That's Georgia For You

Every year Fort Benning has a big 4th of July celebration the Saturday before the 4th. That's today. So we decided to go. I packed the car with the stroller, blankets, food, water, extra clothes, extra Lightning McQueens, everything I might possibly need with 2 small kids. Except an umbrella. That's right, we got rained on. And by rained on, I mean we got rained on. Now, I grew up in Northern California, where rain on the 4th of July is pretty much a given. But not like this. We had just made it onto the big field where everything was taking place when it started raining. So we quickly made our way under one of the big tents that were set up. I think this one was selling tickets or something. Not that it did much good, we still got completely soaked. My Dad was trying to block the rain off of the boys in the stroller, when the wind picked up. It got so windy so fast that the tent we were standing under blew over, and one of the tables blew into me. All three of us (me, my mom and dad) were leaning over the stroller to keep it from being picked up and blown away by the wind, too. Another lady under the same tent broke her wrist. We managed to make our way over to a cargo van that was being showcased by a local dealer and piled the boys, me, another mom and her 3 kids and several other miscellaneous children inside. After about 10 minutes or so, the wind died down and the rain stopped, the sun came out and all was well. We considered staying, but it was so humid that nothing was drying out, and we were all completely soaked to the bone. All those extra clothes I thought to bring - also soaked. Then the mosquitoes came out and it was just plain miserable. So we left and came home. We'll just do our own 4th of July on Friday. I'm kind of bummed to miss the big fireworks though!

The Zoo

Before Chris left on Thursday, we took the boys to Zoo Atlanta. Jack slept the whole time (not that he would have been very interested anyway), but Aiden had a good time. He pretty much liked the turtles the best, but he did get a kick out of the monkeys and the zebras, too. Here are some pics.

Aiden and Mommy....

Aiden looking at the zebras and giraffes...


Daddy and Aiden looking at the monkeys....

Take a Deep Breath

So this blog is called "The Army Wife Life". In that spirit, let me give you a "day in the life" of me. Or rather, a couple of days. Chris was supposed to leave on Tuesday morning. I say "supposed to" because he didn't end up leaving. Normally, this would be a good thing, but the reason he didn't leave is because he got into a car accident on the morning he was supposed to leave and wrecked my truck. He's okay. I guess there were several cars in front of him, the one in the front stopped suddenly, causing the car behind her to stop, causing the car behind her to plow into the second car, which in turn caused Chris to plow into that car. No one was hurt, but my truck is in the shop with about $7000 worth of damage to the front end, and we have a crappy rental car for the next three weeks - a Dodge Caliber. Now don't get me wrong, I'm grateful to have the rental, but I miss my truck. Anyway, Chris got an extension of his leave for 48 hours to get the claim filed and all that fun stuff. So Wednesday we leave for Atlanta to go to the Aquarium and the Zoo before he has to fly out Thursday afternoon. Everything goes great until I leave the airport....

Of course I'm crying. It sucks, after all. It doesn't help that Aiden's also crying - "I want my Daddy!"...at least Jack is sleeping. So we get out of the airport and out of the city and Aiden falls asleep. I'm thinking this is going to be sweet - both kids are racked out in the backseat, I can be sad by myself. That lasted about 20 minutes. I run into the ever-present construction on I-85, and I slow down to a crawl. Crap. Then Jack wakes up and starts crying because he's hungry. Double crap. Then Aiden wakes up and starts crying again. Triple crap. We crawl along for about 10 or 15 minutes and then Jack starts screaming at the top of his lungs. I know the poor guy's hungry but there is literally nowhere to pull over. About this time I'm thinking this can't get any worse and then...it got worse. Aiden threw up all over the back seat. F-ing fabulous. I'm stuck in bumper to bumper traffic in 90 degree heat with 2 screaming kids and a big pile of vomit. And I can't do anything about it. Finally I spot a little grassy turnout and pull over onto the side of the freeway and do my best to clean Aiden up without getting him out of the carseat. I can't do anything about Jack at the moment so I stuck a pacifier in his mouth and got back on the road. Then I called my Mom and blubbered for a few minutes about how my life sucks until I came to an exit and pulled into a gas station. I changed Aiden and cleaned up the back seat as best I could, then fed Jack. I broke out the portable DVD player, stuck in Cars and had two wonderfully quiet children again. We made it home without any more crises, and everything's in the wash now. While I was stripping the car seat to wash it, Chris calls from the airport to tell me he's getting ready to board, and "did I get home okay? How was the drive?"....grumble, $!#&^*$!, grumble...

