Hold onto your hats...

...we've got another deployment to tackle.

We all feel like Will.

I honestly thought I'd be back a lot sooner to blog about something a lot better than this. We have been so busy! School has started, soccer and dance are getting underway, we have been slowly but surely exploring the area, Hank is turning into more of a baby and less of a blob, Steve and I have been going on actual DATES (without any children!!!), and we were planning all the fun things we'd do while Steve was on Rear D. Until he wasn't anymore.

Some IDIOT that was going on the deployment got a DUI. Steve was apparently the next guy in line to go, so he was put in as his replacement. We had about two weeks notice. Which initially stung. I was scrambling to prepare- things to send with Steve, things to lessen the blow for the kids (deployment wall, daddy dolls, etc), record all the things, take photos, explain why all of this is happening so fast. As the two weeks went by though, the quick timing slowly felt like more of a blessing than a curse. I loathe (L-O-A-T-H-E) the pre-deployment phase. It drags on and on and with each passing day, I'm reminded of all the things Steve will miss (and oh my word he will be missing a lot), all the things he does to help me each day, and how I will have to somehow manage it all on my own. Having him gone so quickly sort of helps get that countdown going, which ultimately reunites us and makes our family whole again.

Steve has handled it all like a champ. I wish I could say I'd be the same if I were in his shoes, but I definitely would not. I'd be a blubbering mess. Instead of wailing and sobbing all day like I might do if I was headed to a place without toilets, he has cleaned and reorganized the garage, taken care of every last household chore that he knows I'll never get to while he's gone (scrubbing mildew off the closet ceiling? Check! Take down the loaded (ew) fly bag? Check! Hang the last few (please let them be the last few) pictures on the wall? Check!), tried to do meaningful things with each child, drawn out a spreadsheet for me so that I actually remember to pay the bills on time each month (that is not my realm), and all the other little everyday things that he always does for me and the kids.

Smiling, but dying a bit inside

Aside from missing his constant help here at home, I am really just going to miss my best friend. At the end of the day when the kids are absolute PSYCHOS, I miss looking across the dining room table and giving him that look- you know the one- the look that says, I'm not sure why we created this army of little people that are suddenly turning on us but shall I get us both another glass of beer/wine/bleach?? I miss knowing that if I'm too exhausted to open my eyes one more time for the baby at night, I've got a backup that will hold him for me. I miss having someone around who knows all of our inside jokes. I miss just kicking my leg out in bed and feeling him there, completely safe and right next to me.

I'd so appreciate any and all prayers you can send our way. Prayers for Steve's safety, for Sam and Molly to understand his absence and thrive in spite of it, for Will, who doesn't understand why his favorite person is no longer here to give him a banana each morning and smother him in kisses, and for Hank, who thankfully will not remember any of this, but will also not get nearly the amount of attention he deserves, even as the fourth baby. And lastly, please pray for me. I feel so ill-equipped to be both mom and dad for my kids. I look at these nine months ahead and see mountains of work. And all I really want to see are opportunities to make memories with my kids, and set a worthy example for them.

((My friend Rachel was so sweet to take all of these photos for us last-minute (and I do mean last-minute: I texted her in my pajamas about an hour and a half before we met up to do them), and they really do perfectly capture what life is like right now. I can never thank her enough for making this photo session happen. She did such a great job and they mean the world to me.))

Warning: I say $#*! a lot in this post. Seriously. A lot.

**The last of the pre-deployment posts! This one isn't all tear-jerky and weepy. (Sorry about those, folks.) If you've made it through all three of these, you're awesome! You deserve a gold star, or at the very least, many many pieces of chocolate.**

We are two days out from D-day. Steve finally got orders. Shit finally got real around here. He finally started packing his bags in case they moved up his leave date (like they've done to everyone else here). So he's packed. And he's packed. And he's packed some more. And guess what? Apparently there is still A TON OF SHIT LEFT TO PACK. Look, I get it. You're going to a war-zone. You gotta have the things you need. But it's starting to feel incessant. Excessive? Incessant? Who gives a shit what I'm trying to say. I'M OVER THIS SHIT. I don't want him to go, but I'm sick of having him here IN THIS WAY (if that makes any sense at all- I'm guessing it doesn't). I'm sick of the daily physical reminders that he's leaving. Random travel-sized shit everywhere. Big green bags full of shit that I bang the door into every time I let Odie outside. Lists and paperwork and SHIT. EVERYWHERE.

