Proud To Be A Navy Girl

image via Armed Forces Gear

I'm starting to realize we have a real Navy girl on our hands here. It's been building for a while and certainly during Daddy's deployment it was happening but it's so cute to see our little one's continually growing devotion to the Navy.

First before deployment we were given a couple of teddy bears in camo. We named one Army and the other Navy since Daddy's served in both. Then came John Paul Jones, as we named him, the Navy eagle stuffed animal per request at Christmas. After Christmas it was a new pink camo backpack for school and green camo pajama pants.

Then of course Daddy brought her home some good gear from deployment including a Kalishnakitty tee shirt.  -- Which she is forbidden from ever wearing outside the house and particularly to school -- can you even imagine ---yikes! Trust me I've played that scenario out in my head numerous times, the call from the principal, her teacher, who is a real NUTJOB, would be catatonic!

Tangent Alert: I'm totally counting down the days until the end of the year so I can stop biting my tongue about this teacher in front of our kiddo - of course I'm still never going to say anything much to her about it, but at least this woman won't be a part of our daily lives.

It has taken massive amounts of discipline on my part to mask my intense dislike of her. (And I'm a super easy-going, "give everyone the benefit of the doubt" kind of gal!) It's been a long year since our first encounter when I realized we'd drawn the short straw for this year. But only recently has our kiddo begun to complain about her unfair practices and how psycho she seems. It's like menopause gone off the rails with that woman. Six weeks & counting!

It's kind of humorous actually that my one unhappy loon of a grade school teacher was in the same grade our kiddo is this year. Same menopausal age, same soulless, smile-less gray face, same "everything bothers me" attitude. I've reflected back on that a lot this year to remind myself that "this too shall pass" and that we all get a crummy teacher now and again.

Anyway, back to our Navy girl, last week we were on base and as a thank you for a big errand we ran for Daddy, he told her she could get one thing. Well since they took out the kid's department at the NEX (WHY?!) there really wasn't much of anything for her to get. But she gladly begged to get a Navy sweatshirt. Navy blue with pink camo letters. It's nearly impossible to get this girl to wear a jacket or sweater but guess what she's been wearing non-stop since the weekend. I'm going to have to peel it off of her for a washing eventually.

I love that she thinks the Navy is so cool. I love that she thinks it's so awesome that she has a "Navy Dad." I'm a little envious of the simplicity of her world and how she is able to live outside the bounds of all the ridiculous and often infuriating politics: from Washington, D.C. right down to Daddy's unit, and just appreciate the idea of the honor of military service.

I want to do all I can to help her build a foundation on that. She comes from a multi-generation military family, who take the honor seriously, and I want to instill that in her. I doubt she'll ever choose to serve in the military, but you never know, she may end up a loyal military wife someday so teaching her everything I can about that can't hurt.

Since my mother-in-law, who was a milspouse for 30-plus years, passed away before I met her son, I'm especially glad for all I've learned from all of you other military spouses. You've been a blessing and a godsend and have gotten me through a lot of separations, helped me figure out services, acronyms and so, so much more. Thank you for your examples! You and our little girl are an awesome reminder that I'm a Navy Girl too and to stand tall with pride that we have the honor of being a military family.