Satisfaction of Home

Rafe and Amelia on the beach outside his quarters

Norfolk, Virginia

October 2007

I can only imagine how it will feel for Rafe to come home to the United States after seeing desert for so long.

The first time I went to Texas to visit my sister, I was shocked at how unrelentingly brown Texas seemed to be. Perhaps it was just the season, but while I was there I became used to the odd beauty of Texas, plain and raw boned. When I went back to Iowa, my eyes were amazed by the contrasting lush landscape. I could not get over how green everything was.

Both of us can only allow ourselves to get just a little used to each other again. He needs to stay in Marine mode, because he's going right back into the fray and those two weeks will pass so quickly. To this end, he sent me a leave plan so we can make the most efficient use of our time possible. :) hee hee... Three pages long!

Believe it or not, I love it. It's a timeline that combined our schedule with his, along with a list of things we can do while he is home. It's actually a pretty amazing document. There are two things I particularly love about this plan. In his outline of how the day that begins in Kuwait will go (he flies there from Iraq first, and then to the US), there is an entry that says, "Go home where I belong". What wife wouldn't melt at reading that?

The second best part - he's doing the cooking!!! I'm so excited. He wants to give me a break from all my hard work. Can you imagine that? HE's the one fighting and living in the tent, and he wants to give ME a break. I'm so impressed. I'm a lucky woman!

"To know after absence the familiar street and road and village and house is to know again the satisfaction of home."

Hal Borland

French Onion Soup

A friend of mine gave me a quart of turkey stock that she had made and frozen recently. I caramelized 3 large onions in some butter, thyme and a bay leaf; and deglazed the pan with sherry.

Then I put the frozen stock on top of the onions and let it melt and then simmer.

I dumped in a can of beef consomme (bought from the dented section, 30 cents), seasoned with freshly cracked pepper and let it simmer for a few minutes.

A few days earlier, I toasted some rye bread ends that I had gotten for free at a local natural foods store. They make sandwiches from the bread and never use the ends, so they put them in a big basket free for the taking. They use all kinds of organic breads, so I usually take a bag or two and use them for croutons, bread crumbs, toast, etc.

When the soup was done, I put it in a small soup crock, topped it with toasted rye bread and some swiss cheese - perfect for the cold nights we've been having recently. I am going to freeze the rest of it I think. I pureed some for Amelia to eat. She doesn't seem to like chunky soups so I just give her stuff a whirl in the blender. She loved it - that's a success for me considering it was the first time she had it. I'm hoping I can get her to eat a wider variety of foods if I puree them in soups.

Rafe

It's almost 3 am and I can't sleep. The closer it gets to Rafe being here, the harder time I have sleeping. Every day he emails me and gives me the countdown and then follows it up with a phone call to give it to me again. I'm trying not to think about it too much; it will make the time drag and accelerate at the same time. We've lived apart for so long, not just this deployment but training and deployments both that it will be a lot like having someone new living with me. We've both gotten more used to living apart than living together.... that doesn't mean we like this state better or that it's easier.

I need to get some sleep somehow. Amelia will be up in 3 hours and I have a busy day.

Shopping at the Exchange

There is an Exchange on this base - basically a small department store with name brand items. While you can definitely save a lot of money if you are a name brand shopper, in general you can get items much cheaper at Walmart. Obviously not the same quality, but still.

Every once in a while I go in there with Amelia to window shop when she gets a little stir crazy and it's rainy or cold outside. I went in there this week and found a two drawer nightstand, very nice...original price 129$ on sale for 29$. I noticed it had a bit of paint chipped off and I asked if that was why the price was so low. It turned out to be a closeout piece and they took even more money off! It's white and girly and perfect for Amelia. I needed something but I hate paying full price for anything, or even half price for that matter.

As I was walking out, I saw a bunch of purses on sale, half off. All name brands, but the only one I really recognized was Coach. I took a peek and about fell over. These purses were normally in the 200-300 dollar range and up! Who buys those things? I asked the lady at the counter and she said they were just selling last years styles, that people buy them there all the time. Holy Moly. Even at half off they were way too expensive. Then she told me that sometimes they mark them off 75%. Amazing.

