It makes me so mad.

I don't know why disposable diapering parents seem to get so defensive with me and Thak when we mention anything about how much we like cloth diapering. We make no secret of the fact that we're converts. We used disposables with Erin (although we kick ourselves for it now! Cloth is so much better!) and since we did, we can tell people from personal experience how much better cloth is. We save a ton of money, have no guilt about filling up the landfills with disposable diapers which never fully biodegrade, Orren has never had ANY trace of rash what so ever, and plus, cloth diapers are so cute!! We also have found it very easy to wash our own diapers at home. We thought it would be difficult to get used to, but it wasn't.

We tell people about this stuff because we want to encourage other parents to try cloth, because they will quite possibly like it, and stand to save themselves a ton of money. Actually, it generally comes up in conversation when the topic is money saving tips. This one is a total no-brainer.

Somehow, though, when we mention it, there's about a 25% chance that someone will pipe up with some garbage about how we have fecal matter on our clothes because we wash diapers in the same washing machine we wash our clothes in. (Not at the same time, genius!) I wonder, for the people who think that, do they just throw away every article of clothing their babies get any type of urine, spit-up, or fecal matter on? I'm betting the answer is no, and that they use the same washing machine to launder those clothes as they do to launder the rest of the clothes in the household. If that's the case, then what's the difference between that and washing diapers? Absolutely nothing.

I wonder if these people have any idea how stupid they sound. Don't they know that there's really good odds that they, themselves, were cloth diapered babies? Would they say the same things to their own mothers as they do to me about this stuff?

When I think about it, though, these are the same people who roll their eyes when we talk about our choice to have Orren at a birth center, and why avoiding hospitals is very important to us. They're probably also the same people who think organic food is a hoax.

Why can't we find just one family to befriend in this big bad military of ours who is just as crunchy as we are? I'm just so tired of getting the backlash from the junk food eating, hospital birthing, disposable diapering masses. If that's the way they want to be, that's fine with me, but don't be an ass about it... (Yes, I know I'm being one in return, but never to their faces. It wouldn't accomplish anything. Plus, I am as entitled to be annoyed with this as they are to think I'm a dirty hippie.)

This is the big sister. This is the little brother.

The other day, we found some cute shirts for Erin and Orren at the Carters outlet. They say "Big Sister" and "Little Brother". I wanted to take some pictures of them in the shirts together, and thought it would be cool to do it somewhere outside, preferably somewhere very Georgia. My first pick was Holbrook Pond, which is an Army owned recreation area that is right near Thak's airfield.

When we got out there, there was a lot of construction, and the only pretty side of the pond was taken up by what appeared to be some unit's family picnic. While that wouldn't have stopped us if we had just been out there to fish, canoe, or run around, we were there to take pictures, and doing that in an area crowded with people isn't the best, so we moved on.

We ended up stopping in Richmond Hill at the Ogeechee River.

Here's a close-up of Erin. She lost her first tooth yesterday!


Erin and Orren with daddy.


Erin and Orren on the slide:


Me, Erin, and Orren:

And the whole family:

Oh yeah...

I forgot to follow up on the last post. The conference with Erin's teacher went great. She said that Erin is right where she should be for this point in the school year, and that it is totally reasonable for us to expect that she WILL move on to first grade next year.

This is huge. Erin is one of the youngest kids in her grade, having only turned five several days prior to the start of the school year. She had to catch up fast to the others who were so much older, and honestly, more ready than she was for the things that would be asked of them as Kindergarteners. Erin struggled really hard at first, and was completely lost. Was it not for her spending this year in the class designated for kids in her position (scored low on the beginning of the year tests) to receive more individual attention and catch up, I don't think she would have fully caught up. She did, though, and she's gone from one of the lowest scoring kids in her grade to scoring squarely in the middle. That is a huge deal to us. She is going to be able to move on next year, and will start off at her new school in El Paso with a strong academic background. We will miss Taylors Creek. It's a great school. We're really glad she got to at least start off there, though.

