Lesson Learned

I have a habit.

It's not a bad one, just one that has become something I do when I'm on the phone or in the kitchen.

I stare out my kitchen window. I can't help it!

It all started out when Cpl. Mayhem would got to work. I would look to see if he was in the driveway while I was cooking. Then it became a habit while he was overseas because I was a paranoid wreck. And it slowly became something I did while I was on the phone with someone.

the window

It's also the window that I used to talk to my neighbour and call the kids in from playing outside.

Last Friday I was talking to my bestie Wanda, and we were getting really into the conversation when I did what I usually do and looked out the window. To my surprise there were a pair of eyes staring back at me! My heart stopped, my lungs ran up my throat, my skin went cold.

"ARRRGH!!!!!"

"What the hell Vanessa!!"

"Sorry Wanda, I have to go my parents are here".

Once my heart rate was back to normal, I finished yelling at my father for giving extra white hair on my head and making me lose about 5 years of my life, I realized how often I do go to that window.

Lesson learned I guess.

Meet Cpl. Mayhem- The Grinch... Until December 1st

Cpl. Mayhem has a pet peeve and he is very vocal about it.
It's funny to me because he gets so worked up about it and then it makes me join the bandwagon on the issue.

It's Christmas. I'm sure you figured it out by the title of this post.

I do want to say that Cpl. Mayhem loves the holidays and the joyous occasion of the birth of Christ, but there is one thing that just gets under his skin...

Cpl. Mayhem says, "Christmas is the only holiday that we spend 6 months celebrating!". And is he wrong? Is anyone really surprised to see Christmas decorations out before Halloween is through? And once The calendar gets turned to November first we start stringing lights?  And don't get him started about people decorating before Remembrance Day (to which I agree fully!). Let's also not forget Christmas in July?  Oh boy....

I mentioned to him about decorating our house this weekend when my parents came to visit  but if he had it his way he would set the tree up on Christmas Eve and take it down the next day. He caved and said December 5th was the earliest he would go!

I tried to argue with him about the three wise men journey to see Jesus which is why we spend the month of December preparing for His birth. To his reply, was:

"If the wisemen had to do this journey today they would have flown and Christmas would have lasted two hours!"

Funny my husband!
Maybe he'll lighten up once December 1st arrives! I sure hope it is soon!

Tokii Review

With Cpl. Mayhem's job, we are separated about 80 percent of the time. And it sucks!
Recently we have found that we have become disconnected with all that time being apart.  And lets be honest most of the conversations with couples happen through digital tools, like texts, social networks and emails. And with Cpl. Mayhem's line of work it's what keeps us connected!

I was introduced to Tokii. A website designed to improve relationships by games of play and discovery. Give it a try? Why not!! It was free to join so Cpl. Mayhem and I signed up and started playing right away.

It has a mood meter to help show your partner how you are feeling. Games to play that help partners get to know each other and it also has a the love zone quiz that teaches how the other wants to be loved. It's private so only you and your partner will see what goes on your page.

The games are amazing and it helped Cpl. Mayhem and I learn more about each other, and it also brought out the competitive side of us. They have a military section in the games and we learned a lot from what we both feel like during deployment homecoming to what happens during a posting (however, my timing was REALLY off when I sent that game to Cpl. Mayhem last week!).

My favourite part of the website is the Trading Post. As parents we tend to forget to spend time with each other as a couple and the Trading Post sets up an offer such as a date night or asking for a massage and then it gets sent to your partner where they counter offer what they want as well. It's a great way to ask for something you want to do!

I think this website will be amazing for when Cpl. Mayhem goes away during another course or training because it keeps us connected and helps plan out date nights and fun!!

Give Tokii a try!!

*This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of Tokii. All opinions are my own.*

Why I Spook Easily

Allow me to explain how I, Vanessa, an intelligent, sensible, and rational woman can turn to a complete nincompoop when Cpl. Mayhem leaves for long periods of time.
And I mean crazy, "what in God's name is wrong with her", scared of her own shadow kind of nincompoop! I'm that paranoid woman who not only makes sure her doors and windows are locked before she goes to bed, I double check them and spend the night in a complete panic when he's gone. Sleep doesn't come easily I tell you.

Cpl. Mayhem was away at basic training when Ducky and I got an apartment back home, it was the perfect way for baby and I to connect and give my mother/military wife skills a workout after living with both my in-laws and my parents for the first six months.

For a while everything was going great! Ducky and I had a routine of getting up and walking into the kitchen and making breakfast. We would then walk out of the kitchen to the balcony and eat there while enjoying the fresh air and planning for our day. After a full day of walking, window shopping and playing, I get Ducky ready for bed and I wind down for the rest of the evening.

Fun times on that balcony!

Some evenings would take a little longer to wind down and on this particular night I was still up listening to my iPod in bed at 2 am. The song I happened to be listening to stopped but the banging continued and I realized that the banging was coming from my front door. Now usually, I don't panic with such things except I had watch a 20/20 murder episode and I was freaked out a little. So my common sense went right out the window and I grabbed Cpl. Mayhem's Samurai sword and went to the door.

I open the door a crack to find a guy who was completely intoxicated at my door. He was muttering a bunch of nonsense and I told him he got the wrong house. His replied something about having powder and using it. Now if I was in a right frame of mind I would have thought "Yes, it sounds like you did have some powder, get the hell off my front step", but instead I thought of Anthrax- because that was the biggest threat of the time.

I look at him and I said " I have a Samurai sword  and I will use it!", to which he looked down and saw that I really was holding one and ran like hell. Except what I saw was him run towards my balcony, which was really easy to climb up on and THE DOOR WAS WIDE OPEN. Not just unlocked.  Swung open! My first thought then was Ducky, I ran to his room and I called the cops. I then called my mother-in-law, who was more than willing to watch me as I break down.