It feels like I'm in LABOR, and the sad, pathetic light at the end of this shitty tunnel is giving up my husband for 9 months. Which, hello, sounds like a pregnancy sentence to me.

I am actually tired of eating pizza. That shit is starting to make me feel disgusting. But I am in no mood to argue about something as stupid as dinner. If the man wants pizza, dammit, we're having pizza. My cereal diet will commence as soon as this shitty deployment gets underway.

I'm sick of feeling like shit for leaving the house. Not that Steve is making me feel guilty for leaving. It is my own special guilt recipe consisting of a heaping helping of mom-guilt, mixed with 2 parts Catholic-guilt, and a little pre-deployment guilt sprinkled on top. All served up nice and fresh on a steaming pile of shit. But where were we? Leaving the house. I start thinking about things that would be so much easier to do without ANY babies attached to my person. And since everyone is napping, I can go off and run this errand myself! But as soon as I leave, I start thinking that I should be at home. I should just sit on the floor next to the couch and watch my husband nap, like a creeper. He won't be here that much longer and you'll be wishing that you hadn't wasted your time running stupid errands when you could have been creepin' on him! Stupid, stupid shit.

Now he is telling me there is no room for MY shit in his bag. Seriously? I did not just waste time making stupid letters and chocolate-covered pretzels for nothing. Excuse me while I go rearrange some of his shit to make room for my shit. Shit.

The last weekend

**Post 2 of 3 in the Pre-Deployment Nightmarish Posts. We will be back to our regularly scheduled programming soon, I promise.**

Our last weekend before the deployment has come and gone. Steve spent a lot of time today laying out, folding up, and packing things carefully into his bags. He goes back to work tomorrow through Thursday, and then poof. Off they go.
I thought I would be a crying, blubbering, snot-covered mess by now. Especially watching him pack his things. But I'm not. I'm numb to this, it seems. And I think I'm still telling myself that this isn't happening. I mean, he's supposed to leave in less than a week and HE STILL DOESN'T HAVE ORDERS. (Way to go Fort Campbell! You rock our socks right off with your level of preparedness! Especially since you've been planning this deployment for a full year now! Sarcasm!) So maybe that's why it doesn't feel real yet. I dunno.

The only times I've cried so far have been at night while rocking Molly to sleep. I can hear Steve and Sam playing around in the bathroom, finishing up bath-time and brushing Sam's teeth. It always hits me then. The Jesus-Mary-and-Joseph-how-will-I-ever-manage-without-him-? thoughts start hitting me hard.

Ok, I lied. I also started crying at the commissary the other day. I escaped there by myself (another perk of having a husband at home!) and wandered down the Oriental aisle to get some rice. Instant rice, to be exact. It took us something like a year to use up the family size pack of rice baggies and we were finally out. But standing there between the soy sauce and 50lb bags of jasmine rice (seriously, who eats that much?), I started to lose it. "I don't need the family size baggies anymore. I'll never eat that much rice by myself.... waaaaaaahhhhhhh..... Pull it together Jenn. No tears. You gotta at least wait til you get back in the car. Then you can ugly cry. Don't do it in public." Then I went to get milk. The expiration dates were all after Steve's deployment date. Losing it again....

Sweet Sarah volunteered to come over on Sunday to babysit so that Steve and I could go on one. last. date. Sam was down for a nap but Molly was being a diva. So to save Sam's nap and Sarah's sanity, we took Molly with us. No big deal since we didn't have anything really planned. I had to return a couple of things at Target and we planned on getting a new plunger. (Being prepared is priority numero uno around here.) (Also, hot date, huh?) Target was fun (duh) and we hit up the commissary for more produce and a frozen pizza (dinner!) before heading home. Sam did not try and hide his feelings about us invading his alone time with Sarah and he was quite the pill until bedtime. Luckily we got both of them down at a fairly decent hour and cooked our pizza in peace. We got really crazy and ordered our first ever movie on-demand. I know. We are so 2005. But there wasn't jack-diddly on Redbox and we weren't feeling like watching the other four channels that we get (NatGeo, I'm lookin' at you.).

Today was spent going to the park, watching Steve pack, pretending that nothing out of the ordinary is going on, and hanging out in the gorgeous weather that has somehow made its way to us. (Maybe God is trying to make his leaving slightly gentler by not having me cry AND sweat all at the same time?)

