Looking for Southern Comforts

As you probably surmised... Jack is back!

Maybe a bit later than anticipated, but back safe and sound. And life? It's really really good.

It was good before, but there's no mistaking the difference now that he is back within arm's reach.

The last few days and hours before his return passed at a snail's pace, especially for him and the other ~150 soldiers stranded in Romania. In those few days, it felt like yet another year was ticking by.

His flight arrived at 3:30am last Sunday, and considering the repeated delays they kept the pomp and circumstance to a minimum, which we all appreciated.

Yet, we weren't home until just before sunrise when we popped open a bottle of champagne and tried to coax the kid back down to a nap.

Considering all the timezone tweaking, Quinn went with the flow of being awoken in the middle of the night to bright lights and a blaring band.

She was momentarily out of sorts when I handed her off to Jack for the first time, but since then it's clear his is a familiar face to her. More than that, it's like she's living with a rockstar as she squeals with delight virtually NONSTOP!

Unfortunately, we haven't had as much time with her Jack-Daddy as we'd hoped because of the mandatory seven days of "reintegration."

It's the Army's way of saying in many different ways "don't be a moron" by: beating your spouse, drinking and driving, eating your child's homework, super-gluing your brother-in-law's bum to the toilet seat..." You know, the stuff people do when they return from a year of combat.

I'm all for screening people for PTSD, but I was about to go postal on Uncle Sam when it started to feel harder to have Jack home than in Afghanistan.

At least while he was there, I didn't have any illusions or delusions about seeing him; but now he's right here. That is, until 6:30 in the morning when he leaves for reintegration and then gets sucked into work stuff or other fanfare, and doesn't get home until late in the day or even evening.

It's nice not to have to worry about his well-being or safety, but it's a real buzz-kill to have him come home and not get a day off to truly celebrate since.

That will all change though, as of Wednesday we are headed back to the left coast.

There Quinn will meet her other set of grandparents, the "auntie" she's named after as well as another -- both of whom strategically set up Jack and me, to our great gratitude.

More blogging to come from the air and road, and pictures as well.

Being completely spent before 9pm each night has kept me so quiet. But I am certain now that Jack is fully "reintegrated" and we have a chance to get better reacquainted as a family there will be more time for keeping things current.

Many thanks for all the well-wishes and prayers -- they paid off!

Love,
Mama J, Miss Quinn AND Daddy-Jack

Going Grinch

Tick tock, tick tock. Time moves at a glacial speed when you're just days, if not hours away from being reunited with your loved one.

Jack's return has been delayed multiple times because the plane -- she's a broke. And the plane coming with the part to fix his plane -- she's a broke too.

Excellent system. Top notch sort of organization. Sad to say that when it comes to my own work I can relate entirely too well to such inefficiencies. Yet, I'm not schlepping the U.S. Army around, or the heart-strings of their families!

So for now, my loved one is stuck in Budapest. Confined to the hotel (because everyone is armed) people are starting to go batty. Someone was thoughtful enough to get a tour bus and take the soldiers out on a field-trip before someone lost their mind (not a good idea when armed). Jack didn't sound terribly excited so I mentioned that a friend did his mission for the Mormon church in Budapest and loved it. That's when he realized he was so out of sorts when he got there he thought it was Budapest, when it's really Bucharest! Silly silly Jack-Jack.

Even though I'm starting to feel out of sorts myself, I haven't lost touch of where I am... But it does feel like someone keeps promising me that Santa is coming tomorrow yet he never shows, he just keeps getting hung up there in the North Pole or some one else's chimney.

Considering how unfathomable it was that Jack might actually be coming home, I feel like the kid who always suspected there wasn't a Santa and is now finding evidence pointing to this sad reality.

Stupid reality. Stupid Santa.

Quinn is much more resilient and willing to bend her experience of said reality. She's adapting to seeing her grandparents as 2-dimensional beings over Skype, and seems willing to believe it's still them just a lot flatter.

While she mimics their sounds, they watch her snarf down multiple bowls of food, all the while slapping at me to bring her more more more.

Not sure I've ever mentioned it, but for months this girl has been eating the equivalent of a 150lb person ingesting: 6 bananas, 2 bowls of cereal, and 1 bowl of yogurt -- topped off with a sip of tea in one sitting! Who needs Santa when there's the Endless Belly of Quinn to be the 8th Wonder of the World?! Seriously.

With a new home to explore, she's having a blast with door-stops, a big tub, and even the poorly inflated inflatable pool (which I'm afraid has a lethal leak). Even though she had a few hard cries and has been a bit more clingy than usual, Quinn is adjusting to her new surroundings well. She's smiling at strangers and getting to know neighbors, it's really endearing.

I'll let you know if my Santa Soldier arrives, or if he is just a figment of my imagination after all.

Cheers to you and your Santa Somebody. And may you be worthy of receiving something much warmer than coal!

Impatiently,
J & Quiescent Quinn

The Kindness of Strangers

Last Monday, my parents loaded up me and the twerp for an early flight back to Tennessee. It was a year to-the-day since I packed up my car, my belly, the cat, the dog and drove across country to live with my parents.

Watching the rain come down in sheets for some reason made me less inclined to cry, even though it was feeling a little more bitter than sweet at the moment to leave the comforts of California for a long trip to our new "home."

Balancing one bag on one handlebar of Quinn's stroller, and the cat on the other, while hanging on to a huge bag weighted down with all the baby essentials, and mine as well, and a carseat base dangling from fingers free from steering the stroller -- I wasn't sure I was going to make it past security let alone to Nashville.

