Some Exciting News

“Whooooooooo!” Tom bellowed as he walked through the front door. He had his arms waving victoriously in the air.

He startled me, to be honest. I was in the middle of drinking water and I nearly choked on it. I mean, you don’t just come bursting through the door shrieking. It’s just not cool.

“Guess what?” Tom sang at me. He looked positively thrilled and I half expected him to do a pirouette, which by the way, would have been hilarious. My husband is six feet tall so watching his limbs twist around would be a sight to see.

“You got expert?” I wondered. I knew he had just come home from firing his gun and he usually always gets expert.

“No. I mean, yes I did but that’s not why I’m happy,” Tom said, standing in front of me. I could smell his breath. It did not smell good. Has he not heard of Tic Tacs?

“Then why are you happy?” I asked impatiently. At this point I had been stuck inside with a cranky two year old and my son had come home from school grumpy and I had just burned my finger while cooking dinner. I was not in the mood to guess.

“What would make you incredibly happy?” Tom replied. He had a goofy grin on his face.

I stroked my chin. “Hmmmm. For the Gosselin family to go away and for there to be no such things are calories,” I answered.

Tom made a face. “No. Something else,” he said, twirling his arm impatiently.

I scratched the side of my head. “Um….not to move?” (For those who don’t know, Tom got orders to a base in Montana and we were planning on moving next month.)

“Yes,” Tom said, his goofy grin expanding.

My face brightened. “Yes as in…we’re not moving?” I was practically doing a happy dance. My feet started to tap on the carpet and a goofy grin was beginning to form on MY face.

“My orders were cancelled. We’re staying here,” Tom said proudly.

I whooped and jumped in his arms. He smelled like dog and gun powder but I didn’t care. We were staying! We didn’t have to move!

This is apparently what happened: see, Tom is a K-9 Handler and he called the base in Montana to make sure he’d get a dog when we got there. The guy told him that he couldn’t promise that which confused Tom because the reason he got orders there was because they needed handlers. So then Tom told his boss and his boss said he’d look into it.

To make a long story short, apparently the base in Montana forgot to update their lists. Basically the list that said that they needed handlers was over a year old.

I’m thrilled. I was thrilled when Tom told me. I kept squealing and then I said something like, “We need to thank your boss. What does he want? Does he want a two-year-old? Or maybe he’d prefer a boy? Tommy, you’re going to go live with a nice man!” I called out.

Tommy looked up from the book he was reading with a start. “WHAT?” he shrieked.

I laughed. “I’m kidding. But really, we need to do something. I’m going to write him a letter and bake him cookies!” I rushed into the kitchen to check and make sure that we had the ingredients.

“I thought you wanted to thank him?” Tom said, following me in.

I rooted through the cupboards. We have a lot of crap in there. When in the WORLD did I pick up minced onion?

“I do want to thank him, Tom. I need to make sure we have the stuff to make chocolate chip cookies,” I explained, pulling out a bag of chocolate chips. Yes! Score! One ingredient down, er…maybe eight more to go?

“Cooking for him seems like a punishment. I’ve tasted your cookies,” Tom pointed out.

I swatted his arm with the chips. “You be nice! I’ll make the best cookies ever.”

I ended up writing Tom’s boss a thank you letter and giving him some cookies, which by the way, turned out really good.

I just want him to understand how grateful we are.

We get to stay!