More unit stuff

The thing nobody ever tells you is how hard it will be, after you leave the unit that's pretty much carrying the entire Army's load, to muster enthusiasm for the unit you go to next. Sure, it's nice for a few months to know that you can watch the news, bad things can happen, and it's not 100% guaranteed to land on your doorstep like it did every time when you were in 3rd ID. Then that wears off, and you realize that it's really not that great, and it becomes VERY hard to care about this new unit. You will find yourself saying, "Well, in 3rd ID, we did...." and "Well, if you think that's crazy, you should go to 3rd ID!" or "The thing about a person like her is that she wouldn't last a week in 3rd ID." and things of the like. ALL the 3rd ID people who come here feel the same way, and NONE of the other units' people do. It's like we've always said, when it comes to the Army, there's 3rd ID, and then there's everyone else.

We had another FRG meeting last night, and I do like this unit, although it is frustratingly different than anything 3rd Infantry ever thought up. There is one thing that disturbs me GREATLY, though, and that is that last night, I was the only NCO wife in the room. We had about four Officers' wives, then me, and then a whole massive gaggle of lower-enlisted wives who all said "this is our first duty station" at some point during their introductions.

Not cool. Not cool AT ALL. For one thing, when this unit deploys, and it will, the LAST thing any company needs at its helm or anywhere near its leadership ranks is a no-tour-wonder. These girls will do awesome when all the FRG does is plan barbecues and Christmas parties, but when it comes down to the nitty gritty of what the Army does, they're going to fall flat on their faces. I'm not jinxing them. I just know. Remember? I came from 3rd ID.

It was a weird feeling last night, knowing I was the only NCO wife in the room, the only 3-tour wife, hell, the only multiple tour wife, and the only prior service one aside from A Co's FRG leader, who happens to be the only male FRG leader I've ever seen, and also a retired Marine. He's great. Under his leadership, A Co will be shit hot. With a high concentration of Officers' wives, plus the token NCO wife, HHC will be pretty great also. The rest of the companies? I fear for those girls when the unit deploys.

I've got cages to rattle, and lots of them. There are a few problems, though, and I know them better than most, as a former soldier and NCO wife.

1) NCO wives are THE single most jaded group of people you will EVER meet. We've been around long enough to have horror stories a-plenty about how awful the people were in any given one of our former units, and watch out for the ones who don't have horror stories because they're the ones who were doing the perpetrating. The last thing most NCO wives want to do is get involved with another FRG because of their horrible experiences with past FRG's. The way we are trying to overcome this here is by emphasizing the fact that this is a BRAND NEW unit, and the FRG is JUST becoming established. It literally is what we make it. We set every precedent ourselves.

2) Officers' wives get all the credit for what the FRG does, but in most units, NCO wives do the majority of the work. It's just like when the unit deploys and is getting ready to come home, the Commander is always congratulated on how great his unit did, and the people who actually made those great things happen are not commended at all. It's kind of like that on this side, too. Most non-prior-service wives think this is incredibly screwed up, and want no part of it. I haven't figured out a way around this one yet, because it's just the way it is, and being that I AM prior-service, I'm used to it.

3) NCO wives are often thrown into the muck and mire of the general "enlisted" side. Since Officers' wives kind of have an excuse to rise above that kind of thing, and stick to their own little group, they generally do (and understandably so), but NCO wives don't really have that excuse, because since our husbands work directly with the soldiers, we're supposed to be good to the lower-enlisted wives, so it's rather difficult to segregate ourselves socially under those conditions, although many of us would like to. When we try, the lower-enlisted wives pitch a fit, and it's drama drama drama. So FRG is a sticky situation for NCO wives in many units. Now I am in a position in this unit to alleviate a little of that. Thak is not actually in charge of anyone here, so I can host little functions that are open to NCO wives ONLY, and not hurt morale within the unit. The ones who want to reenlist will still reenlist regardless of whether or not their wife was at my luncheon the previous week.

4) It's a volunteer basis, and the Army's done a great job of telling wives of all flavors that it's perfectly ok to have your cake and eat it, too. Yes, you should have ENORMOUS amounts of benefits, but you should not be expected to do ANYTHING aside from lap it up. No, volunteering is not expected anymore, and it's really hurt the organizations. This is most true right in the middle, right where I am. Most of my peers are not 5 year wives like me. No, they're about Thak's age, and have been married about 15 years volunteered with horrible units for most of it, and are getting tired. I can't blame them for being tired, but this isn't the time for it, nor the place. You can relax when he retires.

5) The divorce rate. We have almost no NCO wives because most of our NCO's are divorced or about to be. Those who are married are married to other soldiers. (Gee, that doesn't prove what Thak and I have been saying all along or anything, does it?)



