When my website crashed, I learned quite a few lessons through the process of trying to get storiesofourboys.com back up. I am going to tell you all about it.

For eleven whole days, storiesofourboys.com was wiped off the face of the internet.

It started on January nineteenth. I woke up to error messages. I had no idea why. After twelve hours of trying to figure it out, I investigated my older wordpress.com version of Stories of Our Boys. Would you believe it? They said my bill was not paid for my domain.

Huh. Who knew?

I did pay the bill, but then I saw some odd activity on my bank account, and I reported it a couple of days before the website crashed. My thought was that for sure the bank will fix this little charge, and all will be well.

Ha! The bank fixed it all right. Turns out it was the fee for my website domain, and WordPress did not appreciate me taking their money away with a bank claim.

Oopsie daisies…my bad.

So WordPress snatched the old rug right out from under me.

Dear WordPress, a little note would have been nice. But I do see how this was also my fault. I should have investigated my bank claim further instead of jumping to conclusions.

The first day of the website crash, I was a miserable mess.

Then after that day of grief I was okay. I knew that if they wanted to help me, they could in fact help , and there would somehow be a way to fix this. Alan kept reminding me that if there were a crime, they would pull up my website like it was nothing.

I found that oddly reassuring.

Sure enough, eleven days later, Bluehost gave me a rescue, and restore my whole website to all of it’s January twelfth glory.

While I was snug in my bed, not thinking about my website at all, a nice person from Bluehost Escalated Support team restored a back-up of my site.

When I awoke this morning, I opened my email, and there was a message from Bluehost letting me know I am back online. Hurray!!

I do believe this calls for a celebration. For quite a few days, I worried ten years of work was down the drain, never to be seen again.

Last night my son Daniel said if I get my website back up, we have to celebrate with a soda and a red velvet cake. I agreed to it, so I guess I owe everyone a little party!

There are a few glitches left, mostly in the form of image loading. I will have to work on that, but at least my website is back!

Here are thirteen lessons I learned from this whole crashed website debacle:

(And honestly I probably learned more than just this.)

1. Make less hasty decisions. Stop and think things through. Don’t claim fraud on a bank charge unless you thoroughly look at it from every angle.

2. I need to take a computer science class, many computer science classes. There is so much more I need to know about website maintenance.

3. Sometimes $19 can get you in a lot of trouble.

4. SSL means secure sockets layer.

5. DNS means domain name system. (It is a little embarrassing that I did not know that before, but I never sat down and thought about it! I never needed to.)

6. You can call up the company you purchased your domain name from to get help when your domain is pointing to the wrong place, and they will fix it for you. Many thanks to mine! Wild West Domains customer support was excellent.

7. Bluehost is helpful. They are my friend.

I am only back up and running thanks to Bluehost. My computer has some back-up elements, but I do not even know where to upload them to. See? I need to go back to school.

All links to Bluehost on this page are now affiliate links because I now wholeheartedly believe in this company and endorse them. If you want to build a website, I do recommend Bluehost.

8. WordPress will swiftly punish you if you put a claim on their charge.

They do not play, nor do they send you a bill and give you an option to pay a different way to fix it as quickly as possible. I had no idea. It took many back and forths before they sent me a link to let me pay with a new method to reinstate my account.

9. WordPress uses automated computers to answer their email support. It worked only okay, so I’m just sharing this information.

10. Did I mention I am going to enroll in computer science 101? I have been building and maintaining my websites since 2013, and there is still too much I do not know that I would like to know.

11. Keep asking for help with the proper channels, and don’t give up.

Bluehost and I had several chats, knocking out one problem at a time. I am so thankful we did not give up.

12. Stay calm and kind during a work crisis. It makes it easier for others to help you.

This may be the first time in my life I was able to stay calm in any kind of crisis. It made a huge difference though. I was able to think more clearly and feel more like a grown-up. Each person I talked to at Bluehost and the domain place thanked me for my patience and kindness. It went a long way.

13. Eventually, God truly will fix your problem in your sleep. God is a refuge to us for real.

It reminds me of that time I prayed about the neighbor who I was avoiding, and God up and moved her across town! Prayer works, y’all. Prayer works.

This concludes my Ted Talk on what happened to me last week. Anyone want to go enroll in community college with me for some computer classes? I think it will be fun!

Thank you for your patience while I get everything all fixed back up. This was embarrassing to go through. I kept thinking about all the people checking my website and thinking I had hung up my blogging hat.

