Operation Promote Senpai

It's a wonderful thing to be recognized for the hard work you do. In the military world, that recognition comes in the form of promotions. This past weekend I was able to help show Senpai how important he is to his unit by participating in his *surprise* promotion ceremony.




A colleague had called me mid-January to let me in on the scheme. The girls and I needed to be on base by 8am on Saturday during Senpai's normal drill weekend, and the surprise ceremony would start at 8:30. I searched local events calendars to come up with an excuse that would get me out of the house by a time when I normally wouldn't even be awake yet. The only thing I could find was a Mardi Gras parade. Haha, in this cold? With two young kids and no Senpai to help? Oh no, there's no way I'd ever attempt that. I turned to the local Mommy Group for ideas. One mother came up with the excellent idea of a Mommy & Me Breakfast. Another mom volunteered to "host" the event at her house, and I said I'd help set-up, you know, so I'd have to be there extra early. ;-) I told Senpai about the breakfast. He liked the idea of the girls and I socializing with other moms and kids in the area. The trap was baited and set. Everything was perfect, until the colleague called me two days prior to the event and said it was pushed back to 9:30. But... but... the breakfast! I told Senpai it started at 8, and I had to be there at 7:30, so I had to leave the house at 7! There was no way I could change any details about the breakfast so close to the date, so I resigned myself to waking up early for no reason.

Saturday came, and Senpai and I prepared for our mornings just as we'd planned. Senpai woke up super early, got himself showered and dressed, and then came and woke me up. I showered.... I took my sweet time, delaying as much as possible. Senpai was impatient, "Should I go wake Rosemary up?" Knowing that girl does not do well when she is woken too early, I put on my best tired face and shook my head, "I can't get myself moving this morning. I had a nightmare last night. (That part was true) Didn't sleep well. (So was that) I promised I'd help set-up... but whether I get there a half hour before it starts or five minutes, that's still helping, right?" I weaseled my way out of leaving too early. Senpai kissed me goodbye and went on his way to base.

I got the girls ready to go and met the colleague at the rendezvous on base. Everything was going according to plan. As he walked us through the hallways, he said, "I hope your husband doesn't come down this way for a cup of coffee." I thought in response, "By this time? No, he'd probably have to use the restroom." Sure enough, right at that moment, a group of people came down the stairs, one of whom was Senpai.

He was definitely surprised to see me in that secure environment toting Poppy in the carrier on my chest and pushing Rosemary in the stroller. He had a sheepish grin on his face as he kissed me hello. All I said was, "It's a special day for you today," but he knew exactly what it meant. Our being there was the giveaway.


Surprise!


Poppy tacked Senpai's new stripes on.


Rosemary barely held still for pictures.



But she enjoyed the model trains.


Operation Promote Senpai was a success!

Daddy's Girl

"Disarmed. Ready to arm," the alarm system announced with its robotic voice.

"DAAAADDYYY! DAAAAAADDDDDDYYYYYY!" immediately followed the toddler.

I got out of bed and stood by her door, not sure if the intervention that Rosemary really wanted would happen. Sure enough, I heard footsteps on the stairs: Daddy was coming up to say goodbye. I went back to our bedroom where Poppy had been awakened by the yells. While I attended to her, I overheard the exchange going on in Rosemary's room.

She was babbling about going outside and coloring, dancing, bouncing: all of the fun things she wanted to do with her Daddy. Senpai apologized for having to go to work, saying that all of those fun things would happen when he came home later, but now was the time for her to go back to bed. It was too early to wake up, the sun wasn't up. He got that right. But while the rest of the family still had more time before Storytime called us out of bed, Senpai had to be out the door and on his way to work before the sun rose.



She loves him so much. When he's home, he always has a million and one things to do. Rosemary is his little helper. I asked him one day what he had enjoyed doing with his father when he was a kid, aside from doing projects together. I wanted him to see if maybe there was something else he could do with Rosemary, some other way for them to spend quality time together. But he said that was it: it was the projects that he most enjoyed. So nothing has changed except for my understanding.


I get it now.

Learning Who Daddy is Again

I walk inside carrying grocery bags, deposit them in the kitchen, then peek out to the dark living room. Senpai is laid back on the couch with Poppy sleeping on his chest. "She screamed 60% of the time you were gone," he says, sounding a little strained himself. I get on his case for trying to give her a bottle of formula. I had told him before I left that she had already eaten, that his best chance to get her to sleep was the Baby Bjorn carrier. He didn't even try the Bjorn. What he did was open a brand new container of formula that we're keeping around just in case, instead of defrosting one of the many bags of breastmilk I have stored in the freezer. Sigh.

But I know he had a hard time. He wasn't thinking straight. No harm was done as she didn't even drink the bottle-- she's been breastfeeding exclusively for the past solid month. And I was serious when I typed the e-mail to him last night, "I'm done with the screaming." He has been at work the past three nights, not coming home until after midnight when Rosemary is sleeping in her bed, and I'm in our bed with Poppy on my chest. He hadn't seen Poppy get like this until tonight.

She's too used to me. She needs to learn who her Daddy is again.

For Senpai

Pop music starts playing as a gag, and the comedian walks offstage. The short credits roll. The Netflix screen pops back on the tv, and an intense silence takes over. I was expecting him to get up from the couch and tell me his favorite parts, but when I walk over from my computer in the other room, I see that he has fallen asleep. I sit back down at the computer and start composing this blog post.


