Bachelor Training Begins
Hello to everyone.
Today has been arriving (or looming depending on the day) slowly for several weeks now. Earlier in December, Rebecca learned she was to report to Patrick Air Force Base in Coco Beach, Florida. We had expected this trip to be in August of this year, but things change—and quickly with this one!
The stay in Florida is for training Rebecca must have for her job. A recent Inspector General's visit in Wyoming found the base not compliant by having personnel appropriately trained. The IG waved its magic stick and poof! August moved to January, sending Rebecca and a co-worked to school—for six weeks.
We planned on this being a family move, but Rebecca quickly learned from the school registration materials that families were not permitted and that she would not have time for them. Her classes start at 0800 and finish out at 1800 Monday through Saturday. And, of course, there is homework, so Sundays are pulled in as well (not to mention Sunday seems the only time to do one's laundry).
So, Xavier and Dad are home alone while Mom toils away in humid, spring-like weather.
Our plan getting up this morning was to drop Rebecca at the airport (DIA) at 0800; her plane's planned departure was 1030. We woke up to snow, and not just a little! Mix in the fact that it would be the beginnings of rush hour when we started to the airport, and that nine out of ten people in that rush hour crowd seem not to know how to drive with two inches of snow on the ground, we arrived at the East Terminal right at 0900. 0900 was the time I was to be dropping Xavier off with his sitter so I could go to work.
Rebecca's flight departed on time and she arrived a little early. She had a day and a half before she had to report for duty, so on Saturday, she went to the beach, watched dolphins in the bay and see horseshoe crabs scavenge the coastline.
Meanwhile, back in Denver, Dad and Xavier began their own school: Bachelor School for Boys. It's a six week crash course designed to introduce Xavier to fending for one's self like a man.
There is a little wrinkle in the training, however. Rebecca took care of several details before she left. Like all the sitters for Xavier so Dad could go to work. She even arranged for sitters so Dad would have time to himself. That, friends, is the loving care of a wonderful woman!
Not only that, but Rebecca, before she left, prepared and froze dozens of meals. We have lasagna, steak, spaghetti, pizza rolls, chili, breakfast sandwiches, lunches, dinners, even chocolate chip cookies! I've got a menu spreadsheet taped to the kitchen cupboard along with a list of weekly supplies. All I have to do is decide what we want to eat, then remember to pull it from the freezer in the morning.
With only the weekly exceptions of milk, fruit and pepperoni, neither Xavier nor I need to darken a grocery store for weeks!
Though I can teach Xavier how to pop pizza rolls into an oven, then sit and eat them in front of the TV while sitting around in his diaper, I guess I'll have to teach Xavier about ordering pizza, deciding on takeout, and falling back to the blue box of Mac & Cheese in a follow-on class.