1) The cuteness of a person's child is inversely proportional to the number of pictures that person will show of said child. If someone's kid looks like a the illicit love child of an alien and a bulldog, guaranteed, you've been subjected to 100 pictures of him within the past day or so. If the kid is adorable, his mommy and daddy probably haven't shown you a picture of him in a week, and when they do, there's some significance to it.
2) Passive-aggressive people come from Wisconsin. OK, they come from other places, too, but EVERY person I've ever met from Wisconsin is a total passive-aggressive ass.
3) Every one of my friends is annoying me with their constant posturing when it comes to their stance on the Obama issue. I don't agree with a lot of what this man has done in office, but at least he doesn't have a face that's just begging to be punched like George W does, and at least he's not trying to get us all killed like George W seemed to be set on, too! He's better than what we used to have. No, friends, I don't "love when I wake up in the morning and Barack Obama is president", but I also don't think his name stands for "One Big Ass Mistake America". I hope to see, in my lifetime, a day when we'll elect some dude or dudette to the White House, and then won't have to hear CONSTANTLY about how great or crappy a thing that was to do, every single day for the next four years.
4) The worse someone is at car seat use, the more pictures they take of their kid in the car seat. It's like, no, that's NOT a cute picture. That's evidence of your haphazard "I don't give a shit" parenting. Your kid is gonna fly out the window and die if you hit the curb, far less another car! How stupid do you have to be to actually think that straps gapping loose at the shoulders, and a chest clip at buckle-level is actually going to restrain ANYTHING against an impact? The reason car seat Nazis like me show pics of our kids in car seats is because SOMEBODY'S got to show the right way to do it. Car seat misusers never get the point until their kids become a statistic. (No shit. Swedes use their car seats approximately the way I use mine. 14 kids die each year in Sweden in car accidents, and nobody else generally survives those particular accidents either. In the US, over 2000 kids die in car accidents every year. 700 A DAY are severely injured. Using car seats PROPERLY would cut these numbers down to a small fraction of what they are.)
5) The less someone knows on a subject, the more they'll argue with you about it.
Friday, April 30, 2010
I never realize until I have reason to compare.
A dear friend of mine pointed me in the direction of a lovely message board for cloth diapering mommies. Well, this message board is like perfect for me because they have subsections for every single one of my favorite parenting topics, and the place is just crawling with mommies who think similarly to me on these things, or at least understand where those of us who do think this way are coming from. It's nice to be in the majority for once, and to be able to tell honestly what works for me without being lambasted for doing things differently than mainstream society.
Well, there was a car seat picture thread on that board, and I like car seat picture threads when they are of correct use. Believe it or not, it helps me learn about car seats, what kinds are good for what ages of kids, what 3-across combinations work in what vehicles, and just generally what's out there. I also like to see how long other people have been able to rear-face in the seats I own, and how comfortable or uncomfortable the kids look in those seats. Basically, I like seeing other people doing it right. It makes me feel good, and reminds me that there are lots of smart parents in this world, and that at least in that venue, we outnumber the idiots a million to one.
The only weird thing about these car seat picture threads is that they remind me just how big Orren is. I always forget that he's huge for his age. He's my son. I spend every single day with him, all day long. Yeah, he's growing a lot, and is actually getting rather difficult to pick up (especially if he's not cooperating!) but I still don't think of him as enormous for his age. He's just my son, my baby boy. Seeing other kids in their car seats, with their heights and weights listed, just reminds me that my boy is growing so fast. I saw one pic of a little boy in the exact same car seat as Orren has, a red Radian XTSL, and he was just slightly smaller than Orren. I looked at his height and weight, and sure enough, he was only three pounds smaller than Orren, and an inch shorter. Then I looked at his age. 3 years. Holy shit.
I continued scrolling through the pages, looking at the other happy kids in their awesome car seats, and every single kid I found who was anywhere near Orren's size was more than a year older than him.
I love having a big strong son. I think it's great! (Is it funny that his name means Pine Tree, and he's so tall? I think it is.) It just takes having something to compare him to before I ever really see how big he is.
Well, there was a car seat picture thread on that board, and I like car seat picture threads when they are of correct use. Believe it or not, it helps me learn about car seats, what kinds are good for what ages of kids, what 3-across combinations work in what vehicles, and just generally what's out there. I also like to see how long other people have been able to rear-face in the seats I own, and how comfortable or uncomfortable the kids look in those seats. Basically, I like seeing other people doing it right. It makes me feel good, and reminds me that there are lots of smart parents in this world, and that at least in that venue, we outnumber the idiots a million to one.
The only weird thing about these car seat picture threads is that they remind me just how big Orren is. I always forget that he's huge for his age. He's my son. I spend every single day with him, all day long. Yeah, he's growing a lot, and is actually getting rather difficult to pick up (especially if he's not cooperating!) but I still don't think of him as enormous for his age. He's just my son, my baby boy. Seeing other kids in their car seats, with their heights and weights listed, just reminds me that my boy is growing so fast. I saw one pic of a little boy in the exact same car seat as Orren has, a red Radian XTSL, and he was just slightly smaller than Orren. I looked at his height and weight, and sure enough, he was only three pounds smaller than Orren, and an inch shorter. Then I looked at his age. 3 years. Holy shit.
I continued scrolling through the pages, looking at the other happy kids in their awesome car seats, and every single kid I found who was anywhere near Orren's size was more than a year older than him.
I love having a big strong son. I think it's great! (Is it funny that his name means Pine Tree, and he's so tall? I think it is.) It just takes having something to compare him to before I ever really see how big he is.
Damn you, West Texas!
How anyone can say they like the weather out here is beyond me! There is nothing good about this weather. It's dry, and the temperature fluctuates wildly from hour to hour, and then there are the sandstorms. Last night, we had 65 MPH winds which shook every window in the house and made so much noise pelting the house with sand, that nobody slept worth a damn.
See, I wouldn't mind the wind if it would just rain along with it. A nice tropical storm would be rather welcome. Sandstorms suck, though. OK, I'm not allowed to say that anymore. A friend of mine totally got onto me the last time I did, because in her tribe, sandstorms are sacred. I said, "Well, at least they're some good to somebody!" So I can't say sandstorms suck anymore, but I still can't wait until I NEVER have to deal with another one again as long as I live.
See, I wouldn't mind the wind if it would just rain along with it. A nice tropical storm would be rather welcome. Sandstorms suck, though. OK, I'm not allowed to say that anymore. A friend of mine totally got onto me the last time I did, because in her tribe, sandstorms are sacred. I said, "Well, at least they're some good to somebody!" So I can't say sandstorms suck anymore, but I still can't wait until I NEVER have to deal with another one again as long as I live.
Thursday, April 29, 2010
No need to be mean.
For some crazy reason, a lot of moms-to-be ask what kind of diapers they should use for their not-yet-arrived babies. Of course, the majority of the suggestions consist of "huggies" or "pampers" or "that's a waste of money! Use Wal Mart brand!" I always take these conversations as an opportunity to talk about cloth diapering. I mean, it is a conversation about what kind of diapers to use, right? They never said disposable only! I always tell about the different types of cloth diapers that are available currently, the cost factor, and how it's nowhere near difficult to do, and does not create the epic laundry crisis a lot of people think it will. I'm always really positive and upbeat, and I don't even mention all the harmful chemicals in disposable diapers, or the environmental crisis that every disposable diapered baby contributes to. I ONLY mention the money you can save by cloth diapering, and how it's not hard or inconvenient at all. Mostly, I just try to encourage people to think about it, and inform them enough to pique their interest. I thoroughly believe that the reason most people don't use cloth is because it never occurred to them that it's an option. I am simply trying to let them know that it IS an option, and one that's gaining popularity these days.
The thing I can't stand is the disposable diapering parents who think they have the high ground over cloth diapering parents. Dude, I used disposable diapers with Erin, and I can't get my head around that. I sort of looked up to, and definitely respected, my cloth diapering friends. I don't really know WHY I didn't use cloth full-time with Erin (I switched to it on a part-time basis when she was a toddler, but it was really disastrous because I didn't have the right stuff.) but what I do know is that I never had anything but the utmost respect for any cloth diapering parent, and never felt that I had any sort of high-ground over them. I find that I encounter tons of disposable diapering parents these days who, at the mere mention of the fact that we use cloth, want to tell me how awful cloth is, and throw out absolutely false statistics about how there's a higher incidence of infections, rashes, and such with cloth, and how disposable diapered babies are happier because they stay dryer.
I don't ever really respond to these things. I tend to do the smile and nod, and then say, "That's nice.", or "Your information is incorrect, but ok...", or something similar, before walking away from it. There is no arguing with a person who actually thinks there's a high ground to be had by using disposable diapers, which are 100% an invention for the sake of convenience, and nothing more. This argument is akin to saying that the McDonald's drive-thru is better for you than cooking a meal at home because it's harmful to be hungry while waiting for your food to cook.
I could corner them SO easily by telling them that any study which has shown a downside to cloth diapering was paid for by the Proctor and Gamble corporation, which makes Pampers. I could so easily tell them that one of the chemicals in disposable diapers has been directly linked to an uptick in male factor infertility, and that the reason why disposable diapers keep the baby's skin so dry is because of incredibly caustic chemicals just below the surface which lock away moisture. I could certainly tell them all these very true facts, and not even bother throwing in that organic cotton is certainly better for the skin than bleached paper and a healthy dose of petroleum products, but they'd never hear it, so I don't bother.
It just blows my mind that anyone could ever think they could have any type of high ground for disposable diapering. It's a lazy choice. To be sure, it's a lazy choice I made at one point in time, but a lazy choice no less. If people would just say, "Yeah, I'm not willing to put in the time necessary to cloth diaper." I'd give them props for honesty. Being rude to me and telling me what crap cloth diapers are, and how I'm putting my son at risk by using them, just really pisses me off.
I'm almost sure these are the same people who say rude things to me when I encourage someone to have a natural or non-hospital birth (when it comes up in conversation) by telling them how well it went with Orren, and not to worry about how big their baby is, that it doesn't mean anything for the pain and difficulty of it all. (For some reason, the doctors these days try to intimidate people by saying they're having a huge baby. They almost never do.) I've had naysayers tell me that I was putting myself and Orren at risk for death by cardiac arrest by bearing the pain of labor and delivery on my own, and not having any type of medication during or after the birth. When they find out how big he was, they usually say something REALLY nasty about how selfish I was to go with a non-hospital birth. (I didn't know how big either of my babies were until they were born. My midwives knew, but did not tell me, and for that, I am grateful.) Again, this is something I really do not understand. There is no moral high ground to be had in accepting narcotics, and interfering in a natural process. Again, I wouldn't give a crap where anyone had their baby, or how, if they didn't try to tell me I was wrong, and putting my son at risk for doing an all-natural non-hospital birth. According to the World Health Organization, Orren and I were safer than a comparable mom and baby who did the hospital thing. The data is on my side. I wouldn't even care about that if people weren't mean and nasty to me about doing something different.
I'm guessing these are also the same idiots who tell me I'm selfish for driving a compact car as a matter of principle. (Boy, they'd really flip if I told them my awesome mechanic husband is trying to convert it to run on hydrogen!!) What could possibly be the necessity for an urban or suburban family with three or fewer kids to drive some giant vehicle. I understand why a farmer would, but not a housewife. If you have three or fewer kids, there are enough seatbelts in a normal car for them all to ride safely. With consideration, you can even fit three car seats across the back seat. I've done it. Of course, I buy Radian, but the cost of these will be compensated quickly by the savings in fuel costs. But anyhow, I have been told that I'm selfish for insisting on driving a small car, and not putting my children's comfort first. What? They LOVE riding close to one another! They pass toys, and books, and snacks back and forth. They share juice boxes and cheerios, and just love being able to reach one another. In a bigger vehicle, there's a giant chasm between them, and they wouldn't be able to interact with each other nearly so much. They aren't as happy then. So no, I'm NOT selfish for my compact car. On principle, I won't drive anything bigger unless I have twins next time, and need more seatbelts. There is no high ground in driving a gas guzzling SUV if you live within the city limits, and have three or fewer kids. I'm not going to get onto people for doing it, but it does blow my mind to hear them trying to act like there's some high ground to be had by burning fuel as if it were an unlimited resource.
These may even be the same people who try to tell me that it's dangerous for Orren to ride rear-facing since he's nearly 1 1/2 years old, and nearing 30 pounds. Funny, the American Academy of Pediatrics has my back on this one. If you google AAP Car seat guidelines, they will come right up. Their official recommendation is that after a year old, babies will continue to rear-face in a convertible car seat until they reach the weight or height limit of that seat for rear-facing, and then ride forward-facing in a 5-point harness until weight or height limit is exceeded. They only recommend boosters for elementary school aged kids these days. Basically, if I'm endangering Orren by practicing extended rear-facing, and having a car seat that rear-faces to 45 pounds, then I am doing so with the endorsement of a well-respected organization, and it would serve the naysayers well to read some publications if they think forward facing at a year and 20 pounds (a totally obsolete recommendation, by the way! It will probably be illegal to forward face that early soon!) is actually a defendable position. When they try to defend it, I just look at them like they've lost their minds, because literally every organization I can think of, even auto manufacturers, have conducted crash tests and other research, showing that forward-facing is drastically less safe, and that long legs aren't dangerous when rear-facing, that actually there are more leg injuries from forward-facing, in addition to the really great stuff like death and paralysis. How can a person defend putting their kid at risk, and tell me I'm wrong for keeping mine safer? I can't get my head around it.
Thak says they're insecure in their own decisions, because they've taken the easy road, which is almost always the less responsible choice. I thought that may have some truth in it. I don't look at myself as the pinnacle of a responsible parent. I do some things that make other people cringe. I spank occasionally (only from the ages of 4 and up! NEVER a toddler or baby!), and hav been known to drink a cocktail or beer across the table from my kid (some people think that's wrong). I suck at homeschooling, and barely cook on the weekends. I'm not the perfect parent, but I have made good decisions, decisions I'm proud of. I'm proud that my 9 pound 9 ounce baby was born 10 miles from the nearest hospital, in a completely natural and peaceful way. I'm proud that we have been cloth diapering for 16 months. I'm proud that we're keeping our toddler rear-facing, and that I have proven time and time again that we can fit $400 worth of groceries into a compact car along with two kids, and still have room for the driver. I'm proud that Orren's first vegetable that he ever ate was organic homegrown zucchini that I'd picked just two minutes before cooking it for him. I am especially proud of Thak and myself for being honest with ourselves as pertaining to the topics we know little about, and doing research, asking questions of people who would know, and ultimately figuring out the right thing to do. I think maybe the fact that Thak and I have put so much into trying to get parenting right, and right from the start, it just comes off a little insulting when people who have obviously not researched a damned thing aside from the Sam's Club website (pricing Huggies, Pampers, and booster seats for their 2-year-olds), try to tell me I'm wrong for my decisions. I'm not wrong. Hell, I'm not telling them they're wrong for what they decided, but they are DEAD WRONG for trying to argue that my decisions were poor, and to do this with hearsay.
