One from the road

I am happy to report that after a long 20 hour car ride filled with screams for Blue's Clues, more water, and random flailing about in one's car seat we have arrived at my parent's house. I will write more about what is going on in our little homecoming world soon but in the meantime I wanted to share something I learned on our journey.

While driving down I-95 I discovered that it is a colossally bad idea to get a personalized license plate that reads 1BIGQT. The primary reason you should step away from this license plate is because from far away it looks like "one bigot" which is, to say the least, a touch disturbing. The secondary reason to avoid this particular monicur is that there are weirdos like me who will speed up next to you just to see who in the world would put that on their license plate only to discover that it does, in fact, say "one big QT" and that while the BIG is accurate the QT is, um, not.

LM Monday #7

Little man received a package from Iraq. He was far more excited about the box and the paper it was wrapped in then he was about the gift inside.

Don't let this picture fool you. Little man's favorite things to do with crayons are 1)eat them and 2) walk around the house with them to see how many things he can narrowly avoid coloring while his Mom nervously follows behind him.

On a side note, can someone please tell me where my baby went? This little boy has been showing up in all of my pictures lately.

Holiday trauma

Not exactly the reaction I was hoping for when I put him in this Halloween costume...


What the heck am I supposed to do now, other than put him in it every day between now and the squadron Halloween party and hope that he.. ummmmmmm get's used to it??? Any chance that will happen?

I'll keep you posted and perhaps go buy another costume or 12, you know just in case

LM Monday #5

Open Letters

Dear API students,
I am sorry that while you were in formation our stroller was being attacked by a killer dragon fly and therefore I was running and flailing in six million directions causing you to lose focus and laugh which caused you to get screamed at by a drill instructor. I hope that said drill instructor remembered to brush his teeth this morning. Sorry.

Dear Across the street neighbor,
I am very sorry that you are getting a divorce. It must suck to have your wife leave you with three children. However, do you think it would be possible for you to go inside once and a while inside of sitting on the weight bench in your garage watching TV with your friends who's cars have incredibly loud stereos that turn on right outside of LM's window? I am sure you have a perfectly nice couch somewhere in your house.

Dear neighbors who live next door to the across the street neighbors,
Hi, how are you? Good I hope. I know that you have very stressful jobs, what with being a stripper and a bartender at a strip club, but do you think it would be possible for you to mow your lawn, oh I don't know, sometime this year?

Dear check out lady at Wal-mart,
Yes, I do have a picture of my husband on my necklace. Yes, he is in Iraq. No, I don't want to hear your ridiculous opinion about the state of our government or how you think that Rosie O'Donnell says it best when she describes why we shouldn't be in the war; I want to pay for my stupid groceries and go home before I smack the ever-loving shit out of you.

Dear Forrest Gump of my town,
It is really nice that you run down the main highway everyday and give people the peace sign. That is a great idea. Just curious, don't you ever get tired and just want to take the bus, oh and what kind of sneakers do you where because clearly I should get myself a pair because they must provide excellent cushioning and support?

Beep, beep

At 4:45 this morning I was awoken by the sound of a beep. It was a weird, not very loud beep. It didn't scare the pants off me or make me jump from the bed like the burglar alarm would but there it was again, a beep. I laid in bed in a semi-conscious state and listened for the noise again.

Crap, I know what that beep is! It's the stupid beep on the smoke detector telling us lowly house dwellers that it is time to change the battery. You know the beep, it is the one that doesn't turn off until you do as it requests. The last time this happened it was the middle of the afternoon and I was completely perplexed as to how to fix this problem; not this time though. Ha, stupid smoke alarm you thought you had me- how wrong you are I have learned lessons, I can solve problems. This time I shall go to the hall closet get a battery, change you and head back to bed.

I moseyed my way to the hall closet, turned on the light and got the package of batteries. Half way back I realized I had the wrong kind of batteries. That's right stupid smoke alarm I am smart, you need a 9-volt battery. So off I went back to the hall closet to get a 9-volt battery. I opened the door, looked around. No 9-volt battery!

As the beep continued I had a thought; one of LM's toys must use a 9-volt battery. So I traipsed myself into the sunroom, turned on the light and began sifting through the freaking toys. No, not you Winnie; no, you won't help either computer; no, blocks don't have batteries. Dinosaur toy... thanks anyway.

Okay, no batteries there. Ah ha, there is a battery in the keypad on the outside of the garage door. Shit, that means I have to go outside. That also means that I have to put real clothes on, you know, just in case one of my neighbors is out unscrewing things from the outside of their home at 5 in the morning.

I got dressed, headed for the garage to get a screw driver, opened the front door and ran like hell with the phone in my hand just in case I had to call 911 because someone was waiting outside my door because they knew that I would be unscrewing batteries from the wall at precisely 5:00am walked to the garage and unscrewed the face plate to get the battery. Battery in hand- Take that stupid smoke detector, I'll show you.

I hopped up on a chair, pulled out the beeping battery and put in the new one. I was now officially the smartest woman I know (clearly, I have very low standards). I walked back to get in bed, was two steps from hopping in,

BEEP, BEEP.

You have got to be kidding me. This can not be happening. Ok, I can handle this. After all I am an adult who is facing a measly smoke detector. I have an idea; I shall unplug the entire thing from the wall. I grabbed the chair again, reached for the smoke detector, unplugged it from the wall, put it on the computer desk, walked to the bed,

BEEP, BEEP.