I’m still here, y’all! Thank you for sticking with me! Sorry for the weird problems. I hope you can learn from my mistakes!

If you have any tips for me on the topic of website care, feel free to share below in the comments!

The post So happy to be back! 13 Lessons from When My Website Crashed appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

These are all quotes about being a boy mom that anyone raising a boy, or two, or seven, will enjoy. I created fun pictures for some of them too so you can save them on Pinterest. I tend to save more funny quotes than I do helpful articles. Ha!

Or I save the helpful content on Pinterest, but I do not actually ever get around to doing them… So these are just for fun and encouragement.

#1. Mark Twain and his struggling mother….I guarantee you he was right, and she enjoyed it very much. I know I adore raising these children, no matter how hard it is.

#2. No one is as indestructible as a boy in a Batman costume.

Who knew Plato had jokes?

#3. This one sounds exactly like my life and is from a fellow mom blogger:

You’re going to miss this someday – I whisper to myself as I’m shot in the butt with a Nerf Gun while unclogging the toilet.”

~Lauren @https://simply-well-balanced.com

#4. Princess Diana:

#5. I actually said this one, and I stand by this statement:

But “somewhat?” No. I feel seriously accomplished!

#6. Embrace the messy. This one came from a blogger friend named Julie, who actually has five sons.

#7. I get to focus all of my fashion efforts on my OWN wardrobe

You can read more about the benefits of boy momhood here.

#8. Okay. THIS one from Kenny Rogers is one of my ALL time favorites, and it sums up most of my problems from the past seventeen years. Ha!

#9. I found my son skateboarding on the trampoline, and I feel like that sums up how dangerous raising boys actually is.

#10. Pure wisdom from Proverbs:

#11. This next one!!! I mean because it is like shoveling snow in a blizzard sometimes, especially when they are little.

#12. “Raising boys is a lot like raising lion cubs.”

I said that when I took all of them out in public together one time when they were all little.

This was the whole story:

The manager gave us a tour (of a rec center). Of course, the boys couldn’t keep their hands off each other, not in a mean way. It’s just that boys are very physical.  Raising boys is a lot like raising lion cubs.  At one point, all three hunched over JD, making googly faces at him. They were all smiling, and JD was whacking them in the face, just as happy as he could be. They loved it!

Don’t worry. I don’t condone toddlers smacking people in their faces…

#13. The sand, the kids running in opposite directions, the exhaustion, the safety concerns, I will never forget, one does not simply take four little boys to the beach by yourself.

#14. I left him alone for five minutes to run upstairs and grab something. When I came back downstairs, he was covered in chocolate and was laying upside down, asleep, half on the floor, feet in his chair.

That carpet never stood a chance.

#15. This one is so sweet, and it is the truest of true boy mom quotes. They will be heroes in our eyes!

“You don’t raise heroes, you raise sons. And if you treat them like sons, they’ll turn out to be heroes, even if it’s just in your own eyes.” – Wally Schirra

#16. Amen to this:

“I used to give my friends who have kids advice all the time, and they would look at me like I had three heads. And then, when I had two, I literally apologized to all my friends.”

-Jennifer Lopez

#17. I found this quote on Pinterest from another present day writer. It is such a good reminder!!

“The only part of their childhood that lasts forever are the memories, so we better not be too busy to make them.” –Casey Huff in this post at Her View from Home

#18. Being a boy mom is all about wrestling, cookies, video games, and endless energy. The endless energy is theirs. You will gradually have less and less.

#19. You have boys. Congratulations! Your toilet will never be clean again.

#20. I will end on this one because it sums up my life from 2005-2013, when I was having one baby boy after another. My oldest son, around age seven, actually said to me, “Wait. If we go inside, we have to stand still and be quiet? Oh, I can’t go then. I am not made to stand still.”

“If it requires my child to sit still and be quiet, I can’t come.” -Unknown

This was also how we picked churches in the earlier years. No nursery for church service? Then we will have to attend a different church. Sanity matters, y’all.

I hope you enjoyed these boy mom quotes.

There is nothing that has brought more joy to my adulthood than being a boy mom to my sons. Now listen, I would also have LOVED to have daughters. I tried to do so, in fact. So please don’t troll me about that because I wanted a daughter very badly. Who knows? Maybe someday God will still give me one.

But I would not trade a single boy in this house for any daughters, puppies, or quiet time. Raising these boys is the greatest blessing we have ever had, and I know you feel the say way about your own, both daughters and sons.

