Liquid Diets, Potty Training, and Taking Chances

This the story of how I became “The Happy Housewife.” You might want to start at the beginning.

Our first year in GMTO I threw myself into homeschooling. We did every craft project, nature walk, science experiment, and extra curricular activity available. My kids took Spanish, choir, and art at a co-op, played every sport available offered in the island, as well as acted in a school play and started dance lessons.

We were busy.

One day Sailor was off work and decided to take the kids for a bike ride. During the ride our daughter hit a crack in the sidewalk and flipped head first over the handlebars.

Sailor arrived home sooner than I expected with our daughter bloody and banged up. He dropped off the boys and drove her to the ER so she could be stitched up.

When they got home he told me that because she had bit her tongue almost in half in the wreck she would need to be on a liquid diet for several days. She was also in a lot of pain from all the scraps and bruises and would need to rest.

We got her settled on the couch and I started to wonder how I was going to survive without my right-hand girl! As most parent’s know, the first born in a big family is usually a huge help and our daughter was no different.

After a few minutes I started thinking rationally again and knew things would be just fine. We would survive just like we did when she was three and her brother was one and I didn’t have any big helpers.

Soon after I came to my senses our two year old came downstairs wearing his big brother’s underwear.

“I don’t wear diapers anymore, I wear underwear!” he announced to the whole house.

I took one look at him, then one look at our daughter on the couch and told him that he needed to go right back upstairs and put a diaper on. Today was not a good day for potty training. Maybe after our daughter was done with her couch time and liquid diet I could start the potty training thing, but not until then!

I had learned something being a mom of so many kids (he he). Potty training was a total waste of time for my children. My first two children took FOREVER to be potty trained, and it was only when I stopped trying so hard to get them to wear underwear that they successfully started wearing it.

I was not going to struggle with another child in the potty training department. I had made up my mind that we wouldn’t even start trying until they were three and then I would let them call the shots.

Our son apparently did not get this memo, because there he was at the way too young age of two, standing in the middle of the living room wearing nothing but his big brother’s underwear.

He responded to my command with another firm, “I don’t wear diapers anymore.” I was too exhausted from the stress of the ER visit to argue or discipline him so I gave up and made a mental note not to let him sit on the couch for the rest of the day.

Much to my surprise, he never had an accident and never went back into diapers. It took me a year to potty train each of my first two kids, and this little guy potty trained himself in five minutes.

Our daughter healed quickly from her accident, and although it took her a while to get back on a bike again,  life continued on.

Sailor was growing more and more dissatisfied with his job as a nurse and started seriously exploring options to transfer.

He had the support of his Commanding Officer, but virtually no support higher up or from his immediate supervisors. In order to change jobs he would have to submit paperwork to the redesignation board and they would decide if he would be allowed to transfer.

The board met twice a year and usually picked between ten and twenty people to transfer. His chances would be slim, but he felt he had to try. We had been praying about it for the past year and it every day it seemed to become more clear he needed to change jobs.

The only problem was that applying to transfer would ruin his career as a Navy nurse. They didn’t look favorably upon anyone who wanted to transfer and if he applied and didn’t get selected he would probably never be promoted again.

He was so miserable in his current job that he felt he had to take a chance and apply. He was preparing a package for the fall board when he found out that there was a special board over the summer. The job he wanted was short on officers so they were holding an extra board to find more people.

The deadline was in a few weeks so Sailor rushed to put together his paperwork and get it mailed to the states. There was just one problem. He needed permission from his current community to apply to transfer.

With permission the only thing left to complete his paperwork, he started asking favors from everyone he had ever known to try and get approval from his boss’s boss. Her first response was absolutely no. But after calling in a few more favors and lots more prayer, someone convinced her to say yes.

They told her that the chances of Sailor actually being selected were very slim since his degree was in nursing and not a technical field.

Thinking that he wouldn’t be selected for the transfer, she reluctantly approved his package, and we sent it off wondering if Sailor’s career was over or just beginning.