The line was longer than we had imagined, but that was in part to our late start out the door... Which all began with the moment my Dad picked up one of my two massive duffel bags and it literally began to burst as the seams. Thankfully he made a mad and successful dash to their attic for a replacement bag, and was well into transferring my oodles of stuff by the time I reappeared with a semi-awake kid.

Back to the fiasco at security. Let's just call it a cluster, of sorts. Shoes off, jacket off, computer out, boarding pass in hand, liquids and gels bagged. My fear was they would make me toss Quinn's breakfast of breast-milk, but that turned out not to be an issue. (The TSA lady mumbled something about doing some sort of litmus test on it... Yeah sure, I buy that.)


No, the nutty part was that they wanted me to take the cat and the baby out of their respective "containers" and hold both of them while walking through the metal detector -- AND showing my boarding pass. Now, I'll admit anyone who can make breakfast from their teets is pretty freaking amazing, but I'm not THAT talented, or stupid. Besides, my cat still weighs more than my baby (18lb>15lb), and both of them can have really sharp claws!

It must have been the look I gave my parents like I'd might as well just turn around and go home with them that another TSA person offered something a bit more reasonable... that I carry one and then come back for the other. So, we survived, and I didn't get clawed to shreds.

Unfortunately, the chaos kept me from giving my parents a proper goodbye, but perhaps that was a good thing since I'd just start bawling and then the TSA would have to test my tears to make sure they weren't really a secret weapon of sorts.

The rest of the trip (two flights and a shuttle ride) went incredibly smoothly. That was entirely thanks to the kindness of strangers. It was awe inspiring. Three people, who weren't even with the airline, went way out of their way to help me and my traveling circus.

When I had ten minutes to make more moo before the next flight, someone offered to take a picture of Quinn on my lap (the cat is next to us but I reconsidered the temptation to get him in the shot too). Those individuals made our journey so seamless (unlike my duffel bag that morning), I can't believe I'd considered driving.

I must add that before she took our picture, the woman looked at me in horror when she thought Quinn had meowed. (I nearly fell over in hysterics when she asked me how she did that.)

My two travel companions were extremely relaxed and easy-going as well. Neither Quinn nor Carlos-kitty made a peep for most of the way. People had no idea either were on the flight. The only time Quinn did fuss was when I put some saline gel up her nose to help keep her from catching an airborne cold or flu.

It wasn't a pleasant feeling, which I say with some authority since I showed her I'd do it to myself before doing it to her. Only much much later (well after chatting the ear off a stewardess whose jump seat was next to mine at the back of the plane) did I realize that the stuff also has a tendency to bubble back out of your nose and hang there a bit like rubber cement. Cute on a baby, maybe. Definitely not cute on her mother.

So now we are back in Tennessee (swimming pool and all) awaiting Jack's return -- which is said to be tomorrow!

He's been underway since two days before I left for a total of five from Afghanistan. The jet-lag is sure to be brutal but I'm just thrilled to have him out of that country and soon in our own.

Pictures and more to come... but I'll try not to blather on so much (just got my internet connection hooked up today -- yay! I can function again!).

Happy travels near and far to all of you,
Mrs J and Her Traveling Circus

Dear Sleep, I've Missed You!

Sleep and I have been busy getting reacquainted this past week, and it has been grand!

The downside, is I've neglected everything from emailing and blogging, to sewing and eating and counting days on the calendar until Jack comes back.

Sleep has eaten up so much of my attention it seems that it's in short supply for the remainder of our stay here in beautiful California. It's now only a few days left before Quinn and I fly the Grandparents' coop and head back to where Jack will be meeting us in nearly a week!

It's hard to believe 50+ weeks has dwindled down to just one. In fact, I'm so doubtful of this new reality that I find it hard not to ask Jack if there isn't something I could send him (it's been weeks since shipping off his last care-package, which leaves me feeling rather delinquent).

In between intermittent rendezvous with sleep, I've been packing up all my belongings and the more useful baby stuff. Nearly all of it is already en route to greet us in Tennessee. My poor brother-in-law, Paul, (who has been taking care of our place) might second guess if I was the Octomom once the boxes of stuff arrive. It will seem not only did I go forth and multiply, but so did my crap!

To spare Quinn the experience of driving across the country twice (I'll explain later), and keep me from losing my renewed sense of sanity, she and I -- and the cat -- will be flying back, just a few days ahead of when we hope to welcome home Jack. It's very exciting, and very surreal.

It's been an ongoing adjustment to this "new normal" of being a quasi-single Mom, but overall, it has come feel comfortable. To change things up yet again, even in such a great way, is still a bit scary.

Neither Jack nor I have a need to romanticize what it will be like. We're not expecting to see something like Northern Lights shoot through the sky as he steps off the plane.

Besides, (in case you haven't noticed) I'm weird. Considering that it took me ten of his 14 R&R days to adjust to him being underfoot, and that after having only been deployed a few months; it might be a bit before I can fully relax into yet another "new normal." So, I know that, and don't expect it all to feel like roses and truffles -- or for my taste, orchids and sushi -- at least not at first.

Sounds silly considering how much I enjoy sharing Quinn's development with my parents, but in some ways I'm not eager to share her with someone who has equal say in how to rear her. Guess it's no shock to some that I'm a bit of a control freak, and don't mind being the boss, especially when it's something (or in this case someone) I've been working hard to take care of (ever since she was back in the belly).

All that being said, I'm certain it will be fantastic to have Jack back. The closer that time gets, the more real it feels.

And, just in case we're under-romanticizing it, I'll bring my camera to catch those stunning "Southern" Lights when his smile lights up our memories of how incredible it is to be together again.

Much love and sweet slumber,
J & and Miss Quinn