It feels like there is still so much left to say to Steve before he leaves, but that saying it will somehow cause this deployment to come faster than it already is. So we just smile at each other and laugh at our kids and talk about how nice the weather is and try to soak up every last second. Because ya just never know.

So now I'm going to post these pre-deployment thoughts. Try to remember that I am still sarcastic and definitely eating cake.

**This is the first of three posts that I wrote before Steve deployed. Obviously I couldn't post them then because of OPSEC, but I needed to get it out, so I wrote it as a draft. I'm posting it now in case someone else is going through the shit-hole that is pre-deployment and needs to hear that someone else felt like they were trapped in a Groundhog's Day-esque living nightmare and made it out on the other side ok. (I'm ok!) I'm afraid it isn't a very humorous post, so feel free to skip it! We will be back to our regularly scheduled programming soon!**

It happened overnight. Everyone here on post is wearing multi-cam. I see neighbors loading up bags and equipment in their trucks. I see families doing everything together, trying to soak up these last few days/weeks. It's heart-breaking. I feel for these families. They're losing a very important member of their family for a very long stretch of time. Their soldier will miss birthdays, anniversaries, holidays, weddings, first words, first steps...

It almost feels as if this isn't going to happen. Life is still going on just like it always has. He still gets up and goes to work everyday, coming home at the same regular time, sometimes later. We talk about what we're having for dinner, who said what at the post office, how he needs more deodorant and body wash the next time I'm at the store. We go to bed and do it all over again the next day. We haven't made any plans for any time after September, but that's not unusual for us. We don't make plans for the weekend until it's upon us. So besides the multi-cam, it seems as if everything could just stay the same. We could avoid this if we just keep doing our regular routine.

I was left momentarily speechless when I called USAA to request a new credit card recently (we think Sam "recycled" mine), and the lady on the line asked when Steve was deploying. I told her "next month," and she insisted that he call her back to make sure he had enough life insurance in case "something" happened. I wanted to scream at her that NOTHING is going to happen because he's not going. Where can I get him a doctor's note. Can I just sign a waiver myself saying he can be excused from this trip? I keep saying "next month" like it is so far into the future. Molly is five months now. I swear to Mary that she was just born a week ago. So I'm fully aware of how quickly a month can go by. Yet I've been saying "next month" for ages it seems...

I have been able to preoccupy myself with my friends' husbands' deployments. Their husbands left sooner. I need to support them. It's not my husband's turn yet. I don't need to think about that yet. But I was reminded today that our turn is coming, whether I'm ready or not. Steve put on his multi-cam today. It's getting close. I might still be able to say "next month," but this month is only a few days from being over.

I get excited with the thought of Sam starting preschool. But then I quickly realize that not even two weeks after that much-anticipated day, I'll be sending my husband off to war. So I want time to slow down. I want it to STOP. I wanna hold my chubby baby and my (usually) sweet toddler and my ridiculously caring husband in my arms and make time stand still. I don't have months to savor. I have a couple of weeks.

We usually save grocery shopping for the weekend. Steve switches out carseats, loads up the kids, and gets the a/c going while I jot down last-minute things on my list for the commissary. He always finds a special cart for Sam (a rocket ship, truck, etc) and pushes Sam around while I strap Molly in the Ergo and load our items into the cart. Shopping with him is a breeze because I feel like I'm only responsible for one child and none of the heavy lifting. How will I manage both kids in the commissary on my own?

When Steve gets home from work, he usually takes Sam and Molly outside so that I can prepare dinner. Sam shows him his finest lawn-mowing skills, while Molly appears to just soak him in and constantly smiles. I have a few blissfully quiet minutes alone to get dinner ready and then I sit outside with my family. How will I ever cook a meal without his loving hands to hold my children?

As I sit upstairs at night rocking Molly to sleep, I can hear Steve giving Sam a bath and putting him to bed. They're so sweet together. How will Sam cope without his Daddy around? How will I ever get two babies to bed at the same-ish time every night?

After the babies are in bed, I am usually pumping one last time for the night. Steve goes around getting his things ready for the next day of PT and work. After he finishes that, he feeds Odie, checks on laundry, usually hangs up the diapers I never got around to, finishes the dishes and checks one last time to make sure we're locked up for the night. He leaves all the right lights on for me in case I have to get up in the night with Molly. He will rub my back if I beg ask him to. He curls around me and holds me until we are both dead-asleep (which usually takes no longer than a few minutes). Who will tie up all of my daily loose ends? How will I fall asleep knowing that he's not just on the other side of post, sleeping in a tent, planning on returning to me in a week or two? Who will I talk all of my daily, stupid problems over with? What do I do if I can't be mother and father to our children?

