SAHM with young kids vs SAHM vs Homeschool Mom vs. Working Mom

These are all entirely different versions of motherhood. I've done 3 of 4.

Let me explain.

SAHM with young kids <--- 2018-2020, 2022-2023

These are the baby and toddler years. Whether you have one (like I did at home for 2 years) or some in school and one or more at home,  you are tethered to a small child or baby 24/7. They are always with you and you are also tethered to nap time. I'm not using tethered in a derogatory way; that's just what it is. I was home exclusively with Wells for 2+ years. Just me and him. Then, after some transitions, he went to preschool at 4 for half a day and I was still with baby Sutton all day long. She didn't leave my side for a year and a half, basically. 

This is the version of motherhood that is the most time-intensive and where you have to be the easiest on yourself. Sleep every chance you get (just my advice). It's not the time for "getting up before the kids". 

SAHM 

A stay-at-home-mom sends her kids to school. She then has the day to do whatever she needs to do. Generally, she's busy, if she's naturally industrious. Cleaning, appointments, errands, running the house and managing the family. This is the traditional view of motherhood. If she works part-time, that's this category because she makes her own hours (your MLM is not full-time work). She's not held to a time-clock or schedule, working full-time from home. Working full-time from home is still working full-time. 

Getting up before your kids is a good idea if you want them to get to school on time. 

Homeschool mom <--- in this exact stage of life, I am here. 

This is not a SAHM. This is an entirely different thing. I was not aware of the difference until I tried it. This is a mom who is doing everything all at once all day long. The kids don't leave, so it's like taking the SAHM with young kids and just making the kids independent. They're still around. Your house will be a disaster at times because the kids are there; baseboards aren't dirty from neglect, they're full of crumbs because kids are eating snacks all day long. There's no dust, only crumbs (everywhere). There is generally no quiet, no peace, lots of cajoling and explaining and bargaining because You Are Trying To Teach Them Something. Like the SAHM w/ YK, you have kids with you when you go places, but they can walk in stores by themselves and can also buckle themselves into their own seatbelts. 

This is the version of motherhood where it makes sense to get up before your kids. You're not as exhausted and you can create the day's schedule. 

Working mom <---- 2020-2022, 2023-2025

This is usually survival mode. It takes a lot of forethought and planning to thrive, but I also found it pretty rewarding. I don't know about you, but I grew up with a working mom and never thought I'd do it differently. This is for the planners and the do-ers and the overachievers. It's also necessary in most households. In this category, the kids go to daycare or school and the mom goes to work. Your baseboards are dirty from neglect, not crumbs. 

The single worst part about this version of motherhood is getting phone calls that your kid is sick and making arrangements for staying home from work. 

It makes 100% sense to get up before your kids if you are a working mom. I think you have to in order to accomplish anything. 

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The two points I'll make to round this out:

1. I don't actually think it matters what you do. I think it's up to you and your family. I'm no feminist but this is a case of "you do you". I literally change up our life every year or two, depending on the best fit for us. I do think you should try to stay home if you have a baby. I don't think any child under age 1 has any business being in daycare but that's my preference. I don't recover, mentally, from childbirth easily so I needed like a full 8 months to feel like a person again after Wells was born (maybe the two moves in 6 months had something to do with it) and it was probably 3 months after Sutton was born until I felt normal again. I could not have imagined going straight back to work and adding daycare into the mix. 

2. From the time we got engaged, Scott has told me, in the nicest way possible, that he doesn't care what I do. His only real opinion on it, at this point, is that it's good to stay home if you have babies or toddlers, if you don't have to work. I don't think I appreciated that point of view enough at the time because, when we were dating, I was ironically the one with steady work. He was finishing school when we met. 

So when I reflect back, the working, the staying home, the years off, it was all pretty much my choice (again, I'm no feminist). Now, it's more complicated so I have to think about what's best for the kids, year by year. That's how I landed on homeschooling for this year. While where's like seven possible scenarios for what the army can tell us to do next, I can definitely say that I literally have no idea what next year will hold, so that keeps things interesting I guess. 

