Saying Good-Bye

good-bye hugs, as Alan departed for Afghanistan, for 6 months, 2011

from my Xanga series

Fall 2011

We had such a good time with Jennings here! That girl cleaned like crazy. She must’ve run about 7 loads of laundry and 3 loads of dishes. She vacuumed, she straightened, and she even babysat. Now you don’t get too many friends like that in life! And I didn’t ask her to do any of it. It wasn’t all work. We also went to an apple farm to pick apples. Unfortunately, the apples were too picked over, so we settled for picking a couple of pumpkins instead. Plus, we stayed up late talking both nights, which is always fun.

Joshua came in here a while ago to tell on Caleb b/c he “wasn’t doing what I (Joshua) told him to!” Oh wow. I fully re-explained to Joshua that even if he is in charge of the game he’s playing, Caleb does not have to do what he says, as he is just his brother, not his elder. Now I hear them in there going through every single one of their books, and it will be a mess to clean up, but who cares. That’s what toys are for, and it is keeping them quiet!! It’s kind of funny how protective they are of books around Daniel. They have that old mentality of not letting the baby hold any books b/c he might mess it up. They love the Green Eggs and Ham board book Nonna and DaddyO brought Daniel, but they won’t let him hold it b/c “he will mess it up!” Soooo…… in the car they read the book to Daniel and show him the pictures. He only gets to hold the book when they’re not around to insist on holding it for him!

The boys are SO HAPPY that we’re going to Disney World when Daddy gets back in April. They talk about it a lot. Joshua said, “I’ve never been there before!” Oy. All that time and money, and they don’t even remember it. Actually, if it didn’t happen last year, they don’t remember it. It’s funny how you pour so much into those years, and they can’t remember it. But it’s all building blocks and brain development, so the time was not wasted, of course.

Joshua just said, “If I’d done something really really bad at school, I would turn my card to yellow.” (Their conduct system) Joshua is so well behaved at school. He had that one day that he got a “yellow bear”, and I told him that that was not good, and he needs to always have orange. Ever since, he always gets orange, and he seems to be on the good side of his teachers. Now Joshua’s explaining SOAR cards to Caleb. That’s what they get when the teacher thinks they’re being especially good. Joshua told me earlier that he got TWO of them today. I asked him what he did to get them, and he said he couldn’t remember. Joshua just told Caleb, “I got a SOAR card b/c I’ve been really really good. I’ve been listening to rules.” I think it’s so precious how much Joshua loves school. He really loves it! There was one day Joshua said he got a SOAR card b/c he helped Abell pick up all the stuff he’d dropped. I’m always so excited when he tell me details like that! Today Joshua said he was sad b/c Andrew didn’t play with him. I guess now he knows how certain friends of his feel when Joshua doesn’t play with them! He also told me that they got new seats at school, but he’s still at the same table, just a different chair. He’s sitting by Zoe, Mikey, and someone he didn’t know. How cool that he gets to sit by his friends! (Zoe is our neighbor, and Mikey is his friend too.)

I finally got to have a real phone conversation with Alan today. Praise the Lord for that! There’s a HUGE time difference, plus it’s very primitive over there, so those things haven’t been good for communication! It’s still better than it was in 2003, when he went to Iraq, and of course way better than the wars of times past! It is so much easier when you can say with certainty that as of 8pm yesterday, you know you’re husband was alive and well! And Alan did sound very well! He was getting a LOT done, and that always makes him happy, so that’s really good.