The thing I can't stand is the disposable diapering parents who think they have the high ground over cloth diapering parents. Dude, I used disposable diapers with Erin, and I can't get my head around that. I sort of looked up to, and definitely respected, my cloth diapering friends. I don't really know WHY I didn't use cloth full-time with Erin (I switched to it on a part-time basis when she was a toddler, but it was really disastrous because I didn't have the right stuff.) but what I do know is that I never had anything but the utmost respect for any cloth diapering parent, and never felt that I had any sort of high-ground over them. I find that I encounter tons of disposable diapering parents these days who, at the mere mention of the fact that we use cloth, want to tell me how awful cloth is, and throw out absolutely false statistics about how there's a higher incidence of infections, rashes, and such with cloth, and how disposable diapered babies are happier because they stay dryer.
I don't ever really respond to these things. I tend to do the smile and nod, and then say, "That's nice.", or "Your information is incorrect, but ok...", or something similar, before walking away from it. There is no arguing with a person who actually thinks there's a high ground to be had by using disposable diapers, which are 100% an invention for the sake of convenience, and nothing more. This argument is akin to saying that the McDonald's drive-thru is better for you than cooking a meal at home because it's harmful to be hungry while waiting for your food to cook.
I could corner them SO easily by telling them that any study which has shown a downside to cloth diapering was paid for by the Proctor and Gamble corporation, which makes Pampers. I could so easily tell them that one of the chemicals in disposable diapers has been directly linked to an uptick in male factor infertility, and that the reason why disposable diapers keep the baby's skin so dry is because of incredibly caustic chemicals just below the surface which lock away moisture. I could certainly tell them all these very true facts, and not even bother throwing in that organic cotton is certainly better for the skin than bleached paper and a healthy dose of petroleum products, but they'd never hear it, so I don't bother.
It just blows my mind that anyone could ever think they could have any type of high ground for disposable diapering. It's a lazy choice. To be sure, it's a lazy choice I made at one point in time, but a lazy choice no less. If people would just say, "Yeah, I'm not willing to put in the time necessary to cloth diaper." I'd give them props for honesty. Being rude to me and telling me what crap cloth diapers are, and how I'm putting my son at risk by using them, just really pisses me off.
I'm almost sure these are the same people who say rude things to me when I encourage someone to have a natural or non-hospital birth (when it comes up in conversation) by telling them how well it went with Orren, and not to worry about how big their baby is, that it doesn't mean anything for the pain and difficulty of it all. (For some reason, the doctors these days try to intimidate people by saying they're having a huge baby. They almost never do.) I've had naysayers tell me that I was putting myself and Orren at risk for death by cardiac arrest by bearing the pain of labor and delivery on my own, and not having any type of medication during or after the birth. When they find out how big he was, they usually say something REALLY nasty about how selfish I was to go with a non-hospital birth. (I didn't know how big either of my babies were until they were born. My midwives knew, but did not tell me, and for that, I am grateful.) Again, this is something I really do not understand. There is no moral high ground to be had in accepting narcotics, and interfering in a natural process. Again, I wouldn't give a crap where anyone had their baby, or how, if they didn't try to tell me I was wrong, and putting my son at risk for doing an all-natural non-hospital birth. According to the World Health Organization, Orren and I were safer than a comparable mom and baby who did the hospital thing. The data is on my side. I wouldn't even care about that if people weren't mean and nasty to me about doing something different.
I'm guessing these are also the same idiots who tell me I'm selfish for driving a compact car as a matter of principle. (Boy, they'd really flip if I told them my awesome mechanic husband is trying to convert it to run on hydrogen!!) What could possibly be the necessity for an urban or suburban family with three or fewer kids to drive some giant vehicle. I understand why a farmer would, but not a housewife. If you have three or fewer kids, there are enough seatbelts in a normal car for them all to ride safely. With consideration, you can even fit three car seats across the back seat. I've done it. Of course, I buy Radian, but the cost of these will be compensated quickly by the savings in fuel costs. But anyhow, I have been told that I'm selfish for insisting on driving a small car, and not putting my children's comfort first. What? They LOVE riding close to one another! They pass toys, and books, and snacks back and forth. They share juice boxes and cheerios, and just love being able to reach one another. In a bigger vehicle, there's a giant chasm between them, and they wouldn't be able to interact with each other nearly so much. They aren't as happy then. So no, I'm NOT selfish for my compact car. On principle, I won't drive anything bigger unless I have twins next time, and need more seatbelts. There is no high ground in driving a gas guzzling SUV if you live within the city limits, and have three or fewer kids. I'm not going to get onto people for doing it, but it does blow my mind to hear them trying to act like there's some high ground to be had by burning fuel as if it were an unlimited resource.
These may even be the same people who try to tell me that it's dangerous for Orren to ride rear-facing since he's nearly 1 1/2 years old, and nearing 30 pounds. Funny, the American Academy of Pediatrics has my back on this one. If you google AAP Car seat guidelines, they will come right up. Their official recommendation is that after a year old, babies will continue to rear-face in a convertible car seat until they reach the weight or height limit of that seat for rear-facing, and then ride forward-facing in a 5-point harness until weight or height limit is exceeded. They only recommend boosters for elementary school aged kids these days. Basically, if I'm endangering Orren by practicing extended rear-facing, and having a car seat that rear-faces to 45 pounds, then I am doing so with the endorsement of a well-respected organization, and it would serve the naysayers well to read some publications if they think forward facing at a year and 20 pounds (a totally obsolete recommendation, by the way! It will probably be illegal to forward face that early soon!) is actually a defendable position. When they try to defend it, I just look at them like they've lost their minds, because literally every organization I can think of, even auto manufacturers, have conducted crash tests and other research, showing that forward-facing is drastically less safe, and that long legs aren't dangerous when rear-facing, that actually there are more leg injuries from forward-facing, in addition to the really great stuff like death and paralysis. How can a person defend putting their kid at risk, and tell me I'm wrong for keeping mine safer? I can't get my head around it.
Thak says they're insecure in their own decisions, because they've taken the easy road, which is almost always the less responsible choice. I thought that may have some truth in it. I don't look at myself as the pinnacle of a responsible parent. I do some things that make other people cringe. I spank occasionally (only from the ages of 4 and up! NEVER a toddler or baby!), and hav been known to drink a cocktail or beer across the table from my kid (some people think that's wrong). I suck at homeschooling, and barely cook on the weekends. I'm not the perfect parent, but I have made good decisions, decisions I'm proud of. I'm proud that my 9 pound 9 ounce baby was born 10 miles from the nearest hospital, in a completely natural and peaceful way. I'm proud that we have been cloth diapering for 16 months. I'm proud that we're keeping our toddler rear-facing, and that I have proven time and time again that we can fit $400 worth of groceries into a compact car along with two kids, and still have room for the driver. I'm proud that Orren's first vegetable that he ever ate was organic homegrown zucchini that I'd picked just two minutes before cooking it for him. I am especially proud of Thak and myself for being honest with ourselves as pertaining to the topics we know little about, and doing research, asking questions of people who would know, and ultimately figuring out the right thing to do. I think maybe the fact that Thak and I have put so much into trying to get parenting right, and right from the start, it just comes off a little insulting when people who have obviously not researched a damned thing aside from the Sam's Club website (pricing Huggies, Pampers, and booster seats for their 2-year-olds), try to tell me I'm wrong for my decisions. I'm not wrong. Hell, I'm not telling them they're wrong for what they decided, but they are DEAD WRONG for trying to argue that my decisions were poor, and to do this with hearsay.
Cool stuff.
This site is great for vets, or anyone who gives a crap about soldiers and vets. I'm totally late to this party, because apparently the mini-docs on there are a couple years old for the most part, but they're still totally pertinent, and really good. They're produced by vets, for vets, about vets, and there is NOTHING not to love about that!
What I do, since for some reason the video player on that site doesn't work well for me, is go there, find the episode I want to watch, and then search it on Youtube. It works great. Of course, you have to sort through more videos, and there are some which have only small snipets, but the youtube vids that have 8-9 minutes each are generally the ones you want. Each episode takes 2-3 of those to watch all the way. So yeah, it takes a little more work, but it's worth it. This is what I do at night after the kids go to bed and before Thak comes home from school. I watch vetTV! LOL OK, it's really called In Their Boots, but it's Vet TV if ever there was such a thing! It's real, doesn't gloss over jack shit, and minces no words... just like us. Gotta love that.
What I do, since for some reason the video player on that site doesn't work well for me, is go there, find the episode I want to watch, and then search it on Youtube. It works great. Of course, you have to sort through more videos, and there are some which have only small snipets, but the youtube vids that have 8-9 minutes each are generally the ones you want. Each episode takes 2-3 of those to watch all the way. So yeah, it takes a little more work, but it's worth it. This is what I do at night after the kids go to bed and before Thak comes home from school. I watch vetTV! LOL OK, it's really called In Their Boots, but it's Vet TV if ever there was such a thing! It's real, doesn't gloss over jack shit, and minces no words... just like us. Gotta love that.
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Buy me this!
Since it seems that a lot of people I've met in the past year assume I'm an elitist snob when they find out I went to Georgia Tech, I thought this shirt was very fitting. I'm totally wearing it to the next spouses' club casual event (barbecue, football tournament, etc). I'm laughing just thinking about it.
The phrase "Give 'em hell, Tech!" just took on a hilarious new meaning.
OK, in all fairness, Thak will insist I get this shirt because it's cute, but I will stop myself short of wearing it when I'm guaranteed to run into the Insecure Jackass Brigade.
The phrase "Give 'em hell, Tech!" just took on a hilarious new meaning.
OK, in all fairness, Thak will insist I get this shirt because it's cute, but I will stop myself short of wearing it when I'm guaranteed to run into the Insecure Jackass Brigade.
Contest hilarity
So I went into the entry album for that one contest I recently entered (which, thankfully, stops accepting entries day after tomorrow) and saw that there were 489 photos. That was the easy part, number of pages multiplied by photos per page. Then came the more time-consuming part. Since I knew that some people had submitted TONS of pictures (one lady submitted 24 of the same kid!! Many others had over a dozen!!), and others had submitted photos of older kids when the company representative managing it asked specifically for babies and younger toddlers, and said that they would not be awarding to any big kids this time, but that a big kid contest may be next.
Honestly, I was just curious to see just HOW good our odds were, so I went through the entries (funny enough, this was quicker than it sounds), didn't count any that were over the age of 2, or whose entries were filled out incorrectly (Again, the company rep said it must be correct to count), and I only counted each kid once. I figured out that there were a total of 164 eligible kids in the contest. Now, the number of eligible families is lower since there can be one prize per family, each contest, and a great many families entered more than one kid (which is fine).
Basically, long story short is that our odds of winning, at this point are 1 in 54!!! Those are AMAZING odds when you consider that ALL winners get a super duper nice car seat that retails for about $300!! Yeah, we already have this exact seat, which we purchased several months ago. So freaking what? I'm still crossing my fingers we win another because then we'd never have to buy another car seat as long as we live, even AFTER the next baby is here. If we win another seat, then it would replace the Britax Marathon in the Dodge (the Marathon is horribly uncomfortable for Orren now that he's so tall and still rear-facing, but the Radian gives over twice as much leg room), and then after the next baby is here, Orren would stay in it, and we'd put the baby in the Marathon and the Diplomat until outgrown, but by that time, Orren will have outgrown the Radians and they can be handed down to little Sirikit/Chaiyo (OK, so the hypothetical boy name is still a work in progress) while we sell the Britaxes, and all we'll have to do is buy Orren a Monterey booster like Erin has. We would totally benefit from winning this contest.
Of course, it's anyone's guess if we will or not, but for something that costs absolutely nothing to enter, 1 in 54 odds of winning are INSANE!!
Honestly, I was just curious to see just HOW good our odds were, so I went through the entries (funny enough, this was quicker than it sounds), didn't count any that were over the age of 2, or whose entries were filled out incorrectly (Again, the company rep said it must be correct to count), and I only counted each kid once. I figured out that there were a total of 164 eligible kids in the contest. Now, the number of eligible families is lower since there can be one prize per family, each contest, and a great many families entered more than one kid (which is fine).
Basically, long story short is that our odds of winning, at this point are 1 in 54!!! Those are AMAZING odds when you consider that ALL winners get a super duper nice car seat that retails for about $300!! Yeah, we already have this exact seat, which we purchased several months ago. So freaking what? I'm still crossing my fingers we win another because then we'd never have to buy another car seat as long as we live, even AFTER the next baby is here. If we win another seat, then it would replace the Britax Marathon in the Dodge (the Marathon is horribly uncomfortable for Orren now that he's so tall and still rear-facing, but the Radian gives over twice as much leg room), and then after the next baby is here, Orren would stay in it, and we'd put the baby in the Marathon and the Diplomat until outgrown, but by that time, Orren will have outgrown the Radians and they can be handed down to little Sirikit/Chaiyo (OK, so the hypothetical boy name is still a work in progress) while we sell the Britaxes, and all we'll have to do is buy Orren a Monterey booster like Erin has. We would totally benefit from winning this contest.
Of course, it's anyone's guess if we will or not, but for something that costs absolutely nothing to enter, 1 in 54 odds of winning are INSANE!!
Thou shalt not get out.
I could swear I remember with lucid clarity, the day I took my oath of enlistment. I must have missed a part, though... you know, the line where it says, "Til death do us part". No, last I knew, there were three ways to get out of the Army, only one of which is to die. Of course, the other socially acceptable way out of the Army is to retire, but I'm pretty sure it's still totally legitimate to let your contract expire, and just not serve anymore. In fact, I'm 100% sure that deal is still going on since it has been as long as there's been an Army, and will until the end of time, and NOWHERE in the oath of enlistment or commissioning does it EVER say that you swear to stay in the Army forever.
I was told today that someone is sorry for me because my husband is getting out of the Army. Seriously? You're SORRY for me because my husband loves me and our kids enough to choose us over the Army? Back assward logic if I've ever heard it. No, please do not be sorry for me that I am married to someone who recognizes that he'll never get back the years spent away from us, and that three is two too many. On a more professional level, I'm glad he knows when to walk away. You have NO IDEA how many idiots I served with who were probably great soldiers 10 years ago, but just wouldn't walk away when it was time. I respect Thak for not wanting to become that, and for making sure he won't.
People forget that I got out of the Army, too, once upon a time. Is it hard getting set up in the real world after having everything handed to you by Uncle Sam for however long? Yeah, it definitely is, but I'll tell you one other thing. There is NOTHING hard enough to negate the feeling that comes with living FREE after being so much less free while serving in defense of the freedom of others. Freedom tastes a lot sweeter when you don't take it for granted, and no vet does. I guess that's something military wives who have never served know little about.
I'm happy for Thak to be getting out. I'm tired of people asking me how I can support that decision. I look at them like they have lost their minds. These people all know I used to be in the Army, but am not currently (and am not old enough to have retired), therefore it's not a huge leap in logic to see that I got out. Why wouldn't I want that for Thak, too? Why wouldn't I want him to be free? I DO want him to be free. It is my greatest wish for him. How could anyone who claims to love someone NOT support their goal of living their way? Wives who pressure their husbands into reenlisting, when it's so obvious that he's just done with it, really irk me. I say if you're so attached to your military benefits, go enlist. Let him get out if he wants to. Making someone stay in the Army for years after they should have gotten out does nobody any favors, not that person, not the people above and below them, not anybody. It makes everybody miserable.
I'm also sick of the assumption that I think it's going to be easy on the outside. If I have to hear one more horror story of life on the outside from some wife who's never served, and whose husband has never gotten out, I'm going to scream. I know first hand that it's not easy out there, that the things that are guaranteed to every military person, are hard-earned on the outside, but they can still be had. It's not like the military has a corner market on half decent pay, health insurance, and youth activities.