My problems begin and end with my feet right now.

Sometimes I think I'm in a season where I'm so apt to rush and panic and try to do All The Things that there is no way for me to slow down. I physically cannot because then tasks won't get completed. Lately, I've had to let a lot (a LOT) go. 

About two months ago, I noticed I had a small toenail fungus on my nail (gross but stay with me). This has happened once before and, that time, I went through multiple topicals and homeopathic remedies and nothing worked. Finally, I went to the doctor via telehealth in 2020 and she prescribed me an oral pill that went into your bloodstream and destroyed the fungus from within. 90 days of taking a pill every morning, they make you take a pregnancy test before you start it, and you have to get bloodwork halfway through to make sure your liver is still functioning properly. Extreme right? Well that was 5 years ago and I went to the doctor two months ago for annual bloodwork, I mentioned the fungus and she gave me the same medication again. Obviously, different doctor, different state but same idea. I started taking it and within a week, I noticed my feet were aching constantly. Like, unexplained muscle pain. I assumed it was from some not-so-supportive shoes I'd been wearing but nothing actually made it better. I was miserable. I would soak them, elevate them, whatever. They weren't swollen or anything. Scott assumed I had some really tight muscles so he massaged my calves and that really hurt and did kind of loosen things up but it never actually got better. Sandals hurt, sneakers hurt, bare feet on the floor hurt the most. 

At some point, two weeks ago, I realized it could be the medication I'd been taking. I stopped taking it. My feet stopped hurting within the day. 

I think I do have a really tight muscle in my heel but my feet don't ache anymore. My doctor asked me last week to go back in (today) to get the liver function test done and I was like "oh I stopped taking it" and I wrote a brief sentence about the foot pain as a side effect and she as just like "okay you don't need the test then". No "HMMM that's really weird". Scott had told me weeks ago that I should legitimately go to the doctor if my feet hurt that bad. I was like "What would they even do? Nothing. They would do absolutely nothing." Which is exactly what happened anyway. 

So as I'm getting over the Foot Pain Incident, and as the fungus is pretty much gone anyway because I did take 5-6 weeks of pills (I will just continue on with tea tree oil), I've also been dealing with a plantar's wart. It's honestly been there for awhile and last spring the dermatologist gave me a medication to put on it that "kills it from within" instead of an invasive procedure. I used it for a bit, it got a lot better, so I stopped but it definitely came back. The medication I have is now expired so I renewed the prescription and started using it again. My advice: go to a doctor and don't use those wart remover patches from the store. They make it a much more painful process. 

So, as I'm soaking my feet in magnesium epsom salt last week, I got one of those rasps to take care of dead skin. I didn't feel like I should go get a pedicure with the fungus situation, you know? (100% that's how I got it in the first place back in 2018.) Well, the rasp slipped and I grated my foot. Literally, a bleeding cut on the side of my foot. It rubbed on everything. Every shoe, every sandal, it burned like crazy when wet. I ended up buying some New Skin spray to cover it and that was an experience. I had a gauzy bandage over it Thursday and Friday just so I could walk in shoes. By midday Friday it felt so much better and that's good because I had to wear heels to the regimental ball on Friday night. By the absolute grace of God alone, the shoes I had didn't rub in that spot. 

Anyway, that's been the last few weeks and I can't help but think in the normal season of PCS panic (we don't know when/where we'll be living yet in two months), this has forced me to physcially slow down and I think that's by design. 

Church-less Easter (+ military life thoughts)

 ...which is actually our norm. We went to church on Easter last year for the first time since 2013. It has nothing to do with what we've believed in and has everything to do with location. 

Bread

This Easter, and I feel like people who don't live near family might not understand, was just similar to any other Sunday. Scott was mid-roof replacement. I wasn't going to make a giant dinner for us. We didn't have anywhere to go or anywhere to be. We also weren't invited anywhere which is something I didn't realize until I was typing this. Often, in the military, you find yourself invited somewhere by someone. 

