Big Update

oh man! Life certainly has been hectic. A week ago Jamison and I flew out to California to visit family while Matt stayed home with the dogs. When we got to Sacramento we had to wait 20 minutes to get the stroller. The reason was that we had the body of a fallen soldier onboard. I watched as they unloaded the flag draped coffin. It was sad to know that in that coffin was a person who gave his life for strangers, and somewhere, he has a family who is going through a really hard time right now. I don’t know who they are, but they are my family too. As a military wife, I have a huge family, Marines, Soldiers, Airman, and Seamen. all of them plus their families, we are all easy others family, even if we are not related and have never met.

I was able to have night out with my friend Maddie while my mom watched Jamison. And the next day Matt’s mom and brother came over. I’ve also been driving back and forth from my Grandma’s cabin to show off Jamison to that part the the family.

A few days ago, Jamison developed a fever. My heart ached for my little boy, because there was nothing I could do other than give him tylenol and hold him. Everybody thought it was the onset of teething, but I’m not too sure. The reason I’m not too sure, is both my mom and I have a really bad cold. My mom is worse than me, but i have a bad cough and body aches. Jamison also has a cough, which makes me think it’s just a cold not teething, Thank God.

And probably the best news is that we have a house! I was so worried that we wouldn’t have anywhere to live and we would have to frantically search for a house once we got to washington. But we have a house. The house is a 2 story 3 bed, 2.5 bath house with a two car garage and fenced back yard. And amazingly enough, it is under our BAH ($1270), so we will have $20 left over to go towards bills. We’d found other 3 bedroom houses that were under our BAH, but they were not nice houses, and in bad neighbor hoods. This one is in the Tacoma/Spanaway area about 5 miles from the back gate, and is across the street from an elementary school. We’ve filled out the applications and all thats left is to wait for the Owners to decide if they want the deposits now or when we get there.

Goodbye’s

Today i went down to the airport to say goodbye to friends. About 13 guys from Matt’s shop shipped out today. they will be in the box for about 8 months. It’s hard to say good bye particularly because 2 of the guys we are really close friends with. They told us when they get back we will hang out. But that won’t happen, we will be leaving in two months, and we won’t be here when they get back. We of course invited them to come visit, but it’s still hard.

Goodbye’s are a common thing in military life. Loved ones deploy, people move. It’s hard because it seems like as soon as you find a great set of friends, someone leaves.

It took us a while to find this group of friends. We weeded through a couple bad ones. I’m really going to miss them. and I hope that We can find friends as good as these one’s easily once we get to Washington.

Keep those guys in you prayers please. And continue to pray for the POW in Afghanistan.

Who do you believe?

Here’s the scenario.

A man is asked to submit a random drug test for work. He provides two urine samples for testing, and both come back positive for meth. immediatly he is suspended from work and he sues, claiming it was a false positive caused by a combination of Adderall and Claritin. after several weeks a judge decided that he can go back to work, but that his work is allowed to drug test him whenever they please.

After a week or so they test him, and ask him to provide a second sample from a testing clinic of his choosing. the sample he provides his work again comes back positive with levels high enough to show habitual use. the sample he provided to an individual lab comes back negative.

His work takes him back to court, and this time they have an affidavit from his step mother. the affidavit states that she has witnessed her step son snorting meth at least thirty times in the last several year. She also states that he used to cook his own meth until ephedrinewas regulated by the DEA.

Who do you believe?

well the man is NASCAR driver Jeremy Mayfield, and his work is NASCAR. Nascar has one of the strictest drug policies of any nationally sanctioned sport. The reasons are obvious, some one hopped up on drugs guiding a 200mph missile is a lot more dangerous than a baseball player with big muscles. and until this year, NASCAR has had no offenders.

So who do you believe?

Bear and Jamison

here are some videos of Jamison and bear from the last week.

Northern Neighbors Day

Do you ever feel like after a long weekend it’s hard to get back on pace? I do. I’ve been so sluggish since friday it seems. I’m finding it hard to get anything done.

The Air show was great. the F-16 was really loud and as soon as it passed, tons of kids were screaming and crying. But not Jamison, because he had his ear muffs. a lot of people commented on them.

Here are some pictures from the air show, and some videos of the f-16 and b-52.

B-52

KC-135

F-16

F-5?

Blackhawk

KC-10

B-1

F-15

C-130

b52 heritage flight

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F16 Takeoff

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F16 flyover and figure 8

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How to open a banana

It seems like my whole life, whenever I have peeled a banana around some one, they look at me with a confused face and say something like,”Oh my god what are you doing?” You see, I open a banana from the end without a stem, the end with the nut, or “the wrong end” as a lot of people have said upon seeing me do this.

It stemmed from the fact than when i was young i was a tad OCD about the way things looked. If you ever saw a cartoon where someone slipped on a banana peel the end point up was the stem and the opposite end was the one peeled.

Also if the peel split in more than three places, it was ruined and I couldn’t eat the banana. but that’s not important. What this post is about is hope I open a banana and how everyone thinks I am the wrong one.