I get the feeling that a lot of people (who should know better!) are making the assumption that we're going about this blindly, and will make the common mistake of figuring the world will fall at our feet the day we leave post with Thak's discharge papers. I say they should know better because they KNOW I've opted out of a lot of activities because as we approach the year-mark, we're putting more money into savings than any other family we know. They should REALLY know better because everyone who knows me knows that Thak has been going to school at night for the past year, and has another year to go before he graduates. They KNOW he wasn't an ASE Certified mechanic this time last year, but he is now. If that's going about this blindly, then I must be nuts, because I surely don't see it that way.
Frankly, I don't know anybody who's put more thought into getting out than we have. We stayed in Savannah long enough for our son to be born there because we liked our birth center a lot, and then we had to move somewhere that would not have him deploying again, and the reason we turned down the Korea assignment we were offered is because we didn't see him being able to go to school in Korea, so as much as we'd have loved to live there for a couple years, it was impractical under the circumstances. We took the orders here because the unit wouldn't be deploying until after he got out, and it's a big enough city that they'd have schools he could choose from. One of the first things we did upon arrival here was to find Thak a school. We'd decided before leaving Georgia that when he got out of the Army, he would be a mechanic, so we already knew what we were looking for. Before he even officially reported to Ft. Bliss (basically, after we were out here, but while he was still on leave) we went around, visited schools, and got him enrolled at Western Tech. It was a gamble, but he was betting he could get command approval for it retroactively, so it was a gamble we were willing to take. As we approach his ETS from the Army and his graduation from school (the two dates are very close), we have done tons of research on what it's like on the outside for mechanics, or more accurately ASE Master Technicians, supervisors, shop leads, and other positions he's qualified for. I will say, a lot of what we've found is extremely hopeful. Depending where we end up, and what type of job he gets, we may actually see an INCREASE in total income. We've budgeted for a substantial decrease, but our research tells us that may not be what happens at all. Sounds good to me. His instructors at school tell him that he's the type who gets hired very quickly, and nobody in his school thinks he'll have ANY trouble finding a great job once he graduates (and they assist with job placement, so they know what they're talking about). There are scouts from dealerships that come to his school to find new employees, and they practically stalk him. If we were willing to stay here, he'd have 10 job offers by the end of the course. Hell, he already got one job offer the other day!! We're hardly being overly optimistic by thinking that Thak will find work on the outside.
I guess it just feels kind of like a big slap in the face when people who should know better act like we're being unrealistic to think that Thak can get out, that we can live a better life in the real world than we have been in the Army, and that we're unprepared. I dislike being told we're going to fall on our faces when we're working our asses off to make sure that doesn't happen. Our schedule is pure hell, and I don't know anybody else who does this, especially not for a couple years on end.
I'm not saying I'm 110% sure that nothing bad will ever happen to us on the outside. I cannot be totally sure of that, as I wholly lack the ability to predict the future. What I can say, though, is that we're giving ourselves the best chances, and even the senior NCO's and Officers tell Thak how smart he is to have such a solid plan. By this standard, I believe it is fair to say that we are anything but haphazard, that we're genuinely trying to prepare ourselves as best we can. I know tons of people who weren't half as prepared as we are, even now, who got out and did fine despite the rough start. Who is anyone to say we're setting ourselves up for failure? I don't usually do this because I'd really hate to be wrong about it, but I call jealousy. I think these individuals wish their husbands would do for them what Thak is doing for me, and they have to be mean and say ridiculous things to make themselves feel better. At the end of the day, though (and the end of the day is late around here...) we're doing better than most, and NOBODY can deny that without straight-up lying.
I was told today that someone is sorry for me because my husband is getting out of the Army. Seriously? You're SORRY for me because my husband loves me and our kids enough to choose us over the Army? Back assward logic if I've ever heard it. No, please do not be sorry for me that I am married to someone who recognizes that he'll never get back the years spent away from us, and that three is two too many. On a more professional level, I'm glad he knows when to walk away. You have NO IDEA how many idiots I served with who were probably great soldiers 10 years ago, but just wouldn't walk away when it was time. I respect Thak for not wanting to become that, and for making sure he won't.
People forget that I got out of the Army, too, once upon a time. Is it hard getting set up in the real world after having everything handed to you by Uncle Sam for however long? Yeah, it definitely is, but I'll tell you one other thing. There is NOTHING hard enough to negate the feeling that comes with living FREE after being so much less free while serving in defense of the freedom of others. Freedom tastes a lot sweeter when you don't take it for granted, and no vet does. I guess that's something military wives who have never served know little about.
I'm happy for Thak to be getting out. I'm tired of people asking me how I can support that decision. I look at them like they have lost their minds. These people all know I used to be in the Army, but am not currently (and am not old enough to have retired), therefore it's not a huge leap in logic to see that I got out. Why wouldn't I want that for Thak, too? Why wouldn't I want him to be free? I DO want him to be free. It is my greatest wish for him. How could anyone who claims to love someone NOT support their goal of living their way? Wives who pressure their husbands into reenlisting, when it's so obvious that he's just done with it, really irk me. I say if you're so attached to your military benefits, go enlist. Let him get out if he wants to. Making someone stay in the Army for years after they should have gotten out does nobody any favors, not that person, not the people above and below them, not anybody. It makes everybody miserable.
I'm also sick of the assumption that I think it's going to be easy on the outside. If I have to hear one more horror story of life on the outside from some wife who's never served, and whose husband has never gotten out, I'm going to scream. I know first hand that it's not easy out there, that the things that are guaranteed to every military person, are hard-earned on the outside, but they can still be had. It's not like the military has a corner market on half decent pay, health insurance, and youth activities.
I get the feeling that a lot of people (who should know better!) are making the assumption that we're going about this blindly, and will make the common mistake of figuring the world will fall at our feet the day we leave post with Thak's discharge papers. I say they should know better because they KNOW I've opted out of a lot of activities because as we approach the year-mark, we're putting more money into savings than any other family we know. They should REALLY know better because everyone who knows me knows that Thak has been going to school at night for the past year, and has another year to go before he graduates. They KNOW he wasn't an ASE Certified mechanic this time last year, but he is now. If that's going about this blindly, then I must be nuts, because I surely don't see it that way.
Frankly, I don't know anybody who's put more thought into getting out than we have. We stayed in Savannah long enough for our son to be born there because we liked our birth center a lot, and then we had to move somewhere that would not have him deploying again, and the reason we turned down the Korea assignment we were offered is because we didn't see him being able to go to school in Korea, so as much as we'd have loved to live there for a couple years, it was impractical under the circumstances. We took the orders here because the unit wouldn't be deploying until after he got out, and it's a big enough city that they'd have schools he could choose from. One of the first things we did upon arrival here was to find Thak a school. We'd decided before leaving Georgia that when he got out of the Army, he would be a mechanic, so we already knew what we were looking for. Before he even officially reported to Ft. Bliss (basically, after we were out here, but while he was still on leave) we went around, visited schools, and got him enrolled at Western Tech. It was a gamble, but he was betting he could get command approval for it retroactively, so it was a gamble we were willing to take. As we approach his ETS from the Army and his graduation from school (the two dates are very close), we have done tons of research on what it's like on the outside for mechanics, or more accurately ASE Master Technicians, supervisors, shop leads, and other positions he's qualified for. I will say, a lot of what we've found is extremely hopeful. Depending where we end up, and what type of job he gets, we may actually see an INCREASE in total income. We've budgeted for a substantial decrease, but our research tells us that may not be what happens at all. Sounds good to me. His instructors at school tell him that he's the type who gets hired very quickly, and nobody in his school thinks he'll have ANY trouble finding a great job once he graduates (and they assist with job placement, so they know what they're talking about). There are scouts from dealerships that come to his school to find new employees, and they practically stalk him. If we were willing to stay here, he'd have 10 job offers by the end of the course. Hell, he already got one job offer the other day!! We're hardly being overly optimistic by thinking that Thak will find work on the outside.
I guess it just feels kind of like a big slap in the face when people who should know better act like we're being unrealistic to think that Thak can get out, that we can live a better life in the real world than we have been in the Army, and that we're unprepared. I dislike being told we're going to fall on our faces when we're working our asses off to make sure that doesn't happen. Our schedule is pure hell, and I don't know anybody else who does this, especially not for a couple years on end.
I'm not saying I'm 110% sure that nothing bad will ever happen to us on the outside. I cannot be totally sure of that, as I wholly lack the ability to predict the future. What I can say, though, is that we're giving ourselves the best chances, and even the senior NCO's and Officers tell Thak how smart he is to have such a solid plan. By this standard, I believe it is fair to say that we are anything but haphazard, that we're genuinely trying to prepare ourselves as best we can. I know tons of people who weren't half as prepared as we are, even now, who got out and did fine despite the rough start. Who is anyone to say we're setting ourselves up for failure? I don't usually do this because I'd really hate to be wrong about it, but I call jealousy. I think these individuals wish their husbands would do for them what Thak is doing for me, and they have to be mean and say ridiculous things to make themselves feel better. At the end of the day, though (and the end of the day is late around here...) we're doing better than most, and NOBODY can deny that without straight-up lying.
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
I've been called a MILF before, but never a NILF
...until today. So what is a NILF? Well, according to a recent study on employment and military spouses, conducted by the Rand Corporation, NILF stands for "Not In Labor Force".
OK, well, I think NILF has a far nicer ring to it than "unemployed". Have I ever told you how much I hate when people say I'm unemployed? I REALLY hate that. I'm home with my kids. I'm NOT unemployed. I'll take "Stay-at-home-mom", "SAHM", "housewife", or really ANYTHING besides "unemployed". For one, by definition, to be unemployed means to not have a job, but to want one. I don't want a job. It's completely different. Now someone apparently understands that, and we get a new category, NILF. I could get used to that classification. It's rather innocuous.
Of course, the true gem in all of this is the findings of the report. What needs to be done in the face of all this NILF-ness? Build more daycare centers, of course. Talk about totally missing the point.
In the face of high unemployment rates, and the most difficult job market ever, I think they should send single-income families a handwritten thank you card for only occupying ONE job, thus allowing the hypothetical second job to go to someone else who probably needs it a lot more, not telling us to throw our children into newly constructed daycare centers, and flood the job market even further. Are these people idiots? A popularization of a single-income lifestyle for families would help the unemployment numbers to come down because more people who wanted/needed a job could get one more easily than if all people were stuck in the two-income trap, and are occupying two jobs per couple rather than one. That's an impossible change, of course. It makes sense in a way, though, doesn't it? At least a little? I don't know, but that's what occurred to me when I read that the solution to NILF military spouses was to build more daycares. Backward logic at its finest, if you ask me.
OK, well, I think NILF has a far nicer ring to it than "unemployed". Have I ever told you how much I hate when people say I'm unemployed? I REALLY hate that. I'm home with my kids. I'm NOT unemployed. I'll take "Stay-at-home-mom", "SAHM", "housewife", or really ANYTHING besides "unemployed". For one, by definition, to be unemployed means to not have a job, but to want one. I don't want a job. It's completely different. Now someone apparently understands that, and we get a new category, NILF. I could get used to that classification. It's rather innocuous.
Of course, the true gem in all of this is the findings of the report. What needs to be done in the face of all this NILF-ness? Build more daycare centers, of course. Talk about totally missing the point.
In the face of high unemployment rates, and the most difficult job market ever, I think they should send single-income families a handwritten thank you card for only occupying ONE job, thus allowing the hypothetical second job to go to someone else who probably needs it a lot more, not telling us to throw our children into newly constructed daycare centers, and flood the job market even further. Are these people idiots? A popularization of a single-income lifestyle for families would help the unemployment numbers to come down because more people who wanted/needed a job could get one more easily than if all people were stuck in the two-income trap, and are occupying two jobs per couple rather than one. That's an impossible change, of course. It makes sense in a way, though, doesn't it? At least a little? I don't know, but that's what occurred to me when I read that the solution to NILF military spouses was to build more daycares. Backward logic at its finest, if you ask me.
Monday, April 26, 2010
What makes a good picture?
I was looking through the entries for one of the photo contests I've recently entered, and just got to thinking. What makes a good photo? Now, I'm not one who edits my photos half to death, and makes my family look any more like supermodels than they already do. I do edit my photos, though. I crop out junk in the background, adjust lighting and contrast, make sure the focus is where I want it, take out red-eye, and just do basic stuff like that. I've posted plenty of unedited photos on this blog, and I've also posted plenty of edited ones. I'm sure you can tell the difference in most cases. I believe in editing. I think it makes an ok photo good, and a good photo great, and it's definitely NOT cheating.
In that photo contest, there are roughly 400 photos, three of which are mine. They allow multiple entries. They have in previous contests, too, although the spammy wheel has never gotten the grease, so to speak. In other words, in last month's contest (same contest as this month, but for girls, while this month is for boys) the people who won had anywhere from one to three photos entered, and the photos were good pictures, but not professional (except one, which I believe may have been professional, that or mommy's one hell of a photographer). I looked through the photo entries for the girls' contest, and specifically sought out the winning photos, just so I could see what kind of thing they were looking for, and sort of take my entry in that direction.
I chose the photo of Orren at Minnesota Children's Museum, did some minor edits (just a crop and red-eye removal), then submitted it. It's a good picture, and I have confidence in my entry. I believe that with that picture, I have as good a shot as anyone else. I was one of the first people to enter the contest when it opened a couple weeks ago. Since then, the entry album has been practically spammed by dozens and dozens of pictures of the same exact kids, and not even good pictures either! It's as if some people have just emptied their "My Pictures" file into the submission box, crap and all. I am shocked at the things people think are contest-worthy photos. There are pictures that are so busy you can hardly pick the baby out of it. There are pictures that don't make a single bit of sense. There are some which serve as more of a showcase of a messy house than of a kid (have you not heard of cropping the photo? My house is a wreck, too, but I try to edit out the mess in pictures!). Still others are absolutely disgusting (think "see food").
With this influx of new photos, Thak thought our entry might get buried, so we decided to enter one to two more photos (it ended up being two), just so we have entries at the beginning and the end of the submission album. They had to be good photos, though. I don't see the point of just uploading random crap for the sake of uploading it.
This all brings me to the question of what makes a good photo. Obviously it's in the eye of the beholder. For me, I like pictures that are not terribly busy, or if they are, the focal point of the photo is sharp, while the remainder of the activity is a bit out of focus. I like there to be somewhat of a color scheme, but not too matchy-matchy, like if it's a dark photo (a nighttime street scene, for example), then bright colors could have a place, but pastels would not. I like photos that don't look staged, and this is the primary beef with my children. The minute I get out the camera, Erin plasters a big fake smile on her face and freezes in place, and Orren has picked up the habit. I like photos that have somewhat of a theme, but not overkill. Basically, things have to make sense. For example, if the kid is dressed a bit West Texas Punk, I don't want to see that next to a flower garden. I want to see it sitting on an amp, or in front of something kind of rundown, or in a car.
Here are my rejected photos of Orren from yesterday. These are the ones I did not submit to the photo contest for various reasons. I do like them, though. I think our rundown back door area goes with Orren's ripped jeans. His 80's-inspired shirt and shoes sort of go along with that also. The color scheme is a lot of gray and black, but I like how the bright colors in his shirt sort of punch it up just enough.