Today, I have to remember to take Erin to the book fair after school. We were going to do it yesterday, but she had her after school tutoring program to go to (yet another Taylors Creek perk!) and she didn't get out until 4:15, so the book fair was closed. We'll go today, though. She's dying to get the sequel to Pinkalicious, which she picked up at the last book fair. That sequel? Purplicious, of course! We're also going to pick up any of the "must haves" that we find, and anything with a Caldecot medal. That's what we normally do. We let her get a couple silly titles that catch her attention, and then we pick out several more that we think would be good additions to our collection, and these are always gender-neutral books, of course.

Busy kiddo day!

This morning, Orren had his 2 month appointment. It went well, although it's sad that it's our last visit at Dr. Ramos' office. I don't know how we're going to find a pediatrician this good in El Paso...

The visit went well, although Orren didn't get any shots since they were out of Hib vaccine. That's the only one he was going to get today (Again, we're doing a spread out vaccination schedule. He will receive all his vaccines by the time he enters Kindergarten, but they will be given to him in a very slow and spread out manner.) The best part about the visit is that Orren's umbilical granuloma is history! It took three sticks of silver nitrate to get it to come off, but it did come off, and Orren has a normal belly button now. Yay!!

Orren's not the only one who's had a busy day, though. Erin got out of school early today because it's countywide parent/teacher conferences today. Ours is at 3:30.

Thak is in the Household Goods briefing right now. That's where they'll tell him everything he needs to know about our move. We'll find out who our mover is, the way to make claims if things are broken, the number to call when we arrive in El Paso and have a house, and other pertinent information. We don't know if he will be out of the briefing in time for Erin's conference. He wants to be there since he likes to take an active role in her education, but if the briefing runs longer than that, there's really nothing we can do. At least I'm able to attend, and can tell him what her teacher has to say.

Speaking of things at Erin's school, the book fair begins tomorrow! I despise all school fund raisers EXCEPT the book fair. We always go, and we usually spend a lot. Erin gets really excited for it every time because she knows she's going to get a lot of books. We're going to have to take her tomorrow, or she's going to bug us about it until we do. It's best to get these things out of the way on day one!

Anyhow, so far, Wednesday hasn't killed us. We're almost through it. Now, if I can just get motivated to clean the hell out of this house so that we won't be caught short if we have to show it, that will make life a lot better. Thak did a little bit today when I was at the doctor with Orren, so that helps a lot. I'll do more after Thak comes home from his briefing. We'll get everything done yet!!

Feel better, Orren.

Orren has not been well these past few days. We were afraid the poor thing caught Thak's plague, but I don't think that's what it was. Thak had a fever for days, but Orren's temperature never got above 99.4, and was only that high for a couple hours on Sunday, so I don't think it was the same thing. What we do know is that our little boy has felt like crap lately. Last night, he spit up most of his bottle after his 6 pm feeding, and then he wouldn't take another feeding before we put him to bed at 8:15. He also slept all the way through until 6:30 am. That's a first. He usually wants at least one middle of the night feeding, but not last night. He just wasn't feeling well.

When he woke up this morning, he was happy and smiling. Today, he's eating fine. He's taken one feeding so far, and while he took one ounce less than he normally does, he still ate a lot, and didn't spit up any significant amount of it. That gives me hope that he's feeling a little better. He also hasn't been as whiny as he was these past couple days, so maybe he's finally doing better. I hope so. We've been worried about him. I hate when they're so little and get sick.

What's worse is that tomorrow is Orren's 2 month doctor's appointment. He's supposed to get one shot. We are doing a delayed and spread out vaccination schedule with him, so at least he's not getting a whole ton of shots, but he is getting his Hib shot tomorrow. Well, he's supposed to be anyhow. I'll tell the doctor about how Orren's not been feeling well, and see if he still wants to do the shot tomorrow. We'll go with whatever he says.

At tomorrow's appointment, I'm also going to have to ask what we're going to do about Orren's umbilical granuloma. (It's not as bad as it sounds. Google it.) Hopefully we can treat that before we move. I want to have it dealt with before we have to find ourselves a new pediatrician in El Paso. I've had no luck getting recommendations from anyone at Ft. Bliss. None of them have the same priorities as we do, so going to the pediatricians they think are just great would probably make me want to rip my hair out. So hopefully, we'll turn up something soon after we get out there, but for now, I just want to get as much taken care of as possible while we're here. I guess we'll find out tomorrow.

