Why is Maine Purple?

This week my country saw another election. I had hoped that post election our country would settle down and we could finally move on with our lives...I was wrong. In our house we colored in a map of the United States according to how they voted with the electoral college. Now, my son is 4 so we didn't discuss what the electoral college was, we just colored. We did it together, this state red, this state blue, this state red, this state blue etc. Until we got to our last state, Maine. I looked at the electoral college votes and the state and then the crayons in front of me...I needed another color. I needed purple. So I grabbed the purple and we colored Maine purple. 

"Why is this one purple?"

"Let me show you something." I scribbled on white paper with a red crayon, then a blue crayon slightly overlapping. "Do you see the red?"

"Yes. And the blue."

"Good. Do you see what happened where I used both colors?"

"It's pink! I mean purple."

"That's correct! The two colors come together and make purple."

"I like purple. Why are these other one blue and red and not purple?"

Deep breath, he's 4...how do I tell me son about our broken system and our broken people...deep breath...

"You see this box of colors here?"

"Yes. Can I use the green crayon?"

"I wish we could, but the green crayon didn't win any states."

"Why not?"

"Because people forgot that the green crayon was an option. They think that the crayon box is filled with only blue and red crayons."

"But this one is purple! How did that happen!?" 

(because Maine has their shit together kid...not what I said, but I certainly thought it).

"Because in Maine they split their votes between red and blue and that brought them together to make purple."

"But...why didn't the others?"

"I have no good answer for you baby. The truth is that some people put a higher premium on their own needs than the needs of others and in doing so they belittle and shame others. They demand tolerance while being tyrants. You don't understand, do you?"

**BLANK STARE**

"Okay, if I make you give your race car to someone who didn't make one of their own, how would you feel?"

"That's not fair! It's mine, I made it with daddy!"

"That's right. It's not fair. What if I told you that you have to give that race car to someone else and you aren't allowed to be upset by that or I'm going to treat you badly?"

"That's not fair, that's not nice. They can make their own!" 

"Yes, they can. What if they don't have the money to buy the wood and wheels for their car?"

"We can help them!"

"Yes, we can. We absolutely can help them."

"How do we get money?"

"Daddy and mommy work and get money."

"Yes. Someday you will work and get your own money. But what if you cannot work enough to get enough money?"

"You and daddy will help me...right mommy?"

"Right. We will help you. But not everyone has a mommy and daddy who can help. Who should help them?"

"We can. Or maybe people who have extra money?"

"Yes. Exactly. Should we make people help other people?"

"Umm...maybe if they want to."

"If they want to is right. When do you want to share your toys with your sister?"

"When I'm done. But not when I'm still playing with them."

"Exactly. Before this gets too complicated...You don't want to share your race car that you built with daddy, but you want to help other people to get the pieces necessary to make their own; and if they need the money for that you think people should be free to do so without being told they have to, because they might still have things to do with their money...correct?"

"Yes, and we can buy them paint so that they can paint their cars too."

"Z, you just made purple. You took two different ideas and you mixed them together to make something better: purple."

"But I like green best."

"We'll talk about green next election. For this election lets just focus on red, blue, and purple. People in the red camp don't like being told that they have to share; meanwhile, people in the blue camp don't like the idea that people who have resources (like money) don't share. People in the blue camp want everyone to have the same thing, and people in the red camp want everyone to have the same opportunities. You took those two colors and made purple when you said that what's yours is yours, but you don't mind helping someone else make their own."

"That's purple. What are green people?"

"So there is red for republicans, blue for democrats, purple for Maine, green for people who support the environment, and then white for libertarians. There are even more colors than that, but these are the ones that often get represented during the election process." 

"Nobody likes green and white?"

"They do. But green and white didn't win anywhere."

"What are you and daddy?"

"We're...I can't speak for daddy really. But I'm like the rainbow. I think that all the colors can come together and make something even more beautiful."

"But you voted for what color?"

"For president I voted white. There are other positions in government that I voted blue and some red and some green. Because that's what I believe will make the prettiest and best United States."

"Can we say the pledge now? I'm done coloring."

"Yes sweety, go for it."

"I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. And to the republiK, for which it stamps, one nation, under God, indivisible with liverty and justice and for all."

To my darling daughter,

    I pray on this day and every day of your life that you know that you are more than the sum of your anatomy. People have said some truly hateful things to mommy because she chose not to vote for the female presidential candidate. We live in a country and society that demands I vote for the woman because of my anatomy. But I refuse to be reduced to my vagina. I am more than that, and so are you. I care about more than abortion, or free health care access, or equal access to jobs based on anatomy. Your daddy does too. You can do whatever you want in this life. You can be the president some day if you want. You can be a stay at home mom some day if you want. I will support you and fight for your right to do that. I will support you if you decide that you will join the military and do something incredibly dangerous in special forces. I will need a lot of Jesus for that, but I will do it because you can do whatever you want. It doesn't matter what your anatomy is or it's size. It matters what your heart says, the size of your passion and the size of your will to fight for it. You can do so gracefully, without losing your dignity. I am not the best example of this, but I am a great example of how to pick yourself up and try again. So I will help you with that if you need it. 

