House update

Got the exterior painted and sanded, the wood floors varnished, and the walls put together!

Emma learned lots of new fun words that she's not allowed to use at school.

Nun paparazzi plus two

DSC03266, originally uploaded by Corn Child.

This is the shot right after I slugged him in the gut and then hugged him. Ok fine, I never slugged him in the gut. The impulse to do that disappeared the second I saw him walking down the little plane-hall (I have no clue what that thing is really called) and I burst into tears.

A HUGE thank you to US Air for being so cool and letting me past security so we could see our soldier get right off the plane and make a huge scene right in the terminal.

Horsey girl

DSC03387, originally uploaded by Corn Child.

Chad's gone again, and I've slipped back into my routine of subsisting solely on bags of marshmallows and beef jerky and not sleeping. We made a fun trip to Disneyland while he was here. (Churro stands every five feet make a very happy Corinne.) One of the days we were there I spied a NUN in full habit meandering among the crowds (I think it was full habit although I can't claim to really be an expert on that, having grown up Mormon) and right then and there I ordained myself the official Disneyland nun paparazzi, much to Chad's irritation. I went all CIA on her and tried to sneak pictures without her noticing, since we ran into her like FOUR times at various places in the park and I was fascinated. A nun! At Disneyland! I didn't see her ride any rides (I so wanted to sit next to her on Grizzly River Rapids, that most hated of rides - it would have at the very least made it tolerable) but it turns out that nuns do like burgers. My obsession with the nun prompted this gem from Emma: "Mom, are nuns just like normal nice people? Or are they just sad and pathetic?"

I really wish she wouldn't ask questions like that when I'm drinking soda. It hurts when it comes out of my nose.

Emma and I have started a BIG PROJECT. When I was a teenager my sister and I built a huge dollhouse from a kit. It took like eight months, I think, but I enjoyed building it. (My mom reminded me the other day that she thought we just might kill each other over the thing. Eh, somehow I blocked that part out.) Emma has the dollhouse now and absolutely loves it. When Chad was home on leave he surprised Emma and me by going to Hobby Lobby and purchasing a dollhouse kit for us to try our hand at one together. I've had the mother of all headaches today (sinus issues, here we go again with the steroids, antifugals and antibiotics in case you wanted to know, which I'm sure you didn't) so I ended up taking two controlled-substance painkillers tonight and then in a drug-induced haze decided to open the kit and start labeling parts with Emma. We got about halfway through labeling a million tiny doors and wood floors and windows before bedtime for the Em. She's getting a huge kick out of this process so far - we'll see if my handwriting can even be read after I come down off my drug high. I'll continue to post updates of the thing, and hopefully we'll have it done by the time Chad gets home in September.

Voila!

(Yes, that is a bowl of chocolate ice cream on the floor.)

Zoo Tycoon, indeed.

My straight A little reader girl recently got a PC game called Zoo Tycoon 2 (actually, not too recently, since I think she's had it about six months) that she's addicted to. Chad's home on leave (he's actually watching the Suns game right now so I'm taking a tiny break to blog and have some ME time). He had a computer snafu while in Iraq and ended up buying himself a new computer but then long story short ended up with two functioning laptops. Not-spoiled-at-all Only Child Emma inherited Daddy's old laptop a few days ago when he brought it home so she decided to load Zoo Tycoon onto her very own computer. Unfortunately, this means that any previous zoos she's saved didn't go with the new computer, so she had to start all over from ground zero and build new zoos. It's kind of like a SIMS game, with patrons whining that they need more bathrooms, that they don't like the layout of the zoo, blah blah blah and the goal of the game is to make a zoo that's pleasing to the public and makes money. (Emma's found a cheat that gives her unlimited money, though, so I guess her only goal is to make sure that the patrons don't end up pooping where they shouldn't.)

ANYWAY.

A few minutes ago I hear insane laughing coming from her room and as I open the door to help her pack for our trip to Disneyland I see that she's rolling on the floor, laughing so hard that no sound except for a high-pitched wheeze is coming out of her.

"MOM! I made a fence *hahahaaaa* and then I trapped all the visitors inside it! And then I put a LION in there! You should have....*gasp*seen them *wheeze* ru-*wheeze*-uun! Some even jumped over the fence! LOOK! Ahahahaaaaa!!!" and she points to about twenty tiny people running inside of a fence, their arms flailing in the air, being chased by a very angry little pixelated lion. A bubble pops up above one little dark-haired boy's head: "I don't like this zoo."

It reminded me so much of the time that my friend Jamie and I first played my new SIMS game and her character ended up on fire in the kitchen and we sat and laughed, with tears streaming down our faces, at her screaming, burning little fake person who was too stupid to stop running and/or call the fire department on her own. A fake person that may or may not have been named after someone we hated in high school.

Sure, snuggling and first steps and first teeth are all warm, fuzzy, wonderful parts of being a parent. And of course I cried her first day of kindergarten. But nobody can put a price tag on watching your kid find her evil little sense of humor.

Are we THERE YET?!!

I knew, going into my relationship with Chad, that I would make a terrible army wife.