Last year, we went to a church near our house from about February til September-ish. At that point, Sutton was at the height of clinginess and attending church was something I physically didn't have the capacity for. The bigger reason was that I did some digging into doctrine and I realized I didn't believe what this denomination believed. Scott didn't believe it. No one I knew believed it. I asked a lot of people a lot of questions. I read a lot of books, articles, and listened to more Youtube videos that I care to remember. I was looking for every reason to prove that I was right and this church was wrong. 

In the end, I realized it didn't matter. I don't believe the denomination is right. I don't believe they're backed up by the Bible. And I spent a lot of time trying to figure out if the hundreds of people who attend (good people, wonderful people) even know that this is what the denomination believes or if it's just cultural church, a small town, a family-based Sunday activity with grandparents, cousins, aunts, and uncles. 

In the end, again, it didn't matter. We could stop going. We could go somewhere else. I didn't need to prove anyone wrong. I did prove myself right but it didn't matter; the denominational beliefs are the denominational beliefs so I wasn't going to change anyone's mind.

The bunny (dogs) ate the carrots and left eggs.

Back to the point of this post:

Scott has been replacing the roof entirely on his own. He started the week of spring break. I picked stuff up. I threw things in the dumpster. I kept the kids busy for weeks while he worked. Wells and Sutton picked up nails. 

Almost 3 years ago, when Scott replaced the back half of the roof, his friend drove in from Colorado to help him. This time, the same friend (who we didn't expect to come help again, by the way) asked "wow you don't have anyone to help you?" and we realized we didn't. 

"Church" in the sense of being the hands and feet of Jesus would, I think, look like neighbors and friends offering to help Scott with the roof. I don't want to think we're entitled to help and I don't want to pull that "Christians don't act like Jesus" talk because it's not true. It just doesn't seem right that *we* are not going to Easter egg hunts and potlucks with everyone else simply because we are busy with a 2-3 man project that Scott is accomplishing all on his own. I don't want to be petty but it's just another reminder that we are not of this small town in the same way we're not of this world. That's what military life feels like, often. That you don't really belong anywhere. I do not want to live on a military base. But at least if you live there, everyone is in the same boat. 

Dressed in our Easter best

I will say that the resiliency factor instilled in us all is really something. I see it growing in Wells and I hope Sutton gets it too. I signed Wells up for summer sports near the base, specifically, because I want him mixing with other kids. April is the month of the military child and the flower of the military child is a dandelion because they can grow anywhere. 

I don't want Wells to forget that even though this is where we live now, this is not how it will always be. They were talking about adding grandparents' day breakfast to the school schedule for next September, and saying it didn't matter if some kids didn't have grandparents because other kids should get to have breakfast with their grandparents. That was another reminder that maybe Wells should just be in a military school, after all. They'd never have that attitude there. I still remember Wells crying when he was 3 in preschool because he didn't have grandparents to eat breakfast with. 

Anyway. That was just all going through my head when Wells asked why we didn't go to church on Easter. I don't know how you could try to, or even want to, make a 5 year old understand all of that. 

Sutton's License Plate

Sutton turns 4 months old today. She has her check-up/shots on Wednesday though, so I'll do a monthly update post for her later. 

Military kids are really unique and parents find all kinds of ways to celebrate them. Usually, all the kids from a military family are born in completely different states, which is so normal in my mind but really odd if you think about it. 

We are those military people who actually just kind of blend into the gen pop of wherever place we live. We tend to buy houses or rent off-post instead of living on base, I work in the local schools, and we don't spend a lot of time with other military families simply because we don't live on post. I don't know why this is the path we've taken, but we have. It does lead to a fuller experience than just being a tourist in your current town/city, I guess. 

In the past, we have bought vehicles in different states. When you do that, you just get a plate for the state you live in and pay those taxes. Until 2019, when we transferred everything to reflect our Alaska residency, we had accumulated plates from PA, AK, MO, CO, and WY. Once everything was replaced with Alaska plates, we had those others just sitting around. 

Which means, Wells gets a Wyoming plate framed and on his wall to commemorate where he was born. 

