Ohana: Nobody gets left behind, or forgotten.

In this life, this crazy military life, you cannot succeed (forget thrive, you can't even succeed) without the love and support from friends/family. Really, those friends become your family. They understand your struggles. They understand when you're going on day 8 or 15 of a TDY or deployment and are about to lose your fucking mind. They understand when you're irrationally furious at your spouse because they're on day 9 of 12+ hour work days and no days off. They understand the struggle of the single car military family. It is this community of friends that keep you sane. They will have your back through it all. Can't handle life today? Get all the kids in one place and co-parent. Sick? They will bring you food. Going to be late to pick up a kid from school? They've got you covered. Heck, I didn't even bother letting my friend know I would be a minute or two (literally just over a minute) late for preschool pick up and guess what? Her husband (whom I wasn't expecting to see at pick up) waited until I got there to collect their kids and head home himself. The guy might as well be uncle to my children. In our current state culture, that's actually the appropriate the title for our dear friends. It is friends like these that make military life possible. I needed to run 2 towns over after collecting some records the other week. One of my amazing ohana let me leave the babes with her while I ran off to try to beat construction/rush hour traffic.

In our life, we have to create community over and over again. Depending on the branch, that is easier or harder. For us, it's harder. We are seldom in areas with large populations and sometimes we're hated. But on this occasion we're on a large base mixed with all of the other branches; we've been able to make friends with all sorts of people and we have found our family here. I love it here, and that is largely thanks to our amazing military ohana here. Need to go for a run but hubs is on duty? No worries, someone will watch your kids while you get your run in. These are the people that, don't just keep you sane, but become family. In every sense of the word, every fiber of my being that had the meaning of family instilled in me while growing up agrees that these people are family. But outside of our community this love, compassion, and dedication to each other seems very bizarre. Yet to us, this is just life.

In this life, I will drive up on your lawn at just about 0410 and wait for you to climb in. I don't know your last name, you're just a casual friend that is also a runner. And here is where my 2 worlds collide. Ohm you're a runner and you need a ride to the half marathon too!? Climb in! And yes, at 0dark30 I may drive up on the lawn in front of your house. I'll also pull a driving maneuver that gives away that my roots run deep on Los Angeles' freeways. That's right, I pulled off a 4 lane lane change at the split. I had a car of runners, my 2 regular running partners and 1 casual friend that also needed a ride. Our running paces of various times and varying experiences. I have run marathons on one end and on the other my wonderful friend ran her first half!! I'm so proud of her for not only running more of it than she originally planned and finishing, but she also met her time goal!! My casual friend (who after this needs to actually be a friend) has run a handful of them and posted the best time of our group. My other running partner is a fucking rockstar. Shut up. Seriously, stop shaking your head at your screen and accept that you are not nearly as badass as she is. She has run 4 half marathons-all while pregnant and this last one, she is 33 weeks pregnant!! Go get your lazy butts up off the couch and do something, because she is making us all look bad. I am friends with some seriously baddass people. Scoot those 3 aside because that half marathon would never have been run if it weren't for the amazing friend that slept at my house and stayed with my kids while I ran. She had to wake up early with my kids, because they don't sleep in like hers, and deal with all of their craziness. She is a champ!  I got to meet, in person, a friend from FB. We've been in this CG journey together for 2+ years and we just got to meet in person. It was awesome! She is my family. 

All of these things though, they come at a price. And it's steep. Tomorrow one of these amazing people and her beautiful babies will leave our island. There will not be a tearful goodbye at the airport. No. We're not like that. Don't get me wrong. I started crying yesterday and it's hard. I cried today on her couch for a minute. My heart is breaking. They are leaving for family reasons, so I cannot treat this the same way as a PCS. My heart breaks for our kids that have become so close, that I will not get to see them as much, that my running buddy and dear friend is hurting so much. My heart is in fucking pieces right now. I love them as family, and I know we will see each other again (I will go visit no doubt, and we could still be stationed near them).  But still, this is the price we pay. We are forged together through the trials of the military and we will overcome the distance, but the initial heart break is still very real. Tomorrow, she will braid my daughter's hair one last time and our boys will get one last playdate before we walk out of her back gate like every other day; only this time is the last time. Military Ohana is strong, we have to be. 

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.