Ok, seriously you are UNPLUGGED! How in the hell can you still be beeping? This is not happening. As I sat on the edge of the bed teetering awfully close to a meltdown I realized that I should just give up. I am an adult, a bona-fide grown-up. I have been raising a child on my own for almost 10 months. If I can do survive a deployment surely I can force myself to ignore the beeping and go back to sleep. Yes, that is what I will do; like a Jedi-mind trick.

I re-plugged in the smoke detector closed the door to prevent some of the beeping noise from infiltrating my room and climbed into bed. I was pumped, I could do this- I could will myself back to sleep because by God I was an adult.

No beeping.

No beeping at all.

Totally stopped beeping.

Figures.

Where's Waldo- 3M edition

Smile

No Go

The offer is a no go. After much discussion 3M and I have decided that we would both feel better moving after he returns; well really he would feel better and it is kind of hard to tell your husband, who is currently living in a bombed out building in Fallujah, that you don't agree.

We did make a counter offer to our buyer , who is a single man moving here from Atlanta (Hey Darrell, how are you???) in hopes of saving the deal. We asked him to wait until December and offered money towards his living expenses payable at closing. My realtor and his realtor said it was an "enticing offer" and they thought we would be able to work something out.

Darrell said no. He said he didn't want to wait that long.

Why, Darrell? Our offer is enticing!!!! Didn't you listen to your realtor (who by the way was slightly creepy and used a contract that hasn't been used in our county since 1995)?? Your realtor is a smart man; you should listen to him! You are a single man. You can live anywhere for a few months. We are going to write you a check, a real live actual check, just for waiting a few extra weeks. But no... you have to be Mr. difficult. Perhaps I really should call you Mr. WTF. Instead you are going to keep looking and see if you can find something else and if you can't then you will "re-visit" our offer.

Fine, be that way.

While you are out crushing my dreams of having a bigger house with a pool looking at other houses I would like you to remember a few things:

You can totally see the water, from the backyard. Dude, you will not find that in other neighborhoods. That and the grass is expensive as hell to maintain green, really green.

There are no stupid chick colors in this house, so as to prevent your stupid fragile male ego from having to pee in a pink bathroom. You are welcome!

I planted flowers!!! Do you have any idea how much I hate planting flowers?!?!?!

Leavin on a jet plane

Crap, crap, crap.. We are flying home tomorrow morning. Have I mentioned how much I hate flying with a toddler and how I really wish 3M was here with us? Oh, that's right I have.

Crap, crap, crap.

Wish us luck and good weather as we make our journey home...

Speaking of home, we had a Realtor preview our house for an out of town buyer and he said it was his favorite of all the homes he looked at. His buyers are going to be in town next week and he will be bringing them over.

Crap, crap, crap.

Don't they know that they should have looked at my house while we were gone, not now that we are back and LM can destroy a house in 3.5 seconds. Hrmph.

LM Monday #3

Totally not impressed by my Mom's ability to take a picture of us or her attempts at getting me to make a surprise face..


Perhaps it is because she will not let me have coffee...

Truth in advertising

I know this doesn't actually count as a post but I just love LM's new shirt.




Come back tomorrow and I promise to tell you my horrible encounter with Judy, the ridiculously rude and horribly innapropriate post office clerk in my parent's home town. It was a good one.

Uh-oh

Little man and I have been taking advantage of our backyard quite a bit this summer. We spend lots of time outside on the patio in his pool or his sandbox.

Yesterday I did not have him in a swim diaper or bathing suit so when he decided to take matters into his own hands and climb into the pool I decided a little skinny dipping would be a better solution than going back inside for a swim diaper while carrying a wet toddler.

LM found this newfound freedom wonderful. He ran around the backyard pointing out all of the things he saw that he recognized.. bah-ble, ball, bahd, pewl.

After proving his prowess with words he decided it was time for a swim. He climbed into his pool, stood up and grabbed his package. That's right my little 14 month old son stood in his baby pool grabbing himself.

I turned to get the camera figuring this would be a funny thing to send to 3M and before I turned back around I heard "uh-oh, uh-uh-uh-oh". I turned to see his little hand is raised towards me and there is #1 flowing into the pool.

Yes, little man "uh-oh" is right.

He just wanted to share

TED often sends emails venting about some of the cultural differences that he experiences while operating inside Iraq.

Today he sent me this email about his day out in the city. Warning you do not want to read this while enjoying a meal or even a snack:

I have seen something today that will scar me for life. I have had the luxury of witnessing a lot of things since arrival in this place last December. Today however, takes the cake.

We were on the last leg of our patrol today and were making our way to a checkpoint on the east side of the city that we were going to check out. In this particular ECP there are usually a lot of cars and a lot of pedestrians in the area, and today was no different. We stop our vics
and dismount everyone that needs to get out and conduct the visit. I was on the gun today and was obviously doing my scan crap and trying to check everything out for threats and stuff, when I noticed this guy ahead of us on foot kind of walking circles. Walking circles like a dog that's sniffing around. He found his sweet spot and in front of God, us, all the people around and all of the vehicles around, oh and his family right across from him watching - pulls his man dress up, squats down and commences to taking a shit. WOW.