To me, these are good photos. Of course, they won't be to everybody. To a professional, they may be garbage (and no, I don't trust my professional photographer friends to tell me the truth on that! They say my photos are good, but I know they're just being nice.) To someone who just picked up a camera for the first time in their life, they may be outstanding. To someone with different taste than me, they may not like my choice of background, or think I don't edit enough, or they may like them just fine. Personally, I think that I am getting good results from simple equipment (Nikon L20, 10 megapixels, point-and-shoot camera, and Picassa 3 and Irfanview, both free editing programs), and that with continued effort, can probably improve substantially.
I'm finicky about pictures, maybe more so than a lot of people. Thak gets onto me about it sometimes. I only hope that my pickiness, and effort to take decent pictures of my kids whenever I can, will pay off for us in at least one of the photo contests I have entered. Even if it doesn't, though, I'm going to have a lot of scrapbooking to do once I get these pictures printed!
In that photo contest, there are roughly 400 photos, three of which are mine. They allow multiple entries. They have in previous contests, too, although the spammy wheel has never gotten the grease, so to speak. In other words, in last month's contest (same contest as this month, but for girls, while this month is for boys) the people who won had anywhere from one to three photos entered, and the photos were good pictures, but not professional (except one, which I believe may have been professional, that or mommy's one hell of a photographer). I looked through the photo entries for the girls' contest, and specifically sought out the winning photos, just so I could see what kind of thing they were looking for, and sort of take my entry in that direction.
I chose the photo of Orren at Minnesota Children's Museum, did some minor edits (just a crop and red-eye removal), then submitted it. It's a good picture, and I have confidence in my entry. I believe that with that picture, I have as good a shot as anyone else. I was one of the first people to enter the contest when it opened a couple weeks ago. Since then, the entry album has been practically spammed by dozens and dozens of pictures of the same exact kids, and not even good pictures either! It's as if some people have just emptied their "My Pictures" file into the submission box, crap and all. I am shocked at the things people think are contest-worthy photos. There are pictures that are so busy you can hardly pick the baby out of it. There are pictures that don't make a single bit of sense. There are some which serve as more of a showcase of a messy house than of a kid (have you not heard of cropping the photo? My house is a wreck, too, but I try to edit out the mess in pictures!). Still others are absolutely disgusting (think "see food").
With this influx of new photos, Thak thought our entry might get buried, so we decided to enter one to two more photos (it ended up being two), just so we have entries at the beginning and the end of the submission album. They had to be good photos, though. I don't see the point of just uploading random crap for the sake of uploading it.
This all brings me to the question of what makes a good photo. Obviously it's in the eye of the beholder. For me, I like pictures that are not terribly busy, or if they are, the focal point of the photo is sharp, while the remainder of the activity is a bit out of focus. I like there to be somewhat of a color scheme, but not too matchy-matchy, like if it's a dark photo (a nighttime street scene, for example), then bright colors could have a place, but pastels would not. I like photos that don't look staged, and this is the primary beef with my children. The minute I get out the camera, Erin plasters a big fake smile on her face and freezes in place, and Orren has picked up the habit. I like photos that have somewhat of a theme, but not overkill. Basically, things have to make sense. For example, if the kid is dressed a bit West Texas Punk, I don't want to see that next to a flower garden. I want to see it sitting on an amp, or in front of something kind of rundown, or in a car.
Here are my rejected photos of Orren from yesterday. These are the ones I did not submit to the photo contest for various reasons. I do like them, though. I think our rundown back door area goes with Orren's ripped jeans. His 80's-inspired shirt and shoes sort of go along with that also. The color scheme is a lot of gray and black, but I like how the bright colors in his shirt sort of punch it up just enough.
To me, these are good photos. Of course, they won't be to everybody. To a professional, they may be garbage (and no, I don't trust my professional photographer friends to tell me the truth on that! They say my photos are good, but I know they're just being nice.) To someone who just picked up a camera for the first time in their life, they may be outstanding. To someone with different taste than me, they may not like my choice of background, or think I don't edit enough, or they may like them just fine. Personally, I think that I am getting good results from simple equipment (Nikon L20, 10 megapixels, point-and-shoot camera, and Picassa 3 and Irfanview, both free editing programs), and that with continued effort, can probably improve substantially.
I'm finicky about pictures, maybe more so than a lot of people. Thak gets onto me about it sometimes. I only hope that my pickiness, and effort to take decent pictures of my kids whenever I can, will pay off for us in at least one of the photo contests I have entered. Even if it doesn't, though, I'm going to have a lot of scrapbooking to do once I get these pictures printed!
Sunday, April 25, 2010
Britax, Britax, Britax...
We used our Britax Marathon for the first time in weeks, if not a month, just now. It's in Thak's truck, which we normally don't drive when we're going somewhere as a family. In my car, we have the Radian XTSL. To recap, the Marathon is the Mossy Oak camo print car seat, and the Radian is the red one. The Marathon has a 35 pound rear-facing weight limit and 65 pounds forward-facing, and the Radian has a 45 pound rear-facing limit, and 80 pounds forward-facing.
Of the two, the Britax is the better looking seat, style-wise, but the longer Orren's legs get, the more I see that the Radian is the better of the two seats over all. See, the Britax sits as close to the seat back as any other car seat, so for families who extended-rear-face their kids (oh, and we've been EXTENDED rear-facing for 4 months today! Yay us!) that won't work too well. There's just not enough leg room. Contrary to the "forward-face at a year and 20 pounds, or be damned!" idiots, long legs do not present a safety hazard while rear-facing. There has never once been a documented case of injury stemming from that. On the contrary, it's just a comfort and convenience thing. It's just so much easier to have more leg room for the kid who's rear-facing to 2 and 3o, or beyond.
This is just yet another way it is different raising Orren due to his height. We have to look for tall car seats that will accommodate him (since he's all torso, as is very typical for boys), but he's also got longer legs than most babies his age, so he really does benefit from more leg room that he gets with our Radian car seat. In the Britax, he's been completely cross-legged for about 5 months now. In the Radian, he can comfortably prop his feet on the seat back that's in front of him, and ride all day long if that's the plan. Also, the Radian has lower sides in the seat portion, so it's more comfortable to sit cross-legged for kids who are 3-4 years old, and still rear-facing (and with a 45 pound rear-facing weight limit, that's very common!).
Radian did a really good job with this seat. It's not that I don't love our Britax seats. I do. However, I think it's fairly obvious to say they have been completely usurped as the preferred car seat for the Extended-Rear-Facing family. Unless they change their designs a lot, I would say this family has probably bought our last Britax seat.
In order to compete in today's marketplace, Britax, you must do the following:
1) Offer higher rear-facing weight limits in at least some of your models. 35 pounds across the board used to be revolutionary, but today, it is not enough!
2) Redesign your seats to offer more leg room for rear-facing toddlers. For a company which prides itself on being the leader in extended rear-facing, you sure don't make it as easy as it should be.
3) Make more seats that suit compact cars. Nobody drives gas guzzling SUV's anymore. OK, that's not true. Lots of people still do. That number is declining, though. Most of us moms today don't want to upgrade to a vehicle the size of a school bus just to accommodate a few car seats. If you want to keep my business, Britax, you must give me a seat that fits 3 across in a compact car, and has at least a 50 pound forward-facing limit. The Diplomat fits great in my car, and has the standard Britax 35 pound rear-facing limit, BUT it's only got a 40-pound forward-facing limit. Plus, it's the shortest car seat I've ever seen! Orren outgrew it in height at 13 months! For $280, that's ridiculous. If Radian can accommodate 45 RF and 80 FF, and still fit 3-across in a compact car, not to mention cost exactly the same amount of money, then the Diplomat can be improved in such a way as to be competitive.
Come on, Britax. I used to love you, but I fear the spark is gone. My Radian may be ugly, but it's got one hell of a "personality". Wink. Nudge.
Gimme a 45 pound RF limit, a tall seat, and some leg room, or I walk!
Of the two, the Britax is the better looking seat, style-wise, but the longer Orren's legs get, the more I see that the Radian is the better of the two seats over all. See, the Britax sits as close to the seat back as any other car seat, so for families who extended-rear-face their kids (oh, and we've been EXTENDED rear-facing for 4 months today! Yay us!) that won't work too well. There's just not enough leg room. Contrary to the "forward-face at a year and 20 pounds, or be damned!" idiots, long legs do not present a safety hazard while rear-facing. There has never once been a documented case of injury stemming from that. On the contrary, it's just a comfort and convenience thing. It's just so much easier to have more leg room for the kid who's rear-facing to 2 and 3o, or beyond.
This is just yet another way it is different raising Orren due to his height. We have to look for tall car seats that will accommodate him (since he's all torso, as is very typical for boys), but he's also got longer legs than most babies his age, so he really does benefit from more leg room that he gets with our Radian car seat. In the Britax, he's been completely cross-legged for about 5 months now. In the Radian, he can comfortably prop his feet on the seat back that's in front of him, and ride all day long if that's the plan. Also, the Radian has lower sides in the seat portion, so it's more comfortable to sit cross-legged for kids who are 3-4 years old, and still rear-facing (and with a 45 pound rear-facing weight limit, that's very common!).
Radian did a really good job with this seat. It's not that I don't love our Britax seats. I do. However, I think it's fairly obvious to say they have been completely usurped as the preferred car seat for the Extended-Rear-Facing family. Unless they change their designs a lot, I would say this family has probably bought our last Britax seat.
In order to compete in today's marketplace, Britax, you must do the following:
1) Offer higher rear-facing weight limits in at least some of your models. 35 pounds across the board used to be revolutionary, but today, it is not enough!
2) Redesign your seats to offer more leg room for rear-facing toddlers. For a company which prides itself on being the leader in extended rear-facing, you sure don't make it as easy as it should be.
3) Make more seats that suit compact cars. Nobody drives gas guzzling SUV's anymore. OK, that's not true. Lots of people still do. That number is declining, though. Most of us moms today don't want to upgrade to a vehicle the size of a school bus just to accommodate a few car seats. If you want to keep my business, Britax, you must give me a seat that fits 3 across in a compact car, and has at least a 50 pound forward-facing limit. The Diplomat fits great in my car, and has the standard Britax 35 pound rear-facing limit, BUT it's only got a 40-pound forward-facing limit. Plus, it's the shortest car seat I've ever seen! Orren outgrew it in height at 13 months! For $280, that's ridiculous. If Radian can accommodate 45 RF and 80 FF, and still fit 3-across in a compact car, not to mention cost exactly the same amount of money, then the Diplomat can be improved in such a way as to be competitive.
Come on, Britax. I used to love you, but I fear the spark is gone. My Radian may be ugly, but it's got one hell of a "personality". Wink. Nudge.
Gimme a 45 pound RF limit, a tall seat, and some leg room, or I walk!
I hope they win!
I've been on a kick of entering photo contests lately. OK, so this is largely because companies whose stuff I like have been having give-aways which can be won with a photo. They're not PROFESSIONAL photo contests, of course. In fact, professional photos are prohibited, so it's perfect for me. Here are a couple photos I entered for certain things today, which I really liked:
I took both of these today, FYI.
In this one, I love Orren's eyes. It was for a baby boy photo contest to win a Radian car seat, and they said they didn't want pics of big kids. In the girl one they did last month, two of three winners looked to be close to Orren's age, so I'm hoping that they can tell that he is as young as he is. I may go back and put a new note on my photo, telling his age. I guess it doesn't matter. I'd like to win, but it's not a big deal if we don't. I just liked this picture, and wanted to share it because Orren is a studmuffin.
This was for a sibling photo contest. They do this all the time anyhow, so I didn't think it was a big deal to stage it for the photo!
I took both of these today, FYI.
In this one, I love Orren's eyes. It was for a baby boy photo contest to win a Radian car seat, and they said they didn't want pics of big kids. In the girl one they did last month, two of three winners looked to be close to Orren's age, so I'm hoping that they can tell that he is as young as he is. I may go back and put a new note on my photo, telling his age. I guess it doesn't matter. I'd like to win, but it's not a big deal if we don't. I just liked this picture, and wanted to share it because Orren is a studmuffin.
This was for a sibling photo contest. They do this all the time anyhow, so I didn't think it was a big deal to stage it for the photo!
Saturday, April 24, 2010
Can we really call that "parenting"?
A friend from an old duty station sent me the link to something absolutely horrible. She sent it out to all her "crunchy granola mom friends", and frankly, I was a little proud to be considered part of that! It beats the hell out of the alternative. Anyhow, there's someone called Kitty Raymond, who's supposedly a parenting "expert" (note that I generally take "experts" with an extreme grain of salt when it comes to daily routines, sleep, and other things that are very individual from child to child). In reality, this Kitty Raymond monstrosity is simply advocating child abuse! On her very website, she advocates locking children in their rooms, not reading bedtime books, and not waking up with babies who cry in the middle of the night! She advocates doing this from 12 pounds, on!
This really disturbs me. 12 pounds and up, huh? Well, Orren hit 12 pounds when he was a little under a month old, so I guess we were really doing the wrong thing by keeping him in his bassinet next to our bed, and figuring out what his needs were when he cried, regardless of what time it was. I guess we were also idiots for following our midwife's instructions to NEVER feed on a schedule, ALWAYS on demand. (Why DO people put babies on a feeding schedule anyhow? I met a schedule feeder for the first time this past year, and I just thought it was the weirdest thing ever.) I guess my 16-month-old son, who's as big as some 3-year-olds, and can already ride a tricycle, throw a football, and make the best sidewalk chalk drawings ever, is just a spoiled brat because even today, if he wakes up in the night, we go to him. Usually, if he wakes up, it's because he's really wet, and so we change him, and he goes back to sleep. Sometimes he's teething (although we should be done with that for now), and other times he's not feeling well (if he has a cold, etc). In EVERY one of these cases, Thak or I go and get our little boy, and do whatever it is we can do for him. Whether that's change his diaper, hold him and comfort him, or give him some Tylenol (in the case of severe teething pain), we do it for him, and he loves us because of it. He trusts us. He knows we are here for him. That is the best thing a baby can know about his parents.
I'm not saying we're Attachment Parents. I've never had any desire to wear my baby, as every "awesome" sling anyone recommends me seems to feel like a straight jacket and make me completely claustrophobic, but I don't think either of my kids has been harmed by riding in a stroller when we're out and about. I tried to breastfeed them both, but it never worked out long term. Again, they seem ok in spite of it. Other than these couple things, count me as a card-carrying member of the granola society. The thought of a hospital birth makes me cringe, and I actually get offended when people assume my son is circumcised. (Thak gets twice as offended by that as I do, but considering that he's a guy, it's understandable that this issue would be near and dear to him! LOL) Pertinent to this subject, we're big on not rushing things. Both our kids have had solid food between the ages of 4 and 6 months, but never sooner. They both woke up throughout the night at least sometimes until they were about 18 months (we're not there with Orren yet, but he seems to be going the way of Erin on this), and while we did have a bit of a go at the Ferber method after a couple weeks of totally sleepless nights with a 14-month-old Orren, Thak couldn't take listening to him cry, and having to wait to go get him until a certain number of minutes had passed, and ended up rocking him until he was calm, then successfully putting him down to sleep after that. Funny enough, a few weeks later, the crying all night stopped, and he's woken up minimally since then. He does one wake-up at night for a change, maybe twice a week now. It's really nice this way.
