Category - Family Life

We’re getting new neighbors.  We weren’t sure that we were, because for various and sundry reasons our housing area was “frozen” to new people moving in.  Then on Friday I spied two children playing in the backyard of the empty house next door.  I didn’t recognize them and I didn’t think it was a good idea for them to be playing where their parents, wherever they were, couldn’t see them.  Then they moved closer to the house and I couldn’t see them any longer and they stayed out of my view for a long time.  I started to wonder if maybe…

So I checked the front yard, and sure enough there was an unfamiliar minivan parked next door.  Woo hoo!

Then I tried to decide how to “run into” these people.  I could grab the mail key, watch for them to appear and casually step out for the mail.  Or I could pretend to weed my garden. But our normal August heat and humidity had returned so I opted for staking them out from my air conditioned house.

I didn’t have to wait long.  The children I had seen earlier wandered over to check out my children’s bikes.  I made my way to the front door and they saw me and ran away.  I opened my door anyway and saw the mom.  I waved and asked if they were moving in.  She said that no, they were still just looking.  I started talking to her, then my brood started clamoring to come out, so I let them.  Which led to more talking during which I found out that this family

1) has a 7 year old boy, a 5 year old girl, a toddler boy 1 month older than Bip and a new born

2) is Catholic (but not homeschoolers).

Yippee!  I pointed out the advantages of this house in particular, especially my own 8 year old boy, 6 year old girl and 2 year old toddler.  I mentioned that being on the end of the cul-de-sac made for a great place to ride bikes.  And that the yard already has a fence.

When they left, I was pretty sure they’d choose this house over any others they might have seen.

Sure enough, this morning, I heard children out front and spied their minivan backed up to the house while they unloaded some of their things.

It’s hard not to worry about things you have no control over, isn’t it?  Especially when it involves all your children’s friends moving away and being one of only 3 families living in a 6-plex.  But God is good and knows the desires of our hearts, even before we can speak them.

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Date:  August 22

Time: 11:31 am

Location: Washington, DC

Temperature: 65 degrees.  Fahrenheit.

I’m on my way to turn off the air conditioner and put on some socks.

Something is seriously wrong.

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Don’t you hate it when people stop by and you’re unprepared?  Oh, I don’t mind if my friends drop by.  They all homeschool, too and have at least as many children as I do, so they know that if you drop by unannounced, you get what you get.  Even if you’ve been invited, you never know when Destructo Toddler and his Evil Minions of Mayhem will have been up to No Good, tearing apart the house behind me as I’m trying to clean up.

So a couple of weeks ago, the Feds showed up again.  I was infinitely less prepared than last time.  It had not been a good morning so far.

Bip has been refusing to sit quietly and eat his snack while I tackle history, science and religion with the older two. I’m sure that the fact that he is 2 years old has something to do with it.  In fact, not only does he refuse to sit quietly, he has taken to whining incessantly. Usually with proper threats of Baby Jail, also known as the pack’n’play, he quiets down enough. This day however, he decided to throw his bowl of cheerios on me.Not his most shining moment, nor mine, as I bundled him off to Jail.

Let me tell you that we don’t often confine him to the pack’n’play. So imagine my surprise when we heard little feet running across the floor upstairs. Young Houdini had escaped Jail and was sitting on my bed. Back in Jail for him, back downstairs for me. Not 10 minutes later, we heard him on the top of the stairs. This time he was quite penitent and ready to come downstairs.

So we continue with school as best we can.  We finish our main subjects, have a snack break, then move to the dining room for seatwork.   I don’t pay much attention to the mess in the living room that we’ve left.  We’ll get to it before lunch, when school is all done for the day.

Then the doorbell rings.  Probably a neighbor kid looking to play.

Nope.  It’s a nicely dressed young woman, flashing a federal investigator’s badge, wanting to know if she could take a minute of my time to talk to me about our previous next door neighbors.  Sure, no problem, come right in, says I.  I tell the children to keep working and scoop up Bip, who is hovering nervously at my feet.  I show the nice lady into my living room.

And then it hits me – the living room the way she must see it. There are school books piled on the couch, snack bowls, toys and the remnants of snacks scattered everywhere.  I’m barefoot with no make up.  Bip starts whining.

I sheepishly clear off a space on the couch, where she perches on the edge, obviously wary of staining her chic trousers.

She asks me the same run of the mill questions about our neighbor, while I bounce Bip on my knee and try to get him to stop whining.  I’m suddenly aware of how oily my face feels.  And I can’t remember anything about our neighbor.  We only lived here for 6 months when they moved, and it being winter for most of that time, we only saw each other in passing.  I can’t remember the wife’s name, what the husband does or where he is stationed now.  I did remember their son’s name is Diego and their dogs were Paco and Lola. That didn’t come up, though.  And to make matters worse, I had to give her my full name and all my dumb non-answers are going to become a part of the public record thanks to the Freedom of Information Act.  At least I didn’t mention the time the wife was out of the country visiting family and the husband went out who knows where and the dogs got out in the back yard and couldn’t get back into the house and barked until 1:30 in the morning.  In December.  Though hopefully that little tidbit wouldn’t be enough to end his security clearance.

By now, Bip is whining so loud that this young woman, who clearly had no children of her own, frowns and asks if Bip has a stomach ache.

Interview over and I show her to the door.  On the way there, I notice the hamper of laundry in the hallway, waiting it’s turn for the washing machine. Sigh. I come back to the living room to see if it really was as bad as I thought.  Yep, it’s that bad.  My only saving grace was that my hair wasn’t in curlers and Bip was not clad in only a saggy diaper and a runny nose.

Honestly, if it wasn’t my life, I’d never believe this stuff.

