Busy few days

It's been a few days since I last posted. I've been a bit busy traveling from my dad's house in Illinois to the new house in Lawton, Oklahoma. We arrived Saturday night and stayed in a hotel until Monday morning. Moving is an incredibly painful and expensive venture with three children. If it were just me, I could do with a simple mat on the floor, two cups, a bowl, can opener, industrial size coffee pot, and a small microwave. Not so with the kiddos. But it's ok. There's this great place in Lawton where you can get everything you need. In fact, there are two of them. Some of you may not be familiar with this store but I'm telling you, they have everything. They are called Super Wal-Marts. I'd highly recommend you visit one soon. You'd be amazed to find all the things you've been doing without that you never knew you needed.

Our trip out here was fairly easy, considering the circumstances. The kids were exceptionally well behaved as well (Thank God for small favors there). I looked the trip up on line and discovered it was a 603 mile, Ten and a half hour trip. Oh good grief. Can you imagine toting three kids (2.5, 6.5, and 15.5 years old) by yourself that far in 100plus degree heat? Some of you mom's out there may have done that, but this was my first. I had it planned out from start to finish, to include potty breaks and meals. I had even started the prep work the night before. My plan had us departing at 0730 and arriving in Lawton around 1800 (6pm). As an experienced Soldier, I know that no plan ever survives the first shot and this trip was no exception. It all started at wake up, 0600. I had planned to get up and drink a pot of coffee (yea, I said pot of coffee), pack the car, and then wake the kids, get them bathed, fed, dressed, and loaded. I will refer you back to my previous posting about people under 4 feet tall. Getting them out of the house in less than an hour is impossible. I don't care how much you threaten, cajole, or bribe. It just ain't happening.

So, I get up, start on my coffee and the baby wakes up early and decides she doesn't want to do anything but sit in my lap and cuddle. How can you say no to that? Her look could stop a war for a hug. So we sat there cuddling and talking until I could convince her to let me get some stuff done. She normally sleeps in until around 0730 but not this day. The boys...I had no fear of them waking up early. I had to drag them out of bed and then spend the bulk of my prep time kicking them in the butt just to keep them moving. Finally at around 0830 we are all loaded in the car and pulling out of my dad's driveway. That's when it hit me. I knew I didn't want to leave any later than 0900 so technically I was 30 minutes ahead of schedule. (that's some fancy daddy justification there).

The drive...not much to say. Have you ever traveled from Illinois across Missouri and into/across Oklahoma. There is a whole lot of nothing to see. Here is where my experience kicked in. The night before we departed, I installed a two screen DVD player in the back seat of the car and packed several DVDs I knew the two little ones would like. The unfortunate side effect is having to listen to 4 hours of Sponge Bob Square Pants, 4 hours of Dora the Explorer, 1.5 hours of Open Season 2, and 1.5 hours of Gnomeo and Juliet. But hey, I'll take that over crying kids any day. My youngest cried all of about a minute and a half the whole trip. I couldn't have asked for a smoother trip...really! The kids were great. We only had to stop four times. Twice for food and twice for gas, and the little one only wet her pull-up twice. I sure hope the rest of this year goes this smoothly.

Now we've been in the house for two days and are figuring out how some things are going to have to start working. I'm grateful for living on post, everything is so convenient from the house. My office is exactly one mile, daycare is 1.6 miles, the elementary school is 1.3 miles, and the bus stop for my highschooler is at the end of my drive way. Oh, and the golf course is only 800 meters away. Can you say Walking Distance? The house is very small - which translates to easier to keep clean, and centrally located. I can see the commissary parking lot from my front yard and there are two large play grounds, one out the front door and one out the back door just outside my fence. All in all, I'm very pleased with our current living conditions.

I want to vent a bit so bare with me here. I realize daycare is costly but my current fee is bordering on criminal. I learned today that for full time care for the baby and before/after school care for my 1st grader is going to run me $844 a month. That's $211 a week. How the hell (excuse my language) do they get away with fees that high? And it's not like I have a choice either. I can't just tell the baby, "Here's some juice and crackers, daddy will be home for lunch...don't burn the house down." That's a small house payment for crying out loud. Of course I'm going to pay it, I want my kids taken care of but geez, cut a guy some slack.

Which brings me to my next gripe. While I appreciate helpful hints and advice from family and friends on the right and wrong ways to raise my kids, I get very aggrivated when people get mad at me for not taking said advice. I've been in combat three times, commanded a battery of about 135 men in combat, and served in numerous leadership positions in the US Army for the past 17 plus years. I'm pretty sure I'm capable of making my own decisions. This rant isn't directed at any one person so quit thinking I'm talking about you...this is a generalized whining session so deal with it. I have decided to continue to listen to the advice because frankly most of it is very good and worthy of taking. But if at some point I hear your advice and don't take it, don't get offended. I'm a grown man and am perfectly capable of screwing things up on my own. I know I'm bound to make some really boneheaded decisions and mistakes, but God willing, none of them will be fatal.

Whining over. All in all, I expect these next few months to be quite interesting as I dive deeper and deeper into the everyday life of a single dad. I hope you all continue to read my blog as I am sure the best of the comedy is yet to come. And don't forget to share it with your friends. I'd like to have 100 or more followers by Christmas. In my next blog, I'll relate my latest gaff at the PX that my oldest reminds me of daily now.