My New Nemesis

When I am angry, I cry.

When I am embarrassed, I cry.

After I have a confrontation, I cry.

Tonight I cried for a good hour because I was angry and embarrassed about a confrontation. Now I have a headache.

A while ago, I declared a nemesis. Because life is just more fun when you have a nemesis. Actually, as I look back at some older posts I realize that I have declared a few nemesis on here. But I really only had one that has stuck with me.

In the last two months, I have thwarted that nemesis a couple of times. And it was sweet. Sweet, I tell you! She even yelled at me for buying something she wanted at our auction, and I was able to laugh at her. Ha. It was sweet, sweet, sweet. And worth every penny.

So now I have a new nemesis.

Does anyone remember how much I hated my daughter's softball coach last year. She was a bitch. I mean, a pure and utter stupid bitch. I hated her. She is the reason I'm coaching my own team this year.

As much as I hated her last year, I now hate her a hundred times more. I hate her with the intensity of a thousand white, hot suns. And now I hate her coaching staff too.

We played against their team tonight and basically, they were mean to my girls. Rude and mean. And nobody gets to be mean to my girls. When the one redneck (oops, sorry. Is that insensitive?) called out my parents for saying something about it, I called him right back for breaking the rules and purposely running up the score AFTER their team had already won.

He walked away from me.

Pussy boy. (oh, oops, sorry again. Is that misogynistic? But I'm more of a man than he is.)

Sure I still had a little meeting with my parents and asked them to please not say anything negative at the games. I promised them that I would take care of it and I will. I thanked them for always being so supportive of their daughters and me.

I tried to highlight all of the positive things my girls had done and assured them we'd have fun at practice on Monday working on our defense.

I talked to a few parents on the way out and two or three told me how much they appreciate me. I climbed in the car with my family. And the tears started to fall.

By the time we were on the road I had to turn the radio up to hide my sobbing from the kids. I pulled myself together to get them home and when my husband and I were finally alone, I cried so long and so hard.

I hate that I react to things this way. I hate it so much.

I only have one game left against that team. My husband thinks a sick out is a good idea. I'd love to just tell the league that I won't play against that team again. But I know what I'll do.

I'll show up with my happy, little team and look them in the eye and do my best with my girls like I always do. As much as I fantasize, that's how I always handle things in the end.

Maybe it's the crying that gets me there. I don't know. All I know right now is that I have a headache.

And a new nemesis.

Anyone want her home number?

See What I Mean?

The Little Tuna Girl speaks...

Last night at my son's t-ball game, it started to rain just a bit. My daughter kept asking if she could go to the car and look for an umbrella. In exasperation I finally told her, "You're not going to melt. You're not made of sugar!"

To which she responded, "If I were any sweeter I would be."

One More Costume Before We're Done

And who will be starring in the title role in the third grade production of Pinocchio?

That would be my baby girl.

She might not be able to do her multiplication tables to save her life, but the girl can act. She's all drama.

There might be a secret little mama part way deep inside me that is gloating like hell.

Signage

I got my sunglasses caught in my hair today and pulled out a little chunk of about 8 or 9 hairs.

And half of them were gray.

When the fuck did that happen?

I could probably label each of those hairs with the name of the person who caused them. And I know I have twelve more hiding in my mane somewhere that can be attributed to each girl on my softball team.

I'm not going to see it as a sign of getting old but as a sign that I need to de-stress. It's not the only sign I've received lately.

Yesterday I reached into the bathroom cabinet and an avalanche of unused products fell out. But it was the Eye Stress Gel that hit me right between the eyes.

Message received. I look like a tired, old shit.

I'm going to bed early tonight. Packing be damned.

Things Decided

I feel like a completely different person now.

I hadn't even realized it, but for years the questions of what school we'd send the kids to next and what kind of house we'd be able to afford when we move have been on my mind. I guess it's just part of being a military wife. You always know you'll move eventually. And you always wonder what your new life will be like.

But for the next chunk of my life, those questions have been answered. Even if the answers aren't perfect, it feels so good to know.