“Praise the Lord. Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his love endures forever.”

Psalm 106:1

The post 20 Boy Mom Quotes That Will Make You Smile appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

We just got home from spending 10 days with our family down in Bama. I can say with complete sincerity that it was a fun, fulfilling, trip.

Were there melt-downs? Yes, especially me, okay. I was the one with the melt downs.

Was it insanely hot? No, actually.

Did the children fight? Some.

Did we get stuck in traffic? Yes, in the expected places. Why do we ever drive through Atlanta?

But also…

There were breakthroughs!

#1. John David is officially ready for kindergarten.

John David went down a water slide at Water World about 35 times, not even exaggerating, proving that maybe, just maybe he’s bigger than I realize. He can surely handle kindergarten.

#2. I got to watch my mom in action in all her super-executive glory. I’m so proud of her. 

Watching her manage her career reminded me that maybe I’d do better at my own job if I treated it more responsibly.

Did you know that in the census records of the 1800s, they listed each person in a household by name, job, and various other statistics? Each grown woman in a household was not listed as a “stay at home mom” or “unemployed.” They were listed as “keeping house.”

“Keeping house” sounds so much more accurate to me than “stay at home mom.” Children are in the house, so they are part of the house you are keeping, right?

I should treat this more like my job. There should be to-do lists, a sense of job satisfaction, and an alarm clock. During the summer I almost never set my alarm.

#3. Three times a day is how often you should water tomato plants in southern Alabama.

I learned this from watching my dad tend his always thriving tomato garden. His vines go from the porch all the way past the porch ceiling, and he uses no poison at all.

Yes, the tomatoes were delicious.

Maybe, just maybe I can have a garden like that too someday. Someday. Not today.

#4. Back to School Shopping

If school starts tomorrow, everyone will have something to wear.

That mannequin I stripped down because it was wearing my son’s size of deeply discounted Under Armor shirt will be just fine. Yes, I accidentally knocked him over and kicked him under a rack (the mannequin, that is), but I put him back on his pedestal as quickly and clumsily as I possibly could, so I’m quite sure he’s fine.

#5. “Doing nothing always leads to the very best something.” (Pooh Bear)

….Our hilarious trip to the movies…

Mom and I took the boys to see Christopher Robin, as I am a huge Pooh Bear fan. It was a sweet movie, but sharing it with my children was the funniest part.

There was the son who bought himself an over-priced Icee with his own money, drank 3 refills, and then held his tummy and groaned for the next hour.

The same son “whispered” across all 3 brothers to me during the movie, “Pssst Mom!….Pssssssssst Mom!!!… Mom!!!  This movie is boring.”

It was not. If he hadn’t kept getting up for refills and of course the restroom, he’d have found the movie to be very funny and heart-warming.

Then as the movie ended and we exited the theatre, I found the same son’s wallet left under one of the theatre seats. You’re welcome, dear son.

Oh, but that’s not all.

I shuffled past a sticky floor and stray popcorn kernels to find 2 pairs of flip-flops, belonging to my 2 youngest sons.

“Ewwwww! Really, boys, no one takes off their shoes at a movie theatre. Gross.”

But my whining couldn’t change the past. I helped John David back into his shoes and walked him out, assuming Daniel was right behind me.

I have no idea what took Daniel so long, but I ended up waiting quite a while for him to collect his shoes and catch up with us out in the hallway. A very patient and tickled movie theatre worker stood there holding the door for our seemingly never-ending family.

As I stood there, several boys asked me for Icees, while John David jumped up and down in front of me saying over and over again, “Hey Mom! hey Mom! Mom! You said if I be good…Mom, you said if I beed good. If I beed good you said…”

Something about buying him candy…which I most certainly did not say, no matter how good he “beed”, I had not promised that.

As John David continued to jump and talk, Daniel finally made it to the doorway and the laughing movie theatre worker, where he proceeded to stop, kneel down in the floor with one flip-flop on and one flip-flop off, and wipe his shoe down with the bottom of his t-shirt. Because you see, while Daniel may not be too clean to take his shoes off, he will certainly not tolerate anything sticky touching his skin.

Somehow we managed to collect our little crew and walk to the car. They all brightened when I told them we were headed to the Circle K for the 79 CENT Icees that are exactly the same as the $6.75 movie ones.