The lesson we learned from this is actually twofold:
1) Babies do things in their own time. Orren was not ready to sleep through the night until later than other babies. We continued night feedings 5 months longer than our pediatrician said they were truly necessary just because Orren is huge for his age, and he just literally would not get full enough to sleep through the night. Think about the fact that Orren is bigger than about 94% of the babies his age that you will ever meet. You will almost never meet a baby bigger than Orren. How do you suppose he got that way? He spent the first year of his life in a near constant growth spurt, and when babies go through growth spurts, they eat a lot. It was obvious to us, so we kept on feeding him. We have been honest with ourselves and each other about what his needs were, and we made it a priority to meet those needs, no matter how inconvenient. In fact, I HATED getting up throughout the night several times for the first year of Orren's life, while all my friends with babies the same age had done some crackpot "sleep training" (also known as "You need something? Tough shit. Cry.") and were sleeping uninterrupted all night long, but when you look at how much healthier and happier Orren is than those babies, I'd take one MORE year of sleepless nights to maintain it if that's what it took. That's NOT what it takes, though, because he came to sleeping through the night (for the most part) in his own time. Can't argue with intuition... his, and ours.
2) Experts are usually full of shit when it comes to what my kid needs. OK, not necessarily 100%. In fact, there are some things I really have gotten a lot of good from reading. I read up quite a bit lately on boys, and things specific to them, since I don't know anything about little boys at all, and now have a son. It's been helpful for me to learn about little boys, and just what makes them tick. I appreciate these expert accounts, and while I still read them critically (blame my science and engineering background) I get a lot of good out of that stuff. The stuff that sucks is the stuff that basically strives to tell parents how to override their babies' natural inclinations. Any sleep training thing is garbage. Anything that mandates schedules for feeding (for babies) is garbage.
This Kitty Raymond's website is the pinnacle of garbage. Would you believe this woman advocates locking babies in their rooms for 12 hours a night, and up to 6 hours a day?? That's such crap! If you follow that, and tell somebody that you do, there's better odds of an abuse report than an ass pat! I'm dying to know how anybody thinks this stuff is a good idea.
I guess it does answer some questions for me about how so many moms these days are such total idiots, and seem to have absolutely no idea how to raise their babies. If THIS woman is considered an expert, and has come to international notoriety as such, then that totally explains where the idiots came from. I remember my jaw hit the floor when someone said they began letting their baby cry it out to sleep through the night at 7 weeks. I wondered what kind of moron would ever think something like that was a good idea, since it's such an OBVIOUS crap move. Now I know.
Kitty Raymond, purveyor of crap, empowerer of idiots, and arch-nemesis of babies everywhere. It about made me sick to read her site, but if you're morbidly curious as I was, go have a look. I guarantee you will be appalled. That is one mean woman.
This really disturbs me. 12 pounds and up, huh? Well, Orren hit 12 pounds when he was a little under a month old, so I guess we were really doing the wrong thing by keeping him in his bassinet next to our bed, and figuring out what his needs were when he cried, regardless of what time it was. I guess we were also idiots for following our midwife's instructions to NEVER feed on a schedule, ALWAYS on demand. (Why DO people put babies on a feeding schedule anyhow? I met a schedule feeder for the first time this past year, and I just thought it was the weirdest thing ever.) I guess my 16-month-old son, who's as big as some 3-year-olds, and can already ride a tricycle, throw a football, and make the best sidewalk chalk drawings ever, is just a spoiled brat because even today, if he wakes up in the night, we go to him. Usually, if he wakes up, it's because he's really wet, and so we change him, and he goes back to sleep. Sometimes he's teething (although we should be done with that for now), and other times he's not feeling well (if he has a cold, etc). In EVERY one of these cases, Thak or I go and get our little boy, and do whatever it is we can do for him. Whether that's change his diaper, hold him and comfort him, or give him some Tylenol (in the case of severe teething pain), we do it for him, and he loves us because of it. He trusts us. He knows we are here for him. That is the best thing a baby can know about his parents.
I'm not saying we're Attachment Parents. I've never had any desire to wear my baby, as every "awesome" sling anyone recommends me seems to feel like a straight jacket and make me completely claustrophobic, but I don't think either of my kids has been harmed by riding in a stroller when we're out and about. I tried to breastfeed them both, but it never worked out long term. Again, they seem ok in spite of it. Other than these couple things, count me as a card-carrying member of the granola society. The thought of a hospital birth makes me cringe, and I actually get offended when people assume my son is circumcised. (Thak gets twice as offended by that as I do, but considering that he's a guy, it's understandable that this issue would be near and dear to him! LOL) Pertinent to this subject, we're big on not rushing things. Both our kids have had solid food between the ages of 4 and 6 months, but never sooner. They both woke up throughout the night at least sometimes until they were about 18 months (we're not there with Orren yet, but he seems to be going the way of Erin on this), and while we did have a bit of a go at the Ferber method after a couple weeks of totally sleepless nights with a 14-month-old Orren, Thak couldn't take listening to him cry, and having to wait to go get him until a certain number of minutes had passed, and ended up rocking him until he was calm, then successfully putting him down to sleep after that. Funny enough, a few weeks later, the crying all night stopped, and he's woken up minimally since then. He does one wake-up at night for a change, maybe twice a week now. It's really nice this way.
The lesson we learned from this is actually twofold:
1) Babies do things in their own time. Orren was not ready to sleep through the night until later than other babies. We continued night feedings 5 months longer than our pediatrician said they were truly necessary just because Orren is huge for his age, and he just literally would not get full enough to sleep through the night. Think about the fact that Orren is bigger than about 94% of the babies his age that you will ever meet. You will almost never meet a baby bigger than Orren. How do you suppose he got that way? He spent the first year of his life in a near constant growth spurt, and when babies go through growth spurts, they eat a lot. It was obvious to us, so we kept on feeding him. We have been honest with ourselves and each other about what his needs were, and we made it a priority to meet those needs, no matter how inconvenient. In fact, I HATED getting up throughout the night several times for the first year of Orren's life, while all my friends with babies the same age had done some crackpot "sleep training" (also known as "You need something? Tough shit. Cry.") and were sleeping uninterrupted all night long, but when you look at how much healthier and happier Orren is than those babies, I'd take one MORE year of sleepless nights to maintain it if that's what it took. That's NOT what it takes, though, because he came to sleeping through the night (for the most part) in his own time. Can't argue with intuition... his, and ours.
2) Experts are usually full of shit when it comes to what my kid needs. OK, not necessarily 100%. In fact, there are some things I really have gotten a lot of good from reading. I read up quite a bit lately on boys, and things specific to them, since I don't know anything about little boys at all, and now have a son. It's been helpful for me to learn about little boys, and just what makes them tick. I appreciate these expert accounts, and while I still read them critically (blame my science and engineering background) I get a lot of good out of that stuff. The stuff that sucks is the stuff that basically strives to tell parents how to override their babies' natural inclinations. Any sleep training thing is garbage. Anything that mandates schedules for feeding (for babies) is garbage.
This Kitty Raymond's website is the pinnacle of garbage. Would you believe this woman advocates locking babies in their rooms for 12 hours a night, and up to 6 hours a day?? That's such crap! If you follow that, and tell somebody that you do, there's better odds of an abuse report than an ass pat! I'm dying to know how anybody thinks this stuff is a good idea.
I guess it does answer some questions for me about how so many moms these days are such total idiots, and seem to have absolutely no idea how to raise their babies. If THIS woman is considered an expert, and has come to international notoriety as such, then that totally explains where the idiots came from. I remember my jaw hit the floor when someone said they began letting their baby cry it out to sleep through the night at 7 weeks. I wondered what kind of moron would ever think something like that was a good idea, since it's such an OBVIOUS crap move. Now I know.
Kitty Raymond, purveyor of crap, empowerer of idiots, and arch-nemesis of babies everywhere. It about made me sick to read her site, but if you're morbidly curious as I was, go have a look. I guarantee you will be appalled. That is one mean woman.
New pics of the kids.
This is a little late for Earth Day, but it's better late than never. It was about time for a new cloth diapering photo. Look how big our studmuffin is getting!! 16 months of exclusively cloth diapering, and 16 months of not contributing to the environmental crisis that disposable diapers create. (They comprise one of the biggest components of the trash in our landfills.) Thak said that he's never had a moment's hesitation about cloth diapering, because when it comes to the planet, this decision is just so obvious. I second that, and might I just say how awesome it is that Thak is such a dedicated cloth diapering dad!
Orren also got some new Robeez. He got some brown sandals, which he hasn't had occasion to wear yet, and he got some canvas ones (with leather bottoms) which are called "Weekend Surfer". They show a van with a surf board on top. So cute! The only way to show you these shoes was to have him pose on mommy's surf board! Yeah, it would be better with water... tell it to Uncle Sam. He's the one who plunked us down in the desert.
And here's Lema! We were watching the NFL Draft on TV yesterday, and she put on this Georgia Tech hat. I think it looks good on her! Maybe she knows that's where the Vikings will be drafting her brother from in about 20 years. Hmmmm..... thinking.... ("With the 32nd pick of the 2030 NFL Draft, the Minnesota Vikings choose Orren M, Fullback, Georgia Tech.") One way or another, this just proves once again that we raise our children right in this family! Haha!
Orren also got some new Robeez. He got some brown sandals, which he hasn't had occasion to wear yet, and he got some canvas ones (with leather bottoms) which are called "Weekend Surfer". They show a van with a surf board on top. So cute! The only way to show you these shoes was to have him pose on mommy's surf board! Yeah, it would be better with water... tell it to Uncle Sam. He's the one who plunked us down in the desert.
And here's Lema! We were watching the NFL Draft on TV yesterday, and she put on this Georgia Tech hat. I think it looks good on her! Maybe she knows that's where the Vikings will be drafting her brother from in about 20 years. Hmmmm..... thinking.... ("With the 32nd pick of the 2030 NFL Draft, the Minnesota Vikings choose Orren M, Fullback, Georgia Tech.") One way or another, this just proves once again that we raise our children right in this family! Haha!
Just give a list of what we CAN say, ok?
It seems like the list of socially unacceptable topics in military wife land grows every single day, as does the list of things which constitute engaging in these unacceptable discussions.
The most vile and unacceptable thing in the past decade has got to be rank. On the extreme case, I can understand this. I've been the sentry who got yelled at by a Second Lieutenant's wife when I did not salute her. I have been the PFC on a 24 hour shift at my battalion's desk, who was told by a Corporal's wife to stand at parade rest to talk to her. (No, neither of them was a soldier, just civilian wives.) These people, I call Rankzillas. They expect customs and courtesies which are NOT coming to them in any way, shape, or form unless they decide to enlist or commission someday.
Rankzilla Lite is the wife who doesn't go out of her way to make soldiers' lives hell, but definitely thinks she's better than any soldier who is lower ranking than her husband, and talks a ton of trash, even to people she knows are prior-service, and served in those ranks at one time (and hell, 99% of the time, her own husband served in those ranks at one point!). The Rankzilla Lite is also the one who thinks she's addressed as ma'am because of her husband's rank, when in reality, all civilian females are addressed as ma'am because they don't have a rank to be called by, and ma'am is nicer than "hey you!". Rankzilla Lite KNOWS she's called ma'am because her husband is so high up in the unit, though. (The funny part is that 99% of the ones who think this are married to Second Lieutenants, newly pinned Sergeants, or even PFC's.)
I have dealt with more Rankzillas as a soldier, as I believe their arch-nemesis is the female soldier, in all forms, fashions, and pay grades. I have dealt with a few Rankzilla Lites as a wife. Usually, a snappy comeback about how civilians should butt out of soldier/vet business will make them leave me alone forever. They're not that big a deal. More importantly, they're not all that common, and are mostly just really clueless. A great many Rankzilla Lites will outgrow it in a few years.
The reason it became socially unacceptable to discuss rank is because everyone's met a Rankzilla or a Rankzilla Lite, and nobody likes them. If it only became socially unacceptable to BE one of these things, then that would make a ton of sense. That's not how it went, though.
Now, the following situations are unacceptable, and considered "rank wearing" on my part. FYI, these are things I have actually said:
"Hi, I'm Anna M. My husband is SSG M, the reenlistment NCO." [insert random joke about getting their husbands to reenlist. Everyone laughed.] "I'm prior service as an enlisted Engineer, and have been in some affiliation with the Army, as soldier, girlfriend, or wife, for nine years. I've been to Ft. Leonard Wood, Ft. Hood, Ft. Stewart, and here, and briefly on TDY to other places. I'm going to be serving in [role] within this organization, and look forward to working with you all."
"Hi, nice to meet you all. My name's Anna, and I'm going to be moving to your post in 3 months. My family and I are open to the possibilities as far as housing goes. We've lived on post and off, and prefer off post, but will consider living on post, depending on what exactly we'd be offered there. What I need to know from you all is what would be most realistic for us to plan for. We are an E6 family who is authorized a 3 BR house. Does the wait list tend to be short for our classification, or would we be wasting our time by messing with it? If the wait list is more than a month, we'll probably just want to live off post, so please tell me what areas are best, close to post, and within our price range."
These two things are apparently MASSIVELY socially unacceptable because I mentioned Thak's rank. This really frustrates me. I can't even tell people affiliated with the unit who my husband is when I meet them, and I can't give people an idea of our price range when putting out my feelers in the preliminary phases of house hunting.
Let me just explain these things a little. In the first situation, it's a matter of making myself familiar to people. If I walked in and said, "Hi, I'm Anna, Thak's wife", people would say, "Good for you. Who's Thak?" If I say, "I'm Anna, SSG M's wife", people either say, "Oh yeah, he reenlisted my husband yesterday!" or "I think I know him. Asian guy? About your height? Walks with a limp?" So basically, people KNOW SSG M, but they DON'T know Thak, even though they're the same person, so in a situation in which I want to be familiar to people, I need to say who I am in the most familiar way possible. I'm NOT sorry that way includes a mention of my shameful secret, er, I mean my husband's rank.
In the second situation, it's important to be honest about rank because housing allowance is determined by it. If I said, "Hi, I'm moving to your post! Where should I live?" I'd get every kind of information from the dirt on the $300 a month apartments that were built in 1985, to the dirt on the subdivision in the University district, where nobody below the rank of Major could ever afford to live. By telling people that I'm right in the middle, I'm letting them know that I'm not terribly limited in my house hunting, but I'm also not looking for the most extravagant thing in town. Knowing what we're working with lets people know we're looking for what we will like, not what we can afford. (Of course, we're looking within our price range, but our price range is forgiving enough that we can get what we like. No stairs, minimum 2 full bathrooms, minimum 2-car garage, formal dining room, big yard with fence/wall, no shared walls between master bedroom and kids' bedrooms, bedrooms far from living room and kitchen, etc). Anyhow, I think rank is applicable information when it comes to housing, because obviously, we all can afford different things. Why have people waste their time and ours, giving crappy information we can't use, when we can just be honest, and actually get pertinent facts?
I can't wait until Thak gets out of the Army. This sub-culture gets dumber and less realistic every year. I want off.
The most vile and unacceptable thing in the past decade has got to be rank. On the extreme case, I can understand this. I've been the sentry who got yelled at by a Second Lieutenant's wife when I did not salute her. I have been the PFC on a 24 hour shift at my battalion's desk, who was told by a Corporal's wife to stand at parade rest to talk to her. (No, neither of them was a soldier, just civilian wives.) These people, I call Rankzillas. They expect customs and courtesies which are NOT coming to them in any way, shape, or form unless they decide to enlist or commission someday.