I have a little game I play with the kids whenever they need a distraction. (Distraction techniques are probably 85% of good parenting.) I ask them what their most favorite things were about that day, event or trip.

On our way home from our house hunting/school finding trip my son's favorite thing was spending the day at his new school. My daughter's favorite thing was finding the "perfect" house.

That's a pretty good summary of our trip to Virginia.

First of all, we visited two schools. The kids took tests and had tours of each school and they spent the day at one. It's funny because the school I had an ehh feeling about the last time we visited ended up being the school I had the best feeling about this time around. Considering that it has a 25% acceptance rate, I just felt like it was kind of weird that they seemed so eager to have us.

They are lacking in a couple of programs that we're used to, like violin lessons, class musicals, and computer lab time for first graders. But when it comes right down to it, I think the kids' personalities fit better there. In fact, it just feels like we're a perfect fit. Maybe the reason they are so eager to have us is because they can sense it too.

All three of the schools we visited in the last few months have been great. But we decided to choose the second school we visited. In the end, it turned out that it was the only school that had room for both kids, so maybe it was just meant to be.

I cannot even explain how relieved and happy I am.

Now we just need to come up with the down payment. The tuition numbers make me feel a little queasy. But it's worth it.

Speaking of money, our mortgage numbers are making me a little queasy too.

We looked at almost thirty houses in two days. Thirty! That's insane. Unfortunately, at least five of them got sold right out from under us. We've been looking at these same houses sitting on the market for months, and once we get out there to start looking, they start selling like crack. It was a bit frustrating.

It was also frustrating to see really beautiful, brand new houses built into tiny lots in crappy old neighborhoods. We saw at least a dozen of those.

In the end, of the thirty houses we saw (that weren't sold) only one really fit our needs. It was a house that I've had my eye on for months, based mostly on its location and the huge backyard. If all goes well with the VA appraisal, it will be ours on May 15.

It's a little sad to see how much less house we can get for our money out there. We will definitely be taking a step down. But besides the small kids' bedrooms, it's really pretty perfect. (Or it will be perfect once we put in a pool.)

It's funny because whenever I talked to locals about where we should live or go to school, they kept explaining to me the different cultures of Norfolk versus Virginia Beach. It seemed strange to me that two towns so close to each other could be so different. But they were right. The problem was, I wasn't really sure if we were Norfolk-type people, or Virginia Beach-type people.

Now I know. We're beach people. Through and through.

Like the kids, I have a favorite moment from our trip too. On our last day there, we went to the school to buy the kids' summer workbooks. While we were in the bookstore, two little girls came rushing in with their arms open to hug my daughter.

"I'm going here!" she told them. And they hugged harder. The smile I saw on my daughter's face as she spotted her new friends...it's going to stay with me for a long time.

Hung Up and Headed Out

When I was a kid, my parents made me go to school every single day. Unless I was throwing up (which I never did) I had to go to school. For years, I had perfect attendance.

I think responsibility is a very important concept to teach. And I thank my parents for helping to mold me into the extremely responsible person I am today. But my strict upbringing did have one drawback.

I developed a weird hang-up about missing things. I hate to miss things. I never skipped a class in college or called in sick a day to work. I just can't stand the thought of my world going on without me.

This next week or so, the kids and I will be missing a lot. A lot! Our world will be rolling right along without us. I have to admit, it has me all tied up in knots.

My husband finally has his official orders. He has to be ready to work in Virginia in June, which means that we need to go house hunting soon. Now, actually. Plus, the kids are going to go spend a day at each of the schools we are still considering.

It is an important reason to miss school and it just can't be helped. But I can't help thinking about the three softball games, t-ball game, play auditions, soccer games, birthday parties, class work and homework we'll be missing! Ack!

We're flying out bright and early tomorrow morning for a week of checking out what will soon be our new home. I'm unbelievably excited. But until I'm on that plane, my hang-up about missing things is going to have me tied in knots.

Sometimes, it's a wonder my husband can put up with me at all.