Your daddy is a member of the best branch of our armed forces for women to really shine in the reality of what I'm saying to you. The Coast Guard has never had "gender norming" rules or fitness standards for their rates/jobs. The job is the same no matter who does it. In the after math of hurricane Katrina there were men and women aviation survival technicians who pulled people from the destruction. Long before the Navy allowed women afloat the respect of holding command, the Coast Guard did it. The Coast Guard was the first branch to accept women into their academy. Women of the Coast Guard didn't whine and demand it be given to them. They fought with and pushed themselves to not only meet but exceed the standards set before them. That is my prayer for you. You are fierce. We are going to butt heads a lot. But nobody will ever have your back like me. Well...I suppose some day you will marry and I will take a back seat to that person, but until then, I am your champion. I am fighting for you, with every vote, to have a world where you are valued for your individual ability to contribute to society and to the betterment of mankind. You are supported by daddy and I, but do not mistake support for acceptance of mediocre. You will have dreams, they will be big, and we will encourage you to fight for them. We will call you out if you throw in the towel. If your dreams change, we will be right there to support the new dream. But we will not support you giving up. You and your brother are so much more than the labels that society will try to put on you. Take them off, stick them in the garbage where they belong. There is only 1 label that you need to wear proudly and remember every day of your life: loved. I hope that by the time you can read and understand this letter that our country is purple, or  rainbow. I hope that you will not have to experience the polarizing effect that the two party system has on our countrymen. 

I love you,

Mom.

 **I did not host my weekly "whine and wine Friday" this week because of the election. I am done with the media and the fighting. I believe in a better world for my children and that is what I am teaching them: how to be the better world. Go be shiny!

The Untitled Home School Post

I don't even know what to title this. We home school. When I say this, I don't say this lightly. I don't say this unguardedly. I say this scared and cautiously. Not because I am doing anything wrong. Rather, it is because other people have taught me that they have no fucking clue what home school looks like, how it happens, or what it takes. We didn't come to this decision lightly. We got stationed in a state that would keep our son out of school an extra year. He attended preschool at 3 years old and loved it. He more than loved it. He loved school, his classmates, his teacher (she had an unfair advantage in being his aunt). He blossomed there and it was uniquely his after a lot of upheaval in his life. He moved states, his daddy went from stay at home dad to being in the military (and gone a lot), he got a baby sister, the list could go on when it comes to what my sweet boy had to cope with in less than 6 months. For us, preschool was a blessing. He got to have a life separate from his sister, and he didn't have to feel so alone and out of control. I'm not saying he didn't have some growing pains; because he sure as hell did. But it was an overwhelmingly positive experience. So when I say that we home school, and didn't come to this decision lightly, I assure you I mean it. With orders to Hawai'i though we were faced with a long term problem. The cost of preschool is stupid high here, and he would still be held back a year because the birth date cut off is in July and his birthday is in August.

These factors led to the realization that we would have to home school. This wasn't really an option. But neither of us really do anything half way. We are all in or all out sort of people. The only time you find us half in something is when we're trying to do it for the other person, but we're not really into it. By the way, this pretty much is a super rare thing. So we would have to be all in. I spent weeks researching curricula and trying to decide about shipping costs to Hawai'i (if companies even shipped to Hawai'i), do I risk being over weight with the movers and get the materials on the mainland before the move, how the FUCK do people do this?? I had friends, fortunately, who home school and they let me see curricula and talked to me about what my options were, what did I really need to teach? They helped me navigate the treacherous waters that home schooling is surrounded by. [If inquiring minds want to know, my daughter is running around my living room screaming and crying...it's distracting, but I cannot soothe her-I have tried]. I read blog after blog after blog on home schooling curricula, schedules, organization, methods etc. It was a long and exhausting time for me. Fortunately, with my friends by my side and the help of an awesome blog , which allowed me the peace of mind and courage to piece together my own curriculum, I was able to make some decisions and get everything settled for our son to home school through the first grade. Our military life gave us opportunities to talk to other military families that home school and how they make it work, why they make it work. In fact, my CoastieBestie writes a few different blogs (including being a military spouse in the smallest of the military branches) and she has given me extra support and love along the way as we've been navigating our first year of home school. And that's where we are: year 1.

So what does my "school week" look like? Some weeks it's 5 days (M-F) of school work, some it's 4 days, and this week it's 7. I have the freedom (and sometimes burden) to make my weeks as long or short as necessary. I write my own daily schedule and when life interferes (because for real it does) I have to shuffle and adjust. I don't just have year long goals for my kid...I don't actually have year long goals...I have month long goals. I sit down with my day planner and I look at the previous month and where we're at. Then I set the monthly goals. I am setting November's goals this weekend. My October goals were pretty basic.

• Get to Lesson 10 in math
• Finish title case writing prompts
• Identify numbers 1-10 by sight
• Identify the alphabet by sight
• Get to Lesson 50 in reading. 
• Have fun, color more

That's it ladies and gents. Six goals and some started part way through the month. Last week we had a 4 day week. Why? Because I went to the Joint Spouse's Conference on Friday and my husband would have both kids to himself. In the interest of making it easier on him, I wrote my schedule so that he didn't have to do any structured schooling. The week prior was a standard 5 day week and this week is a 7 day week. SEVEN DAYS!? What am I thinking!? I'm thinking that my sweet husband thought he would be ever helpful last Friday and stain our kitchen benches. The benches were not finished by Monday and I was without a work space for school work. So we did a little bit from Monday's, Tuesday's, and Wednesday's schedule (adjusting each day as we went and making sure that we prioritized our monthly goals) and I finished staining the benches Thursday and we finally started getting back on track. However, the only way to meet our monthly goals, at this point, is to do some school work every day until the end of the month. Even then...I think I'm going to fall short somewhere. But I will come close and that's acceptable to me. That is the joy of my home school choices.

