Sunday, March 31, 2013

Adult Abandonment Okay, Child Abandonment Not So Much

Abandoning my husband on a regular basis was acceptable.  After all, he was an adult and just reverted to being a bachelor (minus the strip parties or dating) when I deployed or was underway.  This meant that he could walk around all day in his underwear and eat meals consisting of cereal, instant noodles, or pizza.  And compared to other spouses, his spending basically dropped to $20 a month.  It was a great deal!  All he had to do was clean up the pizza boxes before I got home.

But then I had kids.  And suddenly, it wasn't the same as abandoning just their Dad.  Now I abandoned them with their Dad... which meant they ate cereal, instant noodles, pizza, lunch meat, cottage cheese, and yogurt.  Just kidding.  That's what I feed them when Dad leaves us occasionally.

It has become harder to leave.  In fact, it has become so hard that while I was stationed at Dahlgren, VA for three months for school, I decided to drive nearly everyday between Annapolis and Dahlgren.  This also had to do with the fact that there was very little to do in Dahlgren.  (For those of you who are lucky enough to never have been stationed there, the main hang out spots are the local Italian restaurant that acts like the bar and the new Wal-Mart.)  Keep in mind that it was an hour and a half commute each way.  I loved my kids so much that I spent three hours in a car everyday just so I could eat dinner with them and tuck them into bed at night.  Because my kids are little night owls, it meant that I would usually get to spend an hour with them awake for every hour that I spent in a car.  Fortunately, there was another officer in my class who was in the same situation so we were able to split the mileage on our cars...

Now that I am up in Newport, RI completing six months of department head school, it's been harder.  After all, there's no way for me to come home every night for dinner and bedtime.  Instead, I'm racking up the airline miles on Southwest.  But every mile or minute spent in the airport is worth it for another minute playing, tickling, hugging, snuggling them.  It was worth the hundreds of dollars in the roundtrip ticket to watch Owen's face as he watched The Lion King for the first time or Anduin falling asleep against me after our shower before I could even finish drying her off.


But let's be honest.  Had it just been Niles...  I probably would have abandoned him.  After all, adult abandonment is okay, child(ren) abandonment is not.

Sunday, March 24, 2013

Single Again (Sort of)

Niles:  Just because you are by yourself up in Newport, it doesn't mean you are completely single and have to go hit the clubs.

Me: Of course not.  I don't even know what I would do in a club.

***    ****   ***

And no kidding, not less than five hours later, I find myself in the Boom Boom Room in Newport.  First off, let me explain.  I didn't really intend for that to happen.  I had originally thought that my friends and I were going to go to dinner and then a movie.  Or at least, that's what I told Niles.  But somehow after hitting a bar, we decided to go to the Boom Boom Room.

For those of you (un)lucky enough to never have gone, let me set the scene for you.  It's the most bottom level in a very nice looking restaurant (white tablecloths, candles, wine glasses, coat check girl, nautical/Caribbean music playing upstairs, the type of place you wouldn't feel uncomfortable taking your grandmother for her 70th birthday).  Sure, there appears to be a lot of men who at first glance look like they're taking their daughters out... only for us to discover they're their wives...  Or maybe a lot of "cougars" out on the town, but in general, it was a much classier place on the upstairs.

And then you go downstairs to the Boom Boom Room.  It's painted in garish red and black stripes on the walls, where it's just lit enough that you can see the paint on the walls.  There is a rather large bouncer constantly checking unguraded drinks with a flashlight.  Despite it being thirty degrees outside, there are still plenty of twenty-somethings dressed like they just came from the Jersey Shore.  This is the closest Newport has to a club.  And despite the fact the dance floor is the size of our kitchen floor in the tiny historical house I am staying with a friend, there are maybe thirty people jammed on it dancing to club music.  (Side note: It took me a solid two hours after leaving the club for my hearing to return.  Made me miss the Hearing Conservation Program.)

So my next confession: Even when I was young and single (or maybe just not married since I've been dating Niles forever), I never felt wholly comfortable in a club.  But as a mom of two dressed in a daytime sweater dress, I felt especially uncool.  Maybe I needed to wear sunglasses at night like a couple of kids, or maybe I needed to find a geriatric husband, or maybe I needed to be a young bride dancing her wedding night away without her groom, to be fully comfortable hitting the "club".  

Or maybe I would never be.

But it was fun.

And I still have five months and three weeks to try to be comfortable at the Boom Boom Room.