And the clearing begins!

This week is when Thak begins OFFICIALLY clearing Ft. Stewart. That means he'll be running around post like a madman trying to get every agency imaginable to sign off on papers that he doesn't owe them anything. I remember clearing post back when I got out of the Army, and it was a pain. Still, it's great that we're to the point of him doing this! Clearing Ft. Stewart has been four and a half years coming...

It's going to be such a crazy week, though. If we make it through Wednesday in one piece, I'll be shocked. See, on Wednesday, Orren has his 2 month doctor's appointment, and of course, we go to the doctor in Savannah, so that's an hour drive there and back, and then you factor in waiting time and the appointment itself, and I'll be very surprised if we're back in time to pick up Erin from school. She has early dismissal that day since it's parent/teacher conference day. She gets out at noon.

That's just the kids. Thak has his household goods briefing at 1:30, has to be seated by 1:00. So he will be able to pick up Erin, but I better be back before 12:30 so that he can get to his briefing on time. Then hopefully his briefing doesn't take too long, since at 3:30, we have our conference with Erin's teacher.

Like I said, if we make it through Wednesday, I'll be shocked. But the good part is that if we do, then the rest is easy!!

Well, let's see what we've got. I'm about to put the kids to bed, and then clean the house so that the landlords can bring people by to show it to, should anyone come by looking for the world's smallest 4 BR house. Oh what a week!! Haha!!

My boy and my girl

Orren has fully outgrown all his 3 months sized clothes. He is 8 weeks old. The thing that is really funny is that he's outgrowing them height-wise, not width-wise. He's definitely getting chunky about the thighs as babies always do, but other than that, he's not fat. He's just really tall. I decided to measure him just now, and he is 25 inches. That means he has grown nearly 4 inches since he was born, and 3 of those within the past month. We knew he'd had a massive growth spurt, and we know that he eats as much as the average 4-month-old, but we had no idea he had grown THIS much.

I was curious as to where he stacked up against his peers, and found a percentile calculator on a website called pediatrics.com, I believe (there's one on Babycenter, too). I plugged his numbers in, and as it turns out, our big boy is in the 92nd percentile for height, and the 80th for head size. I want to know what he weighs!! We don't have a scale, or I'd weigh him myself. He has his 2 month physical next Wednesday, so we'll find out then. One thing that's for sure, though, is that Orren is a big boy!! Certainly, he had one hell of a start in this world, being born 9 pounds and 9 ounces, but I still can't believe he's taken off so fast.

Of course, all this measuring made big sis want in on the fun, so I measured her, too. She is 41 inches tall without her shoes. Her age is 5 years and 7 months, and her height puts her squarely in the 4th percentile.

My girl is tiny and my boy is huge. It'll be interesting to see how long it takes before he's taller than she is!! Erin insists it'll never happen, but my bet is that by the time Orren hits middle school, he'll be taller than Erin. We'll see!!

Friday, and not a moment too soon!

This week has been hell. Erin has taken up lying and dragging her feet, thus making herself late for school twice, and making me come up there once, only to find out that she really wasn't sick after all. I'm so glad this week is over. Hopefully next week isn't this crappy.

Thak is sick, and I HATE when he's sick, because it's like the world stops. That's really the only way I can describe it. The whole mood of the household is bad. That doesn't bode well for this weekend, but I'm still glad this week is over, even though the weekend will probably suck.

I got two patterns last night, which are super cute. They did have the dress form that I want, but I found it way cheaper online. Literally, the one in the store was over $200, and I can find that exact same thing online for $130, so I'm going to order it. Today, I'm going to look through all my fabrics and see what I have that would make cute dresses. If I need anything, I may go back to the fabric store today and buy some new stuff, or I may save that for tomorrow to make the weekend suck a little less.

Either way, it's Friday. This week is OVER, and I'm glad for that.

It gives me ideas of the worst kind!

Not really.

