HE'S HOME!!

Wow, a lot has happened since I last wrote! Most importantly, we made it to Hawaii and have welcomed home our soldier! I have lots and lots of stories and pictures to share (birthdays, graduations, looong plane rides, illnesses, tutus, new house, etc.), but for now I'll just give a little recap of our special homecoming.

The day of the redeployment ceremony, we were all still pretty tired from our travels and from all sharing one air mattress, but we were excited none the less! When it was time, my mom-in-law and I loaded up the kids in the rental car and drove to the air field where we would soon be meeting Scott! Time passed quickly, so before you know it, the soldiers were marching in, the spouses were jumping up and down and waving, we said a prayer and the pledge, they sang a song and then the words, "DISMISSED."

Let me just say that I am soooo glad this year-long deployment is behind us, and it is soooo wonderful to have Scott home again! Despite my jet lag, exhaustion and trip to the ER, I am as happy as can be, and my world feels right again. :)

Can I just say that it was absolutely awesome to hug and kiss my husband for the first time in 6 months? The part that really made me tear up, though, was Child Thing #1's reaction to her Daddy's return. She was abundantly overflowing with pure joy!!

And this, my friends, is probably the very best day an Army wife can have!

We're Almost There!!

The weeks are growing few until this deployment is finally over! And I am SO HAPPY to say that! I cannot wait to have my family whole again and my heart whole again. Just the past few days, it has hit me how soon Scott will be coming back, and I have so much more joy than I have for a looong time. I wouldn't say I have been depressed or anything, but I have been...incomplete. I can live without him, I can even enjoy life without him, but I really, really like it when I get to live with him.

Ecstatic. Thrilled. That's what I feel when I realize how close redeployment is. And there is lots of other exciting stuff going on right now, too. Child Thing #1 has her first dance recital. We're planning a birthday party for both the child things before we leave. We're packing up our stuff to go to Hawaii. We have secured a rental house (just a block or so from the beach, if I may brag a little bit). It's all so exciting!

Of course, in the back of my mind lurks the question, "what if we don't like each other anymore?" And it's a valid question. The Army counselors/chaplains say couples develop coping mechanisms to deal with life alone and to deal with war, and those don't always mesh well when it is over. And they say the spouse left at home has had no other choice but to become very independent and self-sufficient, which makes the soldier feel unwanted. And the soldier has experienced the horrors of war, and that changes a person. Then throw in the fact that both are used to their independent routines and have to re-learn how to live together, and you have the potential for a big mess!

Maybe it's foolish of me, but I'm not expecting this "adjustment period" to be quite as rough as the last one. We have been there before, and we made it through and still love each other. So we know that if it seems bleak for a while, things will get better. As far as I can tell, this deployment has not been nearly as traumatic as the last, so perhaps Scott will be less affected by the "horrors of war."

So there's that, but for now I'm just going to be excited that he's finally coming home! And that my kids are about to turn 2 and 5! And that I will soon get to see my little girl on stage in a tutu! And that we are about to move to Hawai'i! And that we are going to live on the beach!

God is good to me!

9 Months Down

We have now passed the 9 month mark in this deployment. The end is in sight, and it's time to start thinking about moving back to Hawaii to welcome Scott home from Iraq!

The one word that sufficiently describes how I am feeling at this point in the deployment is weary. I'm tired of taking care of EVERYTHING in the house: cooking, cleaning, bills, taxes, garbage, laundry, pets, and I'm too tired to think of anything else, but I know there's more. That must be why God created marriage, so that two people could share the load.

My children are an amazing blessing, and they bring so much joy to me every day. I absolutely love being a mom. But I don't love trying to be both a mom and a dad. Trying to fill the roles of two parents is wearing me down.

And I'm tired of being lonely. I do have my family and Scott's family nearby, and that helps a lot! I am grateful to have had their support this year. But having them does not quite replace the husband-wife relationship, and that's as it should be, really.

I'm tired of worrying about him. Scott's actually in a pretty safe place this deployment, as far as war zones go, but there are still chances of bad things happening. And I certainly don't dwell on this because it would drive me nuts, but knowing, in the back of your mind, that the one you love could be in harm's way at any given moment...that will wear you out, too.

So yes, I am just physically and emotionally weary. Seems like every day ends with me feeling totally drained, even though I can think of no reason why I should be.

But I can see the light at the end of the tunnel! Soon our family will be back together, and I will have someone to help me do the dishes, figure out budgets, raise our kids and tell me he loves me. :) And I am an ARMY WIFE! They are the strongest people I know, so I can last three more months, no sweat. And, if the government happens to extend the deployment--say to 15 months or so--well, I know from experience that I can handle that, too. So, bring it on, deployment! I'm ready for 3 more months of you, but I will be incredibly glad when you are GONE!

