Random Thoughts

I took my kids to the park yesterday. It was a gorgeous day, the sun was shining so I figured, living here you never know when it's going to be rainy and cold so I might as well enjoy the sunshine while I can. Once we got over there a whole bunch of kids there and a couple of the wives. Normally I'd bury myself in my book or make a call so I'd have an excuse to ignore them, I still have alot of trust issues after last time. But yesterday, I was in the mood for some adult interaction.

I got talkin to one of the wives and next thing I know over 2 hours had gone by. We talked about EVERYTHING. Mainly the challenges of being an army wife, shared different deployment stories, what our plans were for after the military. We even discovered that we have the same cleaning habits LOL! We also discovered she only lives right behind me so of course when leaving the park we went through the whole "we should get together sometime". And for the first time since all this DSS crap started, I actually meant it.

It's nice when you meet people in the same situation as you, and everyone says army wives have to stick together. During our conversation we met a woman with 3 kids, just moved into the housing complex and going through her first deployment. I really felt for her. While she was laughing and joking right along with us, I could still see a sadness in her eyes, and I remember all too well what she's feeling. The lonliness, overwhelmed, trying to be strong for her kids only to feel completly lost at night. I meant to give her my number yesterday but forgot, I'll have to remember to do that next time I see her. Everyone needs someone to lean on during these times. And I'm determined to be there for someone the way I needed someone to be there for me, only they weren't.

Unless you're in the military, you really can't fathom what we go through. You can sit here and read my blogs and get an idea of what it's like. But unless it happens to you there's no way to grasp the full impact of it. You truly are a single mom, only difference is you're married. But when our soldier is gone, everything is laid on us. The bills, the housework, the cooking, car maintnence minor repairs around the house, everything. It doesn't sound like much more than a normal housewife goes through but it gets lonely. Especially when stuff gets messed up and you feel like you have noone else to turn to because your spouse, your best friend, your partner, is off in another country risking his/her life every single day.

As far as Kuwait goes, the officer's are trying to fight it and make it so Tom comes back here. That'll be so much better. I can handle a week and a half or even 4 months, but another year might prove to be too much. We've started looking at places back home, but can't find anything within our price range that fits our needs. I'm excited to move but scared at the same time. Change is a very scary thing, and i know everyone goes through it and it's a part of life and all that, but I worry if we're still going to be able to support the kids.

I guess that's it for today, I'm thinking of going to have my coffee on the back porch and enjoy the sunshine before I start cleaning. If the weather is nice where you are, get out and do the same thing!

Day 3

Tom's been gone for field training since Monday. Even though it's only until Tuesday, I miss him like crazy! So do the kids. I'm having bedtime issues with them again, Connor's acting out real bad. They got mad at me cuz "Daddy went camping without them!" LOL I told them he didn't want to go camping either.

So far I've been ok, not staying up all night like I did when he was gone, making sure the kids get up for school. Been slacking on the cleaning a little, but I've had a killer toothache the past couple days. It's feeling much better today so I'm gonna do a overhaul on the house today once my phone is charged lol.

Nights are a little harder. Sue asked me the day Tom left if I was ok, I told her "bah a week and a half is a cake walk...I can handle it!" And for the most part, I can. I can cook, and clean and care for the kids the way I'm supposed to. I can make sure I go to bed at a decent hour, all stuff I had to litterally force myself to do while he was deployed. But, at night, when I'm in bed and it's just me and the dogs, I have the hardest time falling asleep.

I keep telling myself this is insane. He hasn't been gone that long and he'll be back next week. So why am I missing him so much? It's not like we've never been seperated before. He was in Iraq for close to a year for crying out loud! For all intents and purposes, this should be a cake walk. One advantage I have is I'm not about to shut down like I did last time. I know I can do the stuff I need to do to take care of my kids, and my house. It's just the lonliness I'm having a hard time with now.

I don't know really what I'm saying lol, just rambling really. It makes me think of when he leaves for Georgia. He's going to be gone for 4 months. Now the plan is for me to be in North Carolina with my parents for a month and a half of that. But that's not going to help with the lonliness. Tom and I have come so far these past few months. We're finally in a good place. So, in a way, this intense lonliness I'm feeling with him being gone is a releif. It proves to me that I do still love him. Proves that all of our problems in the past, don't matter now. I want him here, in my bed. I miss that I can't roll over at night and put my arm around him. Crazy I know but I feel like a newlywed again lol.

Short post I know, but I got a ton of crap I need to do today. I'll write more soon!

The Battle of Potty Training

All us parents have been there....the dreaded age of potty training! The training pants, the rushed trips to the potty, and the occasional accident. How do you handle it all? How do you make it come together? And every kid is different in so many ways!

With Lana, it was late but it was easy. She was 5 before she got fully potty trained (I know, I know shame on Mommy lol). But once she got started it was a breeze. Tom was deployed, it was in between paydays and I had run out of pullups. I refused to put a diaper on her cuz at the time Connor was still in diapers. So I told her that she had to start using the potty until payday because we were out of pullups (luckily I had a few pairs of undies hidden). She started using the potty and when payday rolled around she said she didn't want pullups, she wanted big girl underwear. And that was that, she doesn't even have accidents at night.