So now my plans are to put the kids to bed, clean up the house a little bit and then I'm going to eat some double fudge brownie ice cream straight from the container and watch Buffy. Or Angel, I haven't decided. And if I'm feeling energized, I might heat up some brownies my Mom made, dump the ice cream on top of it and douse the entire thing in hot caramel. And I dare you to say ANYTHING!!!

Finally! *If you haven't seen Indy 4 - don't read this!*

Last night I finally joined up with the rest of the world and saw Indiana Jones 4. I thought it was a good movie, but - aliens? That was kind of weird. But since I've been anxiously awaiting this movie since the first whisperings were heard, I did like it. I mean, who doesn't like Indiana Jones?! That theme music makes me feel 12 years old again, and it was well worth the wait to see it. Plus, I got to go out with my hubby minus children, so that was also nice. Also very nice was the Malibu Hurricane I had with dinner. A little coconut rum (yeah, Roxanne!), a little Southern Comfort, it's been a long time since I had a drink! Anyway, I think my favorite part of the movie was at the end when his son grabs Indy's hat and starts to put it on only to have it snatched away. I love that - don't mess with the hat, junior.

Family Pictures

Okay, we had family pictures taken today at Sears. We managed to get some decent pictures, but Aiden was NOT cooperating. He would stand still and smile for about a half a second, and we just had to snap the picture and hope everyone else was looking in the right direction! So they probably aren't the greatest, but they turned out alright. So here they are....

Notice what's in Aiden's left hand? Yep, no picture of our family would be complete without Lightning McQueen....

My boys...I love this picture of the three of them. And look at that goatee! Can you tell Chris is on leave??

Doctor's Appointment

Jack had his 2 month well-baby appointment today. He's 11 pounds, 8 ounces and he's 22.5 inches long. Which means he's gained 4 pounds and 2.5 inches since he was born, and he's growing like a weed! He's doing well, but to put it in perspective, Jack is in the 50th percentile for boys his age in weight, and the 25th for height. Which is totally average. Aiden on the other hand, was in the 90th percentile for both until he was 18 months old, and then dropped down to the 75th percentile. I think he's going to be a linebacker or something....

Anyway, he also got his first set of shots, which wasn't nearly as traumatizing to me this time as it was the first time around. I guess I'm becoming jaded! And Jack-Jack was quite the little trooper, he cried when they stuck him, but as soon as I picked him up he was fine. I can't believe all the stuff they give them, he got a total of 8 vaccinations today! They combine it into 3 shots and an oral vaccine, but still! I guess it's worth it though, if it keeps him from getting meningitis or something.

Since Daddy is home right now we are having family pictures taken tomorrow! As soon as I get a chance I will post them on here, so keep an eye out for that. I hope to get some cute ones of my boys together. I'll also be posting some pictures of the landscaping we've done around the house this week. Since we are getting the house ready to be put on the market next month (hopefully), we are sprucing it up as much as we can! I think it looks pretty good, if I do say so myself. As soon as it's finished I'll get some pics up. Anyway, I guess I'd better go make dinner. Ever since Chris got home I've actually had to cook. You know, there IS something to be said for deployment.... :-)

Little Boy Heaven

We bought the Lightning McQueen Power Wheel yesterday, and put it together last night. We brought it in after Aiden went to bed, so we could surprise him with it first thing in the morning. We set up the video camera so we could capture his first reactions, so here it is. This is first thing after he woke up. Sorry it's a little shaky in some places....

Pictures

Here's a few pictures of Daddy and Jack. I tried to get Aiden in the pictures as well, but he was too busy watching Cars for the 400th time to be bothered....

Daddy's Home

Just a quick update to let you all know that Chris made it home safe and sound about 7pm Saturday night. He's having fun playing with Aiden and getting to know Jack, and Aiden is glad to have his Daddy home again. I probably won't be posting a whole lot during these 2 weeks, but I'll try to get some pictures up soon!