I knew this day would come eventually. I just didn't think it would come so soon.

When does it become socially unacceptable to take a child's temp rectally?

So you might have noticed that I gave this ol' blog a little makeover. One of us needs to look so-fresh-and-so-clean, and it sure as hell ain't me today, so there you have it- a cute, clean, hopefully easier-to-read blog.

I have read about how many things seem to go wrong on the homefront once the guys deploy (the Murphy's Law of Deployments or something like that). Washing machines break, cars shut down, water heaters explode, children immediately become possessed by demons, etc. While Steve has not yet deployed, he left to go out in the field for a few weeks. And I think maybe God wants me to have a little taste of Things To Come so that I can be prepared. Hm. I am not really on board with this idea, but apparently I have no say in the matter.

Everything was fine on Sunday. Well except for when Sam threw a very heavy pot lid down on his toe and gashed it open. And then I may or may not have been paying attention while we were holding hands in the hallway and led him straight into a table. Ok so maybe everything was not fine on Sunday. But other than a few incidences, we were all (mostly) fine. Steve was packing and Sam and I were playing and life was normal. Well, then Steve had to go and leave. Bleh.

Sam behaved FAMOUSLY all day yesterday. I have the bruises from constantly pinching myself to prove it. He ate all of the food I put in front of him, he didn't fight me all that much on diaper changes, and we had a play date that went very well. All signs pointed to this being a very easy FTX (for Sam and me, at least). I bathed him, lotioned him up, brushed his teeth, and put him to bed around 6:20pm. He fell asleep so quickly and I went back downstairs thinking, "Oh man! Now I'm really bored! What on earth will I do until bedtime?" Heh. Famous last words.

Sam woke up at 7pm screaming like he had been set on fire. So I went to check on him. His breathing was raspy and congested, so I offered him a drink and then his pacifier, then put him back to bed. As soon as I close the door- more screaming. He probably cried for a good 20 minutes after I put him back to bed. I wish that I could have rocked him to sleep or let him get in bed with me, but the child will have no part in that. He does not snuggle and he DEFINITELY does not co-sleep. So the only other option was to let him figure it out himself, in his crib. He eventually went back to sleep.

Same scenario went down at 8pm. And at 9pm. I took his temp, checked his diaper, made sure he wasn't too warm, gave him more water, attempted to see if he would let me rock him (no), and put him back to bed. At this point, I can see an entire night of this, so I didn't see any point in going to bed at 9, only to wake up an hour later at 10. So I stayed up til 10. (HIGHLY unusual for me) Of course, that was the one hour last night that he did NOT wake up screaming. The rest of the night was like a trip back to the newborn days (FYI: I hated the newborn days.).

Apparently he is sick with something. (You don't have to go telling ME that I'm a genius.) As you might have noticed, I am no doctor, so I have diagnosed him as having a cold. Clear snot, stuffy nose, occasional cough. No big deal. We will wait this one out. Until I took his temp again later and it was 102.4. Have you seen that commercial with the kid who has a 102 temp? Everyone, even the dog, goes, "ONE OH TWO???? NOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!" Well that was me.

Since we are regulars at the doc's office, I have amassed a nice stockpile of various prescription medications, topical creams, and baby tylenol and ibuprofen. And (and!) I have saved all of the boxes that the little bottles go in so I can reread the directions. After a quick consultation with the box (to make sure the tylenol is still in-date), I give Sam his dosage and hope for the best.

I knew he needed to rest since he didn't sleep much last night, but there are very few activities that will keep Sam seated in one spot for very long. I tried reading him some books, but after we blazed through the fantastic few he always requests, he was back to trying out his legs and sprinting around the house. I thought, "I know! I will let him watch TV! He will be so happy he won't know what to do with himself!" (FYI: The child has only watched a few minutes at a time of the occasional college football game. He has no clue about any kids' shows or movies, but seems momentarily interested if he catches the tv on.) So I sit down on the couch with him and try to find some semi-educational kids' channel. I find Barney. Barney has apparently acquired a stuttering problem in recent years as every other word is cutting out. Or maybe we just have bad cable. So I switch it to cartoons. Like, the old-school cartoons with Tom and Jerry. While not educational at all, it was something I could handle (probably my biggest beef with the stupid kids' shows on air today). But that just freaked him OUT. He wanted nothing to do with these shows and screamed hysterically until I changed the channel (my plan worked! ahahahaha!). So I switched it to something much more soothing- HGTV. Despite touring vacation homes on some exotic island for some exorbitant price, Sam was not impressed and got bored after about three minutes. TV is just not his thing. Can't say I'm sad, because I have made a conscious effort to steer him clear of media since birth, but dang it would be helpful right about now if he would just sit still and WATCH.