Connor is turning into a much different story. I really want him to start Kindergarten in the fall, and in order to do that he has to be potty trained, at least during the day. All this past week, with the pullups he's been doing great! He went in the bathroom all by himself, did his business and that was that. So Tom bought him superhero underwear last night and we tried him without the pullups today. It's only just after 11am and he has gone through 3 pair of undies! I finally put a pullup on him and told him when he proved to me that he could stay dry and go to the potty he could have his superhero underwear back.

Why is he all of a sudden peeing in his underwear? He was doing SO good with it I thought for sure this would be a breeze. I'm hoping to have him potty trained before Tom leaves for Georgia in July, but right now I'm so frustrated I wanna just give up! I'll welcome ANY tips or advice anyone may have, because right now, I'm at a loss! Tom leaves tomorrow morning for field training he'll be gone for a week and a half. That should be fun because Connor wants Daddy to take him in the potty most of the time. I hope ya'll enjoyed your weekend! Enjoy the sunshine!

The Life of an Army Wife

I found one of my friends blogs yesterday. She's a fellow army wife lives just down the street from me. So I was reading through her past blogs, and I came across one that talks about how hard a deployment is on the families of the soldiers. And I realized, I talk about my kids, my pets, how my father in law drives me insane, but I never really talk about what it's like to be the wife of a United States Army Soldier. So thanks for todays post inspiration.

The number one hardest thing on any military family is deployments. But I'm not here to talk about how hard it is on other military families, just mine. When Tom first joined the army, we were still living in North Carolina. He had basic training for 9 weeks, then he had AIT for four months. When he first joined, he was only reserves. After A.I.T, he came home and started to look for a job. Was very difficult when after only a month home, they decided to send him away for a month for something, I forgot what it was. When he came back, he still couldnt find a job, so I BEGGED him to go active duty full time. My brother in law was a recruiter so he was able to help us. After Tom signed the papers, he was stationed in Ft. Drum, NY. So he went first, the plan was for us to follow a few weeks later. But that fell through and I ended up staying with my parents for 2 or 3 months.

That time apart wasn't too bad, I had my parents there to help me. When I finally got to NY to reunite with my husband, I felt "well that was easy, I can handle a year long deployment." HA! I was wrong. About a year after we got here, he was deployed to Iraq. On our 6th wedding anniversary, Lana's 5th birthday was the day after. That was hard enough but I thought I was prepared after all that time apart. I was in for the shock of my life.

My marriage was never extremly strong, so I wasn't prepared for how much I actually missed him. The first month he was gone, I'd cry myself to sleep at night, wake up in the morning with tear stained eyes. All the while trying not to let the kids see me fall apart because they missed they're daddy too. I'd hear our wedding song and fall apart, and forget about Toby Keith's "American Soldier". The first line of that song still brings tears to my eyes. "I'm just tryin to be a father, raise a daughter and a son. Be a lover to their mother, everything to everyone." I felt like Toby Keith was in my head when he wrote that. I remember one day calling my mother hysterical in tears "Mom, I can't do this I need him here." My mother was absolutly amazing during that time. She'd laugh with me, cry with me. And I can't imagine it was very easy for her. Having her only daughter, her baby, so far away in so much pain. And of course, as I mentioned in a previous blog, I completly shut down.

I didn't even celebrate Christmas that year, I just didn't have it in me. I didn't get a tree, didn't decorate. Christmas dinner for me and my kids was at a local diner. The food sucked but it was the only place open that day. I was jealous of all the families that had they're spouses home that year. I was very angry. Luckily, with Tom's job I was able to talk to him every day, but it didn't help much. With the time difference he had to go to bed much earlier than me.

But, he came home. And when he did, just as my friend said, I felt like I had the life breathed back into me. Which at the time, I didn't understand. See, a couple weeks before he came home, he told me he wanted a divorce. We had been fighting for a while, and the Dss thing didn't help matters at all. I guess he felt he just didn't have it in him to fight anymore. At the time he told me I'll never forget his words "I'm emotionally detached, in my mind I'm single". Thank god for my mom and one of my best friends Sue during that time. I can remember one night, sitting on the floor, hystericall, unable to pick myself up, calling Sue on Skype and rambling incoherently.

The day he came home, it was August so Lana was home from school. We had decided not to tell the kids yet until we knew for sure what we were doing. I remember opening the door, and seeing him there in his black button down shirt, and black jeans and thinking "wow, i love this man". And Lana's face lit up as she jumped into his arms. It was Connor's first day of preschool, so Tom decided to ride with us to go pick him up. The kids had NO idea he was coming home.

