It is Cold

We thought to go for a hike yesterday but it was cold out and the children were not so easy to convince we should. One would think they did not enjoy cold noses. Of course, the cold noses are from their refusal to wear a scarf over their face. Rather than go for a walk in the cold we decided to watch movies; one big cuddle fest on the couch.

Chao lei has been watching someone and learning bad behaviors. It has not been his father since Jared has not been here. Even then, father's get some things that sons do not. As we were watching June's movie, Chao lei apparently became thirsty. His solution, while funny... sort of... was inappropriate. 

• Chao lei: Mom, stand up.
• Me: looked at him and continued to sit.
• Chao lei: Mom! Stand up.
• Me: I am reading.
• Chao lei: Mom! Standup!
• Me: I am reading! ( I moved forward a bit thinking I was sitting on something)
• Chao lei: Mom! Stand up. Stand up. Stand up.
• Me: "Alright!" I finally stood up.
• Chao lei: While you are up, would you please get me a glass of water?
• Jared: laughing uncontrollably

Jared got  a glare for his troubles. Chao lei got his own glass of water.

A movie for Chao lei and a movie for June seemed their limit for watching movies. It seems a movie for the parents was just too much so they trotted off to their rooms while Jared and I watched a movie that was NOT animated.

I noted that I need to make more dilly beans. Jared eats them like others eat chips. I had made 12 jars only days before he returned. Now I have a single jar that I must jealously guard if I wish to have any. The only thing left of 11 jars is the garlic clove; it is good but it is only a single clove. How does he eat so many? 

Commissary, here I come.

What the Heck Wednesday

 Welcome to “What the Heck” Wednesday where I recall some of the crazy things my children do or say. It happens often so I write down what silliness or profound thoughts one or both of my children reveal to me. I hope I am not the only parent that has these moments on a regular basis.

Jun has been a pill this week. Chao lei had a friend staying over. From her bedroom Jun walks out to the family room, topless and carrying a nerf gun.

Jun: “Hello, boys.”

I have got to monitor what she watches on tv better.

At the same time, she can be so bossy. We were at the park yesterday and she was “driving” the fire engine toy. She pointed at people giving them jobs and told one child, “You can sit down there”, pointing to a seat near here.  She told another, “You! Look through the telescope and look for fires.” I swear I do not know where she gets it from. I will blame her father for now.

Jun and Chao lei have their moments. I overheard the following conversation this morning as we went through our morning routine of readying for the day. Jun was protesting having to pick up her room so Chao lei offered her an alternative.

Chao lei: Jun, you can always do Mom’s job.
Jun: Heck no! I do not know how to cook.
Chao lei: I meant the cleaning part.
Jun: Um, noooooo.

My job? At this time, I consider myself fortunate she  picks up her own room, albeit with some protest.

Do your kids sometimes make you ask “What the heck?”

Happy New Year!

You believe me either late or very early, do you not? I am not addressing western new year though. I am addressing the Chinese New Year, otherwise known as the year of the Rabbit, which was technically yesterday but I was too busy celebrating to post of it.

Unlike the western new year, the Chinese New Year celebrations last for 16 days. Only the first 7 days are considered a holiday though. In China, one must become accustomed to the sound of explosions as fireworks are going off constantly. I have heard New year is the day the most fireworks are set off.

Western new year lasts a single night and is a time of revelry that many suffer from the next morning. The lunar new year will finish on February 5 with the 元宵节  or yuán xiāo jié, the Lantern Festival. During this festival we have activities including moon gazing, lighting lanterns, riddles, lion dances and eating rice balls.

 

Most importantly, this is a time for family. I believe a western equivalent would be Thanksgiving. Though the Lantern Festival symbolizes reunions, it’s also a time of socializing and freedom. In Ancient China, women usually weren’t allowed out of the house alone. But on this night, they can stroll freely, lighting lanterns, playing games, and interacting with men. Quite scandalous at any other time of the year.

There are some holidays that coincide with the Lantern Festival and are now celebrated together, which is a good thing as it is not an official national holiday.

I made do with a single day of celebration in Yokohama China Town. I did locate the appropriate rice balls.

 

Successes and Questions

Jun has been potty trained. The funny thing is, she did it herself. Sort of.

I cracked the code to potty training her. Spider man underwear. It took her picking out her own Spider-Man underwear to completely potty train herself. She will not have an accident because she “can not go potty on Spider-Man”. I can not believe that is all it took lol We have been two weeks with no accidents. I will keep left-over pull ups on stand-by just in case.

