Up to my elbows...

My kitchen sink clogged yesterday. I have never had a kitchen sink clog before and I didn't want to call housing because I knew they would bitch me out for putting pasta down the garbage disposal even though I am really not supposed to do that.

I went to bed last night with the sink still clogged praying that it would just eventually drain on its own, because hey, miracles happen, right?

I woke up this morning, not to a drained sink, but rather a very stinky kitchen. Yuck. So I figured I could fix this problem myself since I did once work in a hardware store and sold plumbing parts all the time.

Hahahaha! I am just going to admit my blonde moment. I don't know what I was thinking, putting my biggest mixing bowl underneath there when obviously there was more water both sides of the sink than it could hold. In my defense, however, it was early and I was still recovering from the migraine I had the night before.

I unscrewed the attachments to the "trap" (as my husband calls it) and I am sure you can guess what happened next. It was like an explosion of gross water and ground up pasta shells. EVERYWHERE. Naturally, the bowl was full in like two seconds and there was standing water all over the bottom of the cabinet and kitchen floor.

Fortunately, I did find the clog and got the pipes back together with no issues. The problem: a whole Popsicle stick and a wrapper to what I am suspecting was an ice cream bar. Thanks Charlie!

Charlie

Charlie has recently been diagnosed as having a Speech and Developmental Delay.

Needless to say, I have been very upset about this. But my feelings aside, it is something that has to be worked on diligently if we want him to be able to start school on time.

After his evaluation yesterday, she determined that he needs therapy twice a week. Plus, they want me to get him therapy two more times a week through the school system. And enroll him in pre-school. Pre-school is just not possible right now because he has to be potty trained first and I don't know what to tell them... we are working on it but it is not going well.

Plus, they told me that they think Abby needs to have her speech evaluated as well. So at her next well-baby appointment, I will ask her PCM about it.

I am sad. I feel like I failed as a parent. :(

Post Office and Halloween boxes

So, I did some Halloween themed boxes to send to Stuart. I got way too much and ended up having to pack two boxes full, lol. He should have more than enough to share with some of the other guys.

I actually put them together last weekend but piddled around with them because I really hate going to the post office. And since they changed the customs forms... well, I hadn't quite figured them out yet.

Thursday rolls around and I figure that I better get them mailed out so they will, in fact, get there by Halloween so he can enjoy them on the holiday for which they were intended. I filled out the forms with a little help from Lindsay and me and my for once very well-behaved kids were off to mail them out.

I get there and immediately I can tell that this postal worker lady is not going to be nice. As with most boxes I mail out, I put that it contained reading material and snacks. Which wasn't a total lie because it did contain candy and one of the boxes had some audio books and a few magazines in it.

Apparently, that no longer flies with the post office. I needed to be specific. I asked if it would be okay if I wrote chips next to snacks and she replied "I would prefer it if you would specify what is in the box more clearly than that" with an obvious eye roll. After a few more minutes of berating and patronizing I was just ready to get out of there. But not before she lectured me on how she "would let it slide this one time but I better do it right the next time."

I also asked her about the new forms because I wasn't sure where I was supposed to put everything. She rolled her eyes again and said "they are exactly the same as the old ones... I don't understand why you people are having so many issues with these forms." So I said, well with the new blocks, I didn't know where to put the APO stuff. She then preceded to tell me that it wasn't her job to tell me where to put the address on the form and that hopefully it would get there. With another eye roll.

I was very disappointed with the service at the post office. Being on post, I would think that they would have this process down pat with mailing out boxes for military families. And she can roll her eyes all she wants at me, but I sure as hell won't be letting her wait on me again next time I need to mail something out.

So, am I just dumb about the customs forms?

Pressure...

I am under a lot of pressure now because guess who has all of the sudden decided to take an interest in my blog?

My husband.

That's right, he is one of my newest blog readers. I guess I had better step it up and write something good...

Who knew?

I never expected that him going back after R&R would be exceptionally harder than him leaving in the beginning. I mean, people told me that it would but I really didn't see how. But it is. Trust me.

