she should be.  She’s not sitting next to me in the car when I’m driving.  She’s not on the couch in the living at home when we’re spending time together as a family.  She’s no longer lying next to me in bed at night (where her feet of ice can get me).  Her laughter, her smile, her annoyance at my “guy habits,” I could go on and on.  The void is tangible and to me it’s only an illustration of how much I love her and how much she is my true companion in life.  You could say that I get The Notebook now.  She’s the love of my life and I would give it all up to be with her and it kills me that I can’t be there with her.

I’m still not watching those movies though.

See, I told you this was going to be a melodramatic, overly sentimental post.  The thing is, I think I needed the catharsis.  I’d been having intermittent spells of blubbering like a little girl all weekend and I think I’ve finally let it all out.  Things are getting better now (not easier, just better able to function)  but I still miss my wife terribly and can’t wait for her to get home.

So…I guess it’s time for the first tip of the Air Force Husband’s Handbook. 

Tip:  When you and your wife are preparing for her deployment, it’s easy to get into guy mode and play the “rock” for your wife and family, as you should.  But don’t forget to look in yourself and prepare yourself for the separation.  You just might find yourself watching The Notebook if your not prepared.

“Everyone who comes to Me and hears My words and acts on them, I will show you whom he is like: he is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid a foundation on the rock; and when a flood occurred, the torrent burst against that house and could not shake it, because it had been well built.”

                                                                                           Luke 6:47 & 48

An Introduction to the Handbook

So first things first, let’s have a bit of an introduction and an explanation for the title of this little blog, “The Air Force ‘Husbands’ Handbook.  I am, as the title suggests, an Air Force husband.  Or more accurately, I am the male civilian spouse of a wonderful woman that is serving our country as an officer in the Air Force.  The “handbook” part comes courtesy of an inside joke from one of my friends back when he found out I had gotten engaged.  He found it necessary to send me an engagement gift and of course, being the jokester that he is, it couldn’t just be any old gift.  It had to have special meaning to commemorate such a momentous and joyous event.  Yes,  he decided that a lovely mint copy of “The Air Force Wife Handbook: A Complete Social Guide ”  would be the most appropriate gift for me.

 

Needless to say, I was not amused. 

It was only made worse after I opened and read some of it that I discovered that it was chock full  helpful advice about how to successfully host afternoon tea with other officers wives.  Or the proper manner in which to address invitations when hosting a dinner party.  The right type of dress to wear to a formal military function.  Yeah…  Excuse me while I go look for my masculinity, the Air Force seems to think that it is missing.  I have a lot more to say about that but maybe in another entry.

Now full disclosure here, this isn’t really a handbook.  It’s really just a place for me to reflect on and write about my experience of being married to a loving, wonderful and beautiful woman who just happens to be in the military… and can disassemble and re-assemble a M-16… and then shoot it.