How many times a day can you say, "Don't shoot your sister." At least I only had to tell them once, "You do NOT stick the American flag up your nose."

We're in the middle of moving. Actually, the girls and I are in the middle of moving. Todd is moving us to Oman and Sumeyye left this morning to go back to Turkey. More later on all that.

Lord love a duck. Let's add "Do not shoot your mother." to that list.

New hairstyles

Your Aunt Michelle is here. We finally got to see her for the first time since Christmas. Your dad is over at the table on the computer and we're in the kitchen at the counter.

AM: So I found out the best hair color.

Me thinking: Clairol? Loreal?

Your Dad: Grey!

We're both just staring at him. He hasn't got a clue.

You are so screwed.

Your dad is in the kitchen helping you with your homework. He's being patient, soft spoken and very clear. He is giving concise instructions, step by step and trying to teach you how to do math problems involving telling time, quarter hours and half hours.

You are about to lose it.

I can hear it in your voice. Every time he says, "Stop. Just focus." after you said "Daddy..." and want him to let you go play a game with your sister. You are not understanding the question, your dad or why we're doing this fifteen minutes before bed time. The frustration level that I always felt when my dad was teaching me and I didn't understand is probably something similar to what's going in there- so I'm in here.

"There are sixty seven in a minute. I mean, there are sixty seconds in a minute."

And now the chanting begins. Somewhere along your dad's education in Louisiana and the Marine Corps, someone drilled material in your dad's head by having him repeat it over and over again getting louder and louder.

"There are sixty minutes in a hour!"

Sounds like so much fun. So I'm in here with Eleanor. Don't get me wrong, I eventually liked math problems, but I think it will be a while until you warm up to them. Just like your mom. Maybe two, three decades...

I've been ignoring this blog for a while. It has been sitting idle while your father and I are taking Arabic in preparation for our move to Oman. Five days a week, we leave at four thirty, five in the morning and head up to the Foreign Service Institute to take six hours of language instruction. Throw in some lab hours and lunch and we don't return until four in the afternoon.

Thank goodness for Sumeyye. Otherwise we'd be beside ourselves.

But this morning, I am alone. And it shocked me, how long is has been, since the last time I had the house to myself for a few hours. The quiet. No television, no chatter, no escalating, excited voices. And I realized how long it's been since we talked.

Eight months of language training and your dad and I still have to take a few more training classes here and there. You're going to love the ones of your mom with a Beretta 9mm and the lovely pics of me shooting a shotgun. And before you asked, yes I qualified on the M9, the M11 and the m4 before playing with the shotgun. And no, you can't have one.

I've missed the mornings with you. The snuggly, warm cuddling where you are in the process of waking up and we curl up in one of my quilts and watch the morning news. I have missed the slow, steady getting ready for school; breakfast, brush teeth, change clothes, shoes on, backpacks. The evenings with you have been fun, but we're all tired and hungry and your dad, Sumeyye and I take turns trying to get the other ones to cook. Getting you all into the bath and bed is a bit more of a challenge than getting you excited to go to school...

On the news front, our government announced that it had killed Osama Bin Laden. He was a man who was responsible for the 9/11 attacks. For ten years, our government has been looking for this man and they finally found and assasinated him. I can understand their actions and the taking of intelligence materials from the compound where he was staying, but I am not understanding the huge arrogance that we, the American people, are showing by telling the world that we killed this man. My fears are of reprisals, especially with us heading overseas. Pictures of the body and burial have not been released, so the conspiracy theorists have said that he's not dead and the American government are hiding him. Some moron on the news actually said that they had "cut the head off the snake". I don't think so. I think we've taken out one of the eyes- and that snake had been functioning very well with that eye under cover for quite some time. So now we've gouged out it's eye, drawn its attention and pissed it off.

And what do we say about messing with our enemies? Either kill them or leave them alone. Messing with them just pisses them off. I just hope I'm wrong.

I found another grey hair today.

It wasn't on my head.

Yeah.....

Grass is always greener...

There's another body in the bed tonight. It's eight o'clock and your father is still plugging away at his Arabic lessons, Eleanor is singing to herself in her bed, Jordan is snugly tucked up in her toddler cage/bed with rails and we've already had enough conversations over where Emily is lately. Any guesses?

It's been a rough night. You had a great day at school and came home in good spirits. Another blue note from the teacher! We piled in the car and headed up to the Marine Corps museum where we played for a while and then headed home with grumbly bellies. I think you're too tired. I think you are exhausted. And I think you miss me half as much as I miss you during the day.

Apparently, this whole Mommy-being-gone-before-you-wake-up thing was not explained well to you and you were under the assumption that it would only last a week or two. While Granne was a wonderful surprise addition to your special morning (Great job, again, by the way) when you got Student of the Month, she is not the Mom. And I was supposed to be there. Tonight was the night you decided to let your feelings known. With tears. Lots and lots of heart wrenching, sobbing, melt down tears.

We have had the conversation about leaving. About how when I go to school and drive with Daddy, I'm going to school and I come back. About how when you get on the bus in the morning to go to school and go learn new things, you are not leaving us for good but for the day. That you need to go to school to be with your class and your teachers and your books. The fatal flaw in my logic was when I pointed out that you went to school a week before I started. That you were gone all day long and I thought it would be all right if I went to school, too.

You offered to stop going.

I keep telling myself that this is an incredible opportunity for us and for our next three years in Oman. But at the same time, I have a running dialogue with myself asking how the heck working parents do what needs to be done every day. How do they manage the household, the cleaning, the shopping, the cooking, the papers, the bills, the laundry, finding clothes for the morning, packing lunches (totally understanding the joy of just sending 10 dollars a week to school for crap, non-nutritional lunches) and all the assorted what-not that creeps up? Because I'm exhausted and we've got your dad and an au pair who occasionally blesses us with a cooked meal and enough leftovers for lunch the next day.

That weeping sound you hear is just Mommy- tears of joy.

Not to mention the things that you want to do. I want to read books, play games, take a walk. I would love to curl up and watch a silly movie or a Justice league. And I desperately miss the morning snuggles. The quiet, non rushed, gentle morning with wee warm bodies breathing your girly morning breath and demanding gummi bears in the tiniest voices possible. I miss you guys like crazy.

I'm enjoying school. The challenge of school. Despite the daily smack upside the head with all the crap I don't know. But when this is over, I'm back to being home full time. I'm missing way too much of your lives.

I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT YOU HAD FOR BREAKFAST TODAY.

For now, we've come to a compromise. I will get up, kiss you softly in the morning, call you and have breakfast over the phone with you and you will go to school. I will do my level best to be home when you get home or VERY soon after and will try to spend my time wisely playing and reading with you as much as possible and ignore the mountain of laundry trying to eat Jordan.

And in the meantime, you're in here snuggling with your foot on my leg while your sister sings herself to sleep.

Every night, as is our routine, we go upstairs, brush teeth, change into pajamas and hop into bed to read a book, sing songs and do the hug-and-a-kiss. This all happens with varying degrees of success and may or may not include a bath.

We used to have a standard "Halls of Montezuma" or "Angels Appeared" as the song, but lately "Jesus Loves Me" has been requested. And then there are the original songs with beautiful, awe inspiring first lines such as:

"Don't bite your sister or push her down the stairs....."

or

"Don't throw your pizza at the mooooooon...."

I feel like we're teaching you so well.