And George Clooney isn't There Either

Yesterday, for the first time in...well...ever, I considered going to the ER. Shhhh. Don't tell my husband I was that close to going. On the inside, I was scared. On the outside I was all, "Oh, it's no big deal. If it doesn't go away in a couple of days, I'll call my doctor. Blah, blah, blah."

You see, I was...um...bleeding from a place...well...I'm not exactly sure where I was bleeding from but it was a lot of blood...and...um, yeah. I'm going to stop there.

But as I bled in the bathtub, I was thinking. ERs are not fun.

I've been to the ER only twice--no--three times in my life. The first time I was three-years-old and just suddenly refused to walk. My only clear memory of that day was sitting in my mom's lap in the doctor's office while she refused to admit me without talking to my father first.

The next time, I was about six-years-old. I was in the hospital cafeteria getting a Hoodsie cup as a treat before my appointment for X-rays when a nurse spilled hot coffee down my back. (I've written about this somewhere on this here site.) From that time, I mostly remember being in a curtained off area all alone and being really scared of the adults who were moaning and screaming in pain around me.

The last time I was in an ER was when my water broke only eight months into my first pregnancy. (That story is on here somewhere too.) That was sort of surreal because I was all alone in a new town. I knew my water had broken. I just wasn't sure what I should do about it. I drove myself there that night and parked in the lot and everything. That time I learned that the ER nurses are really quick to pass off a patient to Labor and Delivery when she is so obviously pregnant. I also learned that the ER waiting room is filled with a lot of scary people at midnight.

So, the very last thing I would ever want to do for any reason, is take a trip to the ER. In fact, I know that I am more scared of the ER than I am of being burnt, losing my amniotic fluid, or bleeding from an undisclosed location.

Huh. I hadn't thought about it enough to realize it before. But (besides buttons and the obvious) ERs are my greatest fear.

I need a hunky doctor who makes house calls.

(By the way, no lectures please. I'm fine and would have been embarrassed to have shown up at the ER with such a minor ailment anyway, the Drama Queen in me be damned.)

In other news, I just thought of a great new tag line for my blog.

Tuna Girl: Making everyone uncomfortable since 2004.

Money Matters

Yesterday we got a letter in the mail from our mortgage company. It contained our credit score.

I haven't felt so much anxiety opening an envelope since I was waiting for college acceptances! I had to take a few deep breaths and with my heart pounding, I ripped that baby open.

Woo hoo! Our hard work has paid off. Our credit score is up 100 points from two years ago. And it is pretty damn good.

It's funny how much our self worth can be wrapped up in scores like that. I suppose it starts in grade school and never really stops.

I'm putting that letter form our mortgage company on the fridge. We deserve a big gold star.

Black and Blue All Over

Presently, I look like an S&M enthusiast. (Not that I know what one would look like, um...just saying. AHEM.)

On Monday I fell about six feet into a puddle of mud. I was climbing into my husband's truck, which is parked in the driveway the base has never bothered to fix and thus is always filled with water and mud, when my muddy foot slipped on the running board.

It all happened in slow motion. Since I was holding things in my hands, I actually attempted to get them settled before I hit the ground. Because, you know, I handful of catalogs and my daughter's softball gear are worth taking a plunge for. Half of it ended up in the passenger seat and I threw half of it beyond the mud onto the grass.

While I was distributing the books and softball gear I was carrying, I also managed to have one very clear though.

God, I hope no one is watching me.

During my slow motion fall, some instinct told me to land hip first. Might as well take the impact where I have the most padding. So while my ass took most of the fall, I still landed hard on the whole left side of my body.

And then I said to no one in particular, "You've got to be kidding me," as I jumped right up into a standing position.

I stood there for a moment to see if anyone was going to come running to my rescue. I listened to see if anyone was laughing. And then I ran to the house to change my clothes.

I had mud in my shoes. I had mud in my underwear. I had mud everywhere!

I hurt quite a bit that day, but I managed to get through softball practice by ignoring the pain. But since then, I have been aching like an old woman. Or a youngish women who landed on her ass in the mud. Even my bones hurt.