When Sutton, who was a complete surprise to us all, was born in Missouri this past spring, I immediately thought I could do the same for her. 

See, we have Missouri plates hanging around from our time stationed here in 2013-2014. Our Tacoma (that we sold in 2017) was bought in Missouri in 2013 and our Rav4 (that we still have) was bought in Missouri in 2013 too. 

The long and short of this story is that shortly after we bought that Rav4 in Springfield, Missouri, we were told we'd likely never have biological children. I was, quite ironically, told this in the very same hospital where Sutton would be born 8 years later. Like, literally almost to the day. 

This means that, also quite ironically, she gets that Missouri license plate to show where she was born. We'd renounced our Missouri claim years ago, changing the car registration to Colorado and then to Alaska. But I still had the plates. 

I know that's a little bit of a turkey trail to follow, but the point is that it's totally not lost on me that Sutton arrived exactly when and where she was supposed to, and this license plate on her wall is my enormous daily reminder of this. 

If you want to see how I put the license plate in the frame, click on the Wells post up there for a quick tutorial!

If you never unpack...

...you'll never unpack. 

We had this same rug in Colorado and in Laramie. It's still at Walmart for $9.95 years later if you're high-end like I am. Scout loved it there, so here we are. 

Years ago, another army wife told me that you should always unpack and settle in as quickly as possible because if you never do, you never will. 

Sometimes you only live in a house for a year, sometimes for 3 or 4 years. But, unlike having the luxury of a major portion of the population who gets to settle down for decades at a time, I don't hem and haw over furniture placement or window coverings. I buy things I like and things that will serve us well and I don't get caught up in maximizing every item.

An example is that I generally buy all of our window curtains and shower curtains at Walmart, Target, or TJ Maxx. Unless you are getting custom drapes for a near-forever house, buy neutrals or classic patterns that aren't trendy and you're done. I bought our first few sets of curtains in Alaska at Lowe's. We happened to be there picking out a washer and dryer. We'd just moved into a house with no window coverings at all. We needed curtains. I picked a bunch of neutrals out. We used them for 5 or 6 years. It was great. 

When we sold our Colorado house, the curtains went with it. They weren't anything special (probably from Homegoods) but that left me with nothing when I got to Pittsburgh. I got a few at Walmart and I really liked the pattern. I'll use them here again because I do still like them. 

Luckily, this house has blinds on almost every window but there's a LOT of windows, so that means a lot of curtains. I grabbed a few neutral gray (with a hint of a pattern) at Walmart and they'll be fine. You literally wouldn't know they were from Walmart aside from the fact that I just told you. 

Same with our shower curtains. I had to leave my shower curtains in Colorado. Our house in Pittsburgh had one that I liked. When I got here, there were two showers and no shower curtains. 

I bought shower curtains, went to put them up, and...no shower curtain rings. 

Our first house in Alaska had no shower rod, no rings, and no curtain. This is something I promise you will literally Never Ever Think About unless you move around a lot. Always have a plan for a shower curtain and/or a plan to secure yourself a shower curtain before you spend the night in your new house. 

Seriously. That's more important than you think it is ^

And I bought a cheap $9 shower curtain because I thought it'd be fine and then realized I look at that shower curtain every time I walk up the steps and nope, don't like it. So I ended up spending $20 on a nicer shower curtain. 

But other than having to procure some new curtains and a washer and dryer, this house is twice the size of our last house. Hall.e.lu.jah. All of our furniture fits with room to spare, which I love. 

Some things are different though...

We got Wells a table. 

We can't put anything on the TV stand, not because Wells will destroy it, but because he'll just play with things or move them around. This is really the only baby-proofing I've done. The gate is just to block the wires. Again, he doesn't seem to care about the modem or the power strip; he just runs into them and that seems unnecessary. 

The couch isn't the center of the house anymore, which is the best thing about this place. It just sits there, sometimes there's a dog on it. Sometimes I sit on it to read. Otherwise, it's generally left alone. Wells doesn't even care about it. Sometimes he puts his toys on it. It took quite a beating in Pittsburgh. 

