Molly vs. Her Crib

As you can see, the crib won this round.  It was a vicious battle, with much gnashing of gums and flailing of limbs.  The crib, through a superior imposition of strategy, forced Molly to tap out with an expert and unprecedented use of a double-leg lock.  Unfortunately, Molly's ducky was collateral damage in this fierce battle, having been crushed under Molly's giant body.

NB: We did not pose her for this picture.  During one of our nightly peeks to see if Molly was still cute, we found her sleeping like this.  After grabbing the camera, we repositioned her and she didn't even wake up.

Dispatch from Basic Officer Leadership Course

You probably cannot see me in this photo
because I am wearing camouflage. 

ARMY JARGON 101

1) Hooah: defined as “anything and everything except no.” This is the all-purpose Army filler word. It can mean anything from “I absolutely agree, you are so right!” to “What you just said was asinine, but I acknowledge that you said it.” 

2) Jacked up: An adjective describing things that are not the way they are supposed to be. A good example would be the appearance of my uniform the first time I put it on: “Lieutenant, your uniform is jacked up!”

3) Squared away: indicates a person who is not jacked up.  It is high praise to say of someone, “that is a very squared away soldier.” The opposite of squared away is a “soup sandwich.” (Think about it.)

4) Counsel: A verb describing having a talk with a subordinate soldier to “educate” him about something he did wrong or to let him know you noticed something good he did. Most of the time getting counseled is bad, but not always. You should stand at attention while being counseled unless you are told to be “as you were.”

5) Accountability: Taking attendance. Whenever we go anywhere, we budget extra time for this. For example, if we are supposed to be on the PT field by 0430 (o dark thirty), we will be required to arrive by 0415 or even earlier so that the student leadership can make sure that we are all there. Our squad leaders report to the platoon leaders who report to the company leaders who report to the battalion leaders that we are all here. There is lots of saluting involved as well. 

6) Being pissed: having a urine drug test. Here at officer training, they told us we were going to a “leadership class” and then surprised us with a drug test. In a normal platoon, 10-20% of people are randomly chosen to be pissed on a rotating basis. Can also be used as a transitive verb, as in “they pissed us.”

7) B.L.U.F.: “bottom line up front.” You are supposed to do this when you give a brief to a superior officer. It is a beautiful idea and I wish they would apply it to everything.

8) Tracking: Means that you are aware of something or that you get the speaker's drift. Often used in a call and response format. Examples: “I am tracking a problem with blahblahblah.” or “Are you tracking?”

9) High speed: This is an adjective meaning that something is cool, high technology, or fancy. Can also refer to a person who is really competitive. Does not have anything to do with rapidity of transport. Example: “Those new tanks have all the high speed gadgets on the dashboard.”

10) Battle buddy: This is broadly applied and can refer to the person you are currently walking or sitting next to, any person in your unit, or your best friend. In the field, this person holds your gun for you while you use the latrine since you cannot go anywhere without your weapon.

DISCLAIMER: The picture of me in uniform does not imply US Government/DoD/Army endorsement of this blog or any of the opinions or Mollies herein.

Molly eating like a big person

Well, sort of - if big people didn't have teeth and needed all of their food pureed.  Or perhaps if a big person did have teeth, but her jaw were wired shut and all food needed to be delivered through a straw.  If Molly were compared to someone in either situation, then yes, what she did today was eat like a big person.

Since Lisa spent so much time today making baby food for the person, we decided to see how Molly liked it while Lisa was still here. We chose a relatively safe food (read: not likely to cause an allergic reaction), pears. Since pears are also one of her Daddy's favorite foods, it seemed a safe bet that Molly would like them. Note that the video is almost four minutes long, but there is nothing unexpected at the end, so only watch the whole thing if you just need a cute baby fix.

Look What I Did to Perfectly Good Food

Molly will be 6 months old soon and ready to eat food, so today I decided to make some for her to eat while I'm at boot camp. See if you can guess what the original ingredients were.

Left: Carrots
Center: Apples. Top two are carrots.
Right: Sweet potatoes.

Left: Some are carrots and some are sweet potatoes.
Center: Chicken with brown rice and chicken with sweet potatoes.
Right: Chicken with brown rice.

Mmmmm. Doesn't it just look delicious?

Baby serving size is about 1 tablespoon, so I used ice cube trays to make individual servings. Once the cubes are frozen, I will stack the trays in labeled freezer bags.

The whole process with cleaning up took approximately 2 hours and yielded 72 servings. I recommend using a food processor rather than a blender because the bigger blades can pulverize meat better. It is also less likely to blow up and explode hot sweet potato all over your kitchen and your shirt. Not that that happened to me.