I've been shopping for Kanani's husband here lately. (see previous post)Seems you can find flip flops, shower shoes whatever you want to call them are a dollar at craft stores like Michael's and Hobby Lobby. I'll post more about what has been collected thus far, but in the meantime I have a blog I want you to go take a look at. It's one of those start at the a beginning blogs...well it is for me. The pictures, his prose, his ability to convey deployment experience makes his writing almost palpable.

Blogs like this give me the eyes and ears I don't have being a civilian trying to assist my adopted troops the best way I can. I want to know the environment, the mindset and the experiences, social, political and military in order to be useful. Blogs like Afghan Quest written by an deployed Army NCO are a touchstone for that.

Here are some stark, captivating and poignant excerpts from some of his work in late winter/early spring 2007.

On the Taliban:

It has been written that the people are the water that the insurgent fish swims in. Part of our job is to separate him from the water. I’m sure that I’ve looked right into Taliban eyes by now. I just can’t be sure which ones. I won’t take action against someone I’m not sure is an enemy. But to ignore them is to court
disaster.

On navigating the emotions of deployment:

So, to re-center myself for now; I am getting to spend time with my kids. I am getting to enjoy them, and spend time with them, and let them know that their dad loves them so very much. They are enjoying the sense of peace as much as I am. There will pain when I leave again, this time for a bit longer… but there is time for that when it is time to feel it. It will be a rich emotion, too. It is life, and thank God that I can feel anything.For today, I am enjoying being in my home city, being with my children, being with family and friends. I am grateful for all of this, and for all of them. We are alive.

Here's a piece on a crescent moonrise a few days ago:

I noticed tonight that Kabul twinkles at night. I don’t know what it is, but the lights of Kabul twinkle much like stars embedded in a fabric that climbs up the mountains like a Christmas tree blanket over a tree stand. They are not all the same dull yellowish color or blue-tinted white of American city lights. There seem to be many colors, from bright white to bright red, muted greens and yellowish glares. It almost seems festive, and I ponder the many lives being lived next to the twinkling points; the children growing up in this dusty city heaving itself slowly out of the quagmire of war’s rubble, barely daring to hope for a future with a bit of liberty.

It’s too much to consider.

I notice an almost ominous glow behind one of the mountains. Back home such a glow would signal some sort of large event. Here, as I forgot, it heralds the coming of the moon. What I see is the bright light of earth’s largest satellite glowing like an approaching car’s headlights. The far side of the mountain is already bathed in its light, but here on the other side, I stand in shadow, slowly realizing that it is the moon and not some great social event or impending disaster.

A bright, unblinking light appears atop the mountain. It is the tip of the crescent which momentarily becomes apparent; a triangle, its sharpened tip growing taller at a surprising rate. Within seconds, it begins to resemble a shark’s tooth breaking free of the mountainous jaw, jutting skyward. This effect grows and is not lost until the moon is nearly free of the grasp of the mountain. Finally, the nearly half-moon rests for a few seconds atop the mountain, seemingly paused there as if resting from the effort.

The illusion is broken; the moon separates itself from the mountain and resumes its climb. The moonshadow begins to retreat towards the moon, slowly racing across the valley towards the base of the opposing mountain as the moon literally shines like a muted sun on the glittering city of Kabul. The moon is risen.

I think it took less than two minutes. Some things just leave me shaking my head slowly and muttering about beauty to myself, alone in the dark.

See?

Go visit Afghan Quest.

Why babies have mothers.

I thought I'd put up some old posts for a laugh or two. Well also to mitigate the drivel below. Happy Mother's Day!~ Live, Love, Breath and Hope.

Translating the mommy speak

Testosterone 1 Mommy 0

Mommy HAZMAT training

Perils of Mommydom

Woman's Work

Been mothering for twelve years now. My siblings, family and friends may beg to differ. My name and the word 'mother' were often put into the same sentence long before I had my first Easy Bake Oven.

Serious, world on her shoulders, earnest-- I have heard them all.

I had dinner the other night with this mama friend in my old home town. I grew up babysitting her kids. It's a friendship where we meet every few years and make massive downloads into one another's brains. We relay what we are doing, have those nfw that kid is that old?! Tell him to quit growing THIS instant conversations. We talk about what inanities can drive us us to drink, put our fists through drywall, make us laugh beverage through our noses and assess just how much damage that last pass through the atmosphere did to our heat reflectors. You know, mama talk.

She asked what I had been up to and so I told her of the projects and interests I have now and her eyes never wavered as she looked at me from her seat across the table.

"So working with warriors eh? I'm not surprised. You've been a warrior since I met you."

She's right. And yet, I wasn't sure how to take it. For it meant I must admit with no equivocation I have been taut and vigilant ever since I can remember and that I own the mother lion, the OCD angst ridden, I'll-never-fit-into-his family-I-wonder-how-much-therapy-the-kids-will-need-if-I-can-just-fix-that-or-bring-the-right-dish-to-the-potluck-everything-will-be-fine-who am-I-kidding-I'm-so-full-of-crap role I share with a great number of the population on the planet.

One thing I've come to understand through age, fatigue, discomfort all necessitating an eventual need for understanding, is that any of those traits are all are bearable in the absence of second guessing. In it's presence all bets are off. It's the one rock that when you put it in anyone's wagon, lifts the donkey harnessed to said cart, straight into the air.

So I've been turning off that second guess switch--a little I mean. I think it comes with age. One hits that forty mark and the sticky, thick Self Conscious vaccine some of us self administrate in spite of our loathing of sharp, shiny, painful needles all those years becomes less of a given.

I have now found the nerve to throw that stuff right into the bio-hazard container. I'm glad, too, cause if I threw it in a regular trash can, I'd dive right in to get it bacl after an hour.