It's just that this weather (it's 77* out right now!!) combined with the fact that I still have a size 6 body and a size 2 wardrobe makes me want to make spring dresses for myself!! I told Thak last night that I want to go today and buy a dress form (you know, that manequin looking thing that you put dresses on when you're pinning them up) and some patterns. I figure fair is fair. He gets to buy out the auto parts store for two weekends in a row, I can have the dress form I've been wanting for years. He agreed, and said we'd go today and see what we could find in Savannah. If Joann Fabrics there doesn't sell dress forms, or doesn't have one I like, then we'll have to order it, but while we're at Joann, we can still get some patterns, and I can start on some things while we wait for my dress form to arrive.

It's just good weather for cute spring dresses, and I have none that fit. :( That should be better as of this afternoon, though.

He gave notice.

Thak just called me on his way to the flight line. (Yes, he is still helping out the platoon with their inventories for the change-of-command that's coming up even though he doesn't truly have to. He's too nice.) He had stopped at our landlord's office on his way out there to turn in our 30 day notice on the house. We're pretty lucky they accepted it for the date we had originally planned, because it's actually a 28 day notice, but they were cool about it. We would have been ok with staying the extra two days if they'd been sticklers for policy, but it's great that we don't have to.

So now it's official. We're really leaving. Well, it's been official for a long time what with the orders being cut and in hand, the clearing papers issued as of yesterday, and Thak's diminished responsibilities at work, but now it's just got even more of an official air to it since this time next month, we won't have a house to live in. That's scary. It's actually the first time in my life I've had to do it this way. I've always either been a barracks soldier, or had one house squared away and ready before leaving another. This time is different. We will technically be homeless for a minimum of four days, and that's even providing we find a house the first day we are in El Paso. It could take longer, although hopefully it doesn't. It wouldn't be our preference to live in a hotel for longer than a few days.

The landlords briefed Thak that they're going to begin showing our house to perspective new tenants immediately, and that they'll be giving us about two hours notice before they do so. We also have to let them know if we're going to be gone for the day or something. This won't be much fun, but it's only for a few weeks. We can deal. The hardest part will be getting Erin to keep her room in some form of order. That's always our battle, but it's ten times worse when we're guaranteed to have who knows how many strangers walking through our house on a daily basis. Hopefully the place leases quickly, and we won't have to deal with this for long.

I have to also call a carpet cleaning service and set up an appointment to have that done after our stuff has been picked up by the movers, but within a couple days of our final inspection so that the carpets have enough time to dry before then.

It's real. We're leaving. I'm going to kind of miss this place in some ways. I'll miss looking out into my back yard and seeing a cyprus tree amid pines... and grass, for that matter. There's not much grass where we're going. I'll miss Spanish moss, the Atlantic ocean, the occasional tropical storms we get here, and humidity. I like Texas, and will be glad to go back, but this place wasn't all bad either.

And the chicken wire canoe of the day is.......

TRICARE!

Yes, Tricare... that lovely insurance we get through the Army. Now, I'm not one to complain about it in general. I know our coverage is way better than that of most civilian insurance, and since we don't even have to pay monthly premiums for this coverage, we really have nothing to complain about compared to a lot of people, but with that being said, Tricare has dropped the ball.

When we went to the birth center yesterday, the lady who takes care of the financial end of things called us back to her office, and told us that Tricare had screwed up on paying for like a dozen recent births, and Orren's was one of them. See, the plan that the kids and I have is called Tricare Standard, and it works like civilian insurance, except that we don't pay monthly premiums, and the deductible is WAY lower than any civilian policy out there. Beyond that, it's pretty, well, standard. They're supposed to pay 80%, we're supposed to pay 20%. So for my care, and Orren's birth, they were supposed to pay $3300, leaving us to pay $825. What REALLY happened is that they paid out $1100, which is obviously a lot less than $3300, and you can imagine what that does to our share. Nothing good.

Well, we are actually not being billed for that amount right now since this, apparently, is a common glitch in the Tricare system. We just have to call Tricare, and argue with them until they pay what they're supposed to. This has been going on, on and off, for the past three years. You'd think they'd have fixed the glitch by now, but no...