Rankzilla Lite is the wife who doesn't go out of her way to make soldiers' lives hell, but definitely thinks she's better than any soldier who is lower ranking than her husband, and talks a ton of trash, even to people she knows are prior-service, and served in those ranks at one time (and hell, 99% of the time, her own husband served in those ranks at one point!). The Rankzilla Lite is also the one who thinks she's addressed as ma'am because of her husband's rank, when in reality, all civilian females are addressed as ma'am because they don't have a rank to be called by, and ma'am is nicer than "hey you!". Rankzilla Lite KNOWS she's called ma'am because her husband is so high up in the unit, though. (The funny part is that 99% of the ones who think this are married to Second Lieutenants, newly pinned Sergeants, or even PFC's.)
I have dealt with more Rankzillas as a soldier, as I believe their arch-nemesis is the female soldier, in all forms, fashions, and pay grades. I have dealt with a few Rankzilla Lites as a wife. Usually, a snappy comeback about how civilians should butt out of soldier/vet business will make them leave me alone forever. They're not that big a deal. More importantly, they're not all that common, and are mostly just really clueless. A great many Rankzilla Lites will outgrow it in a few years.
The reason it became socially unacceptable to discuss rank is because everyone's met a Rankzilla or a Rankzilla Lite, and nobody likes them. If it only became socially unacceptable to BE one of these things, then that would make a ton of sense. That's not how it went, though.
Now, the following situations are unacceptable, and considered "rank wearing" on my part. FYI, these are things I have actually said:
"Hi, I'm Anna M. My husband is SSG M, the reenlistment NCO." [insert random joke about getting their husbands to reenlist. Everyone laughed.] "I'm prior service as an enlisted Engineer, and have been in some affiliation with the Army, as soldier, girlfriend, or wife, for nine years. I've been to Ft. Leonard Wood, Ft. Hood, Ft. Stewart, and here, and briefly on TDY to other places. I'm going to be serving in [role] within this organization, and look forward to working with you all."
"Hi, nice to meet you all. My name's Anna, and I'm going to be moving to your post in 3 months. My family and I are open to the possibilities as far as housing goes. We've lived on post and off, and prefer off post, but will consider living on post, depending on what exactly we'd be offered there. What I need to know from you all is what would be most realistic for us to plan for. We are an E6 family who is authorized a 3 BR house. Does the wait list tend to be short for our classification, or would we be wasting our time by messing with it? If the wait list is more than a month, we'll probably just want to live off post, so please tell me what areas are best, close to post, and within our price range."
These two things are apparently MASSIVELY socially unacceptable because I mentioned Thak's rank. This really frustrates me. I can't even tell people affiliated with the unit who my husband is when I meet them, and I can't give people an idea of our price range when putting out my feelers in the preliminary phases of house hunting.
Let me just explain these things a little. In the first situation, it's a matter of making myself familiar to people. If I walked in and said, "Hi, I'm Anna, Thak's wife", people would say, "Good for you. Who's Thak?" If I say, "I'm Anna, SSG M's wife", people either say, "Oh yeah, he reenlisted my husband yesterday!" or "I think I know him. Asian guy? About your height? Walks with a limp?" So basically, people KNOW SSG M, but they DON'T know Thak, even though they're the same person, so in a situation in which I want to be familiar to people, I need to say who I am in the most familiar way possible. I'm NOT sorry that way includes a mention of my shameful secret, er, I mean my husband's rank.
In the second situation, it's important to be honest about rank because housing allowance is determined by it. If I said, "Hi, I'm moving to your post! Where should I live?" I'd get every kind of information from the dirt on the $300 a month apartments that were built in 1985, to the dirt on the subdivision in the University district, where nobody below the rank of Major could ever afford to live. By telling people that I'm right in the middle, I'm letting them know that I'm not terribly limited in my house hunting, but I'm also not looking for the most extravagant thing in town. Knowing what we're working with lets people know we're looking for what we will like, not what we can afford. (Of course, we're looking within our price range, but our price range is forgiving enough that we can get what we like. No stairs, minimum 2 full bathrooms, minimum 2-car garage, formal dining room, big yard with fence/wall, no shared walls between master bedroom and kids' bedrooms, bedrooms far from living room and kitchen, etc). Anyhow, I think rank is applicable information when it comes to housing, because obviously, we all can afford different things. Why have people waste their time and ours, giving crappy information we can't use, when we can just be honest, and actually get pertinent facts?
I can't wait until Thak gets out of the Army. This sub-culture gets dumber and less realistic every year. I want off.
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Shoulda, Coulda, Woulda
Does this go on in the real world nearly as much as it does in the military? I've been annoyed with this thing for years, and it was one of the first things I noticed about military wives after I married Thak. Every time they find out about anything I did, or was doing at that time, they told me in great detail how they were about to do that same thing, and then give ten million excuses as to why they didn't.
The biggest one is joining the military. People find out within five minutes of knowing me that I'm prior service. It's not because I walk around wearing a Veterans for Peace shirt (although if I did, people would probably assume it was my husband's anyhow). It's just that the second question that's always asked in military wife small talk, right behind, "Where's home for you?" is "How'd you meet your husband?" Since I met Thak when we were both assigned to good old Six Deuce, I couldn't hide my prior service status even if I wanted to. For the record, I would NEVER want to hide that significant fact about myself. I think that would be dishonest and give people the wrong idea.
The thing that gets me is that in about 50% of cases, the wife I'm talking to says, "Oh, I would have joined the Army if I hadn't (insert BS excuse here)." Why on earth do they do that? Do they think I'll regard them as more "in the loop", or as "one of us"? Do they think it makes them cooler that once upon a time, the thought crossed their mind to join the Army? I personally think the thought of joining the Army crosses the minds of at least 75% of people at some point in their life, yet somehow, only maybe 1% ever do. As a member of that 1%, I give absolutely no ass pats to people who didn't have the conviction to go through with it. This is a very binary classification. Either you are a soldier (past or present), or you are not. There is no in-between, and intent doesn't matter. If you REALLY wanted to serve, you would have. I can remember vividly when I knew that it was my time to serve, and NOTHING would have stood between me and the Army at that moment. If you never truly heard the call, there's actually nothing wrong with that, but own it. Yeah, you shoulda, coulda, woulda served, but at the end of the day, you didn't, so stop annoying the vets.
College is another one. Every time it comes up in conversation that I went to Georgia Tech (and that actually does not come up in conversation very often at all), from that day forward, the person who gets let in on that fact incessantly tries to justify their own educational shortcomings. Dude, I simply cannot be bothered to give a flying bag of composted cow shit if you think you couldn't go to college because you got married and your E1 husband moved you across the country. There are universities everywhere, and if you don't go to college, it's because you made the choice not to go. I don't think less of you for that, however, I do think less of you for not owning your decisions. If you feel good enough about a decision to make it, you should feel good enough about it to own it. I own mine, even the stupid ones, and you won't find me justifying them to anybody. I have friends who have graduate degrees from Ivy League schools. I don't sit there and say "shoulda, coulda, woulda" to them, even though, in truth, I could probably have attained what they did. I made my decision, and I'm not sorry. If you're sorry for your decisions, why don't you change them?
The biggest one is joining the military. People find out within five minutes of knowing me that I'm prior service. It's not because I walk around wearing a Veterans for Peace shirt (although if I did, people would probably assume it was my husband's anyhow). It's just that the second question that's always asked in military wife small talk, right behind, "Where's home for you?" is "How'd you meet your husband?" Since I met Thak when we were both assigned to good old Six Deuce, I couldn't hide my prior service status even if I wanted to. For the record, I would NEVER want to hide that significant fact about myself. I think that would be dishonest and give people the wrong idea.
The thing that gets me is that in about 50% of cases, the wife I'm talking to says, "Oh, I would have joined the Army if I hadn't (insert BS excuse here)." Why on earth do they do that? Do they think I'll regard them as more "in the loop", or as "one of us"? Do they think it makes them cooler that once upon a time, the thought crossed their mind to join the Army? I personally think the thought of joining the Army crosses the minds of at least 75% of people at some point in their life, yet somehow, only maybe 1% ever do. As a member of that 1%, I give absolutely no ass pats to people who didn't have the conviction to go through with it. This is a very binary classification. Either you are a soldier (past or present), or you are not. There is no in-between, and intent doesn't matter. If you REALLY wanted to serve, you would have. I can remember vividly when I knew that it was my time to serve, and NOTHING would have stood between me and the Army at that moment. If you never truly heard the call, there's actually nothing wrong with that, but own it. Yeah, you shoulda, coulda, woulda served, but at the end of the day, you didn't, so stop annoying the vets.
College is another one. Every time it comes up in conversation that I went to Georgia Tech (and that actually does not come up in conversation very often at all), from that day forward, the person who gets let in on that fact incessantly tries to justify their own educational shortcomings. Dude, I simply cannot be bothered to give a flying bag of composted cow shit if you think you couldn't go to college because you got married and your E1 husband moved you across the country. There are universities everywhere, and if you don't go to college, it's because you made the choice not to go. I don't think less of you for that, however, I do think less of you for not owning your decisions. If you feel good enough about a decision to make it, you should feel good enough about it to own it. I own mine, even the stupid ones, and you won't find me justifying them to anybody. I have friends who have graduate degrees from Ivy League schools. I don't sit there and say "shoulda, coulda, woulda" to them, even though, in truth, I could probably have attained what they did. I made my decision, and I'm not sorry. If you're sorry for your decisions, why don't you change them?
Editing photos
I got bored yesterday, and decided to edit some photos. I use Picasa, which is a free editing program. It doesn't have as many actions as Photoshop, but like I said, it's free. Plus, it's really easy to use, whereas Photoshop takes more to learn, and I no longer live near anyone who can teach me.
Anyhow, here are a few photos I've edited.
Minneapolis Skyline (before)
Minneapolis Skyline (after)
Ceiling of Minnesota Children's Museum (before):
Ceiling of Minnesota Children's Museum (after):
Thak and Orren (before) ((They are so studly!!)):
Thak and Orren (after):
Erin at Tybee Island, GA (before)
Erin at Tybee Island, GA (after)
Another of Erin at Tybee. I don't have the before of this handy, although I'm sure I can find it somewhere. All I did was change the color:
Orren at Minnesota Children's Museum. I don't have the "before" of this one either. It's just cropped and red-eye removed. I edited this one for a photo contest given by my favorite car seat company (Sunshine Kids, who makes Radian and Monterey). They're giving away three Radians to the three cutest little boys, so I had to give my studmuffin the best chance to win one!
Anyhow, here are a few photos I've edited.
Minneapolis Skyline (before)
Minneapolis Skyline (after)
Ceiling of Minnesota Children's Museum (before):
Ceiling of Minnesota Children's Museum (after):
Thak and Orren (before) ((They are so studly!!)):
Thak and Orren (after):
Erin at Tybee Island, GA (before)
Erin at Tybee Island, GA (after)
Another of Erin at Tybee. I don't have the before of this handy, although I'm sure I can find it somewhere. All I did was change the color:
Orren at Minnesota Children's Museum. I don't have the "before" of this one either. It's just cropped and red-eye removed. I edited this one for a photo contest given by my favorite car seat company (Sunshine Kids, who makes Radian and Monterey). They're giving away three Radians to the three cutest little boys, so I had to give my studmuffin the best chance to win one!
Monday, April 19, 2010
Rain is a good thing!
I heard this song for the first time the other day (I don't know if it's out on regular radio yet. I have XM, which usually has songs before they come out otherwise.) I like Luke Bryan. He's from Georgia... well, I don't know if he's actually FROM there, but he's a Georgia Southern grad, and lived like not even an hour from Ft. Stewart when he got signed to his recording contract, so we claim him, whether he likes it or not. Haha!
Seriously, though, I freaking adore Luke Bryan for one simple reason, and it's not what you're thinking. It's because his videos are awesome. They're all filmed right there in Georgia, and not freaking Atlanta like everyone else. No, this guy is awesome enough to film his videos in places that I actually know, have tons of memories of, and all that. It's great. This one was filmed in Claxton, which is like two counties over from Ft. Stewart. I know that part of the state like the back of my hand. I've been to, or at least driven past, most everywhere in this video, and lots of his others for that matter.
When I miss Georgia, which is often, I watch Luke Bryan videos, and get to go home... just for a few minutes, but it's still nice. I love to see those cotton fields. I miss them.
Click for the video for Rain is a Good thing.
Here's more Georgia videos. Forget high tech special effects, fancy choreography, or anything else that costs a lot. All I want to see is tall pines, Low Country style houses, and clay. Georgia = LOVE!!
(Another Luke Bryan one)
Click for the video for We Rode in Trucks.
(This is the Zac Brown Band. Note that not only do they film this video in GA, but they acknowledge the Army! There is nothing NOT to love about that.)
Click for the video for Chicken Fried.
(This is out in the barrier islands. ZBB again. Love them!!! This is also the song that plays on Thak's phone when I call him.)
Click for the video for Whatever It Is.
Seriously, though, I freaking adore Luke Bryan for one simple reason, and it's not what you're thinking. It's because his videos are awesome. They're all filmed right there in Georgia, and not freaking Atlanta like everyone else. No, this guy is awesome enough to film his videos in places that I actually know, have tons of memories of, and all that. It's great. This one was filmed in Claxton, which is like two counties over from Ft. Stewart. I know that part of the state like the back of my hand. I've been to, or at least driven past, most everywhere in this video, and lots of his others for that matter.
When I miss Georgia, which is often, I watch Luke Bryan videos, and get to go home... just for a few minutes, but it's still nice. I love to see those cotton fields. I miss them.
Click for the video for Rain is a Good thing.
Here's more Georgia videos. Forget high tech special effects, fancy choreography, or anything else that costs a lot. All I want to see is tall pines, Low Country style houses, and clay. Georgia = LOVE!!
(Another Luke Bryan one)
Click for the video for We Rode in Trucks.
(This is the Zac Brown Band. Note that not only do they film this video in GA, but they acknowledge the Army! There is nothing NOT to love about that.)
Click for the video for Chicken Fried.
(This is out in the barrier islands. ZBB again. Love them!!! This is also the song that plays on Thak's phone when I call him.)
Click for the video for Whatever It Is.
Saturday, April 17, 2010
Coloring and Jeep Riding
Here is Orren, coloring with the markers the Easter Bunny brought him. He loves coloring, and I love that there are so many art supplies for babies his age now.
OK, OK, I suppose he's actually a toddler now. I mean, he is almost 16 months old. He wears a size 3T in clothing, and stands nearly 3' tall. He runs around the house all day, and pushes furniture around the living room like he's a lineman pushing through to sack the other team's quarterback. I guess he's officially a toddler.
Anyhow, here is my big toddler boy, coloring.
It won't be long before we'll have to buy him his own Powerwheels vehicle, because once he realizes that the pink Barbie Jeep is kind of girly, he won't want anything to do with it. For now, though, he's rather fascinated with the Jeep.
One day, he climbed right in behind the wheel. He couldn't reach the pedals, though!
Another day, he climbed in and let Erin take him for a ride around the yard. He loved it, and Erin loved being able to drive him around!!