Bio-hazard containers have those little doors that you can't pull back out, see. Once your crap is in, there's no getting it out. I've seen other more well adjusted mamas with one mounted on the wall and I kept lusting theirs from afar. Thinking I did not have the emotional currency to invest in one, I never put it on my Christmas list.

Alas I scraped the human cash together.

My bio-hazard container was telling my mother in law just what I thought and then repeating it to her offspring less there were any issues with translation. It was also pursuing passions and realizing the kids would survive if they ate cold cereal for breakfast every once in a while. It's in the gym, this grad school app sitting at my desk, the priority boxes my feet are resting on here under my desk waiting to be mailed across the pond and in the friends I've kept as well as the friends I remember fondly.

Without the vaccine, dongivafukitis is beginning to flourish.It feels like any condition would especially as your body and mind get the first flush of its little beasties. Nothing is particularly better or easier, but the viral load is shifted so it feels less heavy despite of the fact that when I look in my wagon all the good and the bad is present and accounted for--the same but loaded differently, less awkwardly.

I know this is true. It is because even now after all this time, motherhood is not a role I feel extremely confident in and I'm not so freaked out by that. I'd even go so far as to say it's a role that keeps me pretty frustrated at my lack of grace or clarity most of the time, but again I have begun to expect that time will change that.

I know motherhood is not a role you can ever put down or in my case would want to put down. Leave in personal storage while I renovate...well maybe--but I digress.

How you shoulder the role is something you will answer for one way or the other as it marks your mind and your body, indelibly and ephemerally and as it marks those you love in some ways.

I often joke I'd prefer to have been born a man. Only sometimes, I'm not really joking.

Given the inherent, sophomoric humor of the Universe, I understand why I wasn't.

------

Blogging Milsupport here and here (scroll halfway down on this post. I may have been having a moment. *eyes looking up innocently*) Go have a look if you haven't. Trying to gather a few things for some guys in Iraq.

Having four kids was not something I set out to do when I got married. What I set out to do was not work--outside of the home that is, if I had children. I felt like it was important that I raised them and Tony was the breadwinner. I've been raising kids now for 11 years. Yes, Tony is here and does a great deal, but the whole 24/7 thing is on me. Traditional roles and all.

I'm pretty sure I suck at it. I won't go into how I rate up against other parents since the point is moot, but for me and without sucking around for comments to the contrary, I can look at what I have done so far and realize I have made some important mistakes.

I have done too much for them.
I have not had high enough expectations.
I have not been as consistent as they deserved.

I could go on, but it would be a little redundant-- all the rest will have something to do with these three anyway.

So I have been making sure they do for themselves, raising the bar where character and expectation are concerned and subsequently, as far as the children are concerned, been on their proverbial asses.

There have been sporadic uprisings, guerilla/insurgent like tactics and all manner of guilt led assaults in hopes that mom will capitulate. NO.
NO.
NO.
NO.

and so-

It's been ugly aroud here.
U-G-L-Y.

Mom is tired.
BUT

Mom is:
faster.
smarter.
more tenacious.

and

Mom has researched foster care.

Mom WILL win.

Yup-- this sounds adversarial and not child led at all. But I think that was the problem to begin with.

From the procreates...
Quit touching me!
Quit looking at me!
Quit breathing on me!
She started it !
He started it!
I didn't do it...
Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeey! (said in a very paint peeling, eardrum bleeding way)Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeey!!!
Do I HAVE to?
Why can't I?
Whencani--yes, as a matter of fact that one IS one word.
You never let me do anything.
You make me do everything.
It's too hard.
What's for dinner? (usually said in ten second intervals between the hours of 3:30 and whenever we actually begin to put food in our mouths...)
THAT is NOT mine.
That's gonna take forever.
But we just got here...(ala whine)
You never make:::insert name of any other sibling here:::do that.
I'm bored.
:::Insert name of sibling:::hit, pushed, pinched, sat on,peed on,yelled at me!
BUTIDONWANNU.......(yes, another one word statement)

From the two idiots deadset on procreating...at the time.
Flush the toilet.
Pick up your clothes.
Don't eat THAT.
DON'T_DO_THAT!
I can't believe you did that.
Turn that off! (THAT generally has some sort of plug, rating and or title)

Are you serious?
Are you kidding me?
Alright! WHO wiped that there?
Eww. I can't believe you ate that...
No. Lesbians are not from Lebanon--minor curiousity at present still trying to suss out WHERE they picked up that new word. It's time we covered the whole sexuality thing looks like.
go to bed...
Go to bed.
GO TO BED!
FOR THE LOVE OF GOD AND EVERYTHING HOLY! WHY AREN'T YOU IN BED?!!?!
Don't hit, push, pinch, sit on,pee on,yell at your brother and or sister.
Are you serious? You call that clean/done/finished?
Stop it.
Stop it now!
Stop it or I'll have to take you out. (I mean for ice cream what did you people think I meant?)
Pull up your pants.
Well pack you trash and get out then.
See ya! don't forget to write (intermittently effective when trying to leave a park)
Give me 10.
Give me 20.
That's it, squat thrusts for ever!
Let's go! We're burning daylight.
Are you on fire? Bleeding from a sucking chest wound? Then this isn't an emergency.
What_are_you_doing?
Yes, you have to.
Because I said so.
Why did you do that?
Don't hang your brother off the slide/bunk bed/ceiling fan.

There's more, but it's such a blur.

I have a college degree-- you know? I mean I could make a good living. What am I doing? I'm a stay at home mom with 4 kids under eleven whos' sole aim in life --and I'm beginning to suspect primary pleasure--is to pound me into blithering idiot dust.

Jihad my ass.

This is MOMMIHAD man!

Counterinsurgency Operations must begin forthwith....the enemy is formidable...