Army = Tents

My kids are pretty up on the whole military thing. They know lots of lingo. They know what to do at 5:00 when they are outside and Retreat sounds.

They know how to sit still and be quiet at ceremonies.

They are used to things like uniforms and ID cards and deployments and moving.

They are pretty awesome Army Brats, if you asked me.

They do understand some things in more simple terms. When David is deployed, I tell them that he is protecting us and other people from bad guys. They don't need to know much more than that. And when he was at JRTC and would be gone for weeks at a time in the field for rotations, they thought it was pretty funny that he slept in his truck. They would laugh and laugh about that little detail. And every time an airplane flies overhead these days, they assume that Daddy is on it. It confuses people who know that he is not a pilot and not even in the air force. But he does do quite a bit of flying in his current assignment. And he is gone. A lot. Some months, he is gone 20 or more days. He stops by occasionally to unpack, do laundry, and repack. We are always glad when he passes through, but we are also pretty used to this new normal of TONS of TDY.

In fact, I may have already posted this, but I was asking Jessa some questions about some things they were talking about in Social Studies. I brought up Washington D.C. and asked her who lived there. Of course, I was fishing for "the President." But when I asked her, she thought for a minute and said, "Uh, Daddy?" I got so tickled. He does spend quite a lot of time there! I guess she is paying attention.

So this week we had some weather up this way. You may have heard a little something about it. Well, David and his traveling peeps took off on Monday morning for a day trip. This trip quickly turned into a 3 day ordeal. As David put it, they were "snowed out." The weather was not too bad in D.C. Planes were able to land and take off. But Scott AFB was closed. And Lambert International Airport in St. Louis was cancelling flights left and right. So they were not stuck because THEY had bad weather, they were stuck because WE had bad weather.

The kids both missed 2 days of school. We got tons more ice than we did snow. I mean like inches of ice. The dogs were slipping and sliding all over the backyard. I was all stocked up and prepared for a few days at home, though. We were fine and enjoying our icy vacation, but we were all bummed that David was stuck and missing all the fun.

Monday night, when we found out that school was cancelled, Jessa wanted to call David to tell him. So I was sort of listening to her side of the conversation.

Jess: Daddy! I have 2 good newses for you.

(pause)
Jess: Yep. Want to hear them?
(pause)

Jess: Well, number one is that I finally learned how to blow a bubble with bubble gum.

(pause)

Jess: Yep, I did!

(pause)

Jess: And the number two good news is that there is no school tomorrow!"
(pause)

Jess: So do you have to stay there?

(pause)
Jess: Well how is your tent? Are you warm enough?

I thought I would cry I was laughing so hard, picturing David all set up in a tent in Washington! I guess to Jessa if you are gone somewhere on an Army trip then you HAVE to sleep in a tent. Bless her sweet heart! She was worried he'd be cold camping out on TDY.