Evelyn: 38 Weeks

New This Week: 

First Family Vacation! 

Pulling up on stuff and walking around while holding onto furniture with ease

These weekly pictures seem to be getting harder and harder. Evelyn is so darn mobile now, she just crawls off whenever I set her down. I am determined to keep this up 3 more months though! 

Military Monday

I've been traveling! Sorry for the un announced absence, but due to personal security I don't like to reveal my travels before they happen. But I have a couple of cool posts coming up as soon as I can find time to put them together. Evelyn has also become a major handful, she is crawling in full force and walking along furniture. So I am constantly chasing her when she gets into unsafe zones.

Here's a sneak peek from our travels: 

and now for your regularly scheduled programming:

This week is about Enlisted vs. Officer wives.

I really don't have a lot of experience with officer wives. I think as military wives they are held to a higher standard. They sometimes are asked to participate in events and help put together events involving all of the wives in the command/unit/shop. My grandmother was an officer wife. She has told me stories about having to entertain other officers and commanders. I think she really enjoyed it though. 

When we were in Okinawa I would babysit for some officer families and I didn't find them that much different than me. They still worry about their husbands when they are away, they still make dinner for their kids, they still have dishes in their sink. 

But I have heard horror stories about wives pulling rank (not just officer wives), using their husbands higher rank in the military to try to get favoritism, thankfully I never saw that. 

But we have only spent 2.5 of our years together at an actual base, or even stationed near a large number of other Military, and for 9ish months of that 2.5 years Paul was deployed so I didn't interact much with command functions or such. 

Being an enlisted wife I certainly have a bit more experience there. But along with all wives (not just military) they can be catty and gossipy. Have you seen Desperate Housewives? I like a bit of juicy gossip just as much as the next girl though. But they aren't all that bad, and my experience is they aren't as bad as the internet makes them look. Not all wives cheat, not all sit around and talk shit all day, not all of them are fat and lazy with 1/2 dozen kids. 

I really can't say to benefits to each, I guess I think, to me, we are all equal-ish, officer wives may get nicer housing on base and their husbands may get slightly higher paychecks than mine. But they still get deployed, they still have to work duty weekends, they still may get late night phone calls when one of their Marines has screwed up. 

Currently we are living several hundred miles from the nearest military family so I have no direct communication with the officer side of things and command sponsored events, I really only know just the few wives that live closest to me. 

I am sure it's because of the situations I have been put in, but I have made some amazing friends that are military wives. I think it takes a special breed of woman to marry a military man. Life is so unpredictable. You have to be strong, patient, flexible, and a sense of humor is a must. Bonus traits would be a love for travel, trying new things, and independence, because you need to be able to pay your bills, run your household, and open that jar of pickles, should your husband deploy. 

But I must mention, the officers club in Okinawa had the best brunch in the whole wide world. We only had the one on the Air base, but I heard the Marine one was amazing too. 

Evelyn: 37 Weeks

New this week: 

Evey seems to prefer eating with silverware rather than her bare hands

Ringing Rocks

Once upon a time I picked up a silly book about oddities in Montana, Montana Curiosities: Quirky Characters, Roadside Oddities & Other Offbeat Stuff. Fun little book, with all kinds of silly, neat places to visit. One of the fun things that's really close to us is the Ringing Rocks outside Whitehall, Mt. It's only about a 20 minute drive down the freeway and then up a dirt road. So why not? 
What are ringing rocks? well they are some rocks with a weird geological feature. When you hammer on them they make more of a bell tone that rings, as opposed to just a "bonk" or a "tink" from the hammer.
So back in March, While Paul's mom was visiting us we made a family trip out there. It was pretty neat, the rocks certainly made different noises, I even took some videos, but the sound quality is very poor and you can't really hear the pings and pongs. 
There was also lots of rocks available for Paul to climb on. Because that's what boys do, right?  

Oh my gosh E was so tiny 6 months ago!