So I've got a small pool to work from, and the deck stacked against me. Even if I can convince them that this unit isn't like others they've been in before, the real question is, will they take it from me? I'm younger, prior service, and married my husband 12 years into his career. I'm Public Enemy #1 to a lot of these women.

Let's see how it goes....

Stud muffin!

Here's Orren in his new fall clothes (size 2T!!) He'll be 9 months old on Friday. I can't believe it!!

Hail!!

The day after we bought the truck, we experienced our very first West Texas hail storm. It was nasty! Hail ranging in size from 1/2 inch to golfball came down for a really long time.

By and large, we got out without serious damage. I took a large hail stone to the eye while opening the garage door to move the car inside, and the truck, which does not fit in the garage, has a chip in the windshield, which we're going to have to fix, but otherwise, we made it out just fine. Many other people fared a lot worse than we did, despite the fact that we were in the most severe part of the storm.

Some pics:

Beginning of the storm:

After a few minutes:

It knocked all the leaves off our tree:


This is where it ran off the roof:


A close-up of some of the smaller hail stones... Thak said his hand was about to freeze off!!


Outside the front door:



A bit of the lawn, plus the street, which was more like a river:

Erin's new ride!

We got Erin a new car seat the other day. Babies R Us was doing this gear trade-in event, where if you bring in something old and crappy, you can get a voucher for 20% off something new and shiny, so I thought that was a great idea to go ahead and get at least one of Erin's car seats that way. We had this crappy old booster seat from which the straps were missing so we couldn't harness her in it. We traded that in, and got 20% off this beauty!! It's a Graco Nautilus, which is a high-weight-harness car seat. It'll harness her to 65 pounds, and considering she just hit 40 pounds at six years old, that means we'll probably have her in this seat until she's 8 or so. She'll be in it until she outgrows it, that's all I know, and that'll be a while. This seat goes normally for $180, but we got it for about $150 with our discount. You can't beat that.

It's a huge seat, which is why I didn't go with it for the car right off, because in the car, now she and Orren both sit by windows, and there's not enough room between them for a third car seat. In the truck, however, she can fit in this, Orren in his Britax, and there's still more than enough room for a third seat in the middle so when we have another baby, they'll all fit without a problem. For the car, we've got to get her a Radian eventually, but right now, we're happy with our Nautilus.

I have realized how spoiled I've become with car seats, though. To be blunt, with Orren, we've used expensive seats from expensive brands. Our infant carrier is a Peg Perego Primo Viaggio SIP which sells normally for $280. Our car seat that he ride in now is a $260 Britax Diplomat. Those two seats spare no expense, and they just feel expensive. The straps feel nice, the clips feel nice, the way they adjust is easy and luxurious. This Graco Nautilus is a well rated seat, which is why I bought it, but it's no Britax. It's hard to get used to the fact that the straps feel kind of rough, and they get twisted more easily, and that the clip feels so light weight compared to a Peg Perego or Britax clip. I'm not worried about it because, like I said, the seat has excellent ratings, and that's all that matters. Plus, Erin will only use it for maybe three years. For Orren, though, we're going to buy a Britax Regent for the truck because honestly, he'll be in that seat for the next seven years, and Thak and I both agree that Britax just feels sturdier.

So Erin loves her Nautilus, and the ratings are good, so obviously it'll keep her safe. Plus it's cute. What little girl doesn't love a pink seat with butterflies on it?! That's all that matters right now. I'm just REALLY glad I didn't buy this seat when she was 2, with the intention of using it for 6 years or so... But Erin thinks her seat rocks, and I'd never tell her otherwise.

Meet Odysseus!

Our new (to us) Dodge Ram 2500! It was sad to see our faithful old F150 go, but it was time. We put so many miles on that truck, and the last compression test Thak ran came out really uneven. We had two options, either get a new truck, or buy a crate engine for the existing one. Since we needed four doors anyhow so we can more easily get the kids in there, we decided to go ahead and look around last Saturday at what the local dealerships had to offer, price range wise. We figured out what we could afford, and found a lot of things that were within price range, but still more than we wanted to pay. Then we drove all the way over to the west side of town, and found this one. It's a certified preowned Dodge, which means it came with a warranty. It's a 2006, and has not many miles at all. Our payments after trade-in, well, let's just say a Private could afford them so long as they were single.

We're THRILLED with our new truck! See? Even Orren likes it! (OK, so he likes the shiny Ram on the steering wheel!!)