Turmoil

This evening Child Thing #1 (shown here loving on her aunt--with underwear on her head) and I talked about moving back to Hawaii. We've always known our stay in Texas would be temporary...just while Daddy was deployed, and she has been looking forward to returning to our tropical island home.

"I'm so hot! When are we going back to Hawaii?"

or

"It's too cold! When are we going back to Hawaii?"

Plus she misses friends there, and most importantly, it was her home.

But after our conversation tonight, I realized that she no longer consideres Hawaii her home. She considers Texas her home, and she doesn't want to leave her home.

So now I'm wondering again if I made the right decision when I chose to move home for the deployment. Before we moved, I debated it for months, and my #1 reason against moving was this: as a military family, we already have so much turmoil in our lives, and I don't want to unnecessarily create any additional turmoil.

But I made the decision to move anyway, and I have to admit, it has been great getting to spend time with all our family here. It's great that the kids have gotten to know their relatives. It's also great that I get to enjoy some fantastic Mexican food every now and then (no salsa made from ketchup! hooray!).

Anyway, as I have said before, the child thing handles the upheaval really well. But even though she doesn't lash out, that doesn't mean that the change is easy for her or that it doesn't have an impact on her. And it really breaks my heart to see her suffering (albeit quietly) from it.

Now that she has completely adjusted and views Texas as her home, it's almost time to move back to Hawaii and start the whole process over.

And I feel guilty.

Does the Military Make you Murder?

Two teenagers were killed by their mother last week while their active duty father was deployed. The details are pretty depressing, so I won't post them, but if you'd like to, you can read this article from CNN.
I don't particularly want to discuss the disturbing crime, but I would like to discuss some comments I heard regarding the situation. Some seem to think that military wives should not be left alone, that being alone for deployments creates too much stress in their lives, causing them to "snap."
Certainly the woman who committed this crime felt a lot of pressure, and the deployment surely made life more difficult for her and her children. But there obviously were some other issues here. The military lifestyle is not to blame. This women probably needed help in a lot of ways and, for whatever reason, did not get it.
There are thousands of women in this country who are also surviving deployments and are able to keep their sanity. In fact, most of the ones I know are able to overcome the stress to lead normal, even happy lives, while their husbands are away. I'm not saying we don't long for the day the deployment is over so that our families will be whole again, because we all do.
What I want to do is remind certain people, who may have jumped to conclusions, that the large majority of military wives can handle it. Though the deployment may be tough, we can take care of our kids, take care of our jobs, take care of our homes, and take care of each other without "loosing it." And then, when the deployment is over, we are ecstatic to have one more person back home to take care of.
Another thing I want to do is ask for your prayers for the family involved in this tragedy, and particularly this father. Thank you.

Little Girls Are Army Strong, Too

It's been over two weeks since mid-tour leave ended and Scott went back to Iraq, and we are starting to get back into the swing of things. Admittedly, it took me a while to adjust back to my self-sufficient lifestyle. Talk about spoiled! While he was here, I got to go to the bathroom without company, I got to cook dinner without screaming children hanging off of my legs and I even had help cleaning the pool. A girl could get used to that!

Though the adjustment was a little rough for me, I am so, so proud of how the child things have done. The baby is probably too young to realize what's going on. So, though he definitely enjoyed having another male in the house, he didn't seem to mind/notice when he was gone. But his sister...she understands. She's 4 1/2, and she's getting to the age where change can be traumatic, but she hasn't thrown any tantrums or fits, she hasn't whined, she hasn't "acted out" to get attention. All in all, she's probably taken it better than I have. The only sign of the turmoil I saw in her was that for the first week or so, she asked me for her bunny at bedtime. A few months ago, the bunny stopped being a requirement for bedtime and started being optional. But when Daddy left, I guess she needed the comfort. She is so tough, isn't she? She may be a little sad or a little confused, and she may be missing her Daddy, but she "bucks up" and doesn't let it slow her down. She may snuggle with her bunny to make her feel better at night, but when morning comes, she is happy and helpful.

Like I said, I'm very proud of them, and especially how adaptable child thing #1 has been in this turbulent situation. Way to be Army Strong, sweet girl!

There are Two Types of Goodbyes

This year will be our 6th as an Army family, and in that time we have done lots of goodbye-ing. I have found that there are two basic views on goodbyes in the military community. The first is the "Savor Every Last Moment" goodbye and the other is the "Get it Over With" goodbye.

I tend to believe that the "Savor Every Last Moment" goodbye is emotional and psychological torture perhaps on par with water boarding. Maybe that's an exaggeration. But it's awful!

The appeal of it is understandable. You're not going to see your spouse for months on end and you want to permanently stamp in your mind those last few seconds together. But uggh, to drag it out like that...and in the military, we're talking hours...it's torturous.

