Drill Sergeant Duty!

We have finally come down on assignment!

My husband is going Drill! I know most families dread that word, but my family is very excited about it.
Sr. has always wanted to be a Drill Sergeant, its actually a personal goal of his. He wanted to be able to mentor young soldiers as soon as they crossed the tracks and now he will. As for me, well I have always felt my husband would make a fantastic DS. He is a great motivator and his heart is in the right place. I hope to help him on the trail by helping families understand what their son, daughter, brother, sister, husband or wife is going through. Seeing as we are being stationed in Oklahoma, my husbands new pupils will be male, but still I hope to help give families a warm welcome into the military. My training as an FRSA will allow me to do this, and I am grateful that I have the knowledge to share.

Now know it will not be all rainbows and pancakes but wonderful things come from hard work and my husband and I are no stranger to hard work. We will make it like we always do, and I am just so grateful that he and I have been given this rare chance. Plus I will admit, I think the drill hat is sexy =)

So let me ask you, what do you wish someone would have wrote you and told you while your family member went into the Service? Did you get a warm welcoming while he was in BCT?

Good-Bye USAEUR!

Soon!
and with the way I feel about it, not soon enough

My family will be leaving Europe.

When we first arrived in country my family looked like this

And six years later, we now looks like this

My little Junior was only one when we moved to Germany

 

 Now he is seven and.........

He has two siblings

My husband has been through 3 deployments

2006

2008 

2010

Him and I have changed during these separations.

We have grown in our marriage and as individuals.

For six years our family has grown and thrived in Europe.

Where we are on to next?

 I can't quite tell you but I am sure we will grow more and learn more.

Until then I purge.

The Rib

P.S. I am leaving Germany with a Shrank, Grandfather clock and two babies!

I have fulfilled the omen =)

First Post of the New Year!

HA-HA-HA

Im late!

By nine days.

Better late than never, right?

Stay tuned! Ill post after I come home from Scouting!

Rib

A Million Little Pieces

Life

Its a million little pieces

Its that green ball over there,

 No not that one, the other one,

 Yea that one

That represents the love I have for my family

Oh and you see that perfect pink one

The one signifies my admiration for the strength of the women in my life.

Then there are the mass color representatives,

like the Sunny Yellow balls,

Those ones make up the MANY wonderful people in my life that bring

Joy and happiness into my days when I am feeling less than Sunny.

There are a little bit of blue, orange and purple balls,

Those are the ones I have yet to discover in my life.

But the White Balls, those ones are the best,

The white ones represent the love I have for my Lord,

And if you notice, all those white ones touch the other ones,

Because he is always apart of everything I love.

 

Reintegration things that make you go, "hmmmm".

Not even one month ago I spent the day getting my "sexy on" for the return of my husband.
A friend of mine braided my hair, I painted my toe nails and did my last minute eyebrow touch ups and well, lets be honest ladies, did that last minute leg shaving.
His unit marched into the gym at 0200 on a cold December night and it marked not only the beginning of a wonderful holiday season for us, but also the beginning of reintegration.

My husband and I have been through three deployments and every deployment there are certain things I know to expect when he comes home. Our earlier deployments, I must admit I was too young to even try to dissect them, but now, a little older and a little wiser I am starting to understand his process.

When Sr. comes home, its as if he has ants in his pants. He is so used to being on the go down range, that sitting still and enjoying down time is hard for him. In the first week he was home, that man came up with so many things we "needed" to do. These are things that I know can wait, but to him they cant wait, its a mission that needs to be complete. SO we pack up the kidletts and go.

 Next, he reorganizes my house. I wake up to my counters full of cans and plates, my computer is full of new folders and tabs. When I walk into a newly reorganized area, he proudly smiles at me and says," Look Rib, now you can reach all the cups and plates, and I put this up here because we hardly use it". Of course I smile and nodd, and thank him for his help and let him be.

Things like this will continue for about a month, and they are things Ive come to expect from dealing with the first two deployments, and it wasn't until now did I realize what it was he was trying to create or build for himself.