Another life lesson well learned, as the kid who bought the expensive Icee sat in the backseat and clutched his stomach and moaned. Ah, but those are the lessons you learn the best, right?

Oh yeah and…

#6. Alan and I succeeded in getting Nonna as hooked on the Jeopardy app as we are.

You gotta download it. I’m telling you. Hours of educational fun await.

It was a delight to see everyone that we got to see!! Thank you all for taking time to hang with us!!

The post The Bama Vacation & One Hot Mess of a Movie Trip appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

Our measly month together in Oklahoma was kind of a blur, but there were a few things that happened that I have not been able to live down.

Three incidents to be exact, okay maybe 4 or 5…geesh I was full of mishaps that first month, but there are three I’d like to share!

….We’ll just skip the story of our first huge fight when Alan was following me, and I missed the correct exit, my cell phone battery was dead, and Alan breezed right past on to the next exit. Let’s just say I threw the mother of all fits. Alan had quite a firecracker on his hands.

The first misadventure happened on our loooooooong car trip from Alabama to Oklahoma after Christmas.

Alan was driving his car, and I was driving mine. I left my car with my parents when I had flown out to Oklahoma to attend that military ball with Alan the day I graduated, so now we were taking it home with us.

We stayed up late each night in Alabama that Christmas, talking to family, and by the time we began our 15-or-so-hour-road trip, we were already tired.

By the time we reached Vicksburg, Mississippi, I didn’t know if I was going to make it 2 more seconds, much less 3 more states!!

Vicksburg, Mississippi, 2002

Alan was all kinds of jazzed up to see the Vicksburg battle grounds! His ancestor had fought there, probably more than one ancestor, and he’d learned about this battle in great detail. Alan couldn’t wait to see Vicksburg in person.

Well, y’all, this battle ground might have been a sight to see in 1864, or whenever, but it was nothing but a bunch of rolling green hills with historic markers in December, 2002.

“Is it okay if I just ride in the passenger seat of your car and sleep?” I asked.

Alan was probably shocked at my apathy, but I do recall parking my car, sliding in with Alan, and getting a good nap in Vicksburg.

I also remember that it wasn’t enough to recover, and we had to spend the night in Shreveport or some other Louisiana city that night because there was no way I was going to stay awake all the way across Texas.

This is humorous to me now because I would LOVE to see Vicksburg!! What has military life done to me???

Maybe it was my genealogical research that turned up my own Vicksburg veterans, or maybe it was the Lincoln book I read that taught me so much about the importance of that place, but 15 years later, I actually get why those rolling green fields were exciting!

Me in my kitchenette in our little Temporary Duty Apartment, which is like a nice extended stay hotel suite on military posts.

Unfortunate Incident #2: The Not-So-Fun Family Fun Run

So there was this “Family Fun Run” the last week of Alan’s Officer Basic Course training. It was a 1 mile formation jog. They invited the wives, not that many of the students were even married at that point. Supposedly, this was a fun, easy thing to do.

That morning I was surprised to see a Lieutenant in a Spongebob costume, and everyone seemed all giggly and happy, as they did push-ups on asphalt and all sorts of active, difficult things.

I felt like death frozen over. What was this fresh new form of torture?

I’d just finished 21 hours of senior level courses at Alabama to come here, only to be forced out of my bed in the dark, put on 2 layers of clothing, and EXERCISE in line!?

“It’s only a mile. Too easy,” were Alan’s words of wisdom. He probably said a lot more than that, but who could listen that early?

As we started to jog, and jog, and jog, I started to panic, and panic, and panic.

All I could think was, “I can’t feel my toes. My fingers are purple. I’m all out breath. This is never going to end. Ever. A mile is equivalent to 9 laps around the University of Alabama rec center gym, and I haven’t run in about 7 months.”

You might call me the little engine that couldn’t, maybe just wouldn’t, but it sure felt like couldn’t to me.

I tend to do drastic things if you push me too far. 20 degrees at 5 am, doing something I despise (running) definitely qualified.

I jumped out of formation. Alan, ever the dutiful husband, followed me with his mouth and eyes wide open.

“What are you doing!?”

“Not this!!!”

“April, are you okay? You can’t jump out of a formation run.” Alan has always excelled at PT. To bring along his brand new little wife, only to discover that she is in fact a fun run drop-out was alien to him.

I felt all sassy and rebellious. “No, *gasp for air* maybe you can’t, *more gasping for air* but I just did.”

(And this is why I will never be in the military.)