I have cried more in the last week than I did the entire first half of the deployment.

I never imagined that the deployment would get any worse but I guess it did.

Parenting (and apprently not doing it right)

I went to the library off post today to finally get a library card. The post library is okay, but is limited and hard to get stuff that isn't right there. ILL isn't something they do and that limits my reading pool.

I was standing at the counter doing the paperwork for the card. Charlie was standing pretty still next to me but Abby was about ten feet away, silently twirling in circles. No big deal and it wasn't hurting anyone. Well, one of the library workers comes up to me and says "Is that your little girl?" I said yes, assuming that she would say something about how cute she was or something along those lines like most people do. Oh, no though. It was "you really need to keep a better hold on her." I said "well, she isn't really hurting anything?" Apparently she was being super annoying though because the worker told me that she was "disturbing the other patrons." Seriously? She wasn't making noise and she wasn't hurting anyone. There was nothing wrong with what she was doing. I shrugged it off as a disgruntled employee. I got my card and we went to the children's section.

The kids played with the wooden puzzles in there for a bit and then I wanted to look at adult audio books. I asked the kids if they were ready to go and they skipped right along, as good as could be. Well, Abby sort of does this half-skip, half-run thing sometimes and she was ahead of me in the main aisle. No one around. But then ANOTHER library employee steps out of the stacks and says "She is running in here." I said, "no, not really. We are just going to the audio books." And the employee said "She isn't allowed to run in here. You need to slow her down."

SERIOUSLY, PEOPLE?! What do you want from me?? Would you rather me hold her and have her scream at the top of her lungs, or skip quietly through the stacks?! Seriously, I will let you pick and I don't think you will like what you get when you tell me to hold her and keep her right freaking next to me at all times!!

Did they never have children? Do they not realize that with kids, something has got to give? I am willing to sacrifice a little more rowdiness if it means she isn't screaming her head off in public.

This is what is frustrating to me as a parent. What am I supposed to do with my children when I want or need to go somewhere? Lock them up? Beat them senseless when they make a noise? Heaven forbid they skip around! I sometimes feel like I can't even leave my house without being criticized because my kids are being kids.

I freaking hate this.

I'm grumpy.

I am not a happy person.

Like, not just something happened and I am unhappy, but I am a legitimate miserable, unhappy because every single thing person right now.

I guess that is what happen with the honeymoon (R&R) ends?


Keeping with my everlasting theme of "Stuff Kasey Hates," let me tell you a few things that I hate.

For example, I HATE when you are at the book store and are letting your children play in the kids area and stupid people who have no kids are bogarting the chairs there. And then they look at you with a crappy look every time your kid is a little loud. Hello! It is the kid's area! Of course kids are going to be a little rambunctious when they are playing with a train table. Go sit somewhere else and lets the moms with the kids sit there! And maybe you won't feel so irritated at me and I won't want to punch you in the face every time you glance my way when my kid laughs.

I also HATE when my children throw hissy fits in public. I wanted to crawl in a hole and die yesterday. I love my children, I love my children, I love my children...

I also HATE it when people make dumb decisions over and over again and just expect us to support them through it. Enough is enough and it pains me that they just can't see it. Oh, well. Not my life.

Okay, well, I think I have spread my misery enough for one day. I am sure I will have many more "Stuff Kasey Hates" segments in the near future if things keep up the way they have been.

Einstein was on to something...

Okay, so I am not going to get into the "technical" aspects of the theory of relativity, but it really blows my mind how time varies depending on the person and situation (among other things).

Time just dddddrrrrraaaaagggggsssss on and on during this deployment.

R&R comes along and

BAM!

It's over just like that.

I felt like the past couple weeks have just blown right on by while I was standing still trying to get my bearings on the fact that my husband was actually in my arms for the first time in almost 6 months. And now he is gone again.

It went really well. We didn't fight. The kids took right to him again and spent this whole time just loving all over him. It was really great.

But then the end came and I think the hardest thing about the goodbyes is seeing my husband openly cry about leaving his wife and children behind.

Now comes the countdown to the end of this damn deployment.