The thing that slays me is that Tricare pays out just fine on tens of thousands of births each year. Most of those take place in military hospitals, and most of the remaining take place in civilian hospitals. These, they pay out on without a hitch, but for the other 1% of us who choose to have our babies in birth centers or at home, they don't pay out worth a crap, and we have to fight them over it. This is extremely ironic to me since, on average, an uncomplicated hospital birth (and mom's care with an OB/GYN) costs about twice what my care and Orren's birth did. Of course, when you take into account the sky high c-section rate in this country, and how much more that costs, it's more like 3x or 4x as much as what me and Orren cost. You'd think the insurance companies would be giving incentives to anyone willing to avoid the hospital racket and save them several grand, not screwing us over.

Of course, that would make entirely too much sense.

Closer

As of yesterday, the truck is done. Three days and several hundred dollars later, it runs better than it ever has, and we thoroughly enjoyed our test drive to Jesup last night. I've got to say, the kids look so cute in the back seat of the truck together. I keep envisioning them back there with the animals on our drive to El Paso, and it's just adorable. Now that we know that our truck is ready to make the voyage, I'm just that much more ready for moving day to come. We have a month and two days until we leave Georgia behind, hopefully forever.

There is one more thing Thak wants to do to the truck. He wants to replace the exhaust system, and found a kit to do it for relatively cheaply. It's still several hundred dollars, though, which is what gives me pause about it. He says there are holes in the exhaust system that is on the truck currently, and that it needs to be replaced. I say it sounds fine the way it is and he's using this move as an excuse to put loud dual exhaust on the truck, which he's wanted to do for years. With that said, we'll probably get the kit next payday.

So the truck is ready, and it needs to be. Thak even got the new hitch thingie for it. He didn't trust the one we had, and we need a good hitch since we're going to be towing the car on a trailer behind the truck.

Thak said last night that he's going to start cleaning out our garage today so that we can start figuring out what stuff we're taking with us, and what we're going to have the movers pack up and take. I guess he plans on putting the stuff we're going to take in the garage. That'll work fine, too. I know we're taking all the tools with us at very least. Plus, they're heavy, and we get paid for every pound we move, so that works in our favor. Plus, would YOU want to be caught out on the road without your tools? Thak wouldn't, and I don't blame him. He also is going to start cleaning out some tuffboxes so that we can start packing other stuff in them to take with us. We're going to put the tuffboxes in the back of the truck since they're waterproof, and lock, and put as much stuff in there as possible, probably mostly clothes, the kids' toys, Orren's pack-and-play, etc...

We have to go to the birth center this afternoon for my final appointment. Thak is at the hardware store right now. I don't know what he's getting there, but I guess I'll find out when he gets home. He knows he's got to be back by 1:00. I'm getting myself and the kids all bathed, dressed, and ready to go (Orren is napping, and Erin is done, which is why I'm blogging), and when we get home, I think Thak wants to start going through a lot of our stuff, and getting things sorted out. I can't say I'm looking forward to doing it, but I am looking forward to having it done.

They love their daddy.

This is what happens when Thak comes in from working on the truck all day long. He always plays with both the kids, and they can't wait to see him!

Don't these two look just alike? Every time Orren's looking very intently at Thak, I always say he's thinking to himself, "So that's what I'm going to look like in 33 years!"



Then of course, Erin had to get in on the mix. She loves daddy, too. Orren was getting mad about this time because he was not enjoying the flash of the camera. It took four tries to get this pic, because Erin kept closing her eyes.

Friday the 13th

Today is Friday the 13th, and Thak bought out our local Advanced Auto Parts. OK, so he didn't really buy out the store, but he may as well have. We needed two carts to get all the stuff we got out to the car. Thank goodness for military discounts!!

I can't complain, though. He's giving the truck a major tune-up, replacing basically everything on it, before our drive to Texas in a month. He did the O2 sensors last weekend, and also the spark plugs. Now he's doing ALL the fluids, the brakes, the serpentine belt, ALL the filters, and probably some other stuff I forgot to mention. It's a lot of work. Thank goodness for 4 day weekends!

It's going to rain soon, though, so we're probably going to have to clear out room in the garage to bring the truck in there so he can still get this stuff done before Tuesday. We've been busy all morning. We had to bring his phone back to the Verizon store because the screen has this weird green line through it. They told us to come back at 4:00 because they didn't have any in stock. Apparently, the Blackberry Storm is a hot item for Ft. Stewart soldiers!! I can't say I blame them. Although it's lucky I didn't send the rebates off yet, so we've still got the box and everything, and can just take it all back in a little while, and do a one for one swap.