Today my bruises have turned a spectacular shade of purple. And my husband thinks it's fun to keep pretending to smack my butt. He's going to have some spectacular purple bruises of his own if he doesn't stop.

The moral of the story? Girls shouldn't drive pick-up trucks. Or something like that.

Home Again, Home Again

Well, my husband gave away the Disney World surprise when we were in the security line at the airport. As he was getting situated, he handed my daughter the boarding passes to hold.

Um, Honey? She can read, you know.

As soon as she saw the word Orlando, she knew where we were headed. "We're going to Disney World!" My son somehow managed not to hear her. But when she kept repeating that she knew where we were going, we finally told him.

"Oh, yay," he said. I somehow hoped for a bigger, "Yay!" after the money we spent.

But our trip could not have gone better. The weather was perfect. We only had a couple of glitches in our planning. And we were able to rest a little everyday between riding attractions and seeing big firework shows.

For the first time in a long time, I was actually sad to see a vacation end. Of course, I had to come home to mortgage applications, packing and dealing with leaving our bayou lives behind. That may have something to do with it.

Now I'm feeling the time crunch. We'll depart from here as soon as school is over for the year. There is a big part of me that would love to escape back to Never Never Land. Being a grown up is hard work.

Blowin' It

We're surprising the kids tomorrow with a trip to Disney World. It will be a miracle if I don't blow the surprise before then.

I've had to bite my tongue at least a dozen times in the last few days. If it were up to me, I would have told them weeks ago. But my husband really wants to surprise them.

So I'll be off for a week. I hope everyone has a lovely Easter.

Home Dreaming

Today the asking price on the house that I've had my eye on in that-state-that-I'm-going-to-stop-naming-so-I-can-maintain-an-illusion-of-anonymity-and-mystery was reduced by $15,000 putting it into our price range.

Woo hoo!

My husband is so excited to go house hunting. I am mostly nervous. The truth is that I have expensive tastes and I know that although there are many really wonderful homes in our price range, none of them are in the parts of town in which we need to live.

I keep thinking, a forty-five minute commute to the kids' school wouldn't be so bad and the husband would be even closer to work! And my husband keeps telling me, "No!" Or actually, "Hell no!"

He thinks I won't be happy driving so far back and forth to school. He says, "You know you're going to get all involved and have to be up there all the time."

But I swear I plan on kicking back for a couple of years. And he swears I'll regret not living closer almost at once and make his life hell until we can afford to move again.

Cynic.

Anyway, I write all this just to pass on a cool link that a military wife friend of mine introduced to me. It is MilitaryByOwner and you can look up homes both for sale and rent by military bases. Many of them are For Sale By Owner by military families but some are represented by Realtors. That the listings are grouped by distance to base is perfect.

I can't seem to stay away from the home listings online right now. It's making me a little nuts. I've been watching too much House Hunter on HGTV. Too many listings can make a girl house crazy.

Dang it!

Ack! I tried to edit this post and managed to lose half of it.

Oh well. Must be a sign. I'll have more to talk about tomorrow.

Four Years

Four years ago today, I started this here little old blog. It's hard to believe I'm still at it.

And all three of the first bloggers I read, who turned out to be my first (and most supportive readers) are still blogging too. Thanks, as always, Mark, Nicky and Matt. I love you guys.

Happy 4th Birthday, Tuna Girl! I'm glad you're still here for me.

There Are Some Dumb Questions

Today I made a tragic error.

One of my best friends is chairing the big auction fund raiser for our school. I had volunteered to coordinate a certain committee. Today I went down to check on the auction items I'm in charge of.

I stuck my head in the office where my friend and the Development Director were working and asked, "Do you guys need any help?"

Dumb, dumb, dumb move.

The auction is on Saturday. We're setting everything up tomorrow. Today I spent a couple of hours driving around picking things up for them. And tonight I'll be up until about 2 a.m designing and constructing thirty display boards.

