Days 39-46

Day 39

Snow Day, and finally a snowman. Of course Joshua is more excited about riding his bike than making a snowman, so Mama ended up making most of it.

 

I found Joshua like this, this morning. Apparently he got up super early and wanted to get dressed, so he put all of his clothes on his bed and then got overwhelmed and took a nap on his beanbag instead.

This is Gideon's imitiation of Mama, I'm pretty sure. He put the pot holders on his hands, walked around with a bobble head and said, "Oh, oh, oh." He thought he was sooo funny.

 Day 40

Don't worry, it's not blood. It's marker.

8 plus hours of indoor play (thanks to another 5 inches of snow) included some unattended marker-coloring time. The boys took my preoccupation (doing the dishes) as an opportunity to tatoo themselves.

Caleb wrote his full name. Of course, he's been able to write his first name for a long time, but we've been working on teaching him to read. He sounded out the letters in his full name and wrote it without my help. He missed a couple of letters, but was really close. What a smarty.

More snow on our snowman. The boys looked out and said, "It's gone! Where's our snowman?"

Day 41

Some cutey-pie friends came over for some playtime on other snow day. And Meadow thought Evelyn needed some extra junk in her trunk.

Evelyn's first curl! She has hair, finally.

Day 42

It doesn't happen often, but sometimes the boys put themselves to bed with a book or two.

Day 43

Egg in toast hearts for Valentine's Day.

 I needed a wider angle lens to fit all 9 kids in this shot. Had some little friends over for heart-shaped pizzas, some playtime, a few books read under a flashlight and a short movie with some ice cream. It's not Joshua's birthday, but he thought it was!

Day 44

Yahoo! The snow melted while we were at church and lunch. I let the children out of the car (similar to letting the dog off it's leash, if you'll forgive the canine comparison), and the boys' reaction to the melting snow was to beat what was left of the snowman with his own "coal" buttons and carrot nose. Gideon wants so badly to be a big boy, it cracks me up. Evelyn could care less what the boys are doing, but Gideon is right there in the middle of it.

Day 45

The boys at their Classical Conversations school on Valentine's Day.

The boys got to hand out Valentine's to the other kids in their class.

Caleb and I made the Valentines for his class. He cut out the hearts. I shaped them up. He wrote all the names and drew pictures on the back. I did the rest. When he saw the bracelets, he said, "Whaaatt? You sewed the buttons on? And you put the hearts on our bags? It looks like you they just came on there." It was fun impressing him. I felt like a good mom.

Day 46

Playgroup at Action Gymnastics. The twins loved it so bad. They ran in opposite directions and kept me from having more than a 2-word conversation, but Evelyn laughed a lot and it was worth it.

Snack time at playgroup. These four could be siblings. Their lives are intertwined.

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32- 38

Day 32

Gideon is definitely the snugglly one. He loves to hug. One of his favorite moves is to whack his sister on the head and then, when I say, "Gideon, be gentle," he'll give her a sweet hug and me a sly smile. They were snuggling in the grocery cart here and making me very glad to have all of my children with me, at that particular moment.

Day 33

Yet another snow day. The kids improvised and went sledding inside the house with the recycle bin. These are my absolute favorite moments of the day- when unsupervised fun erupts between all four. Unsupervised in that I was in the kitchen preparing food, not taking a nap, I mean.

 Sometimes Evelyn gets surprised that she's so excited!

Day 34

Gideon's first haircut. I'd put it off long enough. The over his ears and down his collar wasn't working.

Looking sharp after the haircut.

Day 35

New (to us) and fun snack-tivity. Making their own trail mix. Somehow Caleb's ended up pretty heavy on the dried (and sugared) strawberries and papayas. I need to find a place that sells those fruits without sugar added in.

Day 36

The only picture I took on this day was one that I snapped as I was dropping the phone running after Evelyn, who was headed straight for the street, yelling "Dog! Dog!"

 Day 37

Baby's first smoothie. Oh man it was good. And he kept saying please and asking for more. That's Joshua hand on the side, worried about little G spilling the cup-of- goodness.

Day 38

It's snowing 3+ inches and the boys are dryer-diving for their favorite pairs of shorts.