The washer and dryer aren't in the deep recesses of the basement. 

Wells has enough space to play downstairs AND upstairs. He loves the steps. Since they're split and carpeted, they don't make me that nervous.

The kitchen isn't great. My least favorite so far, actually. But the layout of the house is perfect so I'll take 30+ year old countertops and cabinets.

Tile floors + carpet > hardwood. We've had hardwood for the last 6 or 7 years. I was over it. It's so hard to clean! The ceramic tile and a sturdy carpet is great here. The carpet isn't new, but it's definitely held up well, I think. 

All in all, as soon as I get pictures on the walls, I think it'll feel more like home. My neighbor in Pittsburgh had lived in her house for 48 years. When we moved in and I told her we'd before there for "a year or two", she said she wouldn't even unpack. That stuck with me because all I could think of was the military life and how if you never unpack, you literally never unpack. 

A PCS Story --2020-- Part 1

Oy. 

I feel like this is going to be a multiple installment type thing because holy cow. I have no idea how many parts it will be. 

And forget "summer weekends". The last two weekends have been allthepacking and alltheunpacking, respectively, with cross-country driving sandwiched between. 

So, as I pull photos from my phone, I'll just explain how the PCS went. 

I may have mentioned it before, but PCS just means Permanent Change of Station. It's what the military refers to as a "move". We generally do Full DITY moves (Do IT Yourself) because the military pays per pound and it's a good way to make money. Since it's always been just the two of us, it's been simpler; I help. We get it done. 

Then, we had a baby and it got more complicated. Then we had a toddler and it became semi-impossible for us to do this completely alone. 

Add in coronavirus and weird delays in moves and schedule changes and starting/stopping leases and multiple trips to get all of our stuff moved...this will be a month-long process from start to finish. 

But I'm here to document it, because that's what I do.

The dogs knew something was happening. 

Scout would not leave Scott's side as he shuffled boxes around in the garage...

...and Jett put himself square in the way as we tried to take the kitchen table apart. 

Keeping Wells busy was the hardest part of the last two weeks. 

And Scout just checking to make sure Scott didn't leave without him. 

Clearly this was going to happen ^^^

We hired three movers from a company in Pittsburgh to load our furniture for us and they were amazing. I highly recommend them if you're in the area and need moving help!

We had to take the crib apart to move it and we briefly explored the idea of toddler bed but nope. Not right now. 

Fun fact: the crib is always the last thing we pack so it's the first thing out. 

Lots of keeping-busy. 

And then Wells and I spent a full day living like this before we took off on our trip. (Scott was away with the dogs for the day.) 

The car couldn't come soon enough. This day was ex-haust-ing.

Another fun fact: I've had this yoga mat since 2007. My cousin got it for me for Christmas, it probably cost less than $20, and I've been using it almost daily for the last 5-6 years.  

Nope. I had no plans. To be honest, I was more worried about him throwing up, since that's been an issue over the last year. So, we flipped his carseat to forward-facing and then I bought this tablet holding bracket and downloaded some shows I knew he'd like on my iPad and he watched TV and napped the whole trip. WHATEVER. I listened to podcasts with one earbud or talked on the phone. It worked. 

Carefully eating in the car, where he can be contained. A restaurant, especially during times of coronavirus, cannot contain Wells.  His favorite food usually seems to be Mexican, so Qdoba was an easy choice for us to share. 

Checking into a hotel in Illinois. 

This kid...I will share more in his 2 year update post next week-ish, but let's just say if there was coronavirus in that hotel, we all have it now. He will not be contained. Forget about telling him not to touch. 

And forget about trying to get him to be quieter...I really am working on this, but he just has so much to say all of the time. 

He says "hi" and "bye" to every person and to every dog he sees, usually following the person or the dog to see where they are going and what they are up to. His favorite phrases are "ooooooooo" and "coooooool" to show his interest. 

Waiting out some heavy rain at a rest stop, drinking all of my water. 

And, yes, my orchids made the trip safely. I've never transported plants during a PCS, but I wasn't ready to give these guys up. 