We prefer the short and sweet method. I already have plenty of memories engrained in my mind, I only need to hear "I love you" once, and I'd rather cry like a baby in the privacy of my own home, thank you very much.

Because I'm a cryer. And it's not pretty.

I'd rather give my soldier one last kiss and one tight hug and then get it over with and move on. I give myself a little time to be sad, and then I take a deep breath, find strength, and keep living.

So the other day I was chatting with Scott online and told him how funny our daughter is. He asked me for examples, but I could only think of one story off the top of my head. Here it is:

After Halloween, the child thing acquired two very pretty princess dresses that had been marked down really low. She happened to be wearing one of them the other day when Grandmommy showed up to feed her horses, who live in the pasture behind our house. This girl LOVES to help with the horses, so she raced outside wearing her dress-up costume and everything.

She was only out there a minute or two before she astutely observed, "I think this dress is not a good thing to wear to feed the horses. I'm going to go change." So, she ran inside and emerged a few minutes later...wearing her other princess dress. He he he. And then she continued along with her business as usual.

Today I thought of another silly thing our girl did, so I figured I'd write about it for her Daddy. Alright here goes:

Once a week, we go to ballet class in the evenings, and on those days we usually either eat leftovers or pick something up on the way home for dinner. This week, the child thing requested Sonic (she likes it because I let her get a fruit slush for her drink), and I obliged. She wanted a corn dog kids meal with apple slices and caramel sauce for dipping...the apples, not the corn dog, of course. Just thought I'd clarify.

We get home, we sit down, we eat, then the baby holds up his cup and says, "ma! ma!" That means more, so I go to the kitchen to refill his sippy, and when I return, what in the world do you think is happening?

The child thing has removed her straw from her strawberry slush, has placed it into the little tub of caramel dip and is slurping it right up.

Oh my.

What do you do?

But really, deployments can be a very lonely time. Even if you're surrounded by good friends who know what you're going through, or with family who love and support you in any way they can, no one can replace your "other half." You can start to feel sad, lonely, incomplete, joyless. I'm so glad I have these two around to make me smile every single day.

Dealing with Deployment--Bedtime

Hallmark's recordable books are just PERFECT for military families! A friend gave one to us shortly before Scott left; what an awesome gift! So that he could still read a story before bed, Scott recorded himself reading the book to the kids, and they love it! In fact, one night, when I tucked the older child thing into bed, I forgot about her "Daddy book." After I went downstairs, I heard her in her bedroom reading it herself. She also says she wants Daddy to make her a new book for Christmas this year. Awwww... And it's good for the baby to hear Daddy's voice and to hear us talking about him when we read.
Highly recommend these books to any military family with small children!! I love that Scott can still be a part of the bedtime routine, even when he's on the other side of the world.

The Child Things are in...

the Lone Star State! After months of considering it, I decided to move out of our place in Hawaii so that we could be closer to family during the deployment. I'm still not sure if it was the right decision. As with anything, there are upsides and downsides, but we are here, and we plan on enjoying our time in Texas. We are going to eat all the Mexican food and BBQ we can get, take pictures of the bluebonnets in the spring, and spend lots of time with the Texans we love.

There are a few things I am already NOT enjoying, however. For instance, I had forgotten how nasty it feels to have your jeans stuck to your legs because you are drenched in sweat from walking to your car. I will certainly miss the absolutely perfect weather and awesome scenery of Hawaii (oh, and the shave ice), but we'll be back there in a year. So I guess we've got the best of both worlds this way. :)

Dealing with Deployment--Slumber Party

Any military spouse will tell you that the first night of a deployment is the pits. I can't speak from experience, but I imagine it is hard on the military child, too.

So what do you do? How about a family slumber party! We decided to do this days before Daddy left and talked about it every now and then, hoping it would give at least a small positive spin on deployment day. It seemed to work; the child thing cried a little when we said goodbye, but as soon as we got back home, she asked if it was time for the slumber party yet.

When the time did come, we spread out our sleeping bags, popped some popcorn and watched a Tinkerbell movie. Exciting for her, staying up after bedtime and all. And me, well...at least I didn't have to crawl into that lonely, empty bed.

We will definitely keep this in mind for any future deployments (though if we don't have any more deployments, that would be ok, too!), and hopefully next time, we can include the baby in our slumber party also. I suppose we'll have to come up with something other than Tinkerbell if he joins in.

365 Nights Alone

There is no feeling more dreadful than watching your husband board a bus that will take him to war. There is no sound more heart-wrenching than the quiver in his voice when he tells your children goodbye. And there are no tears that fall harder than those that you shed when you crawl into your empty bed on the first of 365 nights alone.