Going Visiting

I love living on Parris Island. I am so glad Rafe was able to get us a house here, and not out in town. One of the best things about living here is knowing your neighbors. Every once in a while, we will go out "visiting" and just walk up and down the streets, stopping by a house here and there to say hello. As much as I like to dress Amelia up, she has very definite ideas of how to accent her outfit. She wanted a hat and insisted on the tennis shoes.

High Tide

Looking out my front porch.

Ever seen a Dragon cook?

Amelia made this in that tiny little oven!
Just kidding. I made it for lunch. It's a whole wheat tortilla; ground beef cooked with carrots, onions, green peppers and enchilada sauce; spinach, wheat germ and sharp cheddar cheese. It was amazingly delicious. Believe it or not, the spinach was great in it.


This is what Amelia made for lunch.

I made hers into a rollup, and with just the meat and cheese. I also made her some yogurt - just mixed some plain Stonyfield farm yogurt (in bulk) with some strawberry jam. Apparently, she wasn't a fan of the cheesy meat rollup, and thought it needed some help.

She has a bad habit, acquired recently, of dumping her yogurt on her food. Then wanting different food. She and I have had some chats about this and most of them ended with lunch ending immediately upon the dumping of the yogurt.

This particular day, I had started clearing dishes and wasn't paying attention to her and she did it again. Only this time, as I immediately started to take her food away, she said, "NO MOMMY! I EAT!"

Being the kind, gentle, mom that I am, I realized she was starving because she had spilled her milk at dinner (on purpose, she told me) and missed dinner. Then at breakfast she did the same thing, smeared her hand in it and told me she did it on purpose... and missed breakfast.

Too bad for her that we were now at lunchtime and she was about to lose lunch. Out of reflex, without really thinking, I said, "Did you do that on purpose? Did you mean to eat your food with yogurt on it?" She just looked at me a second and said, "uh huh".

Then she started eating it.

Is it bad if it made me laugh, because I could tell she didn't really like it with yogurt on it?

" 'mell Daddy!"

One of the best things a husband who is gone a lot can do is wear cologne. When you are really missing him, you can smell it again and feel a whole lot better. Every once in a while, when things are feeling really tough, I spray his cologne on my pillow before I go to sleep at night. I love sinking into the pillow and pretending he is right next to me. I usually put other pillows on his side of the bed and snuggle with my back to them.

I did that this week, and accidentally left his cologne bottle out. Amelia found it, and picked it up to smell it. She immediately recognized the scent - " 'mell Daddy!" (I smell daddy). She would not let go of that bottle, and would keep bringing it to her nose to smell and smell again. She looked so darn happy, and it reminded me of when I was a little girl. I used to love the smell of Old Spice because it reminded me of my Dad, and when I was in stores I would sneak to the cologne section and smell it.

It's amazing what she remembers about him. Tonight I put some cologne (Kenneth Cole's "Black") on her Daddy Doll and put the doll in to sleep with her.

One of those days...

Do you ever have one of those days with your kids when you say things that you can't quite believe you are saying, then really quickly look around and see if anyone heard you?

I had that day today.

I have a bad habit of occasionally starting off with a, "If you don't stop that, XX will happen". The problem is that I don't normally have to say anything other than, "Amelia you need to stop doing that, and do this instead". She cheerfully replies, "OH! OK!" or "OK MOMMY!" like it was the greatest idea in the world to stop. But when it takes more than a time or two, I find I don't really have a backup plan. What will I do? I have no idea. And I've found it's not a good idea to wing it. It never works out well. Good thing she's two and has no idea what I'm talking about or she'd laugh her head off at me.

Me: Amelia, Are these your teeth marks in these pool floats? (those big long styrofoam sticks for the pool)

Mia: Uh huh! (with great enthusiasm)

Me: These are for playing with, not eating.

Mia: OK! MOMMY! (nodding and bobbling her head, I think she gets it)

A few minutes later...

Me: Mia, what is this chunk out of this floatie?

Mia: I bite it!