Exploring at a truck stop/rest stop. I'm sorry, everyone. 

Reading at hotel #2 in Kansas. And, yeah, he did sleep at least part of each night in his pack-and-play. It wasn't the worst. 

And then we arrived at the new house and I was able to park in a garage for the first time since 2013...until Scott arrived the next day and we had to use the garage to unload all of the boxes. 

Notice how Wells is playing in the car. One would think he'd be ready to leave the car after 14+ hours of driving. 

Part 2 coming soon...

Current Perspective.

I rarely blog about deep thoughts when I'm in the middle of a struggle. Usually I just tell the world after the fact. But, since everything in the entire world seems upside down in many ways, here we are...

I know we're all feeling out of sorts lately. I know it's hard. I know times are uncertain. I am incredibly grateful that we're all healthy, so far, and that Scott isn't going to lose his job; they need him more than ever, to be honest.

If I'm being honest, I have to dive into the worry and panic we all feel, but I'm feeling it about something in particular. You see, we *had* plans to move this summer. We likely still have those plans, but we don't know what they look like now. We don't know if this is going to be more complicated than it needs to be. Everything has been halted. And, also being honest, Scott's role here is pretty vital in the midst of the coronavirus outbreak. 

Just like with most people, this pandemic has pulled our plans out from under us. 

And, just like with most people, my routine is all kinds of messed up right now...I've not fallen off the Bible-reading plan I'm using, but I'm perpetually 5 days behind. I'm still listening to the podcast and still reading. It's just slower than I wanted to be going right now. To be honest, Joshua has been so boring that I'm struggling to find gems to focus on. The tribes and the geography of land allotments is complicated.

So I was listening to the story of Joshua being recapped one day and I was reminded of patience, exactly when I needed to be reminded.

The Israelites waited years to be given their land. It wasn't an easy wait, but promises are fulfilled in some way or another. I'm not saying everything ends up rosy or perfectly wrapped up with a bow, because the world is a weird place right now, but things will end up.

There will be a place for us to live, somewhere. I just don't know where. I don't know if it will be perfect but I know that something exists on the other side of this quarantine life.

The trouble I had with finding a house here at the end of 2018 was the outlier to our house-hunting experiences over the last 10 years. It wasn't the rule. The rule is that we've always found a suitable house, when the timing was right. This has been my #1 struggle over the last few months: believing that we'll find a place to live that's better for us than this house/location. I have a lot of worries over this and it's something I'm trying to work through; I've been assured that my feelings over this are valid, even if I know a person's feelings aren't always valid. You're allowed to feel how you want to feel but sometimes spiraling into the whole self-care/self-pity cycle is completely counterproductive. I'm trying to look it through a wider lens.

This episode is what really spurned on these thoughts on my perspective. If you are thinking 2020 should be the year for you to read the Bible, I HIGHLY recommend trying that reading plan I talked about here. 

To be quite honest, I'm amazed by the timing of me deciding this year was the year I needed to read the Bible from beginning to end and this also being the year I would truly need it the most. 

If you need it right now, go for it. 

This feels familiar and all.

I saw this tweet yesterday:

I don't know why it didn't hit me that that's why this doesn't feel that odd. 

If you are feeling a bit lost this week...

If you want to set up a playdate for your kids. 

If you want to go to your favorite restaurant, coffee shop, movie theater, or bar. 

If you miss the social circle of your job because you're teleworking in your pjs. 

If you want to go over to a friend's house to physically hang out.

If you miss your gym classes. 

If you'd love to see your extended family for that birthday party or holiday dinner. 

That's what it's like to move to a new military duty station. That's it! That's the feeling! Welcome! 

In Alaska, I remember the first moment I felt it: 

Scott was doing a night jump in October and I had to spend a night alone in our new house. I had never, I'm pretty sure, gone to sleep in a house completely by myself up until that point. And he was off in some Alaskan field, jumping out of a plane in the middle of the night.

