In honor of our celebration of our nation’s birthday, we’re featuring a new guest writer, Bleeping Michele!  She’s a military wife and mom and is offering a new perspective this week.

To  indoctrinate you into the military life, let me tell you about one of our favorite acronyms, PCS.

PCS means Permanent Change of Station. Still not sure what this “really” means? PCS means the Active Duty Solder has been ordered to a new location, usually away from family and friends, usually for one to three years (or longer if necessary).

I wouldn’t call this permanent, would you?

Permanent is where I see myself and the family living in our forever home. A place where can actually stay there, well, forever. My dear husband tells me it’s a dream. I can still dream, can’t I?

From a mom’s point of view, PCS is having to start dating other moms all over again to find a new group of awesome moms where I can talk crap about my kids and they won’t judge me (of course I’ll share how amazing my girls are too), drink unsolicited amounts of wine, cheese and desserts. There are so many stories to share about PCS season but today it’s about how my girls help me “mom date”.

I’m not embarrassed to say this but my daughters are my wing ladies to meet new moms. They really are the most pivotal part of this process. But they could be the most damaging too. My littlest doesn’t hold back. She speaks her mind and will call you out on most things. There’s nothing like sitting at an event and my little bear is checking out my ears to make sure I don’t have wax in them. “Hey mom, I see a little wax in your ears you REALLY need to clean them. Now let me check your other ear.”  Of course, this isn’t at a whisper.

My oldest Angel likes to bring up poop in public. She even adds the word poop into the songs she makes up sometimes. No matter where we are.  Seriously? Do this at home child!  Although, between us, I do find it humorous.

Most kids are outgoing (or at least one is), and they just don’t give a $%&* when it comes to going up to another kid and asking if he/she can play too. This is the perfect opening to start talking to the parent in hopes to make that friend connection. You know, the mom to mom connection. When I see a group of moms I think I would enjoy hanging out with, I want to say “Hi, I have a bottle of wine and a bag of animal crackers could I join you for some adult conversation”. It’s so daunting sometimes. But I do it. Well, maybe I just say Hi and introduce myself. But I wish I did have a bottle of wine and animal crackers to share.

One day, we walked to our mailbox which is around the corner from our home. While getting the mail I saw two girls who looked my kid’s ages riding scooters. Granted my girls were in their PJs. I said ladies here’s an opportunity to meet some kids in our neighborhood, let’s do this. Get your smiles on lets go say hello. We walked right up to them and I introduced ourselves. Within minutes the kids were all playing. It was awesome. Then I come to find out they don’t live there. What the fudge? But they visit often because it’s their grandparent’s house. Since then we have hung out a few times.

I had a future friend go as far as calling me prior to my arrival in Texas. Makes me realize I’m not alone in this.  Her husband knows my husband and took the opportunity to call and say Hi before we arrived. It helped that our kids were very close in age and we lived in the same neighborhood. But I still had no idea if we would click. She had us over for dinner the first week we were in town. She gave me a welcome hug and a bottle of wine. Our kids played while my husband and I tried to figure out if this new person and us would click. When she spoke candidly about her kids, her passion for photography and her love for adventure, I knew from there we were destined for friendship. My girls are learning to build friendships for their mom to help keep her sane.