Busy as ever.

It's been a few weeks, but I'm alive and kicking. The main reason I haven't been blogging is because I've been writing letters to Matthew instead. Kind of blogging to him, I guess... only with a pen and paper. It's important, though, to tell him all the little things the girls say and do. The new coos and drools from Xander. The explosive diapers and the noses on the wall for bad behavior, too. He knows his kids aren't always perfect, no sense in sugar coating it. And really, sometimes even though they are naughty the story of what happened is too funny to keep to myself. I love and hate those moments. You can't let your kids SEE you laughing at their hilarious but naughty behavior but you can't hold it all in. But, you still have to discipline them for it. Talk about mixed signals.

Today was Matt's 8 hour pass---the only chance we have to see him during Ranger school. The next six weeks will be spent at post in GA, and in FL. I made Matt's favorite meal last night so I could re-heat it and have some waiting for him in the car when we went to pick him up this morning. I spent a good chunk of the day washing and drying 4 loads of RANK laundry. OMG, I cannot begin to express how awful it was. Muddy, musty, sweaty... some of it I washed twice. Those guys really go through a lot. Matt wrote me a short letter earlier this week and said it was " pretty much a suckfest." My husband does not usually talk like that, so when he says things like that I know it's gotta be tough. It was good to spend the time with him today even if it was mostly spent doing laundry and a last minute errand before dropping him off again. He spent a lot of the day trying to comsume as many calories as possible, drinking Powerade to replace electrolytes, and eating fresh fruit (which we stopped off at the store to buy because he wanted it so much---living off MREs for 3 weeks'll do that to you).

All in all today has taught me one thing: 8 hours is really short. But I am grateful for every second of it. I think the best part of it was after we got home; I had sat down to feed Xander, Matt was throwing in his first load of laundry and he looked over at me and said "You're a sight for sore eyes."