New House, New Place...New Kid?

Ben went back to work today. Well, not real work, but inprocessing. Inprocessing is much akin to going to the DMV, only you have to do it a bazillion times in one day. The lines, the rude people, the taking a million years to get any one thing done because, as the Ben puts it, "the enslave the elderly program is alive and well."

He says this for a reason...many of the people working for the places where inprocessing takes place are senior citizens. In my experience, most of the time they are incredibly pleasant, hardworking people. The problem is that, with how quickly modern technology changes AND the fact that rules/regulations/people's common sense changes all the time, it takes them a little while to get tasks accomplished. Benwas at one "checkpoint" as we call them for 2 hours today. He needed 1 piece of paperwork signed, to pick up about 4 pieces of gear, and there were only 2 people in front of him.

We get aggravated with this on several levels. 1: it just shouldn't take that long. Period. End of story. 2: while we understand that everyone has to make a living somehow, there are jobs on a post like this that should be going to military spouses who want to work (like myself) but can't get a job because all of the positions are taken by people who live an hour away. How on earth does that make sense? It doesn't.

So the Ben was in and out all day. That makes it hard on Monkey. He's become very attached to his daddy in the past 2 months, since Ben has been home most of the time. Now Monkey has to adjust not only to being in a new place, new house, slightly new routine, and a change in his eating (we're currently switching him off of formula to milk and more solid foods), but he also has to deal with daddy coming and going all the time. The  Ben's new job will mean that he is home periodically throughout the day, but then has to go back to work.

At our old duty station, if Monkey saw Benin the morning, but then  Ben went to work, Monkey had a bad day. If Monkey didn't see the Ben until he was home from work for the day, then all was well and everything was sunshine and rainbows. Now Monkey has to adjust to "daddy's here right now but he's leaving for a couple of hours and then he'll be back again" blah blah blah.

So, this morning, Monkey woke up,  Ben  was gone, and we had the meltdown of all meltdowns. Screaming, arching the back, pick me up no put me down punch you punch myself eat not hungry I'M NOT HAPPYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY kind of meltdown. For an hour. Just as I got him calm, Ben came home. Then he left. Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

I fully expect this to last for at least a week. Because he's cutting 2 more teeth. And apparently hates me now. Loves daddy, hates me.