Oh you can bet the farm that we are waaaaay over our juice quota for the day.

The only other options to keep him still involved a stroller or a carseat. Since we had no errands to run, we were eying down that double stroller. I ended up meeting a friend to walk for about an hour and a half. Not a big deal since I can always use the exercise and an excuse to gab. It appears that tomorrow we will not have the stroller at our disposal though since there is rain moving in for the next three days. That pretty much blows. We will be prisoners to this house until my mother comes to rescue us. I am literally counting down the HOURS until she arrives to save my sanity. (No rush though, Mom!)

Pray for us? Please? The last thing I want to do tomorrow is drag my sick child out in the rain to see the doctor that cannot move past Sam's orangeness.

Birthday recap and a mini freak-out

I have good news to report- my donut bribery worked! Steve got to come home at five! (FIVE!) That just hasn't happened in a while so we were very excited. Apparently this commander has a weakness for the sweets. Mm-hmm. Noted.

Steve had a good birthday evening. Even though I stuck too many candles in his cake. "YOU'RE 25. Not me. I'm 24." Riiiiiiight. I just wanted to see how it would look with an extra candle hole in there.
Speaking of cake, well, I don't think I would recommend the ice cream cake recipe that I pinned and followed. It was good, but boy it looked NOTHING like the cake I pinned (mine was so ugly), and it just tasted so-so. Probably the equivalent of just eating some ice cream cakes, but without the hassle or mess. He did seem pretty surprised that I "made" an ice cream cake for him though, so there's that.

the Pinterest ice-cream cake

my ice-cream cake (sad)

He received some gratuitous gag gifts from me: a Screaming Eagles flag for our garage, another challenge coin (Ft Campbell-specific, of course), and a card that he thought was raunchy but turned out to be the complete opposite. (Heh.) Sam gave him a helmet so that he can legally ride his bike around post and pull him along behind. I also wrapped up some ink pens for him because I knew we were running low, and thought I may as well give him something else to open. And get this: he truly seemed HAPPY about those pens. "Ah Jenn! We've been needing some of these at work! This is great! How did you know?"
And I was just sitting there smiling through my teeth because that? That was not really a gift. It would be the equivalent of Steve gift-wrapping dish soap for me for my birthday. But nevertheless! A good birthday.

For clarification purposes, our walls are not green. They are white. Between our bad lighting and my lack of photography skills, we get colorful walls in pictures.

While we were lying in bed last night, he was telling me about what they've been doing at work and what sorts of missions they're training to run over in Afghanistan. It suddenly hit me that he really is going. Nothing is going to just "come up" and prevent this from happening (like I keep hoping). Nothing I can do or say will stop him from boarding that plane. How can he be talking about ammo and guns and killing people that will be attacking him when we were JUST lying in bed talking about how hard his biology class was? Wasn't that just yesterday? Weren't we still complaining about how the stupid transit buses at Auburn never run on time? Weren't we missing each other like crazy when we had to be separated for TWO DAYS for those Guard training weekends once a month? Didn't he just catch a fly in the house and "let it out" instead of killing it like I asked him to? How is he talking about possibly having to kill people to protect himself and his soldiers?! Why doesn't he have one of those jobs where he never has to leave the FOB? Is there any amount of donuts or sweets that I can bring that commander to get him one of those jobs?? You're not even scared? Well this isn't about you, is it?!

Oh wait.

Yes it is.

It's your birthday. Happy birthday. I love you. Good night.

Here's a load of crazy

Steve's job lately has been... well it just wasn't what I envisioned when I thought about being married to the Army a soldier in the Army. I guess I pictured what I had grown up seeing (since I grew up in an Army town): early mornings of PT, dads getting off of work at a very reasonable daylight hour, wives doing their grocery shopping at the commissary, and loads of hot Army guys wandering about in their smokin'-hot uniforms. Present Jenn can look back at Past Jenn and smirk because, oh Past Jenn, you are so stupid. It is not like that at all.

