"ARE YOU PLANNING ON HAVING KIDS?"
Today was one of the first days in a very long time that constituted for an "outside" day. The sun was shining, and it wasn't too cold (probably around the mid 50's). When I woke up this morning, I jumped in the shower, grabbed my stack of resumes, and was off to town to drop off yet another round of applications. As I was pulling out of the parking lot, I was blinded by the sun! I immediately reached for my sunglasses, which of coarse were MIA, since I haven't used them in over 2 months. It was in that moment that I knew that I would be spending the rest of the afternoon outdoors.
Military housing is one of those things that I have a love-hate relationship with. I love the fact that we have a decent place to live, all of our utilities are included, and we are guaranteed a safe "neighborhood". I hate the fact that we pretty much live in an apartment, and have NO privacy what so ever. It was the same way when we lived in our townhouse in Maryland (which I would take any day over our crap shack in Kodiak). All of the houses are crammed together, face each other, and now we SHARE a deck with the people who live above us. Some people seem to really enjoy this. Their neighbors become their extended family, they all get together on one specific deck to BBQ, and their kids all run around and play together. It really is somewhat ideal when you are stuck on a remote island thousands of miles away from any real family, IF you have a family.
Kevin and I are the only couple within what feels like miles without kids. The people who live above us have a (very noisy) two year old boy, the people across the hall have a baby, and there isn't anyone living above them at this point in time. The other neighbors we have met live in the next building over, and have two kids. And we actually met another set of neighbors that live in the building across from ours who have another little boy (my guess is he is around 3 or 4). Some couples may find this irritating because they can't have loud parties, or use foul language while sitting outside, but for Kevin and I this is torture. Not because we want to party all night long, but because these kids are shoved into our faces day in and day out.
The first time this was really overwhelming was Mother's Day. It was a nice day outside, so everyone was enjoying the sunshine with their families. Kevin had work that day, so I secluded myself into the house to finish unpacking and to do some organizing/cleaning. Since we don't have A/C, I had the windows opened, and had to endure the painful sound of constant children's laughter. I eventually turned on some music to drown out that God forsaken sound, and had my mini Mother's Day (or should I say lack there of) break down.
Jump forward to today. I was in such a good mood- feeling very accomplished after dropping off resumes, leaving the house, and actually wearing jeans instead of sweat pants. I begged Kevin to find some reason for us to just spend the afternoon outside. He worked on his truck for a while, and we ended up BBQ, but the entire time I wanted to just run to the safety of my tiny living room. You see...those darn kids were all outside playing- laughing, crying, singing, swinging, and running through the grass. Our neighbor in the building next to use must have noticed my awkwardly staring at all the little boogers running around and asked the awful/awkward question... "Are y'all planning on having kids?" What does one in my position say?!? Kevin jumped in for me, and immediately said "Yes", but that was it. There was a very awkward silence, but thankfully it ended there. He didn't push forward to ask all of the w's (when, where, why, etc) but instead told us that they decided to stop at two, and we would know why once we had some of our own. Once again...ouch! What I would do to have two of my own little monsters terrorizing the neighbors.
Thankfully parents began grabbing their kids to have dinner inside, so Kevin and I were able to finish grilling in peace. We haven't talked about what happened this afternoon, but I know that all of this is starting to weigh on Kevin just as much as me. What kills me is I know that he will be an amazing father, and as much as I want a baby, I want to be able to see my husband holding our baby, the tiny human being that we created together.
Today was one of the first days in a very long time that constituted for an "outside" day. The sun was shining, and it wasn't too cold (probably around the mid 50's). When I woke up this morning, I jumped in the shower, grabbed my stack of resumes, and was off to town to drop off yet another round of applications. As I was pulling out of the parking lot, I was blinded by the sun! I immediately reached for my sunglasses, which of coarse were MIA, since I haven't used them in over 2 months. It was in that moment that I knew that I would be spending the rest of the afternoon outdoors.
Military housing is one of those things that I have a love-hate relationship with. I love the fact that we have a decent place to live, all of our utilities are included, and we are guaranteed a safe "neighborhood". I hate the fact that we pretty much live in an apartment, and have NO privacy what so ever. It was the same way when we lived in our townhouse in Maryland (which I would take any day over our crap shack in Kodiak). All of the houses are crammed together, face each other, and now we SHARE a deck with the people who live above us. Some people seem to really enjoy this. Their neighbors become their extended family, they all get together on one specific deck to BBQ, and their kids all run around and play together. It really is somewhat ideal when you are stuck on a remote island thousands of miles away from any real family, IF you have a family.
Kevin and I are the only couple within what feels like miles without kids. The people who live above us have a (very noisy) two year old boy, the people across the hall have a baby, and there isn't anyone living above them at this point in time. The other neighbors we have met live in the next building over, and have two kids. And we actually met another set of neighbors that live in the building across from ours who have another little boy (my guess is he is around 3 or 4). Some couples may find this irritating because they can't have loud parties, or use foul language while sitting outside, but for Kevin and I this is torture. Not because we want to party all night long, but because these kids are shoved into our faces day in and day out.
The first time this was really overwhelming was Mother's Day. It was a nice day outside, so everyone was enjoying the sunshine with their families. Kevin had work that day, so I secluded myself into the house to finish unpacking and to do some organizing/cleaning. Since we don't have A/C, I had the windows opened, and had to endure the painful sound of constant children's laughter. I eventually turned on some music to drown out that God forsaken sound, and had my mini Mother's Day (or should I say lack there of) break down.
Jump forward to today. I was in such a good mood- feeling very accomplished after dropping off resumes, leaving the house, and actually wearing jeans instead of sweat pants. I begged Kevin to find some reason for us to just spend the afternoon outside. He worked on his truck for a while, and we ended up BBQ, but the entire time I wanted to just run to the safety of my tiny living room. You see...those darn kids were all outside playing- laughing, crying, singing, swinging, and running through the grass. Our neighbor in the building next to use must have noticed my awkwardly staring at all the little boogers running around and asked the awful/awkward question... "Are y'all planning on having kids?" What does one in my position say?!? Kevin jumped in for me, and immediately said "Yes", but that was it. There was a very awkward silence, but thankfully it ended there. He didn't push forward to ask all of the w's (when, where, why, etc) but instead told us that they decided to stop at two, and we would know why once we had some of our own. Once again...ouch! What I would do to have two of my own little monsters terrorizing the neighbors.
Thankfully parents began grabbing their kids to have dinner inside, so Kevin and I were able to finish grilling in peace. We haven't talked about what happened this afternoon, but I know that all of this is starting to weigh on Kevin just as much as me. What kills me is I know that he will be an amazing father, and as much as I want a baby, I want to be able to see my husband holding our baby, the tiny human being that we created together.
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