The move

We are getting ready to move this week. There just wasn't enough room for us in this tiny apt, espceially with the baby comming. This week I will also be beginning my move away from the army. I have to go to a bazillian different briefings. I'm getting closer to baby's arrival too, i'm nervous. My mother, father, and sister in law just left a few weeks ago, it was a very expensive week. They are planning on comming back in November for 2 weeks. With my income about to disappear for a while, I really hope they don't expect too much.

Here comes the start of our new beginning. I can't wait till the baby gets here, I'm so anxious to meet him. I worry about him all the time. I know That I'll only worry more after he is born, but sometimes it seems like I will be able to worry less. When he is quiet he makes me so nervous.

Goodbye Army, for now

My little man is on his way. I can't wait to meet him. I am looking forward to being able to spend lots of time with this precious child as I am leaving the Army. I am nervous about my transition. I'm trying to get a job as a substitute teacher but also considering some other alternatives. I want to be able to do something that will give me a maximum amount of time with the baby but bring some money into the house. I'm also considering working with some places doing referals. The place we are renting from gave me information on it. I'm also thingking about paper routes. I had a friend who had one in AK. It took her 1-2 hours depending on road conditions, she made an extra 400.00 every two weeks. She made deliveries to stores and whatnot, not individual homes like kids do. I figure its worth looking into. Routes are usually done by 4 or 5 am so i could do it before Chris leaves for pt, if iI need to I could take the baby with me.

I guess we'll see how it goes. I've been thinking about weekend job as well. Chris would be home with the baby so I know he would be in good hands. I guess we'll see how it goes.

I start the processing to seperate on Tuesday. Part of me is sad to go, part of me is anxious. I enjoyed training I was able to do, but I didn't enjoy doing nothing but paperwork. The army is separating me becuase I can't currently fulfuil requirments for a family care plan. (FCP is only required for service members who are either single or both parents are military) That is a plan for long and short term care for the child should one or both parents be deployed, sent to the field, or need to remain at work for long perious of time. There is no way I could leave my child with a complete stranger for two years, should we both be activated, and there is no family who could adequately care for him. So I'm leaving.

Good bye Army, Hello baby

Charlie and Disney

A couple of years ago my mom was able to take the family to Disney. My brother Charlie is autistic and after Disney he said his first full sentence. He has been itching to go back ever since. My stepfather just recieved an opportunity to go to FL in January. He is a physics teacher and will be attending a conference, for which all of his expenses will be covered. My mom is trying to save up money to be able to take the kids back to the park. She is an artist and raffeling off one of her oil paintings in an effort to raise money to take Charlie back. Below is a link to her website. She has pictures of her paintings posted as well as a story of Charlie's experience at Disney and why it is so important for her to take him back.

http://just-a-mom-thats-more-than-enough.blogspot.com/

gotta love computers

Well the marvel invention of the computer failed me. Our hard drive crashed, fortunately the people at DELL were really good and sent us a new hardrive. Within two days, we called on Sunday it was here Monday, we had a new one. We lost everything that was saved on the system, though.

Work is presenting another conundrum. My CO said that just 2 months after the baby is born, I and the other 13 COSCOM mothers, would ship out to Iraq. Thanks to congress commanders are no longer required to keep new mothers state side for the 4 month bonding/healing time. I'm not particularly thrilled with this idea. Our tour is expected to last 24 months. Granted that my unit will have already been over there for part of that tour when I am expected to join them, nearly 2 years is just to long to be away from my baby. My little man would be a toddler and I would have missed all of it. I don't know how other mothers do it.

If you leave for 2 yr tours every six months, and during those six months work 14-18 hours a day why have children? How can you expect a child to know you, to love you when they grow up under someone elses care in someone elses home. I suppose if you only have one parent in the military it would be eaiser to keep the other parent alive in the childrens life and the children in the other parents. For both parents to be gone is just too much.

My husband is infatuated with the Army and wants to stay as long as possible. I certainly don't mind. He absolutely loves what he does. To have a job you love is a rare and wonderful thing. For me it was a crazy diversion for 2 years. The baby, through a bit of a kink in the plans. I think that I will not be completing my two years. My tour with the army will end up being about 18 mo instead of 24.

This child is the single most important thing in my life. Everything is about him and waht is beswt for him. I think having at least one parent at home who loves him is one of the most important things in the world. I want to teach him, love him, and be able to keep his father alive in his life while he is doing what most others can't, now to include myself.

Maybe I'm nuts

diaster averted?

My husband wanted to buy a house, RIGHT NOW. He was going nuts he wanted us to have closing paperwork started by today. He talked me into looking and we saw a lot of nice places in our price range. He started filling out paperwork for the contract to negociated with the seller and I couldn't do it. It would be nice to have our baby in our own home but I wasn't ready for what it would do to our finances. I wasn't ready to buy a house yet. The one we were looking at needed some work too. It was his first favorite and my first was the backup. The house I wanted was newer and would need no imeadiate work, unless an inspections showed otherwise. It was full of brand new appliances too. In the other house we would have to buy all the appliances except the washer and dryer we already have, the carpet would need to be replaced before the baby is born, the cabinets would have to be replaced, bathroom and living room had to be repainted and possibly new drywall in the living room do to how many things they had had haing apparently, and the roof needed some new shingles.

Seeing that the roof needed new shingles really made me nervous. If you haven't seen the weather TX has been recieving an enormous amount of rain lately. Many people are in boats. So with this much rain and parts of the roof exposed...me thinks additional roof work would be needed. Both houses were located at the top of a hill and it was pouring when we looked at them, neither had flooding issues.