What curriculum do I use? Because let us be honest; this is one of the widely asked questions of those trying to survive the shark infested waters that is figuring out this home school thing. I had originally planned to buy a boxed "complete" curriculum. However, I decided against it the more my friends assured me that I only NEED to teach reading, writing, and math. So with that in mind I set out to find those things. Reading was the "easiest" choice to make. Several friends all used the same book so I snatched it up from Amazon at a great price under $15. I thought I was done. A few other friends also used Bob Books so I snatched up some of those as well, as I figured it couldn't hurt to have supplemental reading...right? Then I got even more carried away and got some of Scholastic's beginning readers, because again: it couldn't hurt to have supplemental reading. Then I stopped. I moved onto writing...this was fraught with danger. I initially just used free print out from all over the Pinterestverse. But I quickly realized that I needed more. I needed a better, more hands on way to teach writing. My son is a wiggle worm. He is an active child that loves to move and physically do things. So when I found that awesome blog above, I knew I was reading from a mom on my level. I loved her writing and her math curriculum. I started researching further into both and asking various teacher friends, friends with degrees in teaching science. They supported these 2 choices and then all I had to do was get over the sticker shock. In the end I chose to go with Handwriting Without Tears for writing and I bought the kit with the wooden pieces and letter cards so that my son could physically make the letters, write the letters, and even build the letters. He loves it. For math I chose Right Start Mathematics and Life of Fred. Math is incredibly important to me and I want to give my son different avenues to learn this ever important subject. These are the things we came to Hawai'i with. Then it got even more complicated. I decided for fun I should find some science picture books to read to our son, maybe even with him, and while it wouldn't be any "classroom" type science, he would get to hear about various science topics. We have read a few books on the weather, some on the ocean, some on animals etc. I also grabbed a book about maps and my husband and son read it together and then draw out various maps (his bedroom, our house, our street etc). This stuff is purely for fun and not at all our focus. Speaking of fun, I bought a dot-to-dot and puzzle book specifically for pre-k through 1st grade kids at Sam's Club. Each day he gets to do a page out of it for fun learning. I also realized that there was a gap between my son finishing the first part of HWT and the next step. So I got a composition book and on one side I wrote out the lyrics to various songs and had him copy them on the other side. I shop Target's "dollar" section. I got some great resources there, like these neat little alphabet puzzle cards that I use to help my son be able to match up the letters and identify them better by sight. He loves it and doesn't consider it work. My mom is another great resource. Being so far from family my mom sends us a care package about every 6 weeks. Inside are a variety of things from stuffed animals for the kids to candles of me for when the power goes out. She has also sent things that I can use as a part of my home schooling. Not always, but I always want to be able to use what she sends and I usually can. I have hodge-podged together what our curriculum is. I have cherry picked what I like and what will help my son best.

And to that, I think that is the best way to go. If you're asking me, which you're not. I love that I have complete control of what we're doing and not strapped into anything. I can take a day off, I can add two days to the schedule. My daughter had to do a hour long sweat test this week; my son and his little notebook of work came with and he did it there. I love how portable this is. I also love my carefree organization for what work we do. I keep track of each day's work on a post-it and I cross each item off as we do it. At the end I place each sticky into a composition book that I keep. There I make notes on how it went, or didn't, and areas where we can do better. I also stash in there things that show developmental/educational progress, like a kindergarten readiness evaluation and various crafts/drawings. I have it to look back on and to, hopefully, encourage me by how far we've come. We'll see how that plays out. There is one particular note I wrote to myself about having an independent reader by my birthday...we'll see how close we get to that being a reality, I've got a few months to get there. I even keep track of his reading from the Usborne First Reading Library. Why have I told you all of this? Because, I think my friends forget that I am with my kids and educating them every freaking day. So if I smack my head and mutter "what the fucking shit is this kid" (so that my son can't hear me, and never where he is anyway) when my son started randomly writing his 'N' backwards, it's because I know that he hasn't had that problem until this week and I expect him to correct himself. Not because I have unrealistic expectations of my kids or because I'm a horrible mother. It's because I know my kid and I know he's only writing them backwards because he thinks I'm not paying attention to him and he is trying to get more mom time. It doesn't always work, because we have rules for when he needs attention and how to go about getting it in a healthy way without invoking negative consequences. I know my son can write "happy birthday", and I expect him to. I don't mind guiding him on it, but I know he can do it. He also has the best cheerleaders ever: MOM and DAD. He gets to hear us tell him every day that he can do it; that we believe in him. I don't know many other kids that get this every single day of their lives in such a meaningful way. Many parents are encouraging and supportive, but they don't get to see their child in the classroom every day and what their skill levels are on a regular basis. They are great parents still, but we get to see more than they do. It can also be a problem because I smack my head and mutter "what the actual fuck am I doing wrong" on a weekly, sometimes daily, basis.

If you came here looking for home school advice, you have it. If you came here and have home school friends that you just don't get: now you have a better idea, bring them wine.


disclaimer: I don't get anything for providing links, I just do it to make it easier for my readers to look at this stuff.

