Mother's Day

Bubby makes her annual migration in May, and on all the years I've been in the USA she stops in VA for Mother's Day weekend. This year was of course especially poignant as we're heading back overseas this summer.

Why can we never get 3 simultaneous smiles and 3 sets of open eyes?

 A sweet moment between daddy and daughter

 Kids being cute

 We're only missing one Madnick for the "Bubby + 2 generations" photo.

Is this where we are going?

 

Yes it is Zoltan.  Good job.

Starting to prepare

Just in case anyone is curious (and just in case anyone is reading) I figured I'd go through the process of preparing to go to post.

We've met with the guy who will be managing the house when we rent it in our absence. He's a childhood friend, so I feel very comfortable with the situation. Based on his assessment, we know what we need to do to prepare the house and what isn't as important. Now we need to get quotes and determine when it will happen (so far so good, the first quote was well within budget although it leave Terry doing a chunk of the work).

We've gotten all the information from Post we can find and it turns out neither of our cars will be allowed into the country. So we need to buy another car. And it will be new or relatively new. It will entail a car payment, which is something I have avoided for my 40 years until now.

We're started our Consumables list. Astana is in fact a post wherein we're entitled to Consumables shipments, although at any post we put together a list of the food and other consumable items we love and can't get at post, for example Thai red curry paste. Or peanut butter. Chocolate chips appear to only exist in the USA. You get the picture.

We did a decent job of purging when we moved into this house, but as the baby years are now firmly behind us it is time to find new owners of the things we've held onto. And, of course, there is always more purging one can do.

My boots have survived 3.5 Petersburg winters (I got them during the first winter). They have no tread and owe me nothing. I have ordered the replacements. My down coat has kept me warm 4 Petersburg winters and also owes me nothing. After trolling all the usual suspects (Cabelas, REI, Lands End) I have determined that nobody has warm enough coats out yet. My fingers are crossed that this situation will change before August.

We're still working out the departure schedule and who exactly leaves when; i.e., will I get to fly alone for the first time in 7 years, thus blissfully sleeping through the red eye flight with no guilt or children pulling on me?

Great Falls

Last weekend some folks from A-100 decided to hike the Billy Goat trail at Great Falls. Although I had lived in the DC area for 4 years, and now almost 1 more, I have never been to Great Falls. The rest of the family was at the cabin so I jumped at the chance.

The weather was amazing and the company just as good. A few shots from the day ...

Beyond Baby

For many moms, especially in the early days, our identities are tied to the little ones. We all know women whose names we never quite caught, who were "Bobby's mom" or "Jenny's mom" throughout all our interactions.

Time passes, and all of a sudden we're looking at children who can fix their own breakfast or cross the street unaided. We've moved beyond baby. For many moms this time is unsettling.

Enter Meagan  Francis,  blogger at The Happiest Home. She's written a practical, step by step book that leads moms into life "beyond baby". The book includes a journal and provides specific actions - baby steps - to take each week during the 40 week course. Of course, we all know 40 weeks is the length of a pregnancy, but it's also roughly the length of the school year and as many of us only think about life beyond baby when the first or last child enters school, I think the choice has a nice dual meaning.

The book is broken out into five eight-week segments: Your World, Your Home, Your Relationships, Your Self, and Your Dreams.

It turns out I'm already well on my way to regaining my personhood. I have already pondered the topics and fulfilled many of the challenges in the early segments "Your World" and "Your Relationships".  Do I think this diminished the value of the book? Heck no! There is a surprising feeling of validation to see choices you've made be recommended in print. I am sad to admit that many of the topics and challenges in the Your Home section aren't exactly relevant/useful to one who rarely has a home to call my own, one where I'm allowed to buy a new couch or paint the walls.

For me, the issues raised in the last two sections were the most useful and relevant for my stage in life.The short term is so immediate. Taking a long view of where I want to be in the future, and how (if?) it aligns with how I am living my life now, was a tough but rewarding exercise. I think my favorite week was #34, almost at the end, where she challenges us to "Align your calendar with your values." Too often the week is filled with the to do list and a little too much Facebook time.This was a great reminder for me that life is short and we must strive every week, at the least, to live according to our values else we find we have no values at all.

Family photo

We didn't think to get the photo in front of the flag like most of my classmates. Oh well. I think this is the first whole family photo in a year, and Zoltan's trying to break free....

I'm official!

A-100 is over. I was sworn in on Friday as an official Foreign Service Officer, sworn to protect and defend the Constitution. We 74 members of The 176th (so glad you asked ...) will start to scatter. It's been a hell of a six weeks, plus the three weeks before wherein we got our invites and overhauled our lives to make this happen. I am nostalgic that it's over but ready to move forward with the next steps.

(and I very much hope my dear husband will soon edit the photos from the day, and that at least one is share-worthy, so I can post an image...)

First T ball Game

Zoltan's first T ball game was last weekend. As much as he loves the game, he really does hate being the center of attention. I am eternally grateful to the other mom who managed to convince him to put his glove on and get out on the field with the rest of the team, because my encouragement wasn't working. I had the opportunity to reflect what a different it was that he had never seen a baseball game, ever. He didn't know to drop the bat when he hit (this one was relatively common); he ran after every ball regardless of which team was at bat and where in the field it went in relation to him; and when running the bases he didn't quite "run the bases." Still, he did end up enjoying himself and was sad to learn that there's no game this week due to the school holiday.

And lucky for his development, we're going to the Nationals game this week!

Answering some questions

In the wake of my announcement, there's been a decent volume of questions and it seemed useful to answer them here. So here goes, in no particular order:

• The job bringing us to Astana is mine. I'm the ELO/JO/FAST (over the last howevermany years we've been called Junior Officers, Entry Level Officers, and now First And Second Tour officers) so Terry gets to "follow" me. There are positions appropriate for him that would start next summer, so we're in good shape as far as bidding goes (I think/hope). Yes it does mean he gets to be primary on the parenting front. It will be good for him and them (I think/hope).
• We're not sure yet when we'll leave but it won't be before the end of August. And I will definitely be gone before Thanksgiving. I am excited to get in line with my CDO to ask this most pressing question.
• I'll be a Pol/Econ officer. This is exciting as I'm Consular coned so this may be the one and only time I'll get a chance to try out something else. 
• There was a comment about me being relieved that it wasn't Tashkent. My friend, I believe you are thinking of Ashgabat. Tashkent is awesome, and spent a lot of time rivaling Astana as our #1 pick. 
• Thank you to everyone for your good wishes. I have no idea how big our apartment will be, but it will be open to visitors. And yes, anyone within a few timezones may get hit up for a visit, or a "Who wants to meet up somewhere in western Europe, or wherever I can get to in a nonstop flight?"

A little more detail

So yes, we're going to Kazakhstan. Astana, to be exact, as there is also a post in Almaty. Yes, we're happy about this. My head is still swimming and I stayed up way too late last night looking at post information. We'll be here through the summer - I need more Russian language training before we go as I didn't test high enough (I knew that was going to happen, my abilities are nowhere near where they had been after a year back in the USA). Other than that, I am eager to be paneled so I can reach out to post with my thousand questions. That poor CLO has no idea what's coming :-)