Ivy, our realtor, decided to stop the process. I hadn't said anything but she could see how tense and nervouse I was. I'm not ready to get in to a house that needs so many repairs right away. I don't have money for that. I don't want to be stuck in the army for 20 yrs so we can have the money for the house...which in 2 years we will probably have to leave anyways. Ivy said she thought it was a really bad idea to get into something that we weren't both 100% on. I'm glad she did. I wasn't feeling pressure from her, but a lot from chris. In the end we stopped completely. We are going to look at some different rentals to try and get out of the neighborhood, but worst comes to worst and we are here another 6 mo. It doesn't really seem like we have been here 6 mo. already.

This gives us time to get money together for a down payment, enerst cash, inspector, and a stash for surprises. Should we get something that does need some minor work, new stove or fridge I want to have the money to do it. It will also give us a little bit to continue to improve our credit.

Waiting also gives me the opportunity to make up my mind about whether or not to leave the army. If we had bought a house, I would have no choice.

In any event I can finally sleep again. This has been eating me up so much I've hardly slept in a week.

Ethical Delima

i'm in the army and this is presenting a tremendous ethical delima for me. I promised myself that i would never put my children in the circumstances that i endured while I was growing up. I was going to wait until after my service was completed before having a child. God intervened and my precious son will be born in Nov. My child is only 21 weeks old and i'm so in love with him and want his life to be the best it can be.

I don't want to utilize day care. I grew up in day care and hated it. My mom worked so much that until my grandmother died i never really knew my mom. After day care, and later school, I went to grandma's house. When mom got done with work we were already asleep and she drove us home. I only saw her briefly in the mornings before grandma picked us up for daycare/school. My mom was doing her best to make sure we had food on the table and a place to live. She made tremendous sacrifices for us. I know that she wanted the best for us. She didn't plan on having an abusive cheating husband she would have to rescue us from.
I want to be there while my baby grows up. I don't want the only time I see him to be when he is sleeping when I get home and when he is sleeping before I leave. I work from 5am to 7pm. That leaves no mommy baby time. I am not ready to leave my precious son at 4 months and deploy for 2 years. He would never know me. I realize there are many families who do this, however it seems completely unethical to me.

To me how can you have a baby and pay someone else to raise them? How can you give up all the firsts to someone else? How can you let someone else be mommy to your baby?

The second part of this delima is that my husband is also in the military. I out rank him and the dramatic drop in our pay if i stayed home may be too much for us. I'm concerned that we won't be able to meet our obligations. He loves the army and plans on staying as a career. He wants to deploy and said he will volunteer after the baby is born, I'm afraid he won't come back. I don't want to put my baby in poor conditions due to bad finances. To me both are completely unacceptable.

The delima then is do i stay in the army until the end of my obligation december 2008, or take the risk of being in a bad financial situation and hope we can find a way to make it. If I stay to fill my obligation I will deploy in January and not return to the states until 0ctober 2009. What kind of choice is this? I just want to make the right decision for my little baby.

Baby Registeries

Today my husband and I went out for lunch and then for preparation for our Baby Shower. He and his mom have been planning a baby shower for me. They intended to keep it a surprise and have it while his parents and youngest sister were visiting. I found out because I kept pestering him about spending so much money. Finally he gave in and told me about it.

We stopped by Target and Sears and created our registery. I thought it would be painstaking but it was a lot of fun. I let him have the scanner and made sure he incuded the things I wanted as well. He had a blast. I was afraid he would be bored or complain but he was great. Far to often I underestimate how good he is.

He is so excited about the baby. I know he is looking forward to playing with the little one. We were in the toy aisles for some time. It was great to watch him look at toys for him to play with the baby.

The registeries are done I'm glad to be back home. Fortunately since I'm due in Nov. we can leave the list active for anyone who wants to know what we need or want for the baby.

From the beginning

Hello,

I am 24 years old and have had some interesting twists and turns so far and I'm not sure where I'll end up next. I grew up mostly in PA but during my senior year in high school i decided to go to college in Alaska. My mom and I were fighting when I opened the atlas to Alaska and decided that was where I wanted to go. I loved every minute I was up north. During my senior year in college I got married, God only knows what possessed me to do that. Less than six months later we started our divorce paperwork. He was so convinced I would cheat on him while he was deployed he decided he would cheat on me first. Trust me I realize how dumb that sounds, somehow I don't think he ever saw the flaw in that reasoning.

Almost 2 years later I had my degree complete, took a break from school, and was considering colleges for my masters. I don't know what happend the last 4 months I was in Alaska. I think I went a little bit crazy. I joined the army. I left for basic training in July. Ft Leonardwood was hot as hell in July. Granted when I left AK it was a cool 40 degrees and landed in St Louis at 120 degrees and humid. I thought i was going to drop dead. I loved basic training, AIT sucked..but what can you expect when nearly all of your drill sergeants end up in federal prision. After AIT I was selected for additional training which for the most part I enjoyed.

During all of my training I met my current husband. He was my best friend in basic, while I loved the training there were days that he was just about all that kept me going. During AIT he proposed to me and after graduation and christmas we got married. I had to leave him to go back to Ft Leonardwood for my extra training. I got to spend 2 weeks with him in FL, he was in the reserves, before I had to report to Ft Hood. He was able to go active, which he wanted from the beginning, and join me in TX.

After I got to my new unit and began training I found out I was pregnant. I was much relieved that the problem I was having wasn't my ulcers but a baby instead. I am about to hit my one year mark and I have decided that I'm going to leave. I don't ever want to have to explain to my baby why both mommy and daddy are leaving for 2 years. Chris, my husband, wants to make the army his carreer. He loves it and I support him 100%. I think after my kids are in full time school I will go back, but as an officer this time. In the mean time I want to stay with my babbies and work on my masters and maybe my phd.