The Same, Only Braver

      I did something recently I've wanted to do for over a decade: I shaved my head. Or rather, my husband did. I didn't bic it, but got the clippers out and after chopping off the bulk of the length (some 16 inches) my husband started the messy work of buzzing it off. He stopped once to have me wash it, because there was too much loose hair gunking up the clippers. It was at this break in the journey that he asked me if I wanted to keep any of the remaining length on top. I actually liked the general look so we devised a plan to keep it and shorten the rest of my hair. I will be donating the length of my hair from this adventure, since there was plenty to spare.

      It has taken me over a decade to work up the courage to do it. And the responses...are mixed. Why did it take me so long to do something I've wanted and that is essentially not even that big of deal? I mean, it's hair and it grows back. It's because I have very little self confidence when it comes to my looks. Ask my husband and he will tell you that I always refer to him as the pretty one. Not even on my wedding day did I feel beautiful. I see myself through the harsh and critically disappointed lense of my mother. Not to say that my mom feels that way about me; anyone who knows her knows how she feels about her kids. But I think that, like many women, I feel the pressure to live up to their mother's expectations. Also, my mom tends toward the idea that women have hair of a certain length. Certainly my father does; but he is from a different era entirely. Anyways, here are some of the things people have said since I cut the hair.

      "You chopped all your hair off? At 6:30 in the morning? Did you have proper coffee before embarking on this adventure?" (I sent her the picture @0630 my time)

     "Wow...it suits you..."

     "It looks good on you."
     "You're a woman, you're supposed to have hair. You cannot go GI Jane your hair and be respected. What did your husband say when you came home from getting it cut?"

     "Those are some nerdy glasses." 

     ...silence... 

And the most important comment made, I want every person to read:

"I wish I had supported you sooner. I'm sorry. Because maybe if I had you'd know how beautiful you are and you are. It looks like you were always meant to have your hair this way. I should have supported you, that is my job and I failed you. You are beautiful and I'm kicking myself for not getting on board sooner."

      My husband ladies and gentlemen. Love that man. When putting our son to bed that night he asked me if I cut my hair so that I could be a different girl. I answered that I did it so that I can be the same girl, only braver. Because it takes a lot to let go of perceived expectations of my parents and to fully embrace the me I want to be, meet the standards and expectations I set for myself. Someday my kids will be faced with their own expectations of self, their thoughts on the expectations their dad and I have for them. And to that, I need them to know that it is the expectations they have for themselves that matter the most and that I will always support them. It is my ardent hope that they find a partner that supports them. I think that it's important to feel beautiful by one's own standards. I will never be beautiful by society's standards, but by my own-I get there everyday. I hope my kids see that. I pray that they see beauty in places unconventional, by the influences of their own hearts and by their own standards of beauty. 

I Watch You Breathe, So That I Can Too

Dear Sweet Boy,

I love you. It has been a long hard year and it's about to get harder, again. Daddy and I love you so much. I know you feel that you are less important to me. I know that you think your sister has taken over my attention. The military has ruined your perfect family in your eyes. Your teacher is gone, your friends are gone, you live in a place with rules about TAPS that you don't fully understand, your daddy has been gone for most of the year. Your life has been turned upside-down. You have made a few new friends but not as many as you could if you were in preschool again. There are so many new rules, they come with age, and you don't really like them. You have had to take a back seat to your sister's doctors appointments and you have so much energy that keeping you in a doctor's office isn't fair to anyone. I'm so sorry. I try to arrange for you to get to be with one of your friends while mommy takes baby sister to yet another specialist appointment. It just doesn't always work out that way though bud. I don't know how to explain to you that your friend's parents have lives and plans and they can't always have you over when little sister has an appointment. Sometimes, you have to come with us. It breaks my heart when I see you acting out because of this new dynamic where you get less time with mom and dad and sister gets more mom time. I know you think I sound mean when I correct your behavior (yet again), but on the inside I'm sobbing tears of sorrow that I pray you never understand.

Your sister sees over a dozen specialists and you have to go with us, or be home and not be involved for those appointments. You have to be quiet while mommy and doctors/therapists talk. When you ask me what is wrong with your little sister it is everything I have not to breakdown when I say, "I don't know". Because the truth of not knowing is killing me, and it's why we see so many specialists. "I don't know" is why the balance scales of mom's time are "unfairly" tipped in your sister's favor. "I don't know" are three words I don't want to ever say again in regards to your sister's health. I cringe at them, I hate them. I hate that 'I don't know' with every fiber of my being and my sweet boy I want you to know something: as fierce and passionate as you've seen me fighting for your sister, I will fight for you. You are just as loved and important as she is. You've seen me in full bitch/get the job done mode and you've seen me breakdown when I am lost in trying to help her. You have patted my back, held my face in your tiny hands, and told me that everything is going to be okay. You are the sweetest little boy ever, and in those moments my heart breaks all over again for you and what you are missing out on, what you are witnessing. My precious child, I wish you didn't have to see this sometimes. I tell myself that it's okay. That you are seeing what a strong mom/woman looks like. But mostly, in my heart, those are lies I tell myself to comfort myself.