In Missouri, I had that feeling when it was dark out, it our first night in our new house, Scott had run out to help a friend move furniture, and I had to navigate my way to Walmart and back. Obviously, I had GPS but I'm pretty sure I got lost because I was certain I remembered where Walmart was but I guess I didn't.

In Colorado, it was the day after I drove out to meet Scott and the dogs at our new house on the prairie (I would give a LOT to be settled at that house on the prairie at this moment, btw), and Scott went to Lowe's and I was there, in the house, just staring out at the field. It was quiet in a scary way and I hated it. Eventually, I got used to that quiet.

Truthfully, this whole thing is going to get a lot worse before it gets better. 

It just is. I hate to think that way, but if we could fast forward a month, that'd be great, right? 

That's also a common thought I have during a PCS move; if we could just fast forward a month, that'd be great. 

Just to get over the rough part.

The last decade post

This is that post that everyone else wrote a month ago. Or, rather, posted on Instagram or Facebook. But some wrote really insightful last decade posts.

The idea being that this is the last month of the decade, it's time to reflect on what the last 10 years have meant.

For me, the last 10 years have basically been my adult life.

The last 10 years was: 3.5 years in Alaska, 1 year in Missouri, 4 years in Colorado overlapping with 18 months in Wyoming, and now 1 year in Pittsburgh.

5 states, 7 houses, 3 army bases.

5 schools, 8 years of full-time teaching.

2 dogs.

4 years of fertility treatments + testing and, now, 1 baby

5 deployments.

Meeting so many friends, coworkers, neighbors, and students.

I actually thought about all of this when I put together 

this featured photos, uh, feature on Facebook.

Basically, if I were to recap my last ten years, it'd look a lot like this blog, which I started 9.5 years.

I remember, last Thanksgiving morning, driving from Laramie to Colorado Springs with a 4 month old. I remember driving through Denver and I was heading to the Colorado house to meet Scott and my brother (who was stationed in Co Springs as well) for Thanksgiving. Scott had gone down earlier in the week to get some work done on his time off from UW.

I told my brother that day that if you'd told me 11 or 12 years ago that THAT'S what I'd be doing on Thanksgiving 2018, I wouldn't have believed you.

I could put picture after picture on here recapping the decade, but when I started seeing the "last 10 years! it's the last month of the decade!!1!1!" posts, all I could think about was how the last 10 years was literally my life. It seems really silly, and I would never say it to a student because they'd get all kinds of defensive and emotional, but your life doesn't really begin until you're out of school and doing whatever it is you set out to do. This, apparently, is what I set out to do. And I would not have believed you if you'd told me 12 years ago that this is what I would have done in the next decade or so.

Chicago (plus thoughts on PGH drivers)

Last week, I went to Chicago with Scott. He was going there for work. The Corps of Engineers has an office in Chicago and the districts in the midwest all met up there for a few days of professional development. Spouses were invited to go along and they had a separate program planned for us. There are only between three and six active duty soldiers at each district, so this wasn't a huge group to begin with. There were no other spouses there from Pittsburgh, so I met the ones from the other districts.

This was a very positive experience for me when it came to dipping back into the military world. We've been away from a base for two years now and this helped to reaffirm why we're doing what we're doing right now; the career path, the moving three times in three years, etc. All of these other spouses are also living in regular towns, with no military population, and they feel the same way I do. It's comforting to know there are others in the same boat. That's the nice thing about military life: someone has already been in your shoes. Plus, these other couples are where we hope to be in 5 or 10 years. It's reassuring and helped me focus on the big picture.

Chicago River at night. 

Northerly Island. A Corps restoration project.

Shedd Aquarium. We listened to a presentation in the boardroom about invasive species. Then they let us look around for two hours. I didn't need two hours but it's a $40 admission otherwise, so I'll take it. 

I always think piranhas are so pretty. They look to be covered in glitter.

View from our hotel in The Loop

River during the day.

Navy Pier

Real Chicago deep-dish. I was THOROUGHLY impressed. I count it as possibly the best pizza ever. Scott prefers thin crust.

I expected the bean to be bigger? And like in the middle of a big open area downtown? 

