surprise!

one last post for 2005...

rob has received some news from his detailer. he won't be going to iraq! yay! rob doesn't have official orders yet though, and he won't fully relax until he does have them in hand. (although even then, orders can be 'modified' without much notice.) according to the detailer, rob will be attending XO training in either april or july. the guy mentioned january, but i don't think they can get things together THAT fast. (january's and july's will be held in pearl harbor, april's session will be held locally in CT.)

the person who is replacing him is from the local base. rob's going to be in contact with him over the next few days. rob feels horribly guilty about this. i do too. i hope this guy's family can handle it.

so anyway, we've returned from iowa. we all survived and enjoyed a merry xmas. wasn't as merry as it should have been. a practical 'joke' on my mom at our xmas eve family gathering was more hurtful than funny. actually, considering it was all family attending, it was pretty damn discouraging. i still can't believe someone did that to her. it really makes me consider not coming back for next year. we've invited my parents to CT for next xmas...it would be nice to have them here and not have to travel. our poor xmas tree has never actually had presents under it. poor guy.

we had a decent xmas. spent too much $$$ and received a lot of stuff that i have no clue where to put it all. the kids have just way too much stuff. we could have gotten rid of all of their toys and just let them play with their xmas presents and they would be completely oblivious that they were even missing anything. i think i'll be cleaning out the toys soon. most of them are on our main floor, since that's where the kids spend the most time. i hate having toys in their rooms b/c then i find them playing with toys when they should be sleeping.

here's the big news: i finally got invited over to my brother's new house. they've been in it just over 8 months and it took 2 visits to iowa before i received an invitation. pooh on them. :/ and actually, if rob hadn't fixed their computer for them, i doubt we would have been invited.

it's a cute house...cozy. but you could really tell they're not very clean people. ugh. messy is ok. clean is not. and sharon (sis in law) had 5 candles burning and a febreeze scentstories thing going in her 2 bedroom, 1 bathroom house...maybe 1200 feet total. i'm wondering if she just really likes a smelly house or if she's just trying to cover up some totally horrible stench.

we did get to visit their dog, who has become an angel since i last saw him. his name is bear (he's a black lab mix, but looks 100% lab) and he visited about 6 months with my parents out in the country. sharon's sister was unable to care for him due to some reason and mom & dad had 4 acres going to waste...he was tied up with no kids around and not a lot of attention given to him. i never went near him when we visited b/c he was so wild i knew he would just knock the kids over if we got too close.

but now he's an inside dog with chris & sharon (in their tiny, candleful house) and he is the best behaved dog i've ever seen. he was so good around the kids. i can only hope that our dog-to-be is 1/2 that good.

time to go to sleep. how did i stay up this long?

does your husband do it right?

this will probably be my last post for the year.

we're heading 'over the river & thru the woods' to iowa. we plan on leaving monday night and arriving there wednesday afternoon. the plan is to drive all monday night while the kids sleep and keep driving til around 4 in the afternoon tuesday. then get a hotel for the night in indiana or western ohio and get the kids some exercise and a good night's sleep. then on the road again on wednesday morning and in grandma & grandpa's driveway before dark. hope the kids decide to cooperate with the plan. if not, we have lots of dvds to play. i think i counted 13...enough to play nonstop the whole way.

presents are all bought and mostly wrapped. hope they get to iowa in good enough condition to put under the tree. we have the mini van and the car top carrier. rob is insistent on leaving the rear seat up so that whoever isn't driving can sleep. personally i think we're really going to need the space. i also think it would have taken less space to just wrap our gifts in iowa. but they're wrapped now, so we'll have to make do.

tomorrow i have to:
--do ass tons of laundry, the kids have to wear some decent clothes
--pack
--do more laundry
--check on rob's packing of the car b/c he just doesn't do it right (everything that i might need to have handy while the car is in motion gets put in back. all of his stuff gets a lovely place on top and all of our stuff is on the bottom getting smushed.)

speaking of laundry...i bought cade some flannel shirts that i'm thinking about letting him wear for xmas eve. on that night we have a soup supper with my mom's side of the family and we exchange presents. it's totally out of control & i love it. kids running everywhere, sneaking food off the table, old farts bitching about the kids running everywhere...you know how family get-togethers are. this side of the family are pretty much rednecks. they live for 'coon-hunting', in fact my uncle raises coon dogs. the hot gift last year at the exchange was the million candlelight hand-held spotlight. ??? rob got one and he didn't know what the hell to do with that. who knew you could get one at walmart for under $10. so anyway, cade will fit right in with his new short hair and his flannel shirt.