He goes to PT at 4:30am and wakes up not only you (you have turned into quite the light sleeper with this pregnancy), but the BAYBEE as well, and that puts a bit of a damper on your whole day, waking up at 4:30 and all. No more grand visions of being that careless housewife that sleeps in til 8 when he gets back home. Then once you get the screaming child out of bed and fight him over the poopy diaper that he does not want to relinquish control over, you go downstairs to find that, indeed, your dreams did not materialize while you were sleeping; your dishwasher is still not usable and those dishwashing fairies have still not located your house. Something about moving five times in two years makes you harder to keep track of. So you try pacifying the tiny person with milk and whatever kitchen "toys" he would like to play with. Then your dashing husband waltzes in... and cannot believe that you didn't remember that this is command maintenance day! Come on! He's gotta shower and leave and he really needs to eat breakfast!

Hurry to make big person and little person breakfast. Make yourself coffee because you know it is necessary to function today. Get caught up in breakfast and dishes and forget about coffee. Reheat it 67 times. Take a total of four sips. Finally dump it because it is almost lunch time and it probably tastes like leaded gasoline by now anyways.

Husband (who is considerably less dashing after recounting what your tuna casserole "did to him" this morning) leaves for work. Says it will be another late night. You roll your eyes because this sounds like a cop-out to you. He knows the small person turns into some possessed demon in the afternoon hours, and you're betting that work is more fun. They probably have parties there. With cupcakes. And Coke. And they probably laugh about their wives, sitting at home with the whiny children, and think to themselves how lucky they are to avoid the witching hour yet again.

You go about your day and do chores and laundry and change diapers and fix sippy cups and play cars and read books. Just when you are getting ready for the most important (and sometimes only!) nap of the day, you get a text or call that the husband will not be able to come home for lunch. Something came up last minute. Gotta work straight through. Can you bring him something?

Of course! Baby is screaming, so ready to go to sleep, but you plop him on the floor and try to make dish soap look like an interesting toy while you slap together some sandwiches and fruit and chips and fill up a water bottle. Fight the little person into his carseat, again try to pacify him with milk. And Jason Aldean. Such a love-hate relationship you have with Jason Aldean.

You get to work. You text husband that you are here. He texts back, "Be out in a minute." Ten minutes tick by. Angry, sleepy child in the backseat is not happy about this delay. You do your best to play peekaboo and sing silly songs and then kick yourself for not stocking your car with more toys. Another text: "Five more minutes." GAH you cannot keep this up much longer. He finally comes out, runs to the car, grabs his lunch, gives you a quick kiss, tells you that they're super busy and he's gotta get back in there (they're probably playing Yahtzee!), and runs back inside. You speed home (at 25mph) and practically launch the baby into his crib. Good NIGHT, I hope you sleep at least four hours.

Get to work cleaning up the destruction left in the wake of maniacal baby, fold the clothes, swap out laundry, feed the dogs, check to see if you remembered to defrost anything for dinner. You did not. Damn. Pull out some frozen chicken and hope that your thaw-out-vibes help the process go a little faster.

Angry baby-child wakes up. You force-feed him lunch because he's being a picky brat. You go over in your head all of the things you'd like to say your (less and less dashing) husband about how he REALLY needs to keep it down in the morning because 4:30am wake-ups don't make ANYONE happy and look who's gotta pay the price (ME), and *&@#^&$#&*@!@&^%!!!

Clean up the baby, clean up lunch, run some errands, get home to make dinner. A miracle has occurred and the chicken is ready to cook. You silently thank God and apologize for your previous outbursts. The small person is not excited about your paying more attention to dinner than you are to him. More tantrums. Feed the baby while dinner cooks. More playtime, although this time you are required to play too because it is just too much for him to handle on his own. Husband sends vague text message about how much work there still is to do. Gotta meet with so-and-so and go over the such-and-such and it can't wait til tomorrow. Gotta get it done tonight. I ask if tonight is a bath night and cross all of my fingers and toes that it's not. He texts back. It is. Damn. Schlep the super-whiny person upstairs. Another diaper struggle ensues. You win. Once he is naked, he's happy. He plays happily in the tub. Then he stands up and pees in the tub. Strongly opposes getting out (because sitting in filthy bathwater and urine is desirable apparently). You brush his teeth and lotion him up, squeeze him into his pajamas and realize that he has tossed all of his pacifiers between the wall and his crib. You realize that your short, fat arms will not fit in that tiny space. You move the entire crib out from the wall with your superhuman pregnancy strength and the small person is pissed that you are taking so long in locating his sucking device. Find approximately 36 pacifiers against the wall. Blow one off and hand it to him. Crank up the mobile and bolt out the door.