We got to the school, and we were told the kids were outside playing. So we went out back to the playground. Connor was playing on the slide and didn't see us right away. So Tom started to walk toward the slide. Connor then turned around and saw him. At first, he just stood there, cocking his head to one side, then the other, until he decided to come get a closer look. So he got off the slide and started walking. The closer he got to Tom, I noticed his lower lip start to quiver. About half way over to him he just lifted his arms up, lower lip still quivering. Tom then picked him up and Connor wrapped his little arms so tight around his neck and held on so tight that I thought he was going to choke him. There wasn't a dry eye on that playground that day. And that is one memory that I will take to my grave with me as one of my favorite memories of all time. Everytime I think about it I still get a lump in my throat.

Now, we're on the verge of doing it all over again. Tom leaves in July for Georgia for 4 more months of training, then after he gets back, we're told he's going to Kuwait for a year. I'm dreading it. An Army wife once told me that the first deployment is always the easiest to get through. If that's true, and I was so bad last time, what's it gonna be like this time? We have a plan this time though. I'm going to take the kids and move back to our hometown where I have 90% of my family and almost ALL of my friends that I grew up with. We think it'll help me better having a big support system closeby to help me through the rough times. But damn, Tom and I are finally in a good place. Losing him again is going to about kill me. But, that's all part of life in the military. You have to deal with not seeing your spouse, or loved one for days, weeks sometimes even months or years at a time. That's probably why they say military wives are the strongest women out there. Speaking for myeself, everyone kept telling me how strong I was, but at the time I didn't feel it. I felt weak, like I didn't know how I was going to go on. That year he was gone proved to me how much I loved him and how no problem is too small to fight for if you truly feel you've found a once in a lifetime opportunity.

Such a great day!

Today, Lana had a Mother's Day Tea party at her school. She's been talking about it for 2 weeks! I wasn't sure I was going to be able to make it due to transportation issues, but between Tom and I we worked it out. I wouldn't have bene able to handle the heartbroken look on her face if I hadn't been able to make it. When she started school I swore that that I was going to be as involved as possible in her school activities. I really wanted to be one of those hands on parents. Unfortunatly, life happened and that's not always possible. But being only 6, she doesn't understand that. So I was very glad when I was able to go today.

So, I get to the school and waited outside her class. The minute she saw me her little brown eyes lit up and totally melted my heart. After we got to our seats, the kindergarteners went up to the carpet and sang 2 songs and a poem. It was SO cute. Lana didn't take her eyes off me the whole time. After the performance, we sat down and were served tea and cupcakes that the kids made the day before.

After our snack, we went to the carpet and listened to a story. It was called "I'll Love You Forever" It's about how a mother loves her child no matter how old he/she gets. By the end of the story I was crying. I was thinking about a few different things. First I was thinking about both of my children, I was told that I'd never be able to conceive children naturally. So my kids truly are miracles that I thank God for every day. I was also thinking about my mother and how much I miss her. My last thought of course, was of my mother in law, and how much I still miss her.

It's nice when our kids do stuff for us, so this mother day whether your mother is alive or with you in spirit, make sure you let her know how much you love her and how much you appreciate everything she's done for you.

Happy Mothers day to all you mommies out there!

The Past

I know it's been a while since my last post, as one of my friends reminded me of this afternoon. There's been a bit going on here, which I'll get into at some point...but not right now. Anyway, I told this friend that I was having "writer's block", I couldn't seem to think of anything I wanted to write about. I'm still a bit new to this blogging thing, I tend to censor myself alot.

Anyway, she then started asking me about my first date. Which got me thinking. I never really had a real first date until after Tom and I started dating. At least none of the guys I dated before ever really felt like a date before him. As alot of you know, I was 20 years old when I married Tom. Which means I've been with him for the majority of my adult life. As I was telling her about my first date with Tom I got thinking back to the details of that night. I guess you could call it the night that started it all.

We had already been "together" for about a week. We decided to get involved in a relationship at a party my brother was throwing about a month after I got back from Hawaii (that's a whole other blog post lol). I've known Tom since I was about 14. He was a close friend of my brothers. But until that party I never looked at him as more than a friend of my family's. I'll still never figure out what about that night changed things. I just remember a mutual friend telling me I should flirt with him. And I had enough to drink at that point where I was like "sure why not". I never intended it to turn into anything until he kissed me. You know how in the movies the first kiss is always so amazing? You see fireworks and the romantic music is playing, the kind that makes your heart all warm and fuzzy? Well, at the risk of sounding corny that's what it was like the first time Tom kissed me. At that moment I knew I had found something truly special.

Anyway, that first date we went to this local Italian restaraunt called LaBella's. It's not a fancy gourmet restaraunt or anything (but he did take me to a 5 star restaraunt our first Valentines day together, he used to work there lol), but the food was always amazing. I had this angelhair pasta in a white wine sauce, but the sauce was pink, with shrimp. It was SO good lol. Tom, being your typical man, stuck with pizza and beer. I was a little nervous, but I just kept telling myself that he was the same man I've known for years. Once I realized that, it was like talking to an old friend. We laughed about how funny it was that we ended up together. Before