Happy New Year to us all

December 31, 2008 · Filed Under Military Parents, National Guard Parents, This & That · 3 Comments 

This has been our first year here at ParentsZone.. We’ve done  a lot, but not everything we set out to do. I’m happy that we have a core of readers (but I really wish you’d SAY something!) As our family heads into a deployment (my husband’s second to the same place)  I want to wish all of my military family a safe, prosperous, peaceful and calm 2009.  If your family member is deployed, I hope the tour passes swiftly and safely; if they are preparing for deployment, I hope the transition isn’t too bumpy, the time passes slowly; and if they are sitting with you tonight – hug them.  If you are just starting on the Military Family road – welcome to the family – the One Percent of the nation that have a family connection to the presently serving military. We are a large family – we have members of all colors, creeds, branches of service, age, family size – but we are proud to be Parents (and family )of Serving Military.

Happy New Year.

LAW

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Can you help out??

December 29, 2008 · Filed Under Deployment · Comment 

Happy Monday All! PZ Techmama here… I saw this on Facebook and I thought I’d pass it along. I’ll also be posting it over at HASMO

Soldiers’ Angels is calling all Mary Kay Beauty Consultants

Selected independent Mary Kay distributors have teamed up with Soldiers’ Angels to get our troops the skin protection they need. Some distributors donate a duplicate of each product sold, while others give a percentage of their profits. Check with your Mary Kay distributor to see if she is participating in this project!

The Tax ID# for Soldiers’ Angels (so you can claim the donation) is 20-0583415. The donated sets are being sent directly from Mary Kay Cosmetics to Soldiers’ Angels, who will then distribute it to the soldiers.

Mary Kay items for our male and female troops are needed:

  • After Shave
  • Facial Cleansing Bar
  • Facial Moisturizer
  • Body Cleansing Gels
  • Body Lotions
  • Sunburn Soothing Gel
  • Facial Cleansing Cloths (Dry-just add water)
  • Lip Balm
  • Acne Treatment
  • Gel Energizing Lotion for Feet and Legs
  • Satin Hands Treatment for Dry cracked hands
  • Black waterproof mascara
  • Nail polish

Any makeup you have to donate is also now being accepted as well. We are putting these into our Female Vet packs that are being distributed to the VA hospitals.

If you are a consultant that wants to get involved, please send your product to one of the following warehouses

If west of the Mississippi, ship to:
Soldiers’ Angels
914 Tourmaline Dr
Newbury Park, CA 91320

If east of the Mississippi, ship to:
Soldiers’ Angels
112 Greenhill Rd.
Ramseur, NC 27316

Thanks to the generosity of Mary Kay Independent Beauty Consultants from all over the United States who have donated product to Soldiers’ Angels, www.angelsstore.org now has Pretty in Pink kits available for $29 (which includes shipping).

Each kit contains at least seven Mary Kay products, plus 10 feminine wipes, 10 women’s deodorant towelettes, two boxes of tampons, and a mini fingernail file and clipper.

Soldiers’ Angels understands that females are instrumental in the current war, and makes special efforts to support them. “Our female warfighters are so strong and courageous, and we’re so grateful for their service,” says Patti Patton-Bader, founder of Soldiers’ Angels. “We’re excited to be able to show them some extra love and help them remember that they’re still ladies.” With this in mind, the Pretty in Pink kit provides female service members with health and hygiene products, and items for a few pampering moments to allow ladies to rejuvenate and ‘be good to themselves.’

Pretty in Pink kits must be sent to an APO/FPO (no residential addresses). They can be sent to a specific soldier, or supporters can request their purchased kit be sent to “Any (Female) Soldier” anonymously or in the supporter’s name.

Well, what are you waiting for? It is time to pamper a deployed service member- https://www.angelsstore.org/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=MINprettypink

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Camp Mamaw – a Christmas present for the DIL…

