27 Dresses and a little bit of vomit

Oh, it's been a weekend. Not a bad one, but not really a great one, either. Where do I begin? Most of you probably want me to begin, well, at the beginning, but I am going to jump to last night, and the title of this post. Then we'll get to the stuff you really want to hear about. Mmmkay?

Yesterday was okay to begin with. I won't go into the whole poo incident, and will skip ahead to the more fun stuff. We were invited over to Shayne and Reagan's house for playtime and lunch, which was awesome, since I was sort of going stir crazy with the girls. My sister came along too, and we all had a nice lunch and the kids played well together. Jess and I also had plans to see a movie last night (27 Dresses), and I did actually make it, but just barely.

Dexter is my regular babysitter, but he was busy last night, so Rae (Dexter's mom, and a friend of mine) asked if it was okay if her second-oldest son, Owen, babysat instead. Since Owen is, what, 11? she would come along at first and transition the girls to bed and then when they were asleep, she would go home. They live about 1 minute from here, so this was fine with me. But, it was apparently not fine by Kate. My problem, in retrospect, was not leaving immediately when Rae and Owen arrived. This made Kate think that it was just a visit, and she became hysterical when I tried to leave. As I walked out the door at 7:20pm, I heard her retch because she was crying so hard. She does this often enough that it didn't surprise me, although I'm pretty sure it was an unpleasant surprise for both Owen and Rae. I raced back inside to find Kate wailing and covered in vomit, Claire beginning to get hysterical, and Owen with a shocked look on his face. Rae was in crisis mode, and had already started the bath. I tried to calm Kate down while removing her jammies, and Rae gave her a bath while I cleaned up. Owen did a good job of keeping Claire occupied and out of the puke. Fifteen minutes later, I was out the door and on my way to the movies, while I frantically dialed my sister and then Tim to tell him about how awesome my night was going. I called Rae at 7:45 and things were fine.

So, does anyone else's child work themselves into such a fit that they make themselves sick? Kate does this on a regular enough basis that I can tell when it's going to happen. What I don't know is how to head it off, besides just giving in to her demands. She does it when she doesn't like a particular food, when she's really mad about something, or when she doesn't want me to leave (which is rare, luckily). Tim's theory was that she was already distressed that he was gone all weekend, and she didn't want me to leave, too. My response is: that is understandable, but unacceptable. I need to be able to leave sometimes, and I need to figure out how to stop her from making herself sick when she's mad. Ideas?

The movie was fun. It's a total chick flick, but one that Jessica and I actually enjoyed. It didn't hurt that James Marsden is so yummy.

Okay, onto the stuff you want to know about. I know, I know! I'm being so mean! Posting pictures with no titles or explanations. On Thursday, we got our assignment, verbally. This means that you kind of want to see it in writing (probably March) before you make any big decisions like selling your house. The assignment is to Nellis, in Las Vegas, to report in June. It is a flying assignment, which Tim is so excited about. He would continue to fly the A-10, and would be in a position to advise pilots going to and coming from the war, I believe. We haven't had much time to discuss this assignment, as he had to work for about 15 hours on Friday, and left on Saturday before 5am.

Then, last night, he told me he'd just found out that FedEx is hiring pilots in Hong Kong. We visited HK in 2004 and loved it, and always thought that he would check out various airlines some day to see if they were hiring. So, now you know about as much as I do. I have no idea where we will be by the time June rolls around, but I'll keep you posted. Tim gets home tonight, so there will be plenty of discussions going on this week at our house.