I can't help but wonder what they would have done if I hadn't stopped by and offered to help. Somebody would have been pulling a couple of all-nighters.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to peel this layer of adhesive off my hands and get back to work. Hee Haw themed display boards wait for no one.

Update: Yay! I'm done. Thirty boards complete by 2 in the morning.

I'm oddly proud of the damned things. It reminds me of my days working in marketing. And my husband helped me until about 11 when he went to bed. That was nice to work together like that.

Not that I want to go back to work ever again. Heck, no. I'll just keep sticking my head in doors and asking dumb questions.

"We're here about my bladder."

My son really is amazing sometimes.

Yesterday my husband and I took him straight to the urologist after his violin lesson. My husband and I were both a little nervous but my son was as happy as can be. He was just so happy to be alone in our presence that he skipped and chattered like going to see a doctor about his penis was just no big deal.

He waited patiently while I came close to losing it with the receptionist. The American healthcare system is just so fucked up. There was some question about a referral, but I was not going to leave without seeing the doctor even if I had to throw a fit. It's been a bad few days for me.

But we got in when I had our pediatrician's office clear up our problem via my cell phone. After weighing him they had him pee in a cup.

Then they "took a picture" of his bladder. Once the nurse said that his bladder was actually empty I was hugely relieved. I was worried about a narrow urethra or some other medical problem but now that we know he is emptying his bladder, our path is much more clear and pain free.

My son is so friendly and easy-going that he actually seemed to enjoy his office visit. We saw two different doctors who both had excellent bedside manners. And we walked away with prescriptions for medication and directions to buy a urine alarm that should help him.

Now we just have to teach him to swallow a pill. But so far, he is taking that in stride too.

On April 11th, we're going to spend a day at what will probably be our new school. This is the school that liked my son so much when they met him, that they offered us a spot for next year. My little boy who was happy to go to a urologist may just belong at this school after all.

Onward to the Penis Doc

Yesterday's post was therapeutic for me. I am much calmer now. It was good to get it all out like that. I'm glad I still have my blog for the occasional personal rant.

I got the rejection letters at noon yesterday and spent the whole day stewing before I could tell someone. None of my friends answered their phones when I called, including my husband. By the time he got home last night and we had a minute alone to talk, I was a wreck. It wasn't pretty.

But, whatever. It's over. On to bigger and better things. I just regret looking at Great Schools last night and seeing that the school we're actually accepted at has some negative reviews. You know I'm going to obsess about them for months now. That's just the way I roll.

I think I will apply to one more school per Misty's advice. I had only held off on that school because they have rolling admissions and I didn't even know if we would be moving there when I went through this whole process.

Are you as sick of hearing about my kids' school options as I am with writing about them? Ugh. I promise to lay off for a while and get back to some real writing. I think it will be very good for me.

Thanks for rolling through it all with me, guys. After almost four years and gaining and losing hundreds of readers, I still love you all.

This afternoon my husband and I will be taking my son to an urologist for some testing. I hadn't been thinking about it much, but now that the appointment is here, I am dreading it. I just hope we can get him some real answers and real help.

Weren't things suppose to be worse when my husband was in Iraq?

Well, This Sucks

My children were not accepted into the school we were hoping for. I had told myself I would be cool with it, that the kids would end up where they best belong no matter what. But I am crushed.

I have to admit it though I want to pretend I'm fine. I am vacillating between crushing disappointment and indignant anger. But both of those feelings are completely overshadowed by guilt.

What didn't I do right for my kids? Where did I go wrong?

You see, I have never not gotten something I wanted in my life. Things have always come very easily for me. I have never received a rejection letter in the mail. Now my husband is another story. He almost never gets what he wants. He gets screwed by life at every turn. I guess his luck was in play here.

I know that not getting accepted into the hoity toity private school of our dreams is a luxurious kind of problem to have. But it still plays to every doubt I've ever had about my own parenting.