What you don't know most is that your exhausted mom is fighting for you too. The only way for you to do your 2nd year of Cubbies is if mommy "volunteers" to help the AWANA Club. So mommy volunteers and you get to do your 2nd year of Cubbies. While other parents probably don't think much of it, this is asking a lot of your mommy. The time is incredibly inconvenient, there's a lot of work involved when trying to plan for everyone, our Sundays are fully booked. When we get home the last thing I want to do is make dinner and that whole nighttime routine thing, but I do it. I do it so that you have something that you love, that doesn't revolve around your sister. We did swim lessons, just for you buddy. You get to do crafts and projects (just you and dad or mom) that you love. I make myself be a better mom, for you. You challenge me to be more patient, be gentle and you remind me that I need more grace. You don't know it, but once the house is still and everyone is asleep for the night, I sneak into your room and watch you sleep. I count your breaths, breathe with you. While you sleep, sister sleeps, daddy sleeps (when he's home) I am in your room, praying over you, telling you that I love you, doing yoga and taking a few moments just to share space with you. When I finish, I kiss your forehead and sneak out down the hall. I pray over your sister before I snuggle up to my pillow (or your daddy if he's home) and I fall asleep with hope that tomorrow can be better.

I promise you my sweet boy, I will someday know what is going on with your sister. I have to find the answer not just for her, but for you as well. I love you, please hold onto that as we muddle through this.

Love,
Mommy

The Mom War. How do you measure up to your own standards, and whose back do you have?

The mommy wars are a real thing. But the mom war is a personal nightmare and struggle. The sanctimonious mothers of the world do their best to make themselves look better and make you feel worse. You meager mother who is making scrambled eggs for the 4th straight week because it's all you've got in you. Or you, mom who has poured cereal for dinner again. These women...there just aren't words for them, and we could all be better off if they just toned it down a fucking notch. Do you know where the real struggle is though? It's amongst our own friends. We find our tribe, it's true. But sometimes within our own tribe of mothers we find our worst enemies are also our friends.

"I live for my kids." "I never knew what my purpose in life was until I had X." "love getting to stay home with Y and be his mommy." "I am so blessed to be able to work from home and spend more time with my babies."

They mean these things. These aren't sanctimommies. These are real mommies who often appreciate and can relate to the fact that you let your 2 year old eat a stale fry off the car floor that has NEVER been cleaned. They just also happen to be biologically engineered to love being mothers; it feeds their souls. Their social media is a mixture of light hearted mom oops and how much they love being mommy. They do the real damage to a mom's fragile state of mind. The mom that is hiding in the bathroom crying, door locked, kids banging on the door and screaming, baby screaming because the dog won't move out of the hallway so the baby can have a 2 foot clearance on either side. That mom, she might get herself all calmed down and take a moment to skim Facebook before braving the tiny dictators, and that is when she will fall apart all over again. Some friend will have just posted about how amazing being a mom is and how fulfilling it is. And our bathroom hiding mom will be in tears, again. She is not as good a mom as her friend. After all, her friend has similar struggles but she still loves being a mom. Our mom is terrified to get out of bed each morning because she isn't sure she can make it through another day. I'm not talking about all the moms out there that are struggling with mental health issues. Those moms are my heros, and they too fight an uphill battle every day. I mean the moms that are struggling to come to terms with being a mom.

Being a mom does not fulfill her. She is freaking out, why did she think she would be good at this? What was she thinking? She is about to snap her kid in half if he picks on his sister again. How the hell did her kid become such a little shit!? Being a mom is the most important work we do. Raising our kids not to be douchebags is incredibly important, giving them a good moral compass. This shit is hard. And when you don't live up to your own standards, and those of your family, it's even harder. You then have only your tribe to turn to and sometimes they can't even help. You fall apart. Our poor struggling mom is doubting everything in life because she feels like the world's biggest failure as a mom.

Nobody tells her that that feeling is actually what makes her a great mom. That feeling (as long as we aren't talking about clinical depression and/or anxiety) will push her to be better. That feeling will make her review her methods and do "better". I said "better" because that word is subjective. She may already be a kickass mom who is raising the kids on her own because she's a military spouse or single parent (there really isn't much difference-long distance emotional support), but in her mind there is better. As moms, as fellow travelers on this journey, we need to remind ech other that we are good enough. We need to be willing to help each other out and take the kids off each other's plates occasionally. And when it happens that the only thing that will make it better is daddy/husband/tequila-we need to be there extra for her. We need to help her get through until that can happen. Because she is NOT weak, she IS a good mom, and she is WORTHY of support. You can't even imagine how appreciative she will be when you reach out and support her. This is like a life's debt in the mommy world. She will have your back whenever you need her.

Firsts

When you are a parent you look forward to your child's "firsts". First word, first step, first non tar poop (seriously), first tooth (even the breastfeeding moms look forward to this one), first bite of real food etc. My son just had a pretty big first, and I almost ignored it. Let's be real, I didn't ignore it. But I sure as hell didn't cherish it. I didn't look at my son with pride, amazement and wonder (like I should have). I high fived him, used my fake super excited voice, gave him hugs, and told him he was awesome. My son had read his first word, on his own, sounded it out and everything. This is a big deal. He didn't say the word from memory (like kids do with sight words); no, he learned the sounds of those letters and how they sound together, then sounded them out one at a time to READ that word. And I? I made a big deal about it without actually feeling the moment. Why? Why didn't I savor that precious moment? Because I am stressed. And if we are honest, as parents it happens. We get so stressed and focused on the wrong thing (or the right thing at the wrong time) that we sometimes miss the real genuine moments we are supposed to savor.

