A Whole New World...

The title, of course, is a reference to Finley's current favorite Disney princess, the scantily clad but acceptably feminist Jasmine, of "Aladdin" fame.

It's also a metaphor for our current life, as we get our bearings post-vacation and grapple with the nutty world that is two big-time jobs on the installation, with not nearly the flexibility we've enjoyed the last few years; and two tiny terrorists who do things like pull hair, get up at 3am, and contract every contagious disease known to man at CDC. To which we remain staunchly committed because they love so much and it's so good for them... but every day when we stage high level 1630 negotiations about who can pick up the kids, we wonder if we've made the right choice.

There's no telling. Life comes in phases, and this one is characterized- for both of us, I think- by feeling like a failure at work because you're racing out on important issues to beat the daycare closing time; and feeling like a failure as a parent because you're invariably among the last parents trickling in. And spending all the moments in between wondering who's going to be able to sneak away to take kids to the doctor or take time off when one of them is sick.

We love being dual military... it works for us. But we are very definitely beginning to understand why the number of couples still making it work at this point in the rank structure is very small.

If we survive with our sanity intact, one of our favorite memories will likely be from this week, of us taking turns tearing down the historic walkway between our offices with a mildly sick Ford, attempting to salute passing cadet formations and look dignified while carrying baby + diaper bag, passing the baby off on shouted promises to retrieve him after some high level meeting or other.

At one point, I found him sitting on Seth's boss's lap, watching Sheriff Callie on one monitor while she sent emails on the other.


At another, I shoved him under my desk and fed him lollipop after lollipop to try to keep him quiet while I had an officeful on speaker phone with a Congressional delegation. And this was after, I believe, Seth actually just gave up and took him to class.

Finally, Ford became exhausted from terrorizing the academy at large, and fell asleep in one of the CEP's famous egg chairs.

We eventually had to hire a nanny, since Ford's bout with the daycare bug was significantly impacting our ability to be taken seriously at work, ever, and somehow are limping toward the finish line this week.

The kids are still jetlagged, but luckily when they wind up in our bed in the middle of the night, they look like tiny angels.

And our evenings have been filled with dance parties,

crutch fights (on top of everything else, Seth has a bad socket and had a rough few days of needing to borrow the kids' "swords" to get around)

and Finley's "fabulous" swimming pool, an unwieldy monster that the kids and I adore (you can leave it filled since it requires chlorine and a pump, so the water gets warm and perfect for lounging in while drinking wine on late summer nights while meat grills and the kids water slide into the pool.)

 Also, the trying on of Mom's shoes

and "date nights" at the only Italian restaurant in the state of New York that will let our kids manhandle the garden gnomes while awaiting pizza. (Big shoutout to Prima in Cornwall.)

 Photo of the week is from Wednesday, right after I yelled "bathtime!!" Obviously made a big impact.

Here's to making it work... somehow.