“Plans are nothing. Planning is everything.” Obviously, Eisenhower didn’t spend much time with toddlers. (September 2015)



Planned my promotion party, reception and wet down to the nit-noid painstaking, phased detail. With a four star general officiating the ceremony, precedent dictated nothing less. I imagined the day much like a bride envisions her wedding day—everything would be perfect and years later I would reminisce over the event with photos of me in my brand-spanking-new-whites, my angel girls in matching Lily Pulitzer outfits on either side of me, hair in pigtails and smiles abound. It would be a great moment captured on film and displayed on my mantel for years to come.
Someone call the Urinalysis Coordinator. I must have been on drugs.

My day kicked off well at 0400, putting 20 lbs of pork in the oven, making lists, moving chairs and ensuring everything on my uniform was in its exact place. I left my capable family in charge of last minute preps and headed into work. The morning rapidly pressed on and I avoided some last minute disasters like missing photographers, lack of paperwork for alcohol, almost losing an O-6, and the wrong flag for a 4 star. I almost managed to get 30 people badged and into the Director’s Award Room in a top-secret facility without any real drama. Until my mother called shortly before they arrived, “Now, don’t get upset but The Kraken fell into the corner of the coffee table just before we left and hit around her eye. Her eye is okay but she’s bleeding a lot and I think she’s going to need a stitch. She’s, um, pretty upset too. Just so you know. Love you, bye.” ‘Upset’ was the wrong adjective. I have only heard noises like that once and that was from my newly spayed cat hiding in a closet and plotting my death. The moment she saw me, “The Kraken” clung to me like an alligator about to take down its prey in a death roll, trying desperately to rub her bleeding wound on my newly acquired white uniform. Any attempt to put her down or give her to anyone was met with glass shattering screams. Later, I found small cuts in my arms and neck from where she dug in to better her grip. A room full of friends, family and GOFOs awaited. I’m not really sure what happened next, the mounting stress hurled me into a functional trance as I decided not to fight the situation but simply give up and drown in it. That photo of smiling girls what not going to happen and I was pretty sure I would promote with her on my hip. The General and I gave up on the whole “entrance of the official party” thing and took position in front of the flags. Neither one of us clued in the narrator who loudly announced, “Please stand for the arrival of the official party”. We were two feet away from him. “Ah Chris,” the General shouted over The Kraken’s wails, “I think we are about as arrived as we’re going to be”. The General began to deliver some very touching remarks about me and if it wasn’t for The Kraken’s shenanigans, I may have actually blushed. However, The Kraken filled the speech with shifts from high-pitched wails to thoughtful repose whereby she played the “where’s your nose?” game with my face–sticking her fingers in my eyes, nose, ears and mouth. She would start to smile a bit before her face would quickly fall again and look at me and the crowd as if to say, “Do any of you mother-fucker’s realize that I am BLEEDING FROM MY EYE!!” She began to violently squirm and I put her down where she ran to my father, grabbed his bottle of water and b-lined it back to me, loudly indicating that I pick her back up. I had her in my arms for 1.2 seconds before she dropped the bottle on the floor and the cap popped off, spilling the half the contents on the Director’s carpet. Excited, she dropped into the spill, emptying the rest of the water, creating a puddle. That she played in. She splashed, she licked her hands trying to drink from the puddle and splashed some more. I prayed for someone to call in a bomb threat. Never missing a beat, The General gave a stirring speech which my sister later compared to Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address in its eloquence describing my ability to achieve “work/life balance” while The Kraken defiantly Gene Kelly’d in her puddle. By the time everything was said and done, we forgot to publish the orders, the shoulder board piece went backward, and I was covered in blood, sweat and tears. It was an awesome shit show of epic proportion. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.

In the end, The Kraken didn’t need a stitch, just some motrin and a nap. Poor baby.