You have the chicken timed to come out of the oven just when husband said he would get home. Once you get downstairs though, you find that you have a text saying that it will be at least an hour from when he last said he would get home. Curse the Army, curse your husband, and curse yourself for even bothering to cook dinner.

Husband gets home. The rational side of your brain is SCREAMING at you that his being late is not his fault (unless they really are having fun Yahtzee parties over there) and you tell yourself to just be nice. Let it go. But you cannot. You have been strapped with this fussy mini-monster all day and reheating a dinner that was perfectly acceptable an hour ago just makes you MAD. So you end up giving him some modified version of the silent treatment (a la moody 16-year-old) and ask about his day. You then unleash all sorts of profanities against the people responsible for keeping him there so long and offer stupid suggestions about what he should say to them the next time they ask for something. ("Oh tell him to shove it up his...") This is obviously not helpful but it sort of makes you feel better.

You realize that you should really be on the same team as your husband and wish that you had someONE to target your anger at. Dashing husband does not deserve it. He is doing the best he can whilst working for a load of idiots. Whiny baby does not deserve it (although would it KILL him to take a second nap in the afternoon?). Who deserves it??? You have GOT to unleash this anger somewhere, at someONE, but can't figure out who exactly deserves the crazy you're ready to dish out.

So. Who wants to go ahead and bet that I'll be checked into a mental hospital by the time the plane takes off for the deployment? Any takers?

Just keep swimming, just keep swimming

While all of my Christmas presents have been bought, wrapped, and shipped (sha-ZAM!), I am still working on getting the last bit of laundry finished, adding more things to the packing list, and, well, actually packing.

I managed to get my hands on some more dipping chocolate the other day and dipped another batch of butterfinger bites, as well as a bag of pretzels, so I am doing pretty well with my mission of Eating All Things Chocolate this holiday season.

That is actually only about HALF of the finished product.

This year for Christmas, things will be a little bit different. For me, at least. It will be my first Christmas away from my family. Don't go feeling too bad for me, my in-laws take really great care of us. Someone always wants to watch/hold/play with Sam, thus allowing Steve and me to sneak away and do something fun out on the town. There always seems to be a bottle of my hair crack in our room since my mother-in-law somehow senses that I'm going to forget mine at home (I usually do!) and she knows what my hair looks like without it (yikes!) and she probably wants to avoid ever seeing that again. There are always super-fresh sheets and an abundance of towels and it feels just like things that MY mom does at home, so it hardly feels like I'm NOT home. But yes, I will miss my family. And the Christmas morning cheese grits. I will go ahead and call it now that Steve's family does not incorporate cheese grits into their Christmas morning celebration. I can understand that fully though, seeing as they live well above the Mason-Dixon line and grits probably sound about as appetizing to them as cream of wheat sounds to me. But nevertheless! I'll miss them. (The cheese grits, that is. Oh, and my family too. Hi Mom!)

Another thing that I'm sort of struggling with this holiday season is my brain. And not just pregnancy brain, because Lord knows I chalk a lot of things up to that. I'm struggling more with the fact that Steve won't be around NEXT year for Christmas. I wonder what we will do, how things will change, how I will ACTUALLY handle the situation. I can usually talk myself out of a funk by saying that I'm going to be so busy with two kids, two dogs, doing regular Christmas season stuff, keeping up with the house and car maintenance, spending some God-awful amount of time standing in line at the post office to send him care packages, and drinking all the wine that I can get my hands on that I won't even have TIME to miss him! But the rational side of my brain (tiny as it is) knows that it WILL be tough and it IS going to suck and I'll probably cry a LOT. I'm trying so hard right now to live FULLY in the present and experience the hell outta this Christmas with him so that at least I can look back next year and remember what an awesome time we had and have no regrets about anything. But, like I said before, my brain is really getting in the way of that.

Last Christmas was such a blur because there was no sleep happening with Newborn Sammy, and as a result of that, Steve and I can't recall much. There certainly weren't any traditions established.

This Christmas we are trying to get a few traditions going, but Sam is still so young and doesn't quite "get" Christmas yet, so it's hard.