But tonight, as I was about to check my email one last time before bed, I spotted a video titled,”how to peel a banana like a monkey.” I was curious so I watched it. And low and behold I am the correct one in proper banana peel-age. See for yourself.

Abre uma banana como um macaco @ Yahoo! Video

The best part about the Air Force

The best part about the Air Force may well be the planes and air shows. The 18th is Northern Neighbors Day here at Minot AFB. Its a day where we invite the Canadians (and any one else who wants) to come take over our base for the day.

The thought of have civilians on base is a little scary to me. Base is like a safe place to me, even if some of my neighbors are crazy whack jobs. But the security is good, it’s almost annoying. All the streets are closed off, the public can go from the gate to a field, where they park. From there they go through “the cleansing tents” where all their stuff is searched and they pat them down. I call it the cleansing tents, because they look like they might almost spray you down to protect against spread of biohazards. Then you get on a bus and go over to the flight line. for military members living on base we get on a bus at any of the schools.
but our cars never leave housing… this means we cannot get off base, or to the commissary, bx, or shoppette. joy.

But the air show is cool. Today we had to F-16s flying around practicing. Jamison and I sat outside and watched for a bit. they looked to be no more than 500 feet about the house. B-52′s are cool, but f-16s are way cooler.

My dogs are allergy free

I don’t know how they did it, but they got the box of claritin off the counter yesterday. Tucker is a chihuahua, and Bear is a short legged jack russell… so they sure as hell didn’t jump up there. Bear had one blister packet in his cage, it looks as if he ate two pills. Tucker had two blister packs and the box. the box is absolutely destroyed and it looks like he may have eaten at least six pills.

All this happened while I was home. We lock them in their cages when we leave because of stuff like this. Bear chewed two holes is the wall once… not on a corner, or a door frame, or anything sticking out… just straight into the wall. We aren’t sure how he did it.

But that was last night. We checked on them repeatedly to make sure they were okay, and they are perfectly happy and normal. So it’s safe to say that both my dogs are allergy free.

Parenthood is not fair

Everyone will agree with this. Since the dawn of time it has been the woman’s job to take care of the children. I stay home with Jamison, I change 95% of the diapers, I give him 95% of the baths, I feed him 95% of the the time, I wash the laundry… it goes on and on. But this is the 2000′s and he is my husbands child to. So we take turns changing to poo filled diapers, and every now and then he changed a pee filled one when I’m busy. And when Jamison was 2 weeks old we decided That Matt would give him a bottle before bed.

This bottle is the one and only bottle he gets a day. some days he’ll get a smaller one during the day if i am gone and he gets hungry, but that hardly happens. This bottle was a way for Matt and Jamison to bond and a chance for me to get a shower and relax before bed.

So why is it that i always end up feeding him at least half of the bottle? It started with the fact that “Jamison won’t eat for him”. It’s not that he won’t eat for him, jamison is just at that age where he has learned to use his hand and he like to grab things and pull on things and consequently push things like a bottle away. Matt doesn’t get that.

The other thing is that he will feed Jamison, and then tell me that Jamison is ready for bed. And every night I tell him,”No he’s not, I’m going to lay him in bed and he’s going to want to eat again.” But Matt insisted that Jamison is ready for bed, and every night I end up feeding him in his bassinet.

But recently He has just been too busy to feed Jamison. We go to bed every night at 9. We have for a long time. we usually don’t sleep until 11 but we try to be in bed at 9. but the last several nights at 9, we put the dogs away, I get jamison a bottle and go upstairs. And then Matt decided to take a shower. So i feed Jamison, and put him to bed.

I guess last night it was obvious that I was irritated, because Matt asked last night what was wrong. So I told him,”It’s not fair that this is the one thing i ask you to do a day, and i’ve been the one doing it for that last week. I haven’t taken a shower in over a week, and I don’t know when the last time i shaved my legs was, because I rarely have enough shower time to shave them. I’ve resorted to shaving my armpits at the sink . It’s not fair that you can take two showers a day and i can’t take any because I’m busy doing your job.” He said he was sorry I was mad at him and then proceeded to take his shower. Seriously who does that?

Even though I was tired I took my shower after him because I felt disgusting. Parenthood isn’t fair.

Things I’ve learned…

Here is a list of things that I have learned since becoming a mom. Some are serious other are funny.

1. The “bottle brush” works very well on other dishes.
2. You can never have enough thermometers.
3. Binkie leashes not only keep a binkie handy, but they keep it away from the dogs.
4. It is surprisingly easy to wake up in the night when the baby cries.
5. There will be a time when your baby gets hurt and you will feel like a bad mom. It’s okay, it’s happened to all of us.
6. Socks will get lost almost every time you go out.
7. Babies that are breast and bottle fed will prefer wider bottle nipples.
8. There is nothing more beautiful than looking down at your child while they breastfeed.
9. Buy extra crib sheets, and extra sheets for your bed also.
10. Dad’s can swaddle babies the best.
11. It’s okay for babies to wear pajamas all day.

And the most important thing…

No matter what you’ve done wrong, at the end of the day your baby will still love you.