You are doing a good job mom!

It's nice to hear this from family and friends, that you're doing good, but It's really nice to hear it from strangers. 

I had to take E to the urgent care last week, I thought she had an ear infection, she doesn't, she was just being cranky. 

But as I talked to the doctor and she asked normal questions, I was a bit hesitant to answer honestly. One of the questions I got was what am I putting on her teething related, diaper rash? I use coconut oil, no zinc, no creams, partly because we cloth diaper and that's what is safe for the diapers. I was nervous because I am a member of several "natural mom" groups on facebook and I read a lot about moms being judged, or being told they are wrong, for raising their kids naturally. Everything from continuing breastfeeding beyond a certain age to skipping baby rice cereal, I read about women being told, that it's not a good idea and they are wrong. So I was hesitant to answer her question with my natural remedy. But I was getting a good vibe from her, and she's not my regular doctor so what's the harm? Do I even care what she thinks about diaper rash treatment? So I told her. Much to my surprise she said that coconut oil was great, and then she recommended other natural things that I may have lying around incase I didn't have coconut oil, like unsalted lard. 

I talked with her for a bit, we talked about cloth diapering and breastfeeding. More than once she said I was doing a great job and I was being a good mom. Not just my natural approach, but even as we were leaving, she told me I was a great mom. It's so nice to hear, especially from someone who has raised several kids of her own, and sees sick kids all day long. She made me feel good, good about my choices in raising Evelyn, good about being a mommy. 

I think more moms need to be told they are doing a good job, especially first time moms, I know I often wonder, especially taking her to urgent care, I was worried that my babe was sick, and what if I waited too long and she had some raging infection? The doctor was so calm and kind, even though nothing was wrong, except a cranky baby recovering from teething, she didn't make me feel like I was wasting her time for worrying. She didn't rush me out once she saw that my baby wasn't ill. 

So moms, you are doing a good job, if you baby is safe, warm and fed you are doing a good job. Keep up the good work. 

*while googling for images for this article, (of which I didn't really find any, sorry) I came across this great article, for any moms looking for more natural treatments for common ailments check it out!*

Daily Mom

and I'm linking up a day late, because I didn't post this yesterday. 

Evelyn: 36 weeks

Just standing around watching Sesame Street

Fluff Mail! 

Baby Shark

mmm. Carrots

New This Week: 

Can stand unassisted for 5-10 seconds! 

Bye guys! 

Military Monday Link-up

This weeks questions: Do you live on base/post/fort or away from the military world?  What factors did you consider when deciding where you would live?  Was one more affordable than the other?  Did it help/hinder your family situation?  What things would be helpful for others to know before they potentially move to your area?
Great questions! But they don't really work in my situation. If you are a new reader, My husband is on recruiting duty for the USMC, and our nearest Active Duty base is about 3 hours away, Malmstrom AFB. So we obviously just live in town. Our current location Paul works at MEPS, we moved here from Helena, where he was a Recruiter, in February. Finding a rental in a small town, that allows cats is hard. So our biggest considering factor was can we live there with 2 dogs and a cat. That drastically narrowed our search window. Then can we fit our stuff in it. We have a king size bed and monster size entertainment centre. The town we live in is an old mining town, and a lot of the houses are OLD, and SMALL. I really thought we would never find a home, but alas this one fell into our laps, and at a very reasonable rate. We save quite a bit of our housing allowance, even after utilities.  Helpfull info about Butte? Well despite the fact that it's highly unlikely that anyone reading this will be moving here, ever, I would say don't judge a book by it's cover. Butte has lots of run down shanty little houses, especially in my area. In fact there is a vacant little shanty house about 20 yards from mine. But I live in a great neighborhood, and I have pretty quiet neighbors. Everyone is really nice, and keeps to themselves.  I was nominated for the top 50 Military Mom Blogs by VoiceBoks, you can vote here. Thank you for your support.