OK, OK, I suppose he's actually a toddler now. I mean, he is almost 16 months old. He wears a size 3T in clothing, and stands nearly 3' tall. He runs around the house all day, and pushes furniture around the living room like he's a lineman pushing through to sack the other team's quarterback. I guess he's officially a toddler.
Anyhow, here is my big toddler boy, coloring.
It won't be long before we'll have to buy him his own Powerwheels vehicle, because once he realizes that the pink Barbie Jeep is kind of girly, he won't want anything to do with it. For now, though, he's rather fascinated with the Jeep.
One day, he climbed right in behind the wheel. He couldn't reach the pedals, though!
Another day, he climbed in and let Erin take him for a ride around the yard. He loved it, and Erin loved being able to drive him around!!
This is not disgusting.
I don't even know how to begin, so I guess I'll just start from, well, the beginning. A couple weeks ago, a local acquaintance of mine, let's call her Melissa (that is not even remotely close to her real name), tweeted that the Victoria's Secret models were disgusting, and that nobody should love their body if they look like that. It was in reference to the Body By Victoria advertising campaign they've got going on right now, for which the slogan is "I love my body!" Of course the Victoria's Secret models are the same ones they use in the catalog. We've all seen them a million times.
Well, in response to this girl's thing, everyone else I know here starts tweeting about how it's so true, and that nobody's that thin, and things like that. I did weigh in on this discussion, but since my policy is to try not to engage in drama via social networking, microblogging, or whatnot, I kept it very simple, and said, "I like them. They're built a bit like me." It's true. If I were just a couple inches taller, and actually went for the boob job a few years ago when I was thinking about it, I'd have pretty much the exact dimensions of any given one of those models. I'm not saying I LOOK like them. I don't. Most of them haven't had two babies either, and if they have, digital editing is a wonderful thing. Plus, they get more treatments than I do, which helps them look better than me on the surface. I'm not totally naive to the world of modeling, and the tricks of the trade. Let's just say I've dipped my toe into it. Anyhow... the point is not what goes into models looking the way they do. It's about people being out right rude, and they continued being out right rude even after I said what I said.
I am here to tell you today that I am not disgusting. I am not anorexic nor bulimic. I am HEALTHY at 5'6" and 113 pounds. I have curves. I'm every bit as real as any other person on the planet, and I'm tired of hearing that I'm not real, or that I'm disgusting, or that I represent a standard that perpetuates poor body image, and will certainly give my own daughter (who's looking to be at least as thin as I am) an eating disorder, just because I'm not fat.
Here's a horrible picture taken of me just five minutes ago (self-timer on camera... the lovely husband's asleep after his 24 hour shift last night!). I'm not glammed up in any way. This photo is not edited at all. The lighting is poor, my hair's a mess, and I'm not wearing any make-up at all. This is my disgusting, unrealistic, skinny, disease-infested body that nobody could ever love, exactly as you would see it if you passed by me on the beach.
Try not to vomit.
I am not disgusting. I promise I won't call you disgusting either, if only you'll stop it. You won't find acceptance for being fat by spewing hatred toward those of us who are not fat. I know fat is the norm these days, but I can name plenty of people who do not plan to join that club anytime soon. Skinny people are here to stay. Get used to it, because the next time anyone makes reference to my body type being disgusting, I won't be NEARLY as nice as I have been.
Well, in response to this girl's thing, everyone else I know here starts tweeting about how it's so true, and that nobody's that thin, and things like that. I did weigh in on this discussion, but since my policy is to try not to engage in drama via social networking, microblogging, or whatnot, I kept it very simple, and said, "I like them. They're built a bit like me." It's true. If I were just a couple inches taller, and actually went for the boob job a few years ago when I was thinking about it, I'd have pretty much the exact dimensions of any given one of those models. I'm not saying I LOOK like them. I don't. Most of them haven't had two babies either, and if they have, digital editing is a wonderful thing. Plus, they get more treatments than I do, which helps them look better than me on the surface. I'm not totally naive to the world of modeling, and the tricks of the trade. Let's just say I've dipped my toe into it. Anyhow... the point is not what goes into models looking the way they do. It's about people being out right rude, and they continued being out right rude even after I said what I said.
I am here to tell you today that I am not disgusting. I am not anorexic nor bulimic. I am HEALTHY at 5'6" and 113 pounds. I have curves. I'm every bit as real as any other person on the planet, and I'm tired of hearing that I'm not real, or that I'm disgusting, or that I represent a standard that perpetuates poor body image, and will certainly give my own daughter (who's looking to be at least as thin as I am) an eating disorder, just because I'm not fat.
Here's a horrible picture taken of me just five minutes ago (self-timer on camera... the lovely husband's asleep after his 24 hour shift last night!). I'm not glammed up in any way. This photo is not edited at all. The lighting is poor, my hair's a mess, and I'm not wearing any make-up at all. This is my disgusting, unrealistic, skinny, disease-infested body that nobody could ever love, exactly as you would see it if you passed by me on the beach.
Try not to vomit.
I am not disgusting. I promise I won't call you disgusting either, if only you'll stop it. You won't find acceptance for being fat by spewing hatred toward those of us who are not fat. I know fat is the norm these days, but I can name plenty of people who do not plan to join that club anytime soon. Skinny people are here to stay. Get used to it, because the next time anyone makes reference to my body type being disgusting, I won't be NEARLY as nice as I have been.
Thursday, April 15, 2010
The weekly BS report.
BS1, Troop Withdrawal Drama
Army Times posted this article on their website. If you can't pull it up (I was logged in when I read it, so I don't know if you have to be) the basic gist is that Pres. Obama said he plans to begin a drawdown of US troops in Afghanistan in 2011, because, "We cannot be there in perpetuity." While I have not been impressed with the Obama administration over all (health care bill, anyone??) they could seriously redeem themselves if they manage to do this, and do it RIGHT. There are already rumors swirling around Battalion about deployment dates being pushed back, and troop drawdowns. I personally think it's way too early to even speculate. This brigade is designated for testing until 2012, so one cannot really have any idea about when or what their deployment will be, because this is the Army, and nobody knows anything that far away. We don't even know what's going on next month, far less 2-3 years from now. (OK, what Thak and I know is that we don't CARE what happens 2-3 years from now because we'll have no part of it!)
Anyhow, the BS of it all is that a lot of people are flipping out about this troop withdrawal plan, and saying, "Oh the US better watch out!!" and stuff. For one thing, with our troops back home, we won't be so unguarded on the homefront, and for another, how on earth were we supposed to contain this crap in Afghanistan indefinitely? Are we going to add another branch to the military, "The Afghan Babysitting Service", and then all the people who want to deploy every other year for the rest of their lives because they enjoy blowing every tax-free dollar possible, can join that branch? Suuuure. Let's get right on that. Hell, we'll even attach a double-wide trailer to the Pentagon as that branch's HQ.
I better not get any nasty-grams over this either. Anyone who's got any experience at all with the military knows that there are thousands of people who love deploying because of the money. Does that cheapen the sacrifice of those who went for the right reasons (whether volunteered or randomly ordered)? To an extent, I believe it does, but the fact remains that there are TONS of soldiers (and their psycho wives) who use deployments as a cash cow, and don't actually give a crap for the mission. Funny thing is they're the main ones complaining about this Afghanistan drawdown being set for next year. I say it's right on time. Why should we devote OVER 10 years to something that's improving marginally, but not markedly, with each year we're there? Why should we continue to make a great many soldiers be deployed all the time, get injured in droves, and occasionally die, for something that's not turning out significant gains? So that some Specialist can drive a brand new BMW? So that the Sergeant's wife who blew all his pay on fast food and clothes for her ever-expanding ass can pay off her credit card? Not a chance in hell.
BS2, Spice
The anti-drug lobby slays me. They always have. How on earth can we have legal alcohol consumption in this country, yet people can technically go to jail or lose their job for taking a bong hit at their friend's party last weekend. No matter how hard I try, I cannot find the logic in that. I was reminded of this again this week as I was reading conversations on the biggest military wives' (and supposedly, although not really, female soldiers') community, which I am NOT actually a member of, but read occasionally just to keep current on the dirt. In the debate section of that site, I found this conversation.
From what I can gather, Spice is "fake pot" that doesn't show up on a drug test. I also get the idea that it does absolutely nothing, and is the kind of thing every young soldier is going to want to try, but will never waste money on after the first time because, like I said, it doesn't do anything. That's not surprising, considering that awful alternatives to pot have been around forever, and soldiers have been trying them out for as long as the Army's been drug testing. We had something when I went through which we all tried, and I swear it was made of basil. We didn't get caught, and if we had, I would fully have expected our NCO's to laugh at us for being stupid and wasting money on that crap, and make us do push-ups until our arms fell off, but nothing more. This Spice thing is different, though. Everyone is getting all up in arms about it, and apparently, it's become more popular to try, so more commands have seen it.
I just find a lot of hypocrisy in the anti-drug arguments. "Soldiers must be deployment-ready all the time!" Yes, please stand outside any given bar within 10 miles of any Army post, at 0200 hrs on a Saturday, and tell me how many of the soldiers you see stumbling out you would trust to defend your freedom and maybe your life. If you have ever run in formation on a Monday (and every soldier has), please tell me what you smelled to your left and right. If you said your entire platoon smelled as if they had whiskey oozing out their pores, you would be absolutely correct! Does that sound particularly combat-efficient? More importantly, does it sound any worse than what would have happened if those same people who were getting drunk in the bar had instead stayed in the barracks and smoked some pot instead? I can tell you with 100% certainty that I'd rather serve with part-time potheads than part-time drunks. I think if the Army would look at this objectively, they would find that they agree.
There, now you have your weekly BS report from the Army. Now stop being a money-hungry deployment fiend and a sheeple anti-pot buzzkill. Hooah?
Army Times posted this article on their website. If you can't pull it up (I was logged in when I read it, so I don't know if you have to be) the basic gist is that Pres. Obama said he plans to begin a drawdown of US troops in Afghanistan in 2011, because, "We cannot be there in perpetuity." While I have not been impressed with the Obama administration over all (health care bill, anyone??) they could seriously redeem themselves if they manage to do this, and do it RIGHT. There are already rumors swirling around Battalion about deployment dates being pushed back, and troop drawdowns. I personally think it's way too early to even speculate. This brigade is designated for testing until 2012, so one cannot really have any idea about when or what their deployment will be, because this is the Army, and nobody knows anything that far away. We don't even know what's going on next month, far less 2-3 years from now. (OK, what Thak and I know is that we don't CARE what happens 2-3 years from now because we'll have no part of it!)
Anyhow, the BS of it all is that a lot of people are flipping out about this troop withdrawal plan, and saying, "Oh the US better watch out!!" and stuff. For one thing, with our troops back home, we won't be so unguarded on the homefront, and for another, how on earth were we supposed to contain this crap in Afghanistan indefinitely? Are we going to add another branch to the military, "The Afghan Babysitting Service", and then all the people who want to deploy every other year for the rest of their lives because they enjoy blowing every tax-free dollar possible, can join that branch? Suuuure. Let's get right on that. Hell, we'll even attach a double-wide trailer to the Pentagon as that branch's HQ.
I better not get any nasty-grams over this either. Anyone who's got any experience at all with the military knows that there are thousands of people who love deploying because of the money. Does that cheapen the sacrifice of those who went for the right reasons (whether volunteered or randomly ordered)? To an extent, I believe it does, but the fact remains that there are TONS of soldiers (and their psycho wives) who use deployments as a cash cow, and don't actually give a crap for the mission. Funny thing is they're the main ones complaining about this Afghanistan drawdown being set for next year. I say it's right on time. Why should we devote OVER 10 years to something that's improving marginally, but not markedly, with each year we're there? Why should we continue to make a great many soldiers be deployed all the time, get injured in droves, and occasionally die, for something that's not turning out significant gains? So that some Specialist can drive a brand new BMW? So that the Sergeant's wife who blew all his pay on fast food and clothes for her ever-expanding ass can pay off her credit card? Not a chance in hell.
BS2, Spice
The anti-drug lobby slays me. They always have. How on earth can we have legal alcohol consumption in this country, yet people can technically go to jail or lose their job for taking a bong hit at their friend's party last weekend. No matter how hard I try, I cannot find the logic in that. I was reminded of this again this week as I was reading conversations on the biggest military wives' (and supposedly, although not really, female soldiers') community, which I am NOT actually a member of, but read occasionally just to keep current on the dirt. In the debate section of that site, I found this conversation.
From what I can gather, Spice is "fake pot" that doesn't show up on a drug test. I also get the idea that it does absolutely nothing, and is the kind of thing every young soldier is going to want to try, but will never waste money on after the first time because, like I said, it doesn't do anything. That's not surprising, considering that awful alternatives to pot have been around forever, and soldiers have been trying them out for as long as the Army's been drug testing. We had something when I went through which we all tried, and I swear it was made of basil. We didn't get caught, and if we had, I would fully have expected our NCO's to laugh at us for being stupid and wasting money on that crap, and make us do push-ups until our arms fell off, but nothing more. This Spice thing is different, though. Everyone is getting all up in arms about it, and apparently, it's become more popular to try, so more commands have seen it.
I just find a lot of hypocrisy in the anti-drug arguments. "Soldiers must be deployment-ready all the time!" Yes, please stand outside any given bar within 10 miles of any Army post, at 0200 hrs on a Saturday, and tell me how many of the soldiers you see stumbling out you would trust to defend your freedom and maybe your life. If you have ever run in formation on a Monday (and every soldier has), please tell me what you smelled to your left and right. If you said your entire platoon smelled as if they had whiskey oozing out their pores, you would be absolutely correct! Does that sound particularly combat-efficient? More importantly, does it sound any worse than what would have happened if those same people who were getting drunk in the bar had instead stayed in the barracks and smoked some pot instead? I can tell you with 100% certainty that I'd rather serve with part-time potheads than part-time drunks. I think if the Army would look at this objectively, they would find that they agree.
There, now you have your weekly BS report from the Army. Now stop being a money-hungry deployment fiend and a sheeple anti-pot buzzkill. Hooah?
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Some Call it Short-Timing
As we prepare to enter our last year of Army, I find myself going between being so ready to be done with it, and not quite wanting it to be over. This, I'm 100% sure, is normal for anyone who's known little else in their adult life, besides Army. Considering that I enlisted when I was 19, and will be 29 when Thak gets out, I will have spent 10 years in some type of affiliation with the Army. That's a long time, over 1/3 of my life. I can only imagine how it is for Thak, who has known absolutely nothing but military for over half his life now. He'll have 18 years of service, if you count Active Duty and National Guard, by the time he gets out. While we both know that leaving the Army is the right thing to do, it's not easy. This may not be the Army that either one of us enlisted in, nor the one we came to love as young soldiers, but even though it drives us crazy, there is still a strong attachment to our branch. I'm always talking about the skeezy underbelly of the Army, the part that the press never tells you, the things that get shoved off in corners. This is not more of the same. This is the good part, the part I am taking with me.
I am grateful to have served when I was young and relatively free of attachments. I often feel for the soldiers who enlist to provide for a family, or who are married throughout their entire service. I don't feel that they get the true experience of being a young soldier. Their attachments outside the Army are too strong a pull, and they can't fully give themselves over to the experience of being young, carefree, and clad in a uniform that's still crisp and not yet faded. For me, there was only one way to be a young soldier, and that was single, ready to volunteer for anything that struck me as interesting, and with just enough naivete to believe that one soldier could make a difference.