Alan sighed, “They’re going to make this loop and end up back where they started from, so let’s just stand behind this bush and then jump back in when they come back around. Maybe no one will notice,” Alan reasoned, trying to make it look like he didn’t actually have a rebellious and un-physically fit wife.

“Why!? I don’t care if they know. I don’t care. Running is stupid. Especially at 5 am in the freezing butt cold.”

Somehow he convinced me to jump back in at the end, but from that point on, I didn’t have to worry about ever being encouraged to participate in any unit sports days again. Thank goodness!!!

Alan at work

Story #3 The Red Leg War

The last week before graduation, which was the beginning of January, they took the Lieutenants out to “the field.” In the military “the field” just means they are going out to train and make pre-tend war in the wilderness.

Alan was an artillery officer, so that meant it was a week of constant BOOMS.

Meanwhile, I had nothing to do whatsoever. I went into it thinking I would do a ton of Bible study.  Yeah. I was 21, and I had never had a week with no chores, no job, and no responsibilities before.

What did I actually do? I stayed up late playing video games on the computer, and I tried to sleep late.

I TRIED to sleep late, but there was this maid. Every morning without fail, this woman would arrive at 9AM!! 9 am!! All I wanted to do was sleep until 12 pm, but this tiny Korean lady, who spoke little English, was relentless. She’d knock and knock, and then she’d let herself in. Remember, we were living in a hotel.

I tried being nice.

“No, no. No cleaning today. It’s not dirty.”

That’s my nice way of saying go away, but she wouldn’t hear of it.

So everyday she’d come. Everyday I’d try to think of a way to make her stop coming so early, and everyday I’d fail.

Thankfully, it was only a week.

Then Alan returned, smelling like I’d never smelled a person smell before. Apparently, Army guys don’t shower in the field.

We attended his big graduation ceremony, and I felt a tiny twinge of sadness that I’d missed my own college graduation, but I brushed that aside. It was a tiny sacrifice in the big scheme of things. We were off on a great adventure, and we were packing up and heading to Texas.

In only a matter of DAYS, we’d FINALLY have our first true home together.

Click here to read last week’s chapter in this series of the Real Army Wives.

For the NEXT chapter in this series, check back next Monday, or sign up below to receive each new chapter in your inbox!

Want to start at the beginning of this series? Click here for my September 11, 2001 story.

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The post Rookie Army Wife: 3 Misadventures in Oklahoma appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

Daniel did a fantastic job with this underwater robot at the Naval Postgraduate School’s Robotics Fair.

We have now been a military family for 15 years. I know. I can’t believe it’s been that long either. It really doesn’t seem possible, seeing as how I’m only 29…wink, wink.

So I took the time to compile a tab on my menu bar that will take you directly to a list of links to articles that I wrote about this crazy military life that we are leading.

See it up there?

Check it out here.

Hope your week is off to a good start! I’ve heard a few funny things around here lately, and it’s been a while since I shared those, so here we go….

1.) The 1900s

Joshua, getting ready to watch Parent Trap for the first time, said, “Sure, Mom! I like your movies from the 1900s.”

And just like that I aged 100 years.

2.) Frozen again

Snicker if you want, but I still have Frozen songs on my playlist. (Seriously, someone give me some new song ideas to download!)

I was singing “Love is an Open Door” right along with Anna and Hans, and Caleb said:

“No. Love is locked in a safe. Please lock it in a safe.”

I let JD go walking with me. It took us like an hour to walk half a mile because we had to stop every few feet for him to collect acorns, stow them in his stroller, and drop and pick back up his Lego mini figures repeatedly. I have since been sneaking out stealthily whenever I want to get my walks in.

3.) J.D.’s new home

Remember how J.D. started preschool? Well, he’s so excited about this, and he’s going to school at the same place his brothers go to school and we go to church. We are there a good bit, you might say.

So John David has been walking around the building enthusiastically telling every adult who speaks to him, “I live here now!”

hehehe! I hope you will go check out my new Military Family page! Have a great week!

The post 3 Funny Stories and a New Page appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

Yes, my dad let my three-year-old drive his wheelchair. But boy, did he have fun!

We just finished the longest Christmas vacation ever. 3 weeks!!! Full weeks!! It was a blast.  It was genuinely fun because we didn’t spend the whole 3 weeks in any one place. We went south, then we went north, then we went home, then we went back south, then back home. We had a good time with it!