What could possibly have me that stressed? What I was doing, and the preparation to take that task on full time in just about 2 months. You see, we are moving. The United States military is sending us to Hawaii. This is exciting and stressful. The military has all sorts of regulations and hoops to jump through when moving OCONUS (outside the continental United States). After that, I had to start researching schools to send our kid(s). In my research I discovered that Hawaii has an early birth date cut off line. The line that separates whether a child is a first grader or kindergartener. It's July 31st. My August baby would end up behind in school because in this state the cut off line is so early (seriously, that's super early). After looking into all of our options (very expensive options) I broke down to my husband about the unfair position this puts our son. My son loves to go to preschool. He never wants to leave. He loves it, he loves learning, he loves being active, this is the time to cultivate that and keep challenging him. My husband asked me how can we make sure that he keeps getting challenged while staying in budget for school. The answer is that, even if money were no object, you can't. He would end up with 2 more years of preschool instead of 1, and he is already doing most of what the Hawaiian DOE sets as the standard for entry to kindergarten. After a few moments I said the unthinkable, "I will have to homeschool him." This unthinkable statement is because I had been getting ready to go back to work. I was excited to finally get back to work and use my skills, practice my craft, get on with that part of my life. No. Instead, I will be educating my son while picking up work here and there as I can make it work.  I was looking forward to the alone time. No alone time for me now. I don't know how long I've been actively pursuing homeschool now, but it's been at least 3 weeks. And in those 3 weeks I have had...at least as many break downs. I decided to start somewhere small and "simple" (veteran educators are all laughing at me now): reading. I could start, now, to teach my son to read and keep researching and figuring out this homeschool thing.

I failed. I did not start out teaching my son very well. I got a book, rave reviews from everyone (online, people I know, even teachers), and started. But I misunderstood something crucial and I put too much pressure on my son and not enough understanding. As a result he was not excited to learn to read at first. It took me almost a week to figure it out and get us on the right path. The day he read his first word I was filled with self doubt and worry about the hell we are about to embark on. Realizing that I missed the moment I decided to take a step back. I was making this whole thing too complicated. I had a good solid plan: teach through kindergarten and when finished just move onto 1st grade-no timelines, just keep going forward and when we get back to the mainland in a few years we will decide about placing him in school (and addressing grade placement) or continuing to homeschool. But my good plan got crazy when trying to pick curriculum and teaching aids/resources. I took about 5 steps back and wrote down some subjects: Language Arts, Math, Science, History, PE/Nutrition/Nature, Art/Music and then I decided to fill in the blank spaces beneath those subjects. Language Arts: Reading-Teach Your Child To Read in 100 Easy Lessons, Writing-. That's as far as I had gotten. I did a lot more reading, and thinking about how I wanted my son to learn and how he is as a person. I found a writing program that is good for kinesthetic learners and a math program too. I also found a math program that has great reviews for being applicable to everyday life. Okay, good going. Language Arts and Math are done. Z-Man gets a Koala Crate each month, that comes with 3 different STEM projects to build. So I wrote that under science along with The Magic School Bus (one of his favorite shows). PE/Nutrition/Nature doesn't really require anything beyond coloring a paper plate and helping mom meal prep (maybe even grocery shop). We are an active family and we love to be in nature. So this doesn't require us to do anything different at this age. History? Coloring books about the states and the state birds/flowers should be sufficient and fun. Maybe we'll find a puzzle map, or something like that. Easy, done. Art/Music...we are a house about playing music. Guitar, mountain dulcimer, ocarina, piano, ukele, clarinet-we love our musical instruments. So...how does one teach music to a 4/5 year old? I don't really know. I'm still working on this. For art though, color combinations and continuing to show my son how to take pictures (yes, my preschooler is all about taking photography). I decided to make this less traditional and more us because I was already losing sight of the goal.

I don't want to miss his firsts again. I also want to make sure he's prepared for school (should he go in the next 4-5 years). This is going to be a crazy journey. And I'm going to need to force myself to really take care of myself. I need to be more than a mombie; I need to really savor the firsts and encourage the progress-in the most authentic way possible.

What Does it Mean to Serve

This was on the USCG instagram account the other day. I have a response to this, but it is not for everyone. Many might decide that what I say is offensive/callus/selfish/unsupportive etc. But the truth is, that only those who really know, can really appreciate. For everyone else, it's some sort of heart string or political opinion. This is what it means to serve:

My husband joined the USCG after I told him not to. That hasn't stopped me from standing by him and being the support he needs to succeed in his career. To serve in the USCG means missed anniversaries, birthdays, births, deaths, major illnesses you aren't there to help with, depression, doubt, worry, a lonely bed, an empty pew next to me on Sunday, my son acting out because he misses daddy, my sanity fraying as I try to navigate through all the adjustments and parenting, crying myself to sleep, holding my child while he cries because daddy missed his pinewood derby race, holding and singing to my screaming baby who split her lip open in the shower while I was trying to wash my hair - blood from her lip running down my shoulder, simultaneously my son dumping a bottle of shampoo into his bath tub so that he has bubbles, pillows made of daddy's old shirts, baking cookies, navigating how to homeschool, learning the fire suppression system of the 47' MLB so that I can help him study, late night workouts after both kids are in bed, new friends, Coastie Wife Bestie (I love you), handwritten letters, long distance romance, losing my shit on my husband - and then having to apologize, hating the USCG, loving the USCG, being the proudest wife ever, teaching our son that 'ensign' and 'Vincent' are not the same thing, for that matter it's not the 'National Vincent', the best sweats ever (thanks Cape May), difficult reintegration when daddy gets home, moving-A Lot, movers, isolated coastal communities, beautiful beaches, surf training, 2 boat training, surfmen that don't surf, helo ops, dinner at the station, salty sea air, wind in my hair, long walks on the beach, my husband, honor, being another wife's cheerleader, "are you kidding me!? What the what!?", dog quarantines, Miss "Merlin", military discounts only available to the DoD, Skype/Facetime/Google Hangouts, Sallys, family, devotion to duty, grace, meal trains, 2nd boat, coin op laundromats, sewing on name tapes and crows, pinning ceremonies, sacrificing my career, the list goes on. 