I was asked the other day by a military wife who has never served, what my favorite duty station was. That was a hard question for me, because I do not have a favorite duty station. I told her what was good about everywhere I've been, and that the only place I truly hate is Ft. Bliss. Her eyes glazed over, and then I realized, I look at duty stations far differently than people who have never served. As silly as it may sound, I have never thought about where I'd like to live, as far as geographical locations, whereas that is really all that non-prior-service wives ever seem to consider. My first thought is always for the mission, and my second is for who I know who's already there. I could not care less how many malls there are off post, or if there's a beach nearby (although I've learned that living somewhere that it rains occasionally is something I won't take for granted when I leave this desert), or even what the housing looks like.
My favorite duty station is every one at which I surveyed land, conducted materials tests, or did some type of interesting training. I truly don't have a favorite. I am an Ozark Sapper, a Texan Surveyor, and was on an Army commercial (ok, for half a second and it was the back of my head) while training in Georgia to be a Paratrooper. I have walked on hallowed ground, where great people have stood. I trained where the legends trained, sometimes instructed by the legends themselves. I have met soldiers who are featured in movies now. I have built bridges on land that no female soldier had ever surveyed, and stamped my Engineer Castle into the wet concrete, signing my name below it. I am an Immortal Soldier, just as the tattoo on my back says I am. My bridges, roads, and airfields will exist long after I am gone. Every single one of them is my favorite, especially the difficult ones.
I am grateful to have had the experience of being a Private, but to have married above my rank. Because I have worn their rank, I have a greater understanding of young soldiers. Frustrating as they may be at times, especially when they get into trouble and ruin our family holidays, I can't take it too badly, because like every other young soldier out there, I ran my squad leader ragged. Marrying a Sergeant gave me an appreciation for my own squad leader that I'd never have had otherwise. Seeing the Army from the side of the lower-enlisted soldier, and having a third-party view of how it is for an NCO is an experience I wouldn't trade for anything. It has given me an understanding of the way things work.
I am grateful to have gone through Basic and AIT when it was still tough. I hear about how things are these days, and don't wonder for one second why soldiers are so much less soldierly than they were when I went through. I'm glad I got the experience of being scared to death of my Drill Sergeants, and then coming to see them for the great and caring mentors they truly were. I'm glad they were able to train us their way, and hadn't had their hands tied, the way today's Drill Sergeants (unfortunately) do. The times spent in training, when it was real, are to be cherished because that era is gone, and with it, most of our traditions. It's sad that our traditions have died with the standards for soldiering, and that is one reason I will be glad to go. It's hard to look at what's being turned out these days, and see how it just doesn't compare to the way it was. The Army has changed, and unfortunately, I think it's been in the wrong direction, but I am no longer that young soldier who thinks one can make a difference. I now know that these things go on with or without us, and the only say we have in the matter is whether to stay and be a part of it, or move on to something else.
I try to think of the good that's come of being married to Thak for the final half of his Active Duty years, and aside from the good that would come of being married to Thak under any circumstances, I'm really not coming up with much upon initial inspection. Maybe that's why I've never fit in with military wives. Try as I have, I fail to see this as some higher calling or patriotic duty. I heard the call to serve my country when I was very young, and when the time was right, I answered it by enlisting in the Army. That was for patriotic duty, and destiny if you believe in that. I don't see what I have done as Thak's wife as fulfilling that same purpose, and try as I may, I don't think I ever will.
I married Thak because I wanted to spend the rest of my life with him, and grudgingly accepted the Army as a temporary part of the deal, because as much as Thak drives me absolutely insane, a life without him in it would have been worse. (Call me a glutton for punishment if you will. You wouldn't be the first.) I can't get my head around the idea of there being some noble purpose in being forced to offer up every other year of our marriage to a war neither of us has ever believed in.
I grew my Victory Garden complete with flowers in the Division colors as a nod to the General, and decorated my house for the holidays every year with lights in the Division colors for the same reason. I frequently walked through the hundreds of redbud trees planted for our fallen, especially in the Spring when they bloomed. I checked the casualty lists daily, and brewed the Casualty Notification Officer a pot of coffee whenever I heard of a bombing in Thak's area (the CNO never comes to anyone who's ready and waiting for him. Superstition.) I went to every stupid social function, smiled at the higher-ups' wives, and tried not to take it in offense when the subordinate wives got mouthy with me. I dressed nicely, acted with decorum, and represented Thak in a way such that he regularly got complimented on it. I am told I am quite endearing in the way I still address anyone who outranks Thak with proper military courtesy, and can't quite bring myself to call Sergeant Major by her first name. I have played my role, and in the light of day, I have played it exceptionally well. It's just that, though. I have never internalized any part of the military wife culture. I tried for years, but it isn't me. Despite living among them for nearly six years now, I still do not understand military wives in general. Any attempt to fit myself into their world is short-lived, and they're not exactly wrong when they accuse me of being fake. Behind my mask, I am one of the realest people ever, but going without my mask in this world doesn't work. I've tried.
People talk a lot about how being married to someone in the military will make you independent and strong. I was already independent and strong when I married Thak. I had served in the Army, moved all over the country by myself with all my worldly possessions in a duffel bag on my back, and been a single mom for a little while. Being forced to continue being the strong and independent person I'd had to be all along, despite being married, was not empowering for me. It was kind of insulting. I think this is why, despite being a military wife by the simplest definition of the term, I have never considered myself that way, and doubt I ever will.
In light of that, it's hard to think of what I will take with me of these years when Thak was finishing up his time in the Army. I will say it was amazing to watch him earn the rank of Staff Sergeant, even though it meant attaining the maximum number of promotion points possible in every single area. I was so proud of him when Erin and I pinned on his new rank (even though my feet hurt! I was 7 months pregnant, and wearing 5" heels!) After that, I know there's nothing in this world that Thak can't do. If I didn't have complete faith in him before, I did as of my 27th birthday, the day he became a Staff Sergeant against what are universally considered to be impossible odds.
I think that sums it up. As we get ready to begin our final year, which will consist of closing up shop on our time with the Army, it is also the time to sort the wheat from the chaff. I will take with me the knowledge that as a soldier, I made a difference, and that as long as my bridges stand, I live. I take with me a brand on my left arm, a tattoo on my back, and one uniform that I've kept, along with every letter Thak's ever sent me in the past 7 years, and one flower from every bouquet he's given me. I take a jewelry box from Iraq, mementos from every post I've been to, and a hip that pops at inopportune times and makes me laugh because of the stupid way I injured it. I take the knowledge that my husband is the most capable man I have ever known, and that we're going to be fine, no matter what, because he's never met an obstacle he couldn't overcome or an expectation he couldn't exceed.
In retrospect, that must have been what these years were for. It's so easy to get bogged down in the day-to-day. Thak's just like any other husband, in that he generally puts his socks NEAR the hamper, never takes out the trash unless you ask him 10 times, wolfs down food that took 4 hours to prepare as if it were beanie-weenies from a can, and has a strange obsession with wearing a Minnesota Vikings shirt in public just to get a rise out of Dallas Cowboys fans. It would be easy to dismiss this one as any other neanderthal, but he's really a lot better than that. Watching him take his soldiers to war multiple times, accomplish the most God-forsaken missions in the most dangerous places, and bring every single troop home alive every single time, proves that these still waters run very very deep. This is something I never would have known on anything but an academic level, had I not been by his side all these years (even if from half a world away). Some things, you just have to witness to really understand the magnitude of. Maybe that's what this was for. I'll take that with me right alongside my box of letters and my Engineer shot glass.
I am grateful to have served when I was young and relatively free of attachments. I often feel for the soldiers who enlist to provide for a family, or who are married throughout their entire service. I don't feel that they get the true experience of being a young soldier. Their attachments outside the Army are too strong a pull, and they can't fully give themselves over to the experience of being young, carefree, and clad in a uniform that's still crisp and not yet faded. For me, there was only one way to be a young soldier, and that was single, ready to volunteer for anything that struck me as interesting, and with just enough naivete to believe that one soldier could make a difference.
I was asked the other day by a military wife who has never served, what my favorite duty station was. That was a hard question for me, because I do not have a favorite duty station. I told her what was good about everywhere I've been, and that the only place I truly hate is Ft. Bliss. Her eyes glazed over, and then I realized, I look at duty stations far differently than people who have never served. As silly as it may sound, I have never thought about where I'd like to live, as far as geographical locations, whereas that is really all that non-prior-service wives ever seem to consider. My first thought is always for the mission, and my second is for who I know who's already there. I could not care less how many malls there are off post, or if there's a beach nearby (although I've learned that living somewhere that it rains occasionally is something I won't take for granted when I leave this desert), or even what the housing looks like.
My favorite duty station is every one at which I surveyed land, conducted materials tests, or did some type of interesting training. I truly don't have a favorite. I am an Ozark Sapper, a Texan Surveyor, and was on an Army commercial (ok, for half a second and it was the back of my head) while training in Georgia to be a Paratrooper. I have walked on hallowed ground, where great people have stood. I trained where the legends trained, sometimes instructed by the legends themselves. I have met soldiers who are featured in movies now. I have built bridges on land that no female soldier had ever surveyed, and stamped my Engineer Castle into the wet concrete, signing my name below it. I am an Immortal Soldier, just as the tattoo on my back says I am. My bridges, roads, and airfields will exist long after I am gone. Every single one of them is my favorite, especially the difficult ones.
I am grateful to have had the experience of being a Private, but to have married above my rank. Because I have worn their rank, I have a greater understanding of young soldiers. Frustrating as they may be at times, especially when they get into trouble and ruin our family holidays, I can't take it too badly, because like every other young soldier out there, I ran my squad leader ragged. Marrying a Sergeant gave me an appreciation for my own squad leader that I'd never have had otherwise. Seeing the Army from the side of the lower-enlisted soldier, and having a third-party view of how it is for an NCO is an experience I wouldn't trade for anything. It has given me an understanding of the way things work.
I am grateful to have gone through Basic and AIT when it was still tough. I hear about how things are these days, and don't wonder for one second why soldiers are so much less soldierly than they were when I went through. I'm glad I got the experience of being scared to death of my Drill Sergeants, and then coming to see them for the great and caring mentors they truly were. I'm glad they were able to train us their way, and hadn't had their hands tied, the way today's Drill Sergeants (unfortunately) do. The times spent in training, when it was real, are to be cherished because that era is gone, and with it, most of our traditions. It's sad that our traditions have died with the standards for soldiering, and that is one reason I will be glad to go. It's hard to look at what's being turned out these days, and see how it just doesn't compare to the way it was. The Army has changed, and unfortunately, I think it's been in the wrong direction, but I am no longer that young soldier who thinks one can make a difference. I now know that these things go on with or without us, and the only say we have in the matter is whether to stay and be a part of it, or move on to something else.
I try to think of the good that's come of being married to Thak for the final half of his Active Duty years, and aside from the good that would come of being married to Thak under any circumstances, I'm really not coming up with much upon initial inspection. Maybe that's why I've never fit in with military wives. Try as I have, I fail to see this as some higher calling or patriotic duty. I heard the call to serve my country when I was very young, and when the time was right, I answered it by enlisting in the Army. That was for patriotic duty, and destiny if you believe in that. I don't see what I have done as Thak's wife as fulfilling that same purpose, and try as I may, I don't think I ever will.
I married Thak because I wanted to spend the rest of my life with him, and grudgingly accepted the Army as a temporary part of the deal, because as much as Thak drives me absolutely insane, a life without him in it would have been worse. (Call me a glutton for punishment if you will. You wouldn't be the first.) I can't get my head around the idea of there being some noble purpose in being forced to offer up every other year of our marriage to a war neither of us has ever believed in.
I grew my Victory Garden complete with flowers in the Division colors as a nod to the General, and decorated my house for the holidays every year with lights in the Division colors for the same reason. I frequently walked through the hundreds of redbud trees planted for our fallen, especially in the Spring when they bloomed. I checked the casualty lists daily, and brewed the Casualty Notification Officer a pot of coffee whenever I heard of a bombing in Thak's area (the CNO never comes to anyone who's ready and waiting for him. Superstition.) I went to every stupid social function, smiled at the higher-ups' wives, and tried not to take it in offense when the subordinate wives got mouthy with me. I dressed nicely, acted with decorum, and represented Thak in a way such that he regularly got complimented on it. I am told I am quite endearing in the way I still address anyone who outranks Thak with proper military courtesy, and can't quite bring myself to call Sergeant Major by her first name. I have played my role, and in the light of day, I have played it exceptionally well. It's just that, though. I have never internalized any part of the military wife culture. I tried for years, but it isn't me. Despite living among them for nearly six years now, I still do not understand military wives in general. Any attempt to fit myself into their world is short-lived, and they're not exactly wrong when they accuse me of being fake. Behind my mask, I am one of the realest people ever, but going without my mask in this world doesn't work. I've tried.
People talk a lot about how being married to someone in the military will make you independent and strong. I was already independent and strong when I married Thak. I had served in the Army, moved all over the country by myself with all my worldly possessions in a duffel bag on my back, and been a single mom for a little while. Being forced to continue being the strong and independent person I'd had to be all along, despite being married, was not empowering for me. It was kind of insulting. I think this is why, despite being a military wife by the simplest definition of the term, I have never considered myself that way, and doubt I ever will.
In light of that, it's hard to think of what I will take with me of these years when Thak was finishing up his time in the Army. I will say it was amazing to watch him earn the rank of Staff Sergeant, even though it meant attaining the maximum number of promotion points possible in every single area. I was so proud of him when Erin and I pinned on his new rank (even though my feet hurt! I was 7 months pregnant, and wearing 5" heels!) After that, I know there's nothing in this world that Thak can't do. If I didn't have complete faith in him before, I did as of my 27th birthday, the day he became a Staff Sergeant against what are universally considered to be impossible odds.
I think that sums it up. As we get ready to begin our final year, which will consist of closing up shop on our time with the Army, it is also the time to sort the wheat from the chaff. I will take with me the knowledge that as a soldier, I made a difference, and that as long as my bridges stand, I live. I take with me a brand on my left arm, a tattoo on my back, and one uniform that I've kept, along with every letter Thak's ever sent me in the past 7 years, and one flower from every bouquet he's given me. I take a jewelry box from Iraq, mementos from every post I've been to, and a hip that pops at inopportune times and makes me laugh because of the stupid way I injured it. I take the knowledge that my husband is the most capable man I have ever known, and that we're going to be fine, no matter what, because he's never met an obstacle he couldn't overcome or an expectation he couldn't exceed.
In retrospect, that must have been what these years were for. It's so easy to get bogged down in the day-to-day. Thak's just like any other husband, in that he generally puts his socks NEAR the hamper, never takes out the trash unless you ask him 10 times, wolfs down food that took 4 hours to prepare as if it were beanie-weenies from a can, and has a strange obsession with wearing a Minnesota Vikings shirt in public just to get a rise out of Dallas Cowboys fans. It would be easy to dismiss this one as any other neanderthal, but he's really a lot better than that. Watching him take his soldiers to war multiple times, accomplish the most God-forsaken missions in the most dangerous places, and bring every single troop home alive every single time, proves that these still waters run very very deep. This is something I never would have known on anything but an academic level, had I not been by his side all these years (even if from half a world away). Some things, you just have to witness to really understand the magnitude of. Maybe that's what this was for. I'll take that with me right alongside my box of letters and my Engineer shot glass.
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