Erin and Orren update

So Orren is now off commercial baby food. He used to get just the Earth's Best Organics and sometimes Gerber Organic, but seriously, when you factor in 3 meals, and stage 3 food, it was costing us over $100 a month in food alone. Then you add in formula (they discontinued our kind, so we switched to Similac Organic) which is another $200 a month (and hence, I kick Thak in the ass for being so insistent that I quit breastfeeding when I did). So $300 a month for the boy. Oh my... It definitely adds up! Thankfully we only have a little under 3 1/2 months left of formula feeding.

What we've done instead of commercial baby food is actually began using the food grinder that I've used for nothing besides bread crumbs for the past five years, and given him what we're eating, with slight consideration to sodium content, gassy ingredients, and the like. Today for lunch, for example, he had leftover chicken cacciatore which is the same thing Thak and I had.

Ingredients:
Whole wheat spaghetti
onions
bell peppers
garlic
tomatoes
red wine
chicken
basil
oregano
black pepper
capers
just a small touch of salt (half a teaspoon for a whole pan)

HE LOVED IT!! Tonight for dinner, we're having beef tips and rice, which is not a low-sodium dish since it has bullion in it, but to compensate for that, we'll go ahead and pull out a couple pieces of beef and onions before we add the bullion, throw it into the food grinder with some brown rice and zucchini, and that'll be perfect for him.

Now he still likes finger food, and he eats some finger food at every meal, but he doesn't get full off of that, so we have to help him along a little, and this is the way we do that. At least it doesn't cost $100 a month!!



Erin is doing great at homeschooling. We're going to have to get her a second grade math book soon. I've found that bribing her on sight words is pretty much the most effective way. If she reads them all correctly 10 times, she gets a candy bar. Oh well. Could be worse. At least she's reading them!

We're going to be looking for more homeschooling materials this week because we're running through ours so fast. What we got was good for getting us started, and we're now just burning through it so fast that we need things far more substantial. It's not a bad thing, not by a long shot.



I find that many of my friends don't quite understand how busy I am lately. I'm running a business and I'm homeschooling Erin. That alone is a lot. Beyond that, I have an 8-month-old, and Thak's schedule of school and work never gets any easier, so I have to do all this myself. I don't think many of my friends really get it. They would get it if I worked a 9-5 job, and they would get it if I had just one of the above things, but they do not get this:

Wake up, feed kids breakfast, sew, begin homeschool lessons, clean up, feed Thak lunch, finish homeschool lessons, sew, clean up some more, prep dinner so it's on the table at 5, eat, spend half an hour with Thak before he goes off to school, see him off to school, get kids bathed, rooms cleaned, and ready for bed, put kids down, sew, clean up, sew, spend maybe an hour with Thak after he gets home from school, go to bed, wake up and do it all over again.

I don't think people quite get it when I say I can't come to coffee if it means I won't be able to get dinner on in time.

And with that, I have to go finish today's homeschooling lessons, and then hang two loads of diapers on the clothes line. As for dinner, I'm ahead of the game this time... the stuff's not in the freezer at least!!

FRG

Why must everything in the Army be potluck? I hate potlucks. And most applicable to today's to-do list, why must tonight's FRG meeting be potluck? It's AFTER dinner time. Yes, "we" decided to have everyone just bring finger foods, but why do we even need food? We're just trying to fill leadership positions within the companies. If it were solely my decision [which obviously it's not!] we wouldn't have food there at all. Maybe it's my no-nonsense Ft. Stewart influence [which is part of why I'm in the position I'm in] but FRG meetings don't have food, and FRG potlucks are something completely different. Meetings are meetings and socials are socials. I guess we do them both together here??

The thing is, this unit is brand new, so there's no precedent on anything. We set the precedent, and the way we make things is how they will be in the battalion for a long time to come, long after I've left this place anyhow, so this is a big and important time for us. I guess we're setting the precedent of doing meetings as potlucks?? Oh well... There's another precedent I would like to set tonight, and that is of dressing nicely for meetings. I swear there is nothing I hate more than seeing some 400 pound Army wife in sweats and her husband's Basic Training company t-shirt [stretched to breaking point, of course], hair a mess, not a stitch of make-up, and coming to an FRG meeting like that. No, I'm sorry, but when you come to a unit function, you are representing your husband, and you need to have more respect for him, for the unit, and for everyone else in attendance than to show up looking like a fat sack of crap. For that reason, I have to figure out what I'm going to wear. I might end up making a new skirt. I've got tons of awesome material for just that in stock, so that may be something I'll go ahead and do once Erin's working on something independently today. Then tonight, I'll pair the new skirt with some dark brown heels (it is after labor day, after all!!) and whatever top goes with it, plus my peacoat since it's cold at night now, put my hair up in a Spanish chignon, touch up the make-up, and there you have Mrs. SSG M. I can only hope that others will follow this example. Since the unit is in its inaugural stages, there's a possibility. The Army needs more old-school, and this unit's got potential. I'm going to try.