We watched pretty much every Christmas movie ever made.

And we were terrible.

Truly terrible.

We let the kids stay up as late as 10 some nights. I know. The shame! Other nights we put them to bed at 8, but there was one night we were at a big reunion party. It was an hour and a half from home, and by the time we got home and got the boys all in bed, it was after midnight!

I know!!! We are never this shocking. We are such boring people normally.

Some people skip stones…..we chunk boulders. (Don’t worry. Only into the water, and no one got hurt.)

I don’t think I got out of bed before 7:30am a single morning.

Discipline? I would say we were the opposite of disciplined…

We took the kids to two different movies. We let the boys sleep as late as they wanted, and for some of them that was actually until 8 or 8:30am!!

A disproportionate amount of corn dogs, candy canes, and chicken fingers was consumed.

JD has about quit napping completely.

The boys played so much Skylanders they’ve already beaten the new game twice.

decorating the Christmas tree cookie cake

We built Lego creations, we colored, we ate ice cream, we played with cousins and friends. We got spoiled by grandparents. We completely forgot about reality.

I kept saying things like, “Tomorrow we HAVE to get back on schedule. Tomorrow we’ll all go to bed at 8, and I’ll set alarms and get up at 6….”

Never happened. Never.

Dan and I found this centipede(?) on a walk. I’m not a bug expert. Centipede was my best guess.

And so tonight we didn’t even bother to put everyone to bed until 9 or 9:30. I made coffee and did the dishes. You will be happy to know that we did actually make them shower.

Alan is furiously re-immersing himself in work emails. He took a ton of time off too.

I laid out my clothes but totally forgot to lay out THE BOYS’ clothes. Who knows if we’ll be able to find anyone’s shoes or belts tomorrow.

I set my alarm for 5:30am…..but you know I’m the worst EVER at getting up when my alarm goes off. I set my alarm, and Alan actually laughed. Sigh.

I’m scared y’all. I think we actually had too much fun on our break. I don’t think we can go back to real life. I’m afraid no one will be able to wake up tomorrow morning!!!

I don’t think this is an irrational fear.

We played Star Wars. Ha! Just kidding. THEY played Star Wars. I’m not that cool.

Why does real life have to be so very very real and strict and work-like???

Ah, but it does. You can’t train children for the world without upholding standards in their childhood. You can’t expect them to go to college if you don’t first teach them elementary math. And have you seen elementary math??? It’s not all that easy!

Tomorrow is the big day! Are you ready?? Were any of you as big of slackers as we were??? Tell me we are not alone!!!

Well, if you were, we would like to wish you all the best of luck. I’m sure everyone’s shoes will be clean, dry, and easily found. Everyone will be on time, and no one will cry. Well, maybe me at 5:30am. I might cry. I’m just not so sure I “got this”!!!

Okay. Deep breaths. We’ll be fine. What’s a good verse we can recite to ourselves?? Oh yeah.

Joshua 1:9

 

Have not I commanded you? Be strong and of good courage. Be not afraid neither be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.

Gotta go. The Benadryl I took to make myself go to sleep earlier is finally starting to kick in…

The post REAL life starts again tomorrow. Oh, yes, the kids are going back to school! appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

Remember how I said that Alan wasn’t going on any business trips in December?

Of course, I was wrong. This week turned out to be New Jersey week. You might think that a 14 year Army wife veteran such as myself would not sweat short business trips. I’ve been through more than one year-long deployment, several months-long assignments or deployments, and too many short trips to count.

You might even think that I should be so tough as to enjoy a little extra free time or nights off from cooking dinner, or some other crazy thing that might have held true 12 years ago before we had kids, but that is not the case at all at this point.

Women are always joking about the husband not being able to handle all the kids by themselves. Well, I don’t know, maybe it’s just me, but I am the mother, and I can’t even handle all this by myself.

Me when Alan is here:

Celiac-friendly melt-in-your-mouth biscuits. They were WONDERFUL!!!

“We are having roast and potatoes for dinner. Go wash your hands.”

Me when Alan is not here:
“What? Oh, you’re hungry? You need supper. Right. Supper…supper…supper…Hold on. I’m pretty sure there’s some frozen chicken fingers in here somewhere…AHA!!  Yes! Frozen chicken strips. There are only 5 in the bag, so one for each of us, and after that you can have cereal.”

When Alan is out of town, cereal is pretty much my answer to all of life’s problems.

School snack?

Cereal.