i really hope rob & i survive this trip. just down the road to petco today i wanted to murder him. i get so flippin' tired of the damn coffee cup he has to carry everywhere he goes. he's a coffeeaholic who wants frequent kisses but hasn't figured out why i go for a peck on the cheek. this coffee cup has a flip top that he never flips shut. the cup doesn't fit in the cupholder very well (it's too narrow at the bottom) but he refuses to flip it shut. i've told him IN VERY PLAIN TERMS that if he spills coffee in our new van that i will hurt him. the best is when i ask him to help out by carrying something to the car and he looks at his hands...his right one has the car keys and the left one has that damn coffee cup. then he looks at me like i'm asking him to donate his last kidney and says, *sigh* 'hang on, let me' maneuvers both items into one hand, 'try and get a free hand.' UGH. i can carry 1 kid, a purse, my keys, sunglasses, a sippy cup, hat for the youngest, and my list. with my gloves ON. i wish sometimes that men would just try. just try to put themselves in someone else's seat and realize that they could help out more. honestly, can they help out less? physically impossible, in rob's case.

and now, i must go to bed. i need to have energy so i can do my mountains of laundry in the morning. rob volunteered to help and i just laughed. laundry is another thing he just doesn't do right. (things are matched by color but not by texture. he'd throw towels in with the kids gentle stuff if they are close enough in color...funny, that's how they do laundry on the sub.)

good night.
merry christmas.

oh and we still don't have a definite answer yet on the whole iraq thing.

there's still hope

rob had some news when he got home today.

the detailer had finally gotten in touch with him around 3pm today. what he's hoping to do is to issue rob orders to go to XO training (executive officer training, 2nd in command to you civilians). if those orders have a report date of april '06, then rob's name will be removed from the pot of many selections. (he had 18 months of shore duty remaining, that's a lot of time to send someone to iraq to fill a spot.) with only 4 months until reporting to XO training, there's not a lot they can do to screw you over.

the detailer is working really hard to get rob's name off this assignment.

rob has actually screened for xo. there's lots of lieutenant commanders that have screened for xo but they're on reserve, only to go to XO training if absolutely needed. i can't remember the phrase for them...hmmm. so the detailer is thinking to send one of those guys instead of a guy who fully screened. hope that makes sense. my emotions have been up, down & all around today.

after i got the news, i cried a bit. i think i was in shock, a lot of the day is kind of a blur. took reese to school...90 minutes late. wish they would publish a policy about how preschool students should handle late-start scheduling BEFORE they actually have to have a late start. arg. but reese got to play with her friends and didn't even realize she was only there for an hour. thank god! i couldn't have handled carrying her AND cade out to the car kicking & screaming.

rob and i have talked and if he does get sent to a sub out of pearl harbor or guam, i would stay in the 48 states and he would go on alone. i have absoluetly no desire to visit guam, let alone live there (aren't there some frickin' huge bugs there?) and living on an island like hawaii makes me feel claustrophobic. there's no where to go! except around this island or that island. i'm not much of a beach person anyway. i'd just age really fast, freckley skin doesn't stay pretty in the tropics.

an xo tour is 22 months (give or take). if rob does get sent to an island, i would probably sell this house in CT and rent a house in iowa, close to my parents. i would like to let my kids get to know my family more. as it is, reese remembers uncle chris & aunt sharon but they really only spend an afternoon or 2 when we visit. and i would like to be around to help out my parents more. who am i kidding, they'd probably end up helping me out. now that i think about it, i could use some support, dammit.

a teeny part of me hopes he does get hawaii. it would be neat to fly out once in a while to see him and that means he'd be doing pacific ocean tours...port calls in singapore, austrailia (!!). i asked rob about tahiti and he just laughed.

i really do think this is going to turn out ok. rob will end his shore duty early but to avoid iraq, i think it might be worth it.

thanks for all your prayers & thoughts :)

the decision is...

this morning rob received orders to go to iraq.

i can't believe my husband, a submariner, is supposed to go to the desert for a year.

there's still a chance the detailer could turn this around. rob has been playing phone tag with him, but i'm not sure the detailer has enough authority to change this.

his departure date is jan 22nd 2006. return date is july 22nd 2007.

still in denial.

still waiting...

