Background

I should include a little background so people understand where these stories come from.

I was born in Minneapolis, MN in the mid-80's. I am the youngest of two girls, but I loved my sister even if she didn't always love me. I remember nothing of Minnesota because my mother joined the Navy when I was 3 1/2 and very shortly after my 4th birthday we moved to Texas. We lived in both San Antonio and Corpus Christi for a grand total of one year. I remember practically nothing of Texas either except that there were dolphins in the river and I knew that wasn't right. Later, my father explained it was an intercoastal waterway, but when you're little you don't know the difference. From that point, my mother was stationed in Hawaii for five years, followed by California for one year, Washington state for 4 years, England for 3 years, and then I moved out of the house and went back to Minnesota for college.

It is, of course, the life of any military brat. You move often, but you learn to deal with it. I eventually got to the point that I never wanted to unpack because we were going to move again anyway. I also decided early one that friends of quality were more important than the number of friends I had. In a few years I would just have to make new ones anyway. It may not sound like the greatest life, but I wouldn't exchange it for anything. I had some great experiences with those friends and in many of the places we lived. How many people, other than those who are native to the UK, can say they graduated high school in England? Or sang in an opera at Royal Albert Hall?

Sarcasm is like a chronic illness in my family. We are products of our parents, so this makes me a sarcastic perfectionist who is also one of the world's biggest procrastinators. Throw all of that together with my fear of failure and disappointing others and you get one big contradiction. Moving on, our sarcasm is never meant  maliciously, but people often take it that way. More so, I'm making fun of myself than anyone I would be talking to. When you read these posts, please try to take the sarcasm into account.

Minnesota and college were a massive failure in their own respects. Considering I am just now within a year of graduating, that should explain that I not only failed, but I did it spectacularly by failing out of college twice. For those of you that are counting, that makes my current school my third college. I ended up sitting on the floor of an apartment that is smaller than any living quarters should be (literally from the bed there was one step to the sink, two steps to the window and two steps to the door... all the apartments shared bathrooms) crying and I decided to call my parents. After 4 years I finally gave up and asked for help. A lot of it was stupid choices that got me into crummy situations, but it was my own fault and I acknowledge that then, just like I do now. I mean, I was employed although it wasn't the best pay, so I should have been able to make it work, but I couldn't.

They moved me down to Jacksonville, where I still live today. Once my feet hit the pavement here, I was in high gear. I worked two or three jobs at a time and lived live fast. While I was being more financially responsible, I certainly wasn't personally responsible. In less than a year, I moved here, met and became friends with Mark, we got married and a month later he deployed to Iraq for the second time. About three months into his deployment, I learned I was pregnant with our first child. Somehow, after questioning if I could ever have kids for years, I managed to get pregnant within two weeks after getting married. Aria was born in September of 2009, thus beginning the massive process of failure that we call parenting. Sadly, even though his deployment was cut short and they sent him home advanced party, Mark missed her birth by two days because the doctors induced me at 36 weeks.

Nine months, a humanitarian mission to Haiti, and a few martial problems later, I learned I was pregnant again. While this one was as unexpected as the first one, at least we found out early on in the pregnancy (6 weeks as opposed to 4 months) and could make decisions accordingly. We were very excited because she was supposed to be born before Mark's next deployment so he would actually be here... until they moved his deployment up a month and someone along the way messed up the paperwork that would have allowed him to stay for the birth. Two weeks after he left for Afghanistan, Elena was born. Such is the life of a military wife. I understood things like this would always happen when we started dating and never dreamed any of it would change when we were married. March 2011 marks the month that the failure multiplied.

That brings us to now. I spent all of my day trying to keep the house from exploding toys, diapers and sippy cups followed promptly by a night of rushing to complete homework and squeezing in some sleep when Elena allows. I spend every moment waiting to hear from my husband... if they could surgically attach cell phones, I would have had it done already just so I won't miss his call or IM. Although frustrating, I know I am lucky to have the three of them in my life. They give me a never ending supply of love, kisses, laughter, laundry and dirty diapers.

Now, let the stories begin.