EEWWWW!!!

I hate the South, I'm just going to put that out there. Nothing against the people, I have lots of great friends from the South, but "ya'll" can HAVE it. I HATE BUGS! I cleaned my house really well today, vacuumed under the couch and the TV, stuff like that. So here I am in the evening, enjoying my nice, clean, spotless living room, when what to my wondering eyes should appear but a GIANT FRICKIN' ROACH. I just bug bombed not too long ago, why are they alive??? I'll tell you why. Because it's the South, and the bugs are mutant here and have nine lives, like cats. This time I was by myself without my mom the roach slayer, so I had to do it myself. I drowned it in half a can of Raid, which some may consider overkill, but I consider just enough kill. I tell you what, when my wayward husband finally gets out of Kuwait and back home (hopefully tomorrow), he's going to do some serious bug nuking. I can't wait to get out of here, we don't have bugs like this in California.

Anxiously Waiting

Just in case you're wondering, Chris has not made it home yet. He was supposed to be home yesterday, but due to those wonderful sandstorms they are so famous for in Iraq, the flights were grounded. So he should be home tomorrow sometime, if all goes well. I'll keep you posted.

The Need For Speed

There are moments in your life that are pivotal to your future, they shape you, dictate how you think about things, and sometimes can forever alter the course of your life. Sometimes they are obvious, like when you get married, or have children, or start a new job. And other times they are small, insignificant moments that you don't notice at the time, but when you look back on them you say, that's when it started.... Like when you smiled at that hot guy in church and ended up marrying him, or when you tried a new hobby on a whim and discovered your true calling. Or in my case, when I bought the movie Cars for my 2 year old son. And here you thought I was getting all philosophical....

It started out simple really, I was in Target with Aiden after work one day, and I decided that if I had to watch Finding Nemo one more time I was going to end up being committed. So I thought, I'll buy him a new movie for being such a good boy today, and we can watch something else for a while. So I thought, hey, Cars is cute, I could handle Cars. If I had only known the monster I was creating at that moment. I should have seen it coming, since as soon as he had a look at the cover, the words, "I buy this!" came out of his adorable little mouth. Well, since this was my first ride on the parenting merry-go-round, I just thought it was cute. So I bought it.

Now, imagine taking my obsession with Buffy the Vampire Slayer, quadrupling it and stuffing it into a 2 year old, and you'll have an inkling of what I'm dealing with here. We have the Cars bedding set, the Cars pillow, the Cars books, the Cars plates, cups and silverware, the Cars shoes, the Cars hat, the Cars t-shirts, the Cars Pull-ups, and a metal "hot wheels" type car of almost every character in the movie. This is in addition to the 5 or 6 Lightning McQueens we have, in case one should get lost or left behind on one of our various outings. Lightning goes to bed with Aiden, he takes baths with Aiden, he goes into every room of the house that Aiden goes into, he goes in the car, and into every store he sets foot in. If we don't have Lightning, its a major, catastrophic, apocalypse. And I am not kidding. And the movie is starting to skip in places, it's getting worn out. Do you have any idea how many times you have to watch a DVD before it wears out?

Such is my son's obsession with this that I am actually considering painting Cars murals on the walls of his new bedroom when we move to Barstow. Seriously. I can just see the words, "float like a Cadillac, sting like a Beamer" above the bed. And since the boys are going to be sharing, I hope Jack likes Cars, too. If you had told me three years ago that I would one day know the entire movie by heart, complete with facial expressions and innuendo (and yes, cars do have facial expressions), I would have laughed in your face. Yeah right, I'm not going to let my kids watch a movie that often! Yeah, that's stupid. You can't fight fate. And in that spirit, Chris and I have decided to splurge on the Lightning McQueen Power Wheel that I found at Kmart the other day. It's on layaway right now, and its a good thing that it was in the box and not on display, because Aiden would never have let me leave the store without it if he had known what it was. At least, not without a fight.

So, looking back on the seemingly innocuous decision at Target a few months ago - Cars, why not? - I realize it was a pivotal moment in my son's upbringing. In my desperation to get him unobsessed with Nemo, I opened the door to something else entirely. Be careful what you wish for parents, you just might end up depleting your bank account.