still waiting for the decision on whether my husband will be gone for 18 months. his name has made it past the 2nd round of cuts. there's only 3 rounds so i'm kind of starting to get worried.

rob's already worried. he's been researching everything he can find about conditions over there in iraq and filling me in on it all. in fact, he's been talking about it too much b/c i'm getting tired of the worrying. i'd rather try & push it out of my mind and have a nice holiday, since it might be the last one we'll have as a family for a bit. (and yes, i'm in DENIAL.)

i'm trying to figure out wth i would do with the kids everyday. i mean, reese & cade look forward to his arrival home from work and right after he gets home, we eat dinner. then he and the kids pal around a bit and then it's bathtime. it's just nice to shift the kids' focus to someone else...and say, 'take the kids downstairs with you. i need some quiet.'

however, we did get a positive feeling today. rob was talking with his boss, who had spoken with rob's detailer (the guy who decides what job rob will be assigned to next), and the detailer had no clue that his name had been put in for this job. he (the detailer) said he'd be in contact with rob very soon and then when he got home, rob had an email waiting for him from the detailer. however, he was gone for the day so it will have to wait til tomorrow.

like i said in a previous post, i know that if my husband doesn't go, then someone else's husband will have to go. and maybe that other family is a lot worse off than we are, so it's not fair for me to wish for someone else to do it. i guess i'm just hoping i don't have to do it...it's not only hard doing the job over there, but the waiting at home is tough. waiting for any news at all about your husband's whereabouts, his safety, waiting to hear the worst. and if he was selected for this job, then i would not have a lot of support from the local naval base. rob wouldn't be 'with' a unit or a boat, so i would not have any support from a wive's group or an ombudsman.

anyway, on that happy note, i'm going to bed. i hear the freezing rain/sleet hitting the windows...hope reese has school tomorrow!

just a lot of yadda yadda yadda

i'm mentally preparing our xmas letter that goes in our xmas cards. it might or might not this year. i seem to have bought little xmas cards and i don't think a folded 8x11 piece of paper will fit. so i'm thinking about returning the xmas cards. however, i'm not sure i still have the receipt. hmmmm. i haven't even opened them, i bought them right after halloween and they're still in the target sack. the only thing i've done toward getting cards in the mail is making a list of recipients. i should stop by the post office on my way to return the cards.

the kids are entertaining themselves by throwing their teeny bodies upon the sofa cushions on the floor. they've been doing this for 1/2 an hour, i would think it would get old after awhile. but they're still laughing.

we're adopting a dog! yay! we're going through labs4rescue.com and we'll be adopting a black lab mix named mickey. (we'll be changing his name when we decide on one.) he's adorable but he's only 25 lbs. he's the size of a terrier! but he acts and looks exactly like a lab. i think he'll be perfect for us, i was worried how a huge lab would work in our home...but i still wanted a lab b/c they're wonderful around children. mickey is housetrained (almost wrote pottytrained there! :)) and cratetrained. we met him on saturday at the foster family's. it was a nice drive on a beautiful day and we had pizza at the local pizza place in middlefield (which is near middletown, go figure). then i got to go shopping that afternoon BY MYSELF so it was a good day.

i'm afraid i need some of your prayers (or good thoughts, if you don't believe in that sort of thing...i'm not sure i do some days). rob's name has been submitted to go to iraq for 18 months. there's 2 rounds of selections and he's past the first round. if he went, he'd be working 'civic affairs' for the army. rob explained it like this: "if the army screws up and bombs the wrong village, we go in and give them a lot of goats and cows to make up for it." hmmmm. not exactly what a submarine officer would be trained for. i'm assuming they'd give him some training and he said that they would issue a 9mm to him that he would probably be carrying/sleeping with 24/7. sigh.

i know the job has to be filled and whoever goes will probably be someone's husband, someone's father. but i really don't want my husband to do this. i feel like he's pretty safe on submarines, even if he is 600+ feet under the water, next to tomahawk missles and cozied up to a nuclear reactor.

so i don't know if i'm asking for prayers that he doesn't go or prayers that he'll be safe and i'll be a strong wife while he's gone or what. we should find out before xmas; he'd have to leave in january. and wouldn't be back til july 2007. oh, did i mention he would probably not get leave time at all in there? sigh.

ha. cade just got slapped on the side of the head by the cat. no blood. although that reminds me that i need to cut the cat's claws. :b

off to go look for that receipt.