Once that's done, Thak will be working on the truck for most of the weekend, probably, which completely eliminates the possibility of doing much for Valentine's Day this year. Although it's not like we really had big plans anyhow... we do have a 7-week-old baby, after all! Still, any day spent getting one more thing ready for our big move is a good day as far as I'm concerned.

Kid pics for Thursday

Orren looking his preppy best:



And Erin jumps in for a picture, even though her mouth is blue from eating all the candy at her class Valentine's Day party today!!

Today's kiddie pic

Yes, Orren is wearing Erin's old Very Hungry Caterpillar overalls. Thank goodness for a warm day before he outgrows them!!

He'll be 7 weeks old tomorrow.

The latest on the move

Since Orren is napping, I guess I ought to give the latest on the move. Thak's official orders came in yesterday, and he went to Transportation to set up our move. The movers are coming to pack up our stuff on March 12th, and taking it away on the 13th.

We plan to stay in the area until after St. Patrick's Day since it will be our last in Savannah (and Savannah has basically the best St. Paddy's Day EVER) and leave for El Paso on the morning of the 18th. This, of course, is subject to change, but right now, this is our plan.

Moving is a daunting task, especially considering that neither Thak nor I have ever done it this way before. Hard to believe considering he's been in 16 years, I know, but when you think about it, both of us spent basically our entire time in the military (until the past 4.5 years) single, and moving as a single soldier is easy. You pack everything into duffel bags, and go to the next post. Moving with a family is hard. Thak remembers some of this from when his dad was in the Air Force, but being along for the ride as a kid not the same as having to be in charge of it yourself.

We are doing what's called a "partial DITY" (DITY = Do IT Yourself), which means that we're being paid for moving some of our stuff ourselves, but the majority of our stuff will be moved by the Army. We're going to move all the kitchen stuff ourselves, as well as my sewing machine and all my fabric, at least one of the computers, plus most of our clothes, Orren's stuff, and some of Erin's toys. We'll be packing as much stuff into the truck and the car as we can. Considering that we're going to be without the bulk of our stuff for several weeks, we'll want to take as much with us as we can so that it won't be pure hell to be without the rest for that long.

The real issue is going to be separating this stuff from the stuff we want the movers to take. Army movers are notorious for just throwing everything in sight into boxes, and taking it away. If that happens, it's not the end of the world, because we will get it all back in just a few weeks, but we'd rather things went more according to plan, so we've got to figure out how to differentiate this stuff.

Also, considering that Thak will probably be at work while our stuff is being packed and taken away (Thak? At work? Huge surprise there!! Haha) I'm going to have to supervise this. I'm not looking forward to that at all.

We'll be really glad when this thing is over, and we've settled into our new home in El Paso. Thak is going to call the Ft. Bliss housing office today, and see what we can do about getting onto the list. We're open to the possibilities of both on and off post housing out there. The issue is that for senior NCO housing (designated for ranks E6-E9), the wait list is long because the post is so SNCO heavy. We may not get a house, but we don't know if we don't ask, so we're going to ask. Plus, they do off post referral, and can point us toward some reputable landlords. That will be a big help, too.

OK, now off to start boxing up some of my fabric that I'm not going to need these next few weeks. Maybe we'll throw everything that doesn't need to be taken by the movers into my fabric closet, and lock the door!! Haha!! That's a plan!!

The name

In the Army, we have very creative ways of saying things. "Chicken wire canoe" is a synonym of "soup sandwich", "football bat", and the like. In other words, it is a nicer way to say that something is completely screwed up. Anything can be a chicken wire canoe. I personally have heard the term used for everything from people, to vehicles, to direct and lawful orders. The only thing that is for sure is that life in the Army, more days than not, has at least some elements of the chicken wire canoe, and hence, I give you this aptly named chronicle of the daily life of the prior-service wife of a US Army Staff Sergeant, and the family thereof.

We're just regular people with funny names, living the dream in our chicken wire canoe since 2004.