Serving, when you're the spouse, means a whole lot of give and having to be adaptable. This life isn't for everyone, and many of us struggle (not all the times, but it happens), and we are a special breed of spouse. We hate your job and we love it at the same time. People, not in this line of spousehood, will say, "just imagine your service member spouse feels". Yes, my husband felt awful last night while he was on speakerphone singing to our screaming daughter from across the country. He would have rather been here to try to comfort her in person and to lift me up as I was starting to lose it. But I also know that husband would tell anyone who asked that the non service member spouse has it worse and should be recognized for their service. So, this is what service means in our house.

The Important Work

C.S.Lewis is credited with saying that children are not a distraction from the more important work, they are the important work. Or something to that effect. I repeat this to myself daily. Everyday I require this reminder. My kids mean the world to me, but the world doesn't care that my kids need me. The world says, "your kids need you to put food on the table and a roof over their heads". My kids say, "we need mommy and daddy to spend quality time with us".

In this life that we lead there is the very big reality that most of the time one of us is not available to our children, when our children need/want us. I had a moment recently that exposed a very difficult situation for a lot of people, and myself too. Since the hubs has been at school our son has developed a bit of separation anxiety. Preschool is fine, but Awana and church are sticky situations. I now sit in the nursery, for all of first service, so that he can get over the anxiety he initially feels and have fun again before I head into the second service. I don't actually mind this, but it took me a bit to figure out how to handle his anxiety at church. At Awana...I haven't got that entirely figured out. And in this moment it really showed. I raced us to Awana just a little early, in case there was a melt down, and he got out of the car fine but as we walked up to the Cubbies room he lost it. Stopped, sobbing hysterically, in the driving rain...mommy was not pleased. All of my mommy powers engaged to get him under the awning so we could talk and not get soaking wet. However, just as I had gotten us under the awning and I am crouched down to his level and asking him why he doesn't want to go (after listening to him beg to go to Cubbies for HOURS) a volunteer (whom I have never met) interrupts us and asks me (in a short and rude manner) if I got the text message about it being "Father-Son Night". My immediate reaction was...less than graceful. No, I did not get a text message and my husband is in the military and on the other side of the country: right now I'm trying to take care of my son and he is way more important than this conversation.  Ya...I'm winning bitch points here. Two things collided: 1) poor attitude and bad timing on the volunteer's part and 2) exhausted warn out mom. The volunteer took some offense to my comment and went to get the director. Cool beans. In the meantime I have collected my daughter and cell phone and have engaged my husband in a video chat to help get our son over this anxiety. All good, he wants to stay for Cubbies and now I have to address the situation with the Awana director. He was very kind and started to explain that there was no offense intended in the evening and they would love for our son to be involved, even though his dad is not here. I told him that I'm sure my son love to be involved and that I took no offense to the night-the volunteer simply had epically bad timing given the situation. He agreed and we got my son to where he needed to be and a friend's husband took Z-Man for the evening's festivities.

Here is what happened: high school volunteer doesn't understand that she needs to wait before engaging the parent of a child having a meltdown, mom is exhausted and can really only focus on one thing at a time, preschooler is loosing his mind because he misses daddy, and volunteer doesn't know how to ddress the situation once she has the bigger picture. Most people don't know how. There is the inclination to say, "oh those poor military children who's parents are away so much. They are missing out on so much and don't have good relationships with their military parent." These are the messages that military children hear: they are broken, they are missing out, they are not normal. When people are faced with the reality of military separations they don't really know how to help the parent and child(ren) at home thrive in this season. Let me make it clear, I aim to thrive (and misbehave)-NOT survive. 

April is Military Child Month. This is month for celebrate resiliency of military children, scholarships are awarded to this effect as well during this month. I won't lie, someday I hope 1 of my children will win that scholarship. But that is small beans compared to the bigger issue we are faced with. How do civilians interact with military kids and the mentality that we are all broken? The truth is, the military community knows that our kids aren't broken. We know how strong and amazing our kids are. We brag on them left and right. We know how difficult all of this is and we try to help ease the pain but they somehow end up amazing us and helping us instead. But the rest of the community...they could learn a thing or two from the women I have come to call my friends. The rules haven't changed for my son. He still has a nap time, bed time, he still must say please/thank you/excuse me/yes, he must listen or face the consequences for disobedience. The consequences haven't even changed. Though, if something isn't working the hubs and I discuss it and come up with a new tactic. No one pities my son. No one thinks he is broken. At least not in the community of people that are core to our day to day lives. But that day, that high school volunteer? It was all over her face. This child is broken by his absentee father. I didn't immediately let myself process her face; I would have never been able to control my temper if I had. But after I had a moment I did process her face, the body language that immediately changed, the whole picture. This girl thinks my child is broken. He is not broken. He is fierce. And damn it he wants to go to Hawaii, because he knows he gets his daddy back when we move again. He isn't broken. And neither is any other military kid; at least not because their parent(s) in the service. 

