Free Confessions of a Military Wife by Mollie Gross

you want to tell me your name or shall I sniff your ass to see if I recognize you?”
    Having a neighbor named Mollie and a dog called Molly can be down right confusing for the children, especially when someone says, “Molly scooted her butt on the carpet again.”
    The kids would fall down laughing when Kevin would rant, “Damn it! Molly pooped in the neighbor’s yard again!”
    In an effort to prevent some embarrassing moments, they came up with a simple solution. They decided I would be known as “Miss Mollie,” a title of respect straight out of the South. The golden cocker spaniel, on the other hand, stayed simply “Molly.”
    While the name change helped the kids, I still got looks from our other neighbors whenever Kevin would yell at the dog. “Damn it, Molly, quit humping!” Or, “Molly, stop licking your ass!”
    DAVID THE MENACE
    Michelle’s youngest son had a devilish streak. And he would get this twinkle in his eye just before he would strike.
    At eighteen months, David would sit at the end of the driveway with a pacifier in his mouth and wait for his four-year-old brother. When Jacob whizzed by on a skateboard, David would push a skate into Jacob’s path, causing him to crash.
    Jacob would cry and we would run to see what was wrong. There we would find baby David—quietly laughing.
    David also loved boobs. He would look at me while Michelle was holding him, grab a handful of his mom’s boob and giggle. If I held him, he would rest his tiny hand on my breast and laugh.
    If you caught him in the act he would shrug and lift his hands up.
    David was our little “Dennis the Menace.” When he got that certain look in his eye we’d said, “Here comes Dirty Dave!” He was a stinker, and I wished he were mine.
    Jacob could be incredibly brave and quite sensitive. Shortly after they moved in, I found Jacob crying in the garage. I approached and asked him if he was OK. He said he was, but became embarrassed that I had seen him crying.
    I told his dad, who explained Jacob was crying because a boy had been mean to another boy on the playground. Jacob had been so upset he went off to cry in private. I was so moved that a four-year-old had the capacity to feel such empathy for another.
    I was impressed at what Jacob could accomplish. He was a natural athlete. The fact that he could crash and burn on a regular basis and come out unscathed amazed me.
    One day I saw him playing in the backyard when a large tumbleweed blew by, picked him up and the two went rolling away. They finally crashed into a trash can.
    I envisioned Jacob becoming a stuntman. He could master all sports: skateboarding, roller skating, bicycling—anything. He simply had no fear.
    What stole my heart, though, was that he would always ask if my daddy would let me play with him. I assumed this was because Marines look pretty much the same in uniform. In this child’s mind, guys in uniform equal daddies.
    Still, I guess many of the kids on base thought I was a kid just like them. It wasn’t just because of my size (I was only five inches taller than Jacob). It was because I could match them tit for tat when it came to screaming, farting, and yes, fighting over toys.
    Most days we spent in the driveway or backyard running amuck playing together on swings or going down the slides.
    Jacob never really understood that Jon and I were married. If Jon came home from work and Jacob and I were playing, he would ask Jon to join him.
    “Mollie made me dinner, Jacob,” he would reply. “I have to go in and eat.”
    “Oh, your mommy wants you to come in for dinner?”
    I was as proud as his parents when Jacob learned to ride a bike without training wheels. Michelle and Kevin asked Jon and me to come out and watch. There was Jacob on the tiniest bike I had even seen in my life.
    He proudly announced he was going to demonstrate riding without training wheels. We all made a huge fuss. “Why, you are only four! If you do that, you must be so brave!”
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