It's an incredibly humbling task to call your parents and tell them you don't have enough money to buy Christmas for your children. It's one of the hardest things I've had to do in a long time. It's hard to ask for money in normal circumstances (at least for me it is. some people may not have a problem with it) but especially now when I want to provide a Christmas for my children. I don't need or even want it to be huge. But when it's hard to even provide a simple Christmas for my children it makes it that much more difficult to get into the Christmas spirit.
I admit it. I have been (and continue to be) a Scrooge this year. I have no desire to decorate for Christmas. Our tree isn't up yet. The earliest it can be up will be this weekend some time but that's even pushing it. You see, Ace has p.t. in the morning. We only have one car. That means that Ace has to take the bus. In order to make it to the bus stop and on base in time he has to wake up at 4:00 a.m. Yep. You read that right. They've also instigated a new rule that if your G.P.A. isn't high enough you have to attend mandatory study hall from 6:30-8:30 every night. Well, Chinese is a very difficult language. And while Ace is doing really well and working his butt off studying, his G.P.A. still isn't as high as the army (or he) would like it to be. Because of this Ace rides the bus home every day, either takes a short nap or wrestles with the boys and cuddles with his baby girl, then takes the car and heads back to school. He gets home just before 9:00 and either does some more studying or goes straight up to bed.
I'm not going to lie. It's a lonely life. As much, if not more, for Ace than for me. He's away from his family all day long. I'm with our crazy children all day long. I can't set up our Christmas tree by myself and at the end of the day neither one of us has the energy to do it. After the kids are in bed I still have to make lunches for Ace and Mac, clean up the dinner and any other resulting mess that has spilled over into the rest of the kitchen, put toys away, and take a shower before crawling into bed and praying no one wakes up sick, with nightmares, or with teething pain so I can get some uninterrupted sleep before starting everything again tomorrow.
Add to my busy daily life the fact that I have no Christmas spirit this year (shocking considering I typically start listening to Christmas music right around August) and our house makes us look like a bunch of atheists. I'm really not excited about having a 60* Christmas. I want cold. And snow. I like seasons. I like curling up in comfy sweaters and being warm inside while it's freezing outside. It just doesn't seem like Christmas to me.
And the money thing. It's not like our situation is unique to us. Every other E3 in the army is making the same amount of money we are. If they're an E1 or E2 they're making less money than us. There are so many people who are having a hard time financially. I know we're not the only ones. But it's hard when I hear about different people having a hard time with their budget. We don't have a budget. There's nothing to budget. I know people who have a hard time paying their bills but they have a monthly allowance for clothes or entertainment. We don't have anything left over.
I have wanted a new camera for months. One of those nice DSLR cameras that have all the settings so you can take real pictures. I used to love photography. It's something I want to explore, learn about, and maybe even one day become good at. But the main reason I want a camera is to take better pictures of my children and to better capture our memories. When the boys were babies and while they still had huge, toothless grins I took black and white pictures of them for a project I still have yet to complete (but that's beside the point. the project will happen eventually). When I went to take Poppie's pictures the same way I had done her brothers' my camera wouldn't work the way I needed it to. I couldn't zoom in and focus how I wanted to. Now I'm about five months and four teeth and 100 pictures too late. It kills me that she doesn't have the same pictures of her that I have of both her brothers.
We were able to get some money saved. But the renters in our house in Utah had been dealing with our fridge that decided to have issues. And I had to register our van. And I still have doctor's bills coming in from this Summer. There's just always something.
But despite our lack of funds I am so blessed. I have a house. Poppie has finally decided to start eating. My family is healthy. And if we weren't healthy we have health care that would cover all of our expenses. My husband is not currently deployed and there's no question if he will be home for Christmas. My husband has a job. And he is amazing and works incredibly long, hard hours in order to support my family and eventually (hopefully) use this knowledge he's gaining to help spread the Gospel.
And I have three beautiful children. There are plenty of times when they drive me crazy. Mac doesn't always (read "usually") like to listen. Romeo is a great listener until his brother comes home from school and then he shadows his big brother. They are the best of friends and the absolute worst of enemies. When they are getting along they say and do the cutest, sweetest, funniest things. When they fight I think our house will explode. Poppie is extremely clingy right now. I'm all for cuddling but she just wants to be held and put down on a whim. Her whim. As often as she pleases.
For all the headaches and heartaches they are great. Mac is becoming such a sensitive and compassionate child. He will often see when I'm struggling and stop what he's doing to run and help distract one of his siblings or go play with them in order for me to do something else.
Romeo loves to play and be read to and will almost always give loves upon request.
Poppie is so sweet and still cuddles close to me at night so she can fall asleep in my arms. She is so smiley and happy.