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Ok, so Matilda and Andrea both want to know if we usually have Half Birthday Parties. While in general, I like to hear myself talk or in this case, read what I’ve blogged, I thought I’d spare you my usual verbose self and write a more concise answer.

Nope, this is our first year doing half birthdays.

Hmm, that answer, while concise, is somehow infinitely less satisfying than usual.

So for the complete picture, we have to go w-a-y back to October 2006. Boo’s birthday is at the end of the month, the 31st to be exact. While that’s a very cool birthday to have – and is the reason we call him “Boo,” by the way – it is very difficult to have an actual birthday party that day. We manage a small immediate family only party and do something a little bigger the following weekend. However last year, that weekend included his end-of-the-year Soccer Victory party on Saturday and us getting on a plane and flying to Disneyland to meet my Grandma Honey, Aunt Peggy, and Cousins April and Jesse for dinner at Goofy’s Kitchen on Sunday. And since we’d made such a long trip, we stayed at Disneyland for the week. So no time for a birthday party.

So we thought we’d have his party a little later, not exactly right after we returned home, but within a couple of weeks.

Right.

Then while we were getting sunburned in Disneyland during an unseasonable heat wave in Anaheim (remember how I’m responsible for localized global warming?), our house was busy flooding and destroying itself. It wasn’t pretty.

We returned, not home, but to the Temporary Lodging Facility here on base, where we lived for a couple of weeks while we sorted through water logged and moldy stuff, salvaged what we could and moved into a different set of quarters.

Our first day in our new house was Thanksgiving.

And we’d now taken 3 weeks off from school.

So we spent December unpacking, getting ready for Christmas and doing school. Pumpkin Girl’s birthday is right after Christmas and we now had a house full of moving boxes, Christmas decorations and Christmas presents. December turned to January and well, you can see where this is going.

Eventually we decided on having Half Birthday Parties this year so they could at least invite their friends and have cake and ice cream. Boo is a simple guy and was more than happy to invite his best friend’s family out for bowling, pizza and cake. Pumpkin, of course, required the Ultimate Princess Party, with lots of pink, dress up clothes, magic wands, tiaras and glitter.

And yes, I know that August is actually 8 months after December. Don’t remind me!

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I woke up this morning wondering what I was going to blog about.

Every couple of months or so, my mind goes blank and I can’t think of anything worth blogging about. Though lately it’s been so hot, that it’s a wonder my mind is clear enough to even find my way downstairs. Yesterday was the hottest day in DC in eight years. You know why, don’t you?

Because I hate summer and I live in DC. As soon as I leave, temperatures will plummet and snowfall will break centuries old records. It happens everywhere I live. So in the meantime, I just keep cranking up my free air conditioning and turn on every fan in the house.

Your tax dollars hard at work – keeping America’s soldiers and their families needing to wear socks in August.

So anyway, in the absence of anything real to blog about, I look for funny things to take pictures of and post. Did you see my blog yesterday? Aren’t those just the cutest pictures ever? The only comments I got were from my family, who are contractually obligated to comment when no one else has. Except they both thought that I was worried about Bip’s development. Actually, Bip has entered that wonderful toddler stage where he must do everything himself. He’s been insisting on dressing himself lately, but he’s not too choosy with what he wears. The other day it was one of Pumpkin Girl’s dresses. I thought it was hilarious, but I guess no one else did. Oh well.

But the way things work in my family, it’s only a matter of time before someone calls me and asks me what the doctor’s think of Bip’s development, and will the Army pay for whatever early intervention he needs. One of my aunts is bound to email me saying she heard that Philip is planning on getting out of the Army so we can move closer to the best child development specialists.

You think I’m exaggerating, don’t you?

My cousin Mallory and I once plotted to plant fake news with certain family members and see what sort of funky twist they put on it and how long it takes to get back to us. Actually, I think it would be funny to say something totally innocent on this blog and sit back and watch what happens. All in the name of good natured fun of course, not to be cruel. I’ve never played a practical joke on anyone in my family, even though I have pulled off some great ones in my time. Which just goes to show you that you’ve really got to watch out for the ones with the innocent faces. So at great risk of blowing my cover, and because I’m pretty sure most of my family is skimming my blog instead of reading each and every carefully thought out word, I just want to say –

Congratulations, Mallory! I can hardly wait!

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One hot October day in 1999, we took our oldest child, then not quite 1 year old, to the beach for the first time.  I grew up in Santa Barbara, just a mile from the beach.  Then I grew up and married a soldier and moved away.  The Army doesn’t put a lot of it’s bases near the ocean, and it was something I had started to miss.

I love the way the fog rolls in during the late afternoon and doesn’t burn off again until mid-morning of the next day.  I love the smell of the ocean.  I love sound of the foghorns.  I like sleeping with the window open all summer…and having to close it in the hours before dawn because it has gotten too cold.

We moved back to the California coast for one short year while Philip taught ROTC at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo.  Summers were cold where we lived, just 2 blocks from the beach.  I remember taking Boo to the pier at Pismo Beach and it being so cold that he had to wear a hat.  We felt bad for the poor tourists, hoping for a sun-filled summer vacation, only to  experience a cold, damp, foggy beach.

The heat wave came in October.  We were out taking a walk and it was all of 80 degrees.  We decided to introduce Boo to the ocean, so we turned down the street towards Oceana Dunes.  He was a little unsure of the wet sand under his feet and the waves lapping against his legs.  He like it best when I was holding him.

This was before we had a digital camera, so while the scans of the pictures aren’t the best, I hope they still convey the beauty of the day.

“My bounty is as boundless as the sea,
my love as deep;
the more I give to thee,
the more I have,
for both are infinite.”
William Shakespeare

Lorri and Boo, Oceana Dunes, CA
October 1999

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