First of all, I hate catty women. Army wives are the WORST. I realize that in being a National Guard wife I have at least spared myself the majority of this cattiness as opposed to a wife of a full-time army man, but during deployments things can get a little annoying. One teensy little snarly e-mail to a woman trying to sell herself as part of the unit but in reality only selling CRAP.....and suddenly you're known as the unit bitch, even if nobody else has ever even met you. (The Army Wife Telephone Game, even if not always accurate, is more effective than any newsletter.) Oh well. Their loss, because ask me, I'm awesome. I just get irritated at people who somehow get their grubby little hands on the master e-mail list of all the army families in the unit and then try to take advantage and make a personal gain off of those who are in a bad situation: their husband out of the country or their kid needing a heart transplant. No, I will NOT buy your energy bars or your sports drinks.

Problem two with being an army wife: I don't respond well to being told how to live every little minute of my life. I suppose one could conclude that I have authority issues but I'M SORRY YOUR CHILDBEARING AND IN-VITRO ATTEMPTS HAVE TO ONCE AGAIN BE PUT ON HOLD BECAUSE WE NEED YOUR HUSBAND TO DRIVE AROUND IN THE DUST OVERSEAS FOR A YEAR doesn't sit well with me. It makes me bitter. Errr....more bitter. I also get slighty testy when other women try to pull their husband's rank over me. Um, excuse me? Am *I* in the army? No. So your husband's rank? It means NOTHING to me. Get OVER yourself and get your own identity.

Which leads us to issue number three: the woman whose sole identity is that of ARMY WIFE. (Even though I just read a few posts back and it seems that's all I ever talk about. Hmmm....) Get a hobby! Get a life! I'm sorry but I'm not JUST an army wife. (I'm a poet and don't know it!) There are other facets to my multiple personalites. I'm a mother. I'm a nurse. I have held the hand of a dying baby that is not my own. I am a dog lover. I'm addicted to Cherry Dr. Pepper. I ride horses on the weekends. I'm getting REALLY good at starting IVs on babies! I'm a terrible dancer. So excuse me when I don't only want to sit around and talk about Tricare. I don't wish to compare my relationship to my husband against you and YOURS. I barely even know you. Just because both of our spouses are slaves to Uncle Sam does not instantly make me your best friend. I'm not the most trusting of people so I'm going to have to warm up to you. And I'm betting you might need to warm up to me too. I'm kind of a pain in the caboose (even if I am AWESOME!) in case you've read this far and haven't figured that out yet.

So today? I sit and wait wait WAIT WAIT WAIT for some kind of word as to what TIME I can stop putting my entire life on hold, as I will do for the next 12-60 hours, and that my husband is finally in the country. Chad's on his way home for his annual leave, you see, and I'm not handling that wait like a mature grownup. I want to throw an all-out, kick-the-wall, flail-all-my-limbs tantrum complete with howling and tears until I get my way. I understand there are factors like unruly volcanoes and trivial matters like international security to consider, but could the government please be a little kinder to my minority - the extraordinarily crabby army wife - and get their act together so we can have some kind of timetable here? Something a little more specific than 'OH WE'RE LEAVING KUWAIT SOMETIME IN THE NEXT 24 HOURS AND THEN MAYBE WE'LL GO THROUGH GERMANY OR MAYBE WE'LL GO THROUGH SOME ASIAN COUNTRY AND MAYBE WE'LL EVEN MAKE A STOP IN AUSTRALIA! WOULDN'T THAT BE FUN, THEY HAVE KANGAROOS THERE!' I have not seen my husband for eight months. And the only person I can really take my anger out on regarding this lack of communication is the one I desperately want to see again, the one wearing the camo and goofy beret. I have already been talked out of simply killing him and collecting the life insurance because I'm so exasperated by this whole process (you can thank Aimee for that, Chad) so instead? I'll be the one at the airport terminal anxiously clutching a custom-made camouflage Build-A-Bear and a WELCOME HOME! balloon who will first slug her husband in the gut and then give him the enormous crushing hug and smooch he actually deserves. And I will blame my antics on someone else, because that's what I do best.

The army wives will have more Dixon's wife fodder just in time for their Girl's Night Out.

At least it wasn't a patient - aaaaand I just jinxed myself.

It's a bad month for anything glass around here. I've mentioned my klutz gene before. I spend at least ten minutes a day cursing gravity, walls that jump out from nowhere and my tendency to bruise easily. I've passed this on to my child, and even though it's against all laws of genetics (or NON-genetics) I've somehow passed it on to the dog. (She was spinning in an excited circle tonight and somehow misjudged the distance between her noggin and the wall - thunk!) I've broken three plates and bowls in the last three weeks. And today was ridiculous.

The PLAN was to leave the car running in the driveway while I rushed a few bags of groceries into the house, threw perishables into the fridge and then got my tooshie to a friend's for dinner. Opened the door to Chad's truck (I drove it today, honey, it still works!) and out hops a jar of suicidal spaghetti sauce. Ka-BLAM. Kapowie. Fell with a wet, red, tomato-ey THUD and exploded all over the driveway. The most pathetic part of this story is that this scene is a replay of last week's spaghetti-sauce-kitchen-floor-explosion. Same brand and flavor of sauce - in fact this jar was to replace that one. The only differences between that and this scenario was that this time I could hose it off the driveway quickly, there were no dogs around to sneak into the trash bag and make off with tasty sauce-flavored glass shards, and I managed this scene of destruction in front of nearly ALL OF THE NEIGHBORS, who were having a party next door, instead of the quiet privacy of my own home.

Rest in sweet peace, Three Cheese. Maybe I'll go with another kind of sauce next time.