Oh, sure. The admissions director wrote a nice little note on each kids' rejection letter. And the letter itself said that they were wonderful candidates but the school just doesn't have room for them at this time. And what a disappointment for the school, and they are on the waiting list and blah, blah, blah. But I don't really buy it. I can see where they just might not have room for my daughter since her class is already full, but they accept 40 new boys into the first grade. Obviously, my son just didn't make the cut.

Or we didn't make the cut as a family. Maybe I made a bad impression.

I have decided to consider their decision their loss. Unlike the other schools we applied to, they didn't really take the time to get to know us. Other schools asked us to write whatever we'd like so that they could get to know our child and our family. Other school wanted us to visit, just so that they could talk with us. The school that rejected us only wanted us to come for testing and their application procedures were based on forms, records and test results.

At first I was put off by the school we will be going to because they accepted us so quickly. Now I am fully embracing everything they are about. Where before I thought that they were just trying to fill in numbers, now I have decided that they were brilliant to recognize what wonderful additions our kids would make to their school so quickly.

It's a great school. It has many more military families than the other school. The kids there seemed much happier than the other school. But it just doesn't have some of what that other school had, like a violin program, great facilities, excellent technology, and outstanding college placements.

I am going to throw myself into our new school with as much dedication as I have at our current school. They are the school that welcomed us with open arms.

A small part of me broke today. I was walking through life with the delusion that my kids were really amazing. Everyone has just always seemed so overwhelmingly impressed by them. But now I must face it. When it comes to purely objective measures of who they are, they are mediocre. Which means I am mediocre.

I need to adjust to the idea, but its okay. Now more than ever I will embrace the subjective things that make them so very special because those are the things that will make them truly happy in life.

But today, I am a failure at the thing that most matters to me in the world. I need to wallow for a bit.

Internet, Violins, Auctions and Me

I've been sans Internet for almost a week. And I was starting to really lose my shit!

My Internet access didn't just up and go out. Oh, no. Like a sadistic lover, it kept me guessing. Sometimes it would work, but only for a moment. Just as I was about to hit "Complete Order" it would seize up yet again.

But my patience ran out today when I was desperately trying to order a new shoulder rest for my daughter's new violin.

We now own four violins, each more expensive (and a little bigger) than the last. Who the hell told my kids they could grow enough to need new violins? And why the hell do they feel so attached to their old ones that they have begged me not to sell them? Anyway...

My husband, my savior, figured out that it was the splitter that was broken. I didn't even know we had a splitter. I don't even know what a splitter looks like.

Now I have a hundred e-mails waiting for me, at least fifty of them regarding the big, fancy, schmancy, fundraising auction that the school is having on Saturday that I foolishly volunteered to help with because one of my best friends is chairing the event.

But at least I can e-mail all the softball parents if our Monday practice is canceled due to rain. I used to hope that softball practice would get rained out so we could have a break. Now that I'm the coach and know how much work we need to do before games start, I'm obsessively checking the weather and praying for sun.

I can also obsessively check real estate listings in VA and hope that something amazing pops up on the market in our price range. What's bad for the economy and most Americans is going to be sweet for me. Buyer's market, here we come!

Internet, violins, attitudes about softball, real estate prices...it's funny how things change?

Now if only my husband can fix my printer, Treo, bluetooth, water purifier and mind, I'll be all set.

Good News

I feel like my life has changed since the last time I posted here.

I know where we're moving!

It's where I was hoping to go. I'm so excited! I hadn't even realized just how much I wanted to move there until my husband gave me the news and I felt like jumping for joy.

The kids are going to be going to a good school (or maybe even a great school if they get accepted--cross your fingers for March 15). Much of my excitement stems from the fact that I won't have to do any more school applications, interviews, or have the kids do any more testing. Woo hoo!

We'll be able to afford a decent house. We'll be able to see the ocean occasionally! And we're so much closer to our friends and loved ones. (But not too close.)

But nothing is official yet, so I can't get too excited. Orders are not in hand.

Oh, and we have no idea what kind of job my husband might have. He could be mopping floors for all we know. That kind of sucks.

But he'll be mopping floors by the ocean!

I feel like I'm on the precipice of great change and I am so very happy.