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The Army Spouse's Code of Conduct

The kids and I went to a Homefront Heroes Retreat this weekend. The hotel was clean and very comfortable, the food was tasty and fresh and it was all paid for. Two nights in two hotel rooms in downtown Nashville was a deal I couldn't pass up. We had several sessions where we talked about different issues related to deployment and I sat through these happily, as my four children were being well-cared for by childcare workers, several of whom I know from other places on post. (The twins' caregiver was a mom from Caleb's soccer team last spring). I particularly enjoyed listening to the unit's psychologist about Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. I learned something that seems obvious now, but evaded my understanding in the past: that a traumatic event will produce post traumatic stress reactions, but that doesn't mean that every traumatic event in a person's life will produce a disorder. And so there are Soldiers, like mine, that have seen some stuff and endured serious trauma, but don't have PTSD. That we, as a society, have been expecting Soldiers to come back damaged, and when they show normal reactions to trauma, we might be too quick to pin them with a disorder, instead of treating them in the range of normal and helping them to make sense of what happened and move on.
Today there was a session on Resiliency Skills. Thankfully I don't think we'll be dealing with any more deployments. We are at the end of a long 8 years of separations, both long (a year) and short (several weeks). At the end of our 3 years and 8 months here, I think Kevin has been home for just over a year. We are looking at the end of that stage of our life so I'm not as worried about being resilient, but I do think about my friends that are staying here. They are looking at another ten years at this pace. I truly don't know how to encourage them, and it seems the leadership is trying but really they don't know either.
In the class we sat in small groups and rewrote the Army Code of Conduct for wives. It sounded like a cheesy exercise at first, but the resulting "code" made me proud to be a Soldier's wife and reminded me of my special duty to my husband, to my family, and to our country. I'll call it the spouse's code of conduct, since there are husbands out there supporting their wives, but since there are only wives in our unit Family Readiness Group, I'm going to use the word wife in the text of the code.
Here is what our group came up with:

The Army Spouse's Code of Conduct

I. I am an American Soldier's wife, fighting on the homefront to keep our family together and strong. I am prepared to sacrifice my life and desires in the defense of our family.

II. I won't quit on my husband or my family. I won't surrender my efforts while I have the means to continue.

III. If I am overwhelmed I will seek help in God, in my husband, in friends and in the resources available at my husband's unit and on post and I will aid others in finding help as well.

IV. When adversity comes, I will keep faith with fellow wives. I will not gossip or abuse the chain of command. I will lead by good example and support and positively influence the other wives around me.

V. I will maintain operational security and will use wisdom with whom I vent or complain. I will remain loyal to my country.

VI. I will never forget that I am an American Soldier's wife, for better or for worse, as he is fighting for our freedom, I will fight for our marriage and our family. I will trust in my God and in the United States of America.

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23- 31

Day 23

 Caleb as mommy: sharing his water with one twin, while blocking out the other twin until it's his turn.

Day 24

Added a fifth to our crew, if only for the day.

 I went to the bathroom for under a minute.

Day 25

I thought Caleb was organizing his trail mix, but really he was setting them up for battle. The raisins in his mouth just lost.

Every girl needs a good cape. On our way to the commissary, boys are "driving" the car down below on the cart. This trip I only spent 6$ in treats for the kids while at the store: Larabar for twins, salami from deli for all kids and goldfish for the boys. Makes me wonder if it would just be cheaper to pay a sitter to watch them all rather than feeding them a pre-lunch while I'm shopping.

Day 26

Alright twins. Here's the deal. I take you potty before I put you in the bath. You GO potty, BEFORE you get in the tub. That way you won't have to wait for the poopy water to drain and this doesn't keep happening and I don't lose my mind while your nakey bottoms run around the house until I get the tub clean, again.

Day 27

 Room for two during story time. Until one claims ownership and pushes the other out. This is always a tricky business because their attention span lasts about half of a board book, so I get them each situated on a leg, touching each other, without pushing each other. Then read half of a book and before you know it one is muscling the other so he or she can get up and get a new book. This goes on for a while and gets ugly when one baby claims my lap for him/herself. I'm just now starting to referee their fights.

Day 28

The mercury rose above 35 so we headed outside and picked up some friends. These two are so easy and good, makes me think 6 kids 4 and under isn't so hard. Ha. Ha. Ha. Stop that line of thinking, right now, Kristen!

 Day 29

Caleb thought it was a funny joke to put all of the bibs in the drawer on Evelyn. She was so interested in putting wooden fruit in the coffee canister, she didn't even care.

 Gideon saw all of the attention his sister was getting, found a lone bib, and asked Caleb to put it on. (Not in so many words, but with grunts and insinuations.)

 Day 30

This is right before the fit she threw because she didn't want to come in the door by herself. She might be our little princess, but I'm trying not to treat her like one all the time. She does have little fits more than I remember the others having, but I think Joshua had fits like that. My mom and sisters say I babied him too much. So maybe I don't remember his outbursts, since he was my little darling. But when she crumples, disallowing me to put her coat on, or when she arches her back and makes it impossible to put her seatbelt on, I think there is something entirely self-possessed about her. Is it because she's a girl? Does she just have an independent spirit? I don't know whether to pin it on her sex or her personality, since she's the only girlie I have.

 I made some more cookies for my sisters, and for the church brunch.

Day 31

Film still from our family presentation at Caleb's Classical Conversations school. He recited Kevin's favorite poem, "If" by Rudyard Kipling, with a little help from me. Joshua was done standing still by half-way through.

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