So each day, I have to remind myself that I am doing the important work of raising my kids. Some days I am a single mom with long distance emotional support, and some days I am just mom and dad is right there. But every single day I am 1/2 of the parenting team that supports and grows my military children. My husband has been working at carving a pine wood derby car to send our son for this up coming week's race, and the other week the OIC where we are stationed taught my son how to throw a baseball. You see, my son isn't broken because of the military. His life is filled with more role models and a better support team because of the military. So if you're a civilian reading this and you think military kids are broken, please rethink your position. Because they are anything but broken. 

Will you just fucking relax!?

I cannot tell you how many times my husband probably screams in his head that I need to relax. I cannot tell you, not because I don't know, but because I've lost count. I suppose if you counted it 1 for every second that he is awake that would be a general idea of how often he thinks this. I am sure that a lot women feel this way. Or men. Because I tell him to calm the fuck down a lot as well. If he's home, odds are that I have said it to myself every second I'm awake and verbalized it at least twice. It's a mutual theme in our family and marriage: RELAX, CHILL OUT, CALM THE FUCK DOWN, ROLL WITH IT.

We weren't always like this. We were not always uptight stuffy types. Seriously. We weren't. We used to go on camping trips all over the state. Not super structured ones. I remember all of them. I remember when he forgot to pack my tent poles when he was packing for us and we had to sleep in the car. I remember taking him all over the state to see the beautiful and amazing things I love about our state and we went to Pinnacles National Monument and the mosquitoes were so thick we barely made it through dinner before retreating to the car. I remember when he took me and the wonder dog to Dillons Beach and the unexpected cows. I remember when we were on Soda Lake Road out on the Carrizo Plains and he was flipping out that I was driving too fast so I applied the break at the wrong moment and had to keep the suv from flipping. That particular moment stands out as the reason why we don't backseat drive each other. We used to have 2 hours between jobs and run to the local quarry to get some bouldering in, or worked half days and got out for a quick hike. Day off? Grab the snowshoes and hit the snowed over trails with the wonder dog. We used to be laid back and easy going. As long as our bills were paid we were good. And then...we had kids. No joke.

I had this idea that I wanted to be a stay at home mom and home school my kids. I had big big BIG plans for our family. We would still be bohemians that only worried about paying bills and getting to the next adventure. We would drive all over the country and teach our kids all about our natural world and we would have awesome hippy kids that can send a 5.14 by age 9, thru - hiked the JMT with us by the age of 5, and eventually be able to identify trees by their leaves, nuts, bark, or pinecones. I had big, delusional dreams. Then I had my son. My amazing and beautiful son.

He and his little sister are the lights of my world. I want all the same things for them but do you know what happens when you become a mom? Forget the metaphorical monsters and pitfalls in life, the hormonal changes that make you suddenly hyper aware that your child is 3 inches from a ledge of a 4" high step. And then I start to reign in the crazy. I'm not even kidding. I was at a potluck dinner at our church recently. Small thing, just about 10 folks including our pastor. Hubs was at work so I was being super mom with both kids and ghetto paella. We're doing a game and my son is off with some older boys who have repeatedly promised me that they will not let my son walk out the front doors, through the parking lot, across the highway and off the cliff into the ocean, and my daughter is on the stage playing with a friend and some other tinies. While trying to do this game/interactive thing I am also watching my daughter. She is being supervised by my friend, but I am also keeping watch, while our pastor is having a great laugh at me as I am visibly having to calm myself down and not leap across the table and rush the tiny stage to save my daughter from getting too close to the edge. I've become the mom that has to stuff the helicopter back into the hangar every 10 minutes. I've gotten pretty good about it with my son. He took a spill on new year's day and while everyone was freaking out, I was calmly letting them know that he was fine. I was that chill mom that was letting her kid dust himself off. But I am having to learn it all over again with my daughter. Poor hubs is...stressed. Everything about our kids stresses him out. He has yet to figure out how chill out with 1 child, forget 2. So we are 2 wound up tight people who can remember what it was like before we were parents and wound up. We still dream of big granite walls, pine needle covered floors, and the sound of waterfalls. We still dream the dream.

Being a parent doesn't mean that we stopped having a life. It doesn't mean that we aren't the same people. I mean...we aren't the same people, but we want the same things and we are struggling to reconcile who we are and what we want. We need to figure out how to reconcile those two things. And so, as my husband is off doing that military thing across the country for a few months I have been preparing to refind all those beautiful things that I love and that got stuffed away when I started having kids. Not that my life ended, but that I put some things on hold so that I could be with my kids for the first year of their lives. Because while I no longer want to be super stay at home home, I do want to have these memories. I want my kids to get all the mom they want, no work to interfere, in the first year. I know that for my sanity though, I need to have my kids go to school. Maybe I'll be an 80% stay at home mom, take a few clients as I see fit, but also, I want to get back to the things that I love and those things are a part of having my kids. I want to share those things with my kids, but if I walk away permanently from them, then I can't share those things with my kids. I am investing in myself, and my kids, by getting back to what I love. To keep myself from missing my husband too much I am going to get back to hiking, running, photography, I'm going to keep teaching my son to fish (maybe we'll use real bait this year), I'm going to make my daughter's first doll, play my guitar until my fingers bleed, I'm going to invest in myself and the things that I am passionate about. Because that is investing in the 2 people I am most passionate about: my kids.

ps. When hubs get back, we'll have to make sure he is investing in the things that he is passionate about too. Maybe he'll chill out a bit...a girl can dream.