Well, I have to run! Time for home schooling lessons, and sewing, and LOTS of cleaning!!! I can't get my game face on for the meeting if my house is a mess!!!

The Outstanding Adventures of Finger Food Boy and Home School Girl

OK, just for the pics, just Finger Food Boy today. There will be pics of Home School Girl tomorrow.

Anyhow, we got some good materials at the PX yesterday, and I made my first hard and fast set of lesson plans this morning. It's going well. We're WAY ahead of the game in math. We're behind in reading, but we knew that already. She lost everything she learned in GA when we moved out here and put her in that awful public school last year, so we knew we were playing a little catch-up in that way. She'll catch up fine at home with us, but in that school, I really believe she'd have fallen through the cracks.

We've decided to go with something called Unschooling. Basically, we're not buying a canned curriculum. We're making our own, and it's tailored to Erin's interests. Her biggest interest right now is agriculture, and since it's about time for us to put in our fall garden, that's an easy thing to plan lessons around. I feel like we'll make better progress this way than if we tried to get a canned curriculum, knowing that we're so far ahead in one area while being behind in another.

The other thing that I've found is that the deeper we get into this homeschooling thing, the more we like it, but the less our friends understand. I keep getting questioned by my friends as to why I don't go bitch to the superintendent, and try to get her into a better public school, and even some people trying to tell me that unschooling is against the law in the state of Texas, when in fact, that couldn't be farther from the truth. I never knew how strong homeschooling parents really had to be in sticking to their guns about their decision to home school, especially if they, like us, choose unschooling as opposed to a canned curriculum. For the record, the State of Texas Supreme Court ruled that a home school must be operated as a private school, meaning that children must be taught using books, workbooks, and electronic media, or any combination thereof, in the areas of reading, writing, math, and good citizenship. THAT'S IT. Not "Thou shalt pay someone a million dollars for a curriculum you could have written yourself." No, for once, this is one way in which Texas is a freer state than GA. Homeschooling is far less regulated here, and frankly, for someone just getting started, that's nice. Georgia may beat Texas by a mile in gun rights, but for homeschooling parents, Texas is definitely the best.


OK, so that's Home School Girl. Now, some pics of Finger Food Boy.

Car Seat law again

How is it that some people can argue with the laws of physics, and countless studies which prove something quite handily? These are people whom I had previously thought were at least somewhat intelligent... at least I didn't think they were complete idiots... Now I've changed my mind.

Look, a 5-point harness is safer for anyone in a crash than a 3-point seatbelt. When you distribute a force over 5 points, the impact is lighter on any given one of those points than it is if you distribute that same force over 3 points. I think I learned that on day one of the most basic college Physics course I ever took. It should be common knowledge. It's common sense! Then when you see a video showing a crash test involving one dummy in a seatbelt and another in a 5-point harness, and upon impact, the dummy in the seatbelt is practically thrown out, whereas the one in the harness barely moves, how COULD you still say that your kids are just as safe in a seatbelt as they would be in a harness?

Hey, my kids are worth the extra effort it takes me to extended harness and extended rear-face. Sorry yours aren't to you.... Sucks to be them.

I mean, I'm not saying I've never been hasty to move my kid on to the next stage. I forward faced Erin at 12 months. I moved her into a booster at the age of 4 1/2, and took her out of a harness at 5. That was before I knew the benefits of extended rear-facing and extended harnessing. I had never even heard of these things until I was pregnant with Orren, and started reading up a little more on the best car seats, and deciding what types of things we wanted to get. That's when I kept seeing these terms, and started to do a little research. The research is pretty damned indisputable. In a crash (which is the important part of a car seat's job) a rear-facing passenger moves as one with the seat, thus eliminating whiplash, concussions, and spinal injuries. A forward-facing harnessed passenger does better in a crash than a 3-point belted passenger due to better distribution of force, and more anchors holding them in place. This is SO OBVIOUS. It is INDISPUTABLE. Yet people argue with me about it, and make up excuses for why they can't rear-face their 1-year-old, or harness their preschooler. No, you just don't want to. There's no reason you can't. If you don't want to, SAY you don't want to, but be honest. You are choosing to put your child in danger every time you drive because you don't want to rear-face your toddler who is within weight tolerance for that, or spend the extra couple hundred bucks for a seat that would harness your elementary schooler.

Absolutely sickening. People like that ARE chicken wire canoes in the truest regard. As water flows into a chicken wire canoe rendering it useless, the holes in these people's logic act similarly.