Wednesday, April 14, 2010 at 02:22PM We haven't talked about it much here on the site, but John is getting ready to PCS to Japan with his wife and son. He wrote about what it's been like prepping for this move, as opposed to your standard CONUS PCS.
Check it out if an overseas move is (or might be) in your future.
Friday, September 4, 2009 at 07:14AM This weekend, we're having our very first "Holy Shit, We're PCSing in Six Months" moving sale. In eight years of marriage, moving into a succession of houses slightly larger than the last, we've acquired lots of stuff.
For example, what is it about guys that makes us think we need to keep the empty box of every piece of electronics we've ever purchased? You know, just in case we need to send it in for service, or whatever.
So hopefully our sale goes well. Then we can focus on the next issue: where we're going to live.
Moving, PCS in Military Life Monday, June 8, 2009 at 10:59PM For the first time since Theo really started socializing, we're running into one of the classic issues for military families: Our friends two doors down, whose three younger kids are Theo's daily playmates, have sold their house and will PCS this weekend.
Theo just turned two, so the idea that as of Saturday afternoon he won't be able to run up the street and have other kids come pouring out to play is probably completely beyond him. The older kids have told him how sad they are that they're leaving, and he just looks at them with the same smile he gives them all the time and goes back to riding a trike or scribbling in chalk on the sidewalk.
Even though I know that he's two, so in a month he probably won't remember these kids he's so attached to today, I'm far more anxious for his impending loss than I've been for any of our moves. Every time he runs up to the little girl who is closest to his age and gives her his trademark bear-hug-bordering-on-a-tackle, I ache for him a little.
And O.K., I'll be honest -- as accustomed as I am to the reality of military comings and goings, I'm sad for myself as well. I don't know if I'll get along with the new neighbors as well as I have with the departing ones and we're already pretty sure the new kids won't be around during the day. When Theo's making my day rough, having playmates just steps away can be crucial for maintaining sanity.
As luck has it, there will be plenty of distractions for the week following their departure, and this is an especially good thing for both him and me.
Imagining this through his eyes is a reminder of just how skilled my wife and I have become at adjusting to the mobility of military life. We know that the Navy is smaller than it seems and that as time goes on, old friends will be new friends as we live around the same people again and again. We've learned that one place is very like another; the priority our civilian friends place on settling down and finding THE perfect house where they can nest until their kids leave home seems like a misplaced obsession.
I guess now is as good a time as any for him to start learning these lessons that we've already absorbed so completely. We'll have friends in town and then a long weekend in D.C., so hopefully by the time we return the new owners and their kids will be moved in and they'll be ready to have a toddler chasing them down the street.
Moving, Parenting in Military Life 