By reorganizing things the way he wanted, he was creating a sense of control. Down range he is in control of his soldiers, his truck, his time and space. Then a year later he comes home to an environment where the kids control the mess and Ive been in control of everything else. This is where I had one of those Oprah Ah-ha moments.

So I sit back and watch him piece it all together like Junior with a new set of Legos.  

But Ive also had other moments arise that I have not quiet been able to figure out. Since Sr. has been home he has been trying very hard to help me in the household, this includes doing dishes. I will admit I am a freak when it comes to dish sponges. The yellow one is for the dishes, blue one is for the counters, and the neither one shares the others duties. Well, one evening he was doing the dishes with the BLUE sponge! OMGOSH! I wanted to jump out my skin, and say, "WAIT! STOP! YOUR DOING IT WRONG!"  But I didn't, I held it in, and watch with squeamish eyes and then waited until he wasn't looking to re-do them, and of course he saw me.... I should have just left that one alone, and I am still learning to deal with situations like those.

So, that's alittle about what my family is doing right now, how does your family handle reintegration.

Rib

The Stutter

This blog is a continuance of my previous entry’s under the tab, Speech Delay and ADHD.


In my last entry I mentioned how we went in for juniors beginning of the year IEP and that he had developed a Sutter. Apparently around age 4 this is normal and not worrisome unless the child does not improve within 6 months. And as our luck would have it, no improvement was made. So another goal was added to Juniors IEP.
His speech pathologist Mrs R.'s findings were this:
"Brandon exhibits moderate to severe dysfluency of speech. The dysfluencies are characterized by initial sound repetitions and blocks accompanied by physical tension".


Basically when Junior speaks he repeats the begging sound like ," B-b-b-b-ut" and blocks are when he can’t "spit" the word out, that is accompanied by physical tension, his whole body tenses up.
So as part of his IEP they started working on "soft touches". Soft touches is a tool used to help Junior recognize this blocks and physical tensions, and by him touching his throat or cheek, calm himself enough to speak the work with no dysfluencies. And I must say, it works. So all year long they worked on his speech and his stuttering with much improvement.
Over that summer Junior regressed a little bit, but as soon as school started up, and he was forced to speak in front of his kindergarten class and with more friends he got better.



One thing that bothers me about his stutter is that people think because he stutters that something is wrong with him. That his intellectual ability is not what it should be. Well let me say this, people who stutter is just that, people who stutter. They are as smart as any other person, they just have difficulty speaking. I met a Mr. M the other day, the new receptionist at the day care my other two boys goto, and he asked Junior how he was doing. Of course Junior spoke and had his disfluencies and I told Junior to slow down, take a deep breath and then continue when he got stuck, and once the conversation was over we walked away to get his brothers from their class rooms, I didn’t think twice about it. On our way out, Mr. M stopped us and pulled us aside and quietly spoke to me about how until he reached the age of 12 he stuttered horribly. No one could understand what he said; he struggled in school but that he overcame it. With the support from his mother, who encouraged him and invested time in him, he overcame it. I almost cried, and was so thankful he told me his story, because it means Junior can overcome too.
My next entry will of Juniors ADHD, and that one is a doosie.

                                                                 Rib

It almost time!

Its been almost twelve long months since the Black Knights occupied their barracks, and now it is time to start getting ready to bring our hero's home. 

Today the Lady Knights gathered for a day of cleaning and decorating.  

For six hours we decorated posters and walls,

 Stuffed baskets full of goodies

And hung ribbons

 We had a blast, but I had even more fun with one of my tasks.I was tasked to go get condoms from the health clinic for our soldiers. I thought the pharmacist was going to give me a box of condoms, not a Sam's Economy Sized Bag! And two of them at that!

I don't think I need to tell you I hauled ass to the car so no one would think I was a sex crazed maniac!

So the original intent was to put these in our cute baskets, which we did but we still had a ton left over. So to add some humor to our barracks I made a grab and go.

Waste not want not, right?
Oh and did I mention the condoms are strawberry and banana flavored? Who knew the army cared about how it tasted. LOL!!!

 

What kind of funny decorating have you done?
Would you like to share some ideas?