December 22, 2008 · Filed Under Military Parents, National Guard Parents, Parents News, This & That · 2 Comments 
Well, the word is official, Camp Mamaw wilI be open right after Christmas when I will be taking care of my granddaughters for a few days while their Mom gets some much needed R&R.  I remember when I was younger with 3 little boys at home, I loved having a few days without my husband and kids around too.  However, they were few and far between as there was usually one baby at home when the others came of age to go hunting with Dad. Maybe thats why my Mom would take one or two when they got a little older for a shopping trip or a McDonalds run.  Maybe my hair wouldn’t have been so whacked out looking at times and I wouldn’t have hidden in my office when everyone was asleep if I had gotten a spa weekend or something similar when the boys were small!
This is one of the things that you can do for your daughter/son-in-law while their spouse is deployed.  Take their child/children for at least a full 24 hours and have some fun.  When my granddaughters come over and spend the night sometimes we have themed nights.  It’s easier for me to plan when I have a theme, that habit was formed when my sons were little and we had to have Power Ranger Birthdays, or Cowboy Birthdays, etc.  When the girls come over, we might have a movie night. I’ll make plenty of  popcorn and we pretend that the couch is the car and we’re at the drive-in (they don’t really know what one of those are since they’re not too common anymore), but we cuddle on the couch, I ”drive” us to the theater and we watch the movie together.  We have a bakers day to make cookies, the icing is easy to make too for them to use, just powdered sugar and a little water.  We’ve also had “beauty salon night” painting nails and using the footbaths.  They love to use the scented lotions, it makes them feel so grown up.  The most fun was taking out the tea cups for apple juice, crystal bowls for fruit and yogurt and the special girly flower plates for breakfast.  I was their waitress and they were the pricesses.  They ate everything the “hate” to eat at home and they talked about it for days!
We’ve made blanket fortresses in the bedroom just like I did when I was little and then taught my boys how to do as well.  We use all the blankets from the hall closet and drape them from the bunkbed down to a chair, hold it in place with books and then get the flashlights and read or tell ghost stories.  The boys loved this, they would even take the dog (our black lab) in there and sleep all night, cuddled with her.
My point is that as a parent of a deployed soldier, I know it’s hard to have your child out facing danger on a daily basis.  To have your spouse away from home any length of time is hard enough if they are gone on a business trip, but knowing that you won’t have them at home for months at a time, and having to deal with the bills, kids, work and everyday life decisions can be taxing enough, but knowing in the back of your mind that he/she is thousands of miles away, sleeping with a gun by their side instead of you must be terrifying.  I had actually thought about this before and have offered to watch the girls when I can, but it was brought home to me about a week ago when I took my daughter-in-law and my granddaughters to see an area in our hometown where there is a neighborhood that decorates for Christmas.  Each home has painted, wooden cutouts of different storybook/movie figures and each house is strung with lights.  I used to take my sons every year to this neighborhood when they were little and they would be in awe of the beauty and shout out each characters name, just like my granddaughters did that evening.
Since it was dark, the truck was cloaked in that magical time when you can tell a secret, feeling that without the harshness of daylight showing every worry line that your face is wearing, that it’s fine to share.  That’s when my daughter-in-law told me how she cries at night, missing my son.  She sleeps with their girls in one big bed to keep them close every night.  She told me about a song on the local country music station that makes her cry every time she hears it.  Now, I’m not ignorant of the fact that she misses him, I know they both miss each other immensely.  I just never heard her speak it out loud, in this way, to any one.  She told me about the arguments they have some times when he calls, about the little things, and how sometimes she feels like she does nothing right.  All of it came to the surface, and when I looked over at her I saw a little girl in a womans body crying out for some reassurance that he would be okay and that what she was doing was right.
We talked all the way home about being a parent, how hard it is to know if what you are doing is the right thing.  We talked about love, marriage and hope for the future.  I reminded her that he was stressed too, that he worrys about his family, if the girls are okay and that he misses her more then he may actually say in the words she might want to hear.  He had called me when he first deployed and asked me to check in on her, which I have done since he has been gone, to keep his mind at ease.  Heck, I used to visit them all the time when they lived downstairs from me so of course I was going to call or text her when she moved in with her parents!  We had a really good time that evening, sharing our thoughts, feelings and yes, our fears.  We spoke woman-to-woman about the man that we share a love for, my son-her husband.  I used to put bandaids on his little cuts and kiss his bruises, I held his little hand through the years, and wiped away his tears of childhood disappointments.  She holds his hand and his heart now in a way that no one else can.  They argue and make up, they call me to tell me and I offer support, never taking sides but letting them know I am listening.  They’re young and have the trials and tribulations that every married couple has, with a twist, like so many other military families. Neither one of them may be aware of it, but I knew that when I handed him over that he was in good hands.
So Camp Mamaw will be up and running again in a few days and I’m making sure that we have plenty of air-drying clay, crayons, colorbooks and fingerpaints.  Their dad is finally coming home after being gone for a year and we need to get busy making the welcome home signs and showing him that we all have missed him more then he will ever know.

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Arlington

December 16, 2008 · Filed Under This & That · 3 Comments 

It was amazing. hundreds of people and thousands of wreaths! the traffic was s-l-oooooo-w, and the DH finally agreed with me that we should have taken the Metro and SemperFiWife, who was also stuck in that long crawl, is on board with that too. We never did meet up!  {click on the title – picture will appear!}

We chose “our” headstones carefully – a Warrant officer for my husband, and a WW2 Coastie for my dad. The Holiday smell of pine, the definitely brisk wind “nipping at my nose” – and honouring those men and women, now THERE was a great start to our holiday. I cannot write about going to Section 60 yet, that is the area that our recent casualties are laid to rest in. There were families there, the graves were decorated – small tokens left with love. I overheard a mom asking someone from either the Cemetary or the Park Service about what happens to those, because they heard that they were being thrown away.  That is NOT true, they are being saved and catalogued, something like what is being done with the articles left at the Vietnam Wall.

LAW

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