Both the cops and my mother in law got there around the same time and I told the cops what happened and while I was giving my statement, two of the cops took off running when they saw the guy running out of the apartment next to mine. Did I mention that I'm still holding the Samurai sword?

My mother-in-law lifts up my hand and says, "What exactly were you going to do with this?"

I looked down at the sword I realize not only is the sword still in the sheath, it was still on the mantle piece to display it in our room!

Six years later I look back and laugh at how silly I was but it did put a mark on my soul a little. I don't fear being alone, I've been used to Cpl. Mayhem coming and going for years. It's when the sun goes down where panic sets in a little and even some of the smallest noises, some that when hubby is home that I would have dismissed get my undivided attention.

Oh I wish I wasn't so easily spooked!

OPSEC, Can The Families Get In On That?

OPSEC or Operations security is keeping potential adversaries from discovering our critical information. As the name suggests, it protects operations- planned in progress, and those completed. Success depends on secrecy and surprise, so the military can accomplish the mission faster and with less risk.

I'm sure most of you know about OPSEC and not writing things online about where and when your spouse is going to be away or when he comes home. It's for your soldier's safety as well as your own. But my question is for the military:

I understand you have no real reason to worry about the family's privacy but why do you question every time their is a rise in break ins and burglaries on base when you make it very clear that the soldiers are going out of the province?

After the first week of Cpl. Mayhem and hundreds of soldiers left for an exercise last month the wives and I were talking about a couple of post on a Facebook page about someone trying to get into a house several times and how cars were being broken into on base. More than likely it was probably some teenage punks but when you are alone with little ones your mind takes you to the dark side.
Later that night I was looking through our local paper when I read about the exercise and how many soldiers were going to be leaving and for how long. I was little miffed. Could you blame me? The headline should have said " Soldiers Gone! Come Get Their Stuff!"
The next day the local radio station had announce the exercise and talked about it all week.

SHHH! I'm just saying...

While Cpl. Mayhem was overseas. A lot of what I wrote was written on that day but posted a couple of weeks after the fact. And even in my post rarely will you see dates or timeline or even where he was.

I'm all for taking pride in exercises and wanting to let people know what is going in our local community but is it really safe? Are we hearing about break ins now? No, because the soldiers are back, who wants to try breaking into a house when a soldier is home?

Is there anyway we compromise by announcing what happened after the fact, and if you are going to announce that all the soldiers are gone maybe increase military police presence on bases so those who are left behind can feel a sense of security while their spouse is away? And I also wrote a post for the wives a while back on how to keep ourselves safe while our spouses are away. More of a reminder really since we all can get comfortable living on base.

Anyway, thank you for listening to my concern.

Momversation Monday: Stranger Danger: Do We REALLY Need To Worry?

Happy Monday everyone!!

I know it's been a while since I wrote a Momversation Monday but I felt like I needed to reply to this one.

Do I worry about stranger danger? Of course I do! But am I a complete stress case about it? No.
We are all strangers in this world and I love getting to know new people and hearing about their lives. I encourage my children to do the same, but I have my limits. Why? Because they are young children.

What bothers me is how the video was made. I'm all for expressing your opinions but when does worry make moms "nuts"? We live in a world where fear is displayed in every media outlet available to us. When in the news do we hear about the good things in life? We don't, because another child being taken from their home is captivating to viewers. And with the media it makes it feel closer to home.

So am I scared? Damn straight!

Granted Jessica is right about the numbers of child abductions are very small when it comes to strangers taking a child, but why take that risk? I'm going to give my kids the proper tools when going out into the world. My kids know not to take candy from someone they do not know or follow a man or woman when looking for a dog or get in a car with someone who doesn't have the family safe word (it sounds funny yes, but for me its better to be safe than being sorry).

My kids are young so they have boundaries that protect them and keep them from harms way. I'm going to let go of my reign as they get older but I'm not nuts for protecting the most important things in my life.

I'm just cautions. What's wrong with that?

Remembrance Day 2011

This little boy has the idea...

Take a moment today to thank

our veterans and to remember the fallen

Lest We Forget!

Dear Neighbour Mom,

First off let me introduce myself. My name is Vanessa. I know you didn't ask but since our kids play together I figured it would be nice to know your name. Maybe next time you can address me as such instead of "Hey!"

Now for the reason I'm writing to you.

You came over to my house after your son got hit by a kid. I did not appreciate having you walk over to my house and announce that "this was enough and this was the last time that my son was being hit while at your place" and accuse my kids of doing it. And may I say that you are the luckiest woman in the world because I'm in a VERY bad mood and you are lucky I didn't go postal on you. I was more embarrassed by the fact that you came over to my place and yelled at me.

I'm all for you coming over to my place and finding out what happened, but yelling at me in front of the my kids, the neighbourhood kids and neighbours is unacceptable! Actually what's more unacceptable is accusing MY kids of hitting your son.

In fact, once you found out that is was someone else's kid you never made any effort to apologize to me or my kid!

And let me explain something to you:

All the neighbourhood kids play around my yard. It's one of the only ones that doesn't have a fence. I can't can't control what they do out there, that's not my responsibility! There are usually about 5 to 10 kids out there so don't be so quick to blame my kids.

And if you want to play the blame game, from what I've seen over the course of the past 6 months, your son has started many fights and has clocked my kids for no reason at all. So maybe next time you need to check your kid before coming to my house and shaking your head at me like I'm raising a pack of delinquents.

Thank you for reading this letter.

And PS.

PUT CLOTHES ON YOUR KID!!

Wordless Wednesday: Halloween!