Next Christmas will just be weird because Steve won't be here to help carry out anything that we've started this year and I'm wondering when (if?) we are ever going to get into our family holiday groove. To quote a friend of mine (also military), it feels like we're "holding our breath." We're in this hurry-up-and-wait holding pattern for God-only-knows-how-long and it's kind of driving the OCD-planner side of me crazy. I know that so many other people have already experienced this and dealt with it just fine and I'm sure I'll be fine too! But it still hurts to think about and I'm already emotional thanks to these wacky extra hormones and the thought of air travel with a wee-child who is on the cusp of walking (he only holds onto one hand now! GAH!) and the thought of not spending next Christmas with my better half is all PUSHING ME OVER THE EDGE.

(My parents are probably reading this and thinking, Oh such a good year for them to spend Christmas away! And my MIL is probably reading this and thinking, Good God is there any way to just un-invite HER?
Don't worry MIL! I'm gonna do my best to keep it all together! I promise! And I'm bringing CHOCOLATE!)

Just a thought

Steve, Sam, and I were taking a walk around our neighborhood yesterday evening (no doubt trying to hold out for a 7pm bedtime) when we turned down a street where one of the soldiers in Steve's company lives. I met him and his wife at the brigade ball we went to. Y'all remember that, don't you? I'm surprised I remember that. Since then, they moved a few streets over from us and we both keep saying we'll have the other one over, but it never happens. I just wanted to oogle at their house for a minute and see some different scenery, but lo and behold, they were outside finishing some yard work.

We never had a chance to really talk before. The ball was loud and people with no sense were trashed (me!) and overall it was just tough to have a decent conversation. So we caught up. And I have uncovered a whole new appreciation for the sacrifices our military are making every day for us.

(For storytelling purposes, I will call the wife "Sue" and the husband "Joe.")

Sue was looking at Sammy and telling me how cute he was. I knew they had children (it was the reason they "upgraded" to the house they are in) and inquired about them. She explained that Joe had three kids from a previous marriage and they had one daughter together. Since she and her husband deployed at the same time, the three children were living with their mother and their daughter was still living with her grandparents. She left her daughter when she was only three months old. And hasn't "lived" with her since. She's now eighteen months old but has no real understanding that these two people she sees occasionally are her parents. In fact, she's slightly scared of her dad.

What hit me hardest is that she said something like, "So I don't really feel like a mom." I literally launched Sammy her way, knowing that holding my sweet little sack of potatoes couldn't make up for not holding hers. I wanted to put some sort of band-aid on that GIANT hurt and give her back the first year of her daughter's life that she missed. I wanted her to see the first smile, the tiny mannerisms, the first infectious laugh she got when you made a silly face. The feeling you get when you walk into their room first thing in the morning and are met with the happiest little person on the face of the earth. The frustration you feel when she WILL NOT GO TO SLEEP for the love of GOD, and then the almighty sense of accomplishment that comes after sticking it out and seeing that angel lying there in a crib. I wanted her to have all of that.
But that's part of being in the military. You agree to put your life on hold, lay it down if necessary, to do the job. But anything that involves missing birthdays, Christmases, first teeth, and your own child's first year of life is more than just a job.

I don't know if any of you watched the Lifetime series "Coming Home." I only heard about it because most of the filming took place here at Ft Campbell and there was a big write-up in the newspaper about it. Well, I watched it nearly every week, and it was like a scheduled time to cry every Sunday night. It documented soldiers coming home to their families. Some of the stories involved elaborate setups, other just hid behind their car and popped out to surprise their children coming home from school. All of the stories (even though some were cheesy), were a reminder of how much soldiers and their families give up every day for our country. The stories that hit my waterworks the hardest were the soldiers that were coming home to children they'd never met. Babies that were born while they were gone. The looks on their faces and the feelings they must have been having. I can only imagine.

Steve hasn't deployed yet. It sounds like it could be quite some time before he goes over (next year), but I'm aware that it could always been sooner. And I am in no way prepared. My closest friend here is getting ready to say See Ya Later to her husband for a year. Her son is Sam's age and loves his daddy just as much as Sam loves Steve.
It hurts my heart to think about all of the firsts he'll miss while he's away.
It hurts my heart to think about just how much she might miss him.
It hurts my heart that there won't be much I can do to make it hurt any less for her.

(We do plan to see if wine will help the situation, scientific go-getters that we are.)

All of that to say, thank a soldier when you see them. That means a lot. They give up so much to ensure our everyday freedoms and all too often we take them for granted. Also, hug your spouse and your kid. Even though they might not be going anywhere, you never know how much time you have left with them.