Speaking of Jun, she says and does the craziest things sometimes. For instance,

*Silence in the house*

Me: Jun!!!
Thud, thud, thud *door slams*
…
…
Me: Jun! What are you doing?
Jun: Well, I was not listening so I went to my room.
Me: What did you do?
Jun: Well, I was not listening and I knew I was going to get in trouble so I went to my room.
Self-disciplining children. Who knew? What was she doing? Playing with what little make up I have, which is expensive (Jared bought it with good intentions). She has her own play make up.

Yesterday she completely freaked me out.

Jun: I hate women.
Me: What did you say?
Jun: I hate women. *said with a look of having eaten something sour*
Me: Did you mean lemon?
Jun: YEAH! WOMEN!

Of course, she is not alone in her musings. I carry my own when it comes to surprising things.

*What I heard* Chao lei: Look! It is a piece of ass!
Me: Excuse me! What did you say?
Chao lei: It is a pizza axe!

I have to admit it was a lack of enunciation on his part and a lack of attention on my part.

I remember dreaming of having children. I did not know what to expect though. I would not rid myself of them but I probably would have studied child rearing a little better first. One thing I can not say is my life with children is not boring. I could fill volumes with things my children say or do.

I know! I could do a "What the Heck?" Wednesday!

Routine disrupted

I am happy Jared is home. I miss him terribly when he is gone. But his return tends to disrupt our routine and we must adjust to a different routine. 

We, the children and I, develop a routine when he is gone. It works very well for us. My planner suffers from neglect since daily events happen at the same time every day. Appointments are a intrusion but even then, I have time that allows for those anomalies with no disruption of the main events.

Jared does not intentionally throw our routine into disarray. He simply returns to his normal place in the family's life. There are things he does, though, that interrupt the flow around here. One of those things is the time he rises in the morning. It seems there are some important events on the ship today so he planned to rise at 0300 and be gone by 0400. I understand completely. The problem is, his daughter is like her mother in that she is a light sleeper and he accidentally woke her with his activities. His cooking of breakfast did not help matters. I heard him send Jun back to bed for all the good it did.

At 0400 I had the impression I was being stared at. I opened my eye to see Jun standing at the bedside staring intently at me. Before I could say anything she said, "Daddy left for work. I am hungry." Routine has been scuttled. Thank you dear. So I get up and begin preparing her breakfast. Enter Chao lei. Great. Now he is up and hungry. It seems my day has begun despite my wishes to the contrary. No hungry child will ever return to bed no matter how much I protest. I suppose it was a good thing to get up since it meant she would not go to the kitchen and prepare herself some other wild creation such as the dill pickle, peanut butter, and boiled egg sandwich she made the other day. Amazingly, she did eat it all.

I prepared wontons and dumplings since it is cold and windy this morning. It will keep them warm until they reach their class rooms and hold them well until lunch.

The remainder of the day should be back to the "Daddy is home" routine providing nothing arises to disrupt it again. It is the Navy though. Disruptions are routine.

 

Finally!

There has finally been a family hike! I had begun to believe we would never hike together again. That is a bit of hubris but Jared was gone for some time. The Navy claims it was six months. They are incorrect. It was 6 months,14 days, and 5 hours but who was counting?

We chose a hike that was not easy but neither was it overly strenuous so the guidebook said. We decided on the Mount Ogusuyama: Maedabashi Course. It is only 5.3 miles round trip. It is not a steep climb mostly but you do gain almost 1000 feet in elevation.They say it takes only 2-2.5 hours but that time gets extended when littles are in tow. The hike begins with steps. And then there are more steps. It gets easier mid-way with some rocky and root terrain then, as if to fool you, there are more steps. It took us almost four hours with Chao lei walking and Jun walking for the first mile or so before she was ready to abandon hiking and ride on Jared’s back in the Poco. The return portion of the hike is decidedly easier since it is downhill but by then legs were on the brink of turning to jelly.

The views from the trail are tremendous. It follows the Maegda-gawa river for most of the route. The steeping stone make it easy to travel alongside of it. The many waterfalls are so peaceful.
At the end of the trail is the summit of Mount Ogusayama, the highest peak in our area. From that vantage you can see Izu, the Miura, and the Boso peninsulas, Mt Fuji, and the Hakone mountain range. We are fortunate for a mild winter else another trail would have been chosen. Since it was clear, we opted for lunch at the summit with sandwiches we had packed with us. 

                                       

Jared did better than I did. With all the ladders he contends with onboard, it is not surprising he contended with the steps so easily. I, on the other hand, was the one with jelly legs at the summit. They were not ready for the return. Even now, my legs have not forgiven me.

