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!

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.

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!

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.

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?

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!

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.