Me: Please don't do that. It's not good for you. Where are the pieces? (And she points to them on the floor). Do you understand Mommy? We don't eat these and we don't bite them either.

Mia: OHHH! OK!

Me: (I want to make sure she really understands) Are you going to bite them anymore?
Mia: YES! I BITE MORE! (and the little turkey is grinning at me)

At this point, I am trying to stay on track and not laugh. I tell her a few more times not to eat it, then exasperated, find myself saying, "YOU'D better not eat it, you will swallow them and mommy will have to... (and here I'm realizing I have no options on what I would do) DIG IT OUT OF YOUR TUMMY WITH A FORK!!!"

Yeah. Brilliant.

New Friends

Amelia had a friend over to play this week and they were hysterical together! Although Mia normally goes for the dragon costume, she went for a princess one this day and picked out all her own stuff. The only thing I helped her with was the dress. Now it's the Duck and the Dragon...

I couldn't stop laughing at the two of them. Every time Amelia would take her hands off her duck head, it would fall down in her face. After a while, she just walked around like that. It was so funny that I pretended not to hear her when she asked me to fix it. hee hee Bad Mommy

I asked her what she was doing, and she said, "Readin' papuh".

One. Sheet. At. A. Time. Thanks, Amelia. :)

Hippie Chick, with a bit of Aunt Jemima headwrap thrown in for the heck of it

Getting ready for Daddy

There are so many other pictures I'd like to post, but I think I am going to concentrate on getting ready for my husband to come home for now. Amelia is getting really excited. Because we traveled so much over the holidays, she now "gets" the idea of visitors and is talking about daddy more and more. She is walking around the house pointing to things she sees that are his... "Daddy's coat? Daddy's shoes?" and I confirm that they are his things. This seems to comfort her somehow; that because his stuff is here, he is definitely coming back home

It's bittersweet. Even as I am getting her used to the idea that Daddy is coming for a visit, I am already preparing her for him to leave again. I have to remind her that Daddy is only coming to see us for a short while (2 weeks), and then he will be gone again for a very, very, very long time (6 months). This will be the hardest leave-taking for us that we've experienced so far. At 2 1/2, she really is aware of the people in her life and their relationship to her. It has to be handled delicately so that she accepts it as a normal part of life and not something to be deeply sad about.

Almost done!

Tonight I will load the remainder of the road trip pics for family. After that, it's back to us preparing for Rafe to come home for a 2 week visit and Amelia's reactions to him coming home.
She talks about him all the time now.

Asa, Steve, Eli, Dad, Zeke, Dylan, Braden, Todd, Paul, Noah
Paul, Mia

Mom and Dad opening their Memory Books

Making Cookies with Bamaw

She is covered in cinnamon sugar!

These two were hysterical, playing in the freezing snow. At one point, Dylan laid down to make a snow angel and Amelia was worried if he was ok and kept telling him to get up. Then she got into the spirit of the snow... She kept asking Dylan to pour snow on her head... over and over and over again. You can barely see her eyes because her hair is so covered with snow, but she's got a big grin on her face. Todd showing Dylan how to put in wiring
Note how HARD Todd is working in this picture!!
:)

Todd looking mean and Amelia not believing it for a minute!

Digging in to Chinese food together

St. Nick's Day

Trip Home

One last bedtime story... Melancholy little girl looking out the airport window at our plane

Random Photos from Colorado

Dressed to kill Everywhere I went in Woodland Park, these displays of books kept popping up. The library, beautiful little craft shops, you name it. JJ wrote a delightful little book, "Grandmother Told Me" (can be ordered on Amazon.com) and they were selling like hotcakes. Rafe is even mentioned at the end of the book!

Supposed to be watching Fantasia, but teasing Uncle Gramps.

Finally settled in to see what Mickey will do in Fantasia. I thought the movie would be too scary for her, but she loved it.

Showing off her artwork when Uncle Gramps came home

Playing with Granny J

Noah's Ark Amelia put those socks on BOTH their feet. Immediately after this, she jumped down and started tickling JJ's feet.

Putting together "sewing dolls"

She loves them and can't wait to start!

Fascinated by the moose Granny J shot.