Breakfast?
Cereal.

Supper?

Well, we talked about that already. Frozen chicken and cereal.

I am obviously NOT going to be piling four boys up in the car and going out to eat or cooking mega meals or going to the grocery store.

Actually, my brain doesn’t even seem to work as well when Alan’s gone. It throws me off. It’s like I’m an earth with only a South Pole and no North.

Do you know what I missed this week?  I missed the way Alan takes care of us when it rains.

Alan is the person who always cleans the backyard before it rains.

If you don’t know what I mean, you must not let your children play in the backyard and just leave their stuff any old way out there, and you probably don’t have four boys. I feel like that’s my ultimate excuse for all of my failings in life. Four boys. Sorry.

So this week it rained for the first time in forever, and apparently our smallest fry had left his tennis shoes and socks out by the trampoline, unbeknownst to me.

Day 1:

“Where are his shoes, where are his shoes????” as I frantically search the house, the car, suitcases from last weekend, everything. I made him just ride in the car without shoes.

Day 2:

“I don’t understand where his shoes are!!!” I searched frantically through the house and the car again. Then I suddenly spotted them through my back door: out in the rain, the POURING rain. Rain day #2, in fact, along with not one, not two, but like four little white socks littered around the trampoline.

I actually had to take him somewhere, so I gave up and put a pair of shoes that’s a size too big for him that I was saving for him to grow into. I bought them for Daniel, but they were too skinny for Dan’s feet, which made them perfect for J.D.

This wasn’t a total loss because the new shoes actually fit him well, and he’s happy with them.

The downside: the old shoes are still laying outside by the trampoline, soaking wet, even now. Let me rush right out there in the cold and wet and get those…right…

Go ahead, shake your head. I know. This is my act, y’all. This is it.

I have no pride left.

Like none. Now whenever Alan lets me know that he’s leaving, I schedule a grandparent to come and stay with us to help out for at least one of the nights of his trip. This week it was my mom who came. I try to trade out between the grandmas so we don’t wear them out. Ha! (Thank you so much, Nana and Nonna!!!!)

There you have it, why I can never have an unbiased opinion about any national military event. I’m affected too directly. Not in a big hurry to get rid of Alan.

See, he’s not just any husband. The man is a machine. I spend most of my energy waiting on John David hand and foot, wiping his bottom, cheauffering kids, cleaning bathrooms, feeding them, and refereeing arguments.

Alan uses his energy to declutter. That man can pick up a full on tornado room in 5 minutes and make it look like Good Housekeeping. He also does laundry and washes pans. Oh! And he finds missing stuff!!

Plus, it’s just lonely, parenting alone, especially in a new place.

Alan gets home in 5 hours now. I only have to make it 5 more hours.

Only 1 hurdle left: I’m supposed to take the kids to Wednesday night church supper and AWANA by myself. I had to quit choir because every single trip crosses a Wednesday night, and there’s no way I’m coming home that late with 4 boys, all wound up from AWANA, to get ready for bed. Really the only reason I still even go to AWANA when Alan isn’t here is that I already skipped it so many times that Daniel is behind the other kids on his badges, and you know if Daniel is behind on something that it’s my fault, and it kills him to not have those badges on his vest. Sooooooo… we are all sucking it up and going tonight so Daniel can say his verse, get his badge, and then I promised them we can all go straight home.

Then I just have to get through bath and bedtime, and I don’t suppose I should let the little ones skip that yet again tonight….

I asked my doctor if I should try vitamins to see if that could help me have more energy to handle this gargantuan job, but my docs never take me seriously about this. They always say, “Well, but you have four boys……that’s why you’re tired.”

My doctor actually said that she thought vitamins would be bad for me since my blood work is good. I don’t know how to get more energy!

Stress, man! What an exhausting job! Do any of you dread your spouse leaving town as much as I do??? What tricks do you do to get through it?

I fantasize sometimes. Like this:

When Alan gets home from New Jersey,

–I am going to finish ALL my Christmas shopping–ALONE.

–I am going to take a bath, and lock the door.

–I am going to go for a hike, ALONE.

–I am going to check into a hotel, right down the street and SLEEP…..and watch t.v.—whatever I want to watch!!!!—and eat snacks in bed!!

–I just want Alan to take all 4 kids away for a weekend to anywhere, and I’m going to clean this house……oh who am I kidding, I’d end up writing and working on my blog anyway!

Merry Christmas, y’all!

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