We ate at the Park Grill, underneath it. It wasn't the best food I've ever had. The pizza and salad at Gino's the night before were better. 

(Most pictures that were taken are group pictures and I don't post random pictures of random people on here...especially people I just met. So this is just the random scenery.)

One of the funniest things I noticed about Chicago was how quiet it was. One night, as we were walking back to the hotel (about a mile), we were the loudest noise around: no traffic, no honking, no screeching tires or tailpipes loudly shooting out exhaust. Which led to a discussion on how terrible Pittsburgh drivers are. (This is another moment when I thought PTL, it's not just me.) For example, if you come up to an intersection, no one takes the right away. It can be so clear who has the right away, but a Pittsburgh driver will wave you on, even if it's their turn. When you decline (because it's their turn), they'll honk, throw up their hands, flip you off, and screech away.
It's very true that highways and roads out west are designed to MOVE people from place to place. Even when the traffic in Denver instigated the worst road rage I've ever felt, the road was 4 lanes wide on each side and meant to shuffle cars quickly from one end of the city to the other. On the east coast, roads were not built that way. Everything is slow and sluggish and inconvenient. (I mean, I still disagree with just about all things Colorado. Turns out lots of states are dumb.)

Scott's coworkers and I discussed what trouble they've had with the schools around here; it's not that they're bad schools, it's that they aren't used to people moving in and out and are not military-friendly. It's so disappointing to hear, because I get it: I see that the cliques have already formed in the playgroup we go to. The system here is designed for kindergarten registration and high school graduation and nothing in between. On our end, we've never had so much trouble when it comes to licenses, permits, and registering vehicles, and doing taxes, and paperwork, and etc, etc as we have had in Pennsylvania. It's because there's no military population.

Anyway, the whole other layer of me going to Chicago was that I would be leaving Wells in Pittsburgh. Luckily, we live in a place that is less than 3 hours from our families and had options for this. Scott's mom and sister graciously stayed at our house for the week and took care of this baby-dog combo. (I probably should've brought them a souvenir now that I think of it, but I didn't get any to begin with...I'm enjoying the age Wells is because he's not expecting things like that.)

Before this trip, I'd never left Wells for more than three hours, so it was a big step. Though, the idea of leaving him was much harder than actually leaving. Getting everything ready and explaining his routine was the hard part. Plus, he was teething again so that couldn't have been easy on them.

My overall impression of Chicago was that is was so much nicer than I expected. I already said it was quieter, but it was also cleaner. Granted, we stayed in The Loop, but we walked miles and miles all over the city every day. We weren't hanging out in the crime-ridden parts of town, but even the touristy parts of NYC are gross and overcrowded and all concrete. Chicago wasn't like that. The parks department actually takes really good care of the place. I still don't know that I'd want to be stationed there (though everyone who was just loves it) because you'd have to live in the suburbs and commute in an hour+ by train (for Scott) and that just seems really inconvenient and it'd be just as cold all winter as it was in Pittsburgh. I'm not a big city person, clearly. I like drivable cities and I don't think they have a lot of those in the east.

I told him to pretend that he liked me in this picture. He was sick and I was sunburned.

All in all, a very worthwhile trip. I got over my air travel phobia, as I still haven't quite recovered from the Delta Nightmare of 2017 and I have discovered that, since having a baby, I actually get MORE motion sick than I used to. The plane, the subway, the tour bus. All a nightmare. I skipped the boat trip for this reason and just sat in the Navy Pier shopping area for an hour.

Anyway, I also jumped on this opportunity to go because all we had to pay for was my plane ticket and I didn't have to do any of the planning. I hate planning for travel. Since our anniversary was over the weekend, I figured it was a good time AND I'd never been to Chicago AND we hadn't been on a trip since July 2017. I would still 100% go back to San Diego than hang out in Chicago (I still think about the food we ate in San Diego), but I would definitely recommend a late spring/early summer trip to Chicago. It's definitely windy, though. Check the weather. I almost stopped to buy a coat but then decided to tough it out because I didn't want to tote it home.