This long hiatus from hiking can not be repeated. I did not realize I was turning into a jiggling mess. And having Jared laugh at my groans will not do. Gym, here I come.

More Questions Asked

With new spouses come the same old questions. I know I had enough of them when I was first plunged into the military life. I had to learn just like every other mil-spouse. It takes time to learn. It takes mil-spouses longer because there are not classes or seminars to teach them.

One of the most important subjects that tends to be very neglected is OPSEC, or Operations Security. What is it and are military spouses unknowingly violating it?

If you have been a mil-spouse for longer than 20 minutes, you have heard the term along with PERSEC (personal security). We are told this is how we keep our service members and us safe. “Loose lips sink ships” sound familiar? It is not just some WW 2 slogan.

How important is OPSEC? In Pensacola, an experiment was conducted to determine OPSEC adherence there. Small pieces of information about a “massive” deployment were planted among the service members. It did not take much time before little bits began showing up in small local newspapers about a deployment. Obviously, service members bear the lion’s share of blame. They should know better given their constant OPSEC briefings. But the only person they told was their spouse. Result? Experiment failure because spouses talked using unsecure methods.

What can we and what can we not say on the internet, via email or to people in real life? I often see OPSEC violations multiple times per week in Facebook groups.  Spies listen to the “chatter.” They pic up a piece of information here and a piece there then add it all up to get a picture of events. They rarely get the whole story from one source.

So, without military terms, I will try to define OPSEC in terms normal people can understand.

OPSEC 101: Things you can’t say.

1. Don’t share specific information about the mission of assigned units.

·         AKA…don’t go on Facebook and post “USS Higgins is sailing to chase off the Chinese cruisers in the Taiwan Straits. Please pray for them. Hugs and kisses.”

2. Don’t share specific dates and locations of deployments.

·         AKA…don’t go on Twitter and post “Omg…I’m so sad. My husband sails for the South China Sea. How will I make it through?”

3. Don’t list your service member’s specific job on the internet.

·         AKA… “My husband is a gunner’s mate on a destroyer. I couldn’t be prouder!”

4. Don’t share you service member’s exact location overseas.

·         AKA… “My husband is working so hard over at FOB nowhere in Idontwannabehere, Iraq. Can’t wait for him to come home!”

5. Don’t share anything about unit moral or equipment.

·         Adversaries take advantage of sagging unit moral knowing the fight may be easier for them. Why would they not go on an offensive if they knew all the artillery guns were malfunctioning?

6. Don’t share anything about deployment schedules or itineraries.

·         “The element of surprise” is something your spouse’s unit would not enjoy if you were telling the world their schedule.

7. Don’t share exact dates your service member is scheduled to return from deployment.

·         AKA… “ONLY 11 more days to go! I can hardly wait! I’m using this awesome countdown timer so we can all keep track.”

Remember, when it concerns OPSEC, social media is not your friend and should be considered a direct line to our adversaries.

Other things to consider:

·         Pictures say more than you think. They could give away your service member’s exact location.

·         Make sure all metadata is stripped from pictures, Metadata contains exact date, time and locations that the photo was taken.

·         Don’t post or share EVER about unit casualties until you are 100% certain that next of kin is notified and the information is publicly available. Would you want to hear of your spouse’s death from Facebook or Twitter?

·         Turn your own phone location settings to off. There really is no need to share your current location with the world of social media.

OPSEC 101: Things you can say…

·         “I love my Marine/Sailor/Airman/Soldier.”

·         “My service member is leaving this summer.”

·         “Looking forward to my service member coming home soon.”

·         “So proud of everything he’s accomplished.”

·         “Right now, he’s deployed.”

·         “Missing him / her every day.”

If you must share, keep it simple. Be as vague as possible. Sharing anything “exact” will likely be a violation. My default posting is usually something like “They are underway” or “They were in the Philippines.”

Other things to consider:

    Please know that anything you post (even on a private FB page) can be made public and is forever. Anyone can take a screenshot, and it is apparently not difficult to hack into most people’s messages or email accounts and share the information with an adversary.

    Take caution with using anything to identify yourself as a military family, especially when stationed OCONUS. Be cautious of bumper stickers on cars, hangings in your windows. This applies to PERSEC too. Our nations adversaries are not the only ones interested in knowing about you.

OPSEC and PERSEC may seem a little bit unfair or infringing on your rights but ultimately, these guidelines are what help keep us and our service members safe from adversaries (anyone who may want to hurt us). 

Welcome to the military lifestyle ladies.