ABU Drama

Neal has been bugging me about needing to update his ABU (camo) top. It had to be done by today. At some point he pulled it out and took the rank off. Because of his job he no longer wears rank. He bought the new name tape I needed to add and washed them both. We have found washing the top and tapes before sewing eliminates all the annoying puckering that most people have. Once he had it ready for me to sew he decided he better try the top with all his new gear. It was tight. Ugh. We should have expected this. He has to buy all his shirts that will go over his gear a size larger. He seemed fine having his shirt "stretching" across all his junk. I wasn't okay with it so I bought him a new top on Monday. He left his gear at work so he couldn't see if it was better. He tried it out on Tuesday or Wednesday. Wednesday he brings me the top and his ABU pants and showing me they are two different colors. When they first brought the ABUs out they had one that was more of a brown and one with more green. I'm not sure if they finally stopped buying fabric from two different places and maybe we have the bottoms from the fabric no longer used. Anyway, he shows me the color difference and waits on a response. I don't remember exactly what I said, but it went something like this.

N- "Look at this."

J- "Yeah". Said same as so what.

N- "They're different."

J- "It's fine."

N- "But it doesn't match."

J- "So what?!" Getting frustrated the color difference really matters given the regularity the garment is worn.

N- "You don't have to get upset I'm just showing you they are different."

J- sternly, "I'm not getting upset, I really don't care." snicker... I really didn't and still don't care.
Suddenly he really cared they didn't match and had to tell me so. My thoughts? He hasn't worn ABUs in over a year. Why should I care that for the one day in over a year he has to wear them they won't be a perfect match? It's not at all worth it to me to spend $30-40 on new ABU pants just so he can match once a year. Maybe he will start having to wear them once a month, but even then it's still not worth it. Originally he was worried you could still see where the rank was on his old ABU top. You couldn't. He also fretted on the tapes not being the exact same color. He bought all new tapes. *rolls eyes* I told him the color difference, ever so slight, wasn't enough to warrant the work of taking off the old and putting on new ones. If his superiors complain then I'll go buy him some pants.

Yesterday I sewed on all the new tapes and it looked great.

Pictures, Returns, & A Birthday

If ever there were any doubts who she belonged to it ended with the forehead light. Here is Neal's little clone.

I'm not sure if the last few days have been calm or if I'm just getting used to Kaitlyn climbing everything and pulling stuff down. She loves crawling up on the couch. I keep telling her we sit or lay on the couch not stand, but of course she stands. The problem with her standing is she can reach all the things we have tried to keep from her; remote, tissues, and so on. Oh and the tissues... Another thing we have talked about many times is that tissues are for your nose. After having our talk I put the tissues on the other side of me on top of the couch. Kaitlyn inevitably gets them again. Yesterday I walked downstairs to find each tissue out of the box, laying on the couch or floor. I guess I still have a lot of work to do on what they are used for. =) I was reading What To Expect The First Year and it said we should explain why we do things to our 10-11 month olds even if they don't understand. I think it's because eventually it will click. And the big thing from the book was NO BABY TALK. I know we will have to deal with this when we are back home, but seeing how Kaitlyn is starting to grasp words we will have to insist people talk to her normally. The book explained just what I was thinking. It said if you repeat her gibberish back to her she will not learn how to say words correctly. I haven't heard this before, but it went on to say not to correct mispronounced words. Their reason was little ones cannot say all 21 consonants properly until they are 3-5. Also, correction may stop the child from striving to talk for a while for fear of saying it wrong.

I bought Neal the new ABU yesterday. The manufacturer is getting material from two different places so the shirt and pants are different colors. The pants were a bit more green and the shirt brown. I guess it really doesn't matter because I have to take them both back. Grrr... Because they are the new uniform they do not have a lot to choose from. Next time I will work hard at getting the same color ABU.

Because we are going back to the States next Thursday I'm having Kaitlyn's one year pictures done today. I'm hoping they come out great. I bought her a handmade dress off Ebay that has a cake on the front with one candle and her name "Kaitlyn Joy". Last night I made her a much to large bow for her hair and two matching bows for the dress. Not that the dress needed bows, but I thought a little extra ribbon never hurts. Hehehe...

This is her birthday dress the day it arrived. She will have a long sleeve white top on today with black shoes, white socks and of course the bows I made last night.

To round out our day it's Neal's birthday. I think I will feel a little better about his birthdays when he finally gets into his upper 20s, but 26 is a good start. Out of all things he is having to do his PT test today. Who knows it is sprinkling out it may be under 53 with 20mph winds so he may have gotten out of testing. Now that I think of it he probably put his test off until today because his age lowers his requirements. Good thinking Neal. Here is a picture of the birthday boy with his baby girl; not looking much like a girl I might add.