He had wanted to go out tonight. He arranged with his coworker, our only babysitter, to come here at 9 pm, then we'd go see some live bands in St. Louis. No one we know, and probably nothing special, but he felt the need to get out of the house and "celebrate Father's Day," as he put it. He must know I don't have anything special planned. I bought him a gift and cards from R and I, I'll be making his favorite meal, but tomorrow is his company picnic, and Sunday he has Reserve duty on base. I don't know how to do special little things to show him how much of a wonderful father he is except to come right out and tell him.


Senpai, we celebrated Father's Day by having you home today. You took off from work and we ate a big breakfast just the way you like it. We went for a leisurely bike ride on a new, beautiful trail that we just discovered today, then we played with R on the well-kept playground attached to the trail. We dodged the monsoon rains at Subway for lunch. After a trip to the bike store, we made it home in time to take a hot shower and get R to her physical therapy appointment. You made such an adorable fool of yourself trying to convince R to walk by scooting around on a wheeled stool while letting her hold the "reins" (jump rope) around your neck. We had dinner, laughs with R, then put her to bed. You read her a story when she was still too excited to sleep, and now you are passed out on the couch after watching a comedy show on Netflix, instead of staying up late hanging with the hipsters in the big city because our babysitter had a family emergency.

What really happened sounds more like celebrating being a father than what you would have liked to have happen.

I know you are afraid of being uncool, losing touch with the social scene, and ending up like the "Dad Life" videos on youtube, but you have nothing to be afraid of. Cool dads do exist, and you are certainly high in their ranks. R loves her Daddy. She smiles so big when you put her up on your shoulders, and she stops whatever she is doing to see you when you come home from work. She talks about you all the time, "Dadada..." You are an amazing father. You are firm when you need to be, otherwise playful and silly, and you know just how to help me out. I hope you love fatherhood as much as it suits you.

I love you so much.

Happy Father's Day <3

Mids

We woke up together only because I had slipped in bed beside him to take an afternoon nap. At 3 pm we hear the baby chirp over the monitor, and he gets up to use the restroom. I lift R out of her crib in the nursery, then Senpai walks past us in the hallway as he goes back to the darkened master bedroom. I carry R down the steep staircase, "Let's go downstairs to let Daddy sleep, Sweetheart."

R and I return back upstairs at 5 pm. I place his daughter on his inert form and Senpai blinks himself awake. I glance at the clock, "It's 5 o'clock. Are you ready to get up or do you want to sleep some more?" "I'm awake," he says, still blinking the sleep away.

We make dinner, put R to bed at 7 pm, and settle in to enjoy the season finale of "Chuck" that we had missed yesterday. The ending has us both laughing with relief and gasping in anticipation for the season to come. September is too far away. Senpai gets up and switches the tv feed from his computer back to the network stations. He flips through the channels and stops on "Dancing With the Stars." He comes to lie back down on the couch and I gently run my fingers over his feet, just the way he likes it. He falls back to sleep. The show ends, I get up to waste time in front of my computer in the dining room. He asks across the room, "What time is it?" "9:17," I reply. "Woohoo!" he exclaims sarcastically, "I get 15 more minutes."

I don't know if he fell directly back to sleep after that, but when I lean over him at 9:30 pm he is out cold. "It's time to get up now, Sweetie. 9:30." He has a harder time blinking off the sleep this time. When he is able to get up from the couch, he makes his way to the shower, and I start gathering the coffee making supplies. Fill the reservoir with water, stuff the grounds into the filter, pound them down, then add more and pound again. Screw the filter into the machine and turn it on. Pour milk into the frother mug and position it under the steamer nozzle. Watch the espresso drip into the decanter then flip the switch to steam. As the temperature on the thermometer rises, fill one travel coffee mug with ice and squirt flavored syrup into another. Pour half of the espresso into each travel mug. Add creamer to the iced one, and the steamed milk in the other. Screw lids on and assemble nicely on the kitchen island along with whatever meal was thrown together and some snacks. While I'm doing all this, he is donning a uniform. The tan, hybrid computer byte camouflage does not accentuate his olive skin as nicely as the old green camo used to, but it could just be the paleness of exhaustion washed over him.

This is his third night of doing midnight shifts ("mids") for the Air Force. As my day winds down, his "day" is gearing up, and that thought alone is weirdly unnatural. We are both looking forward to getting back into the rut of the typical 9-5 work week, or in his case, usually 6:30-3:30. Anything but this 11 pm to 7:30 am jazz. He is out the door at 10:30 pm. I type up a blog post and get ready to go to my lonely bed. Senpai will be back tomorrow at 8 am. Three more nights of this.

Though he is asked to do a lot, and sometimes it feels like too much, he proudly serves his country. He does it for the betterment of himself and the nation, but mostly he does it for his family. He is a Reservist. My love, my heart, my rock, my Senpai.

Things I Love

Today I decided to counter my recent Scrooge demeanor by focusing on taking beautiful pictures of the things I enjoy ala Enjoying the Small Things. It worked. ^_^

Here's what makes my heart go a-flutter:

These dimples.


This bouncing baby elf.


Crochet projects.


An afternoon spent making a unique snowman with Senpai.


Cute baby clothes.


New clothes from Anthropologie.


Daddy/daughter time.


Matching pj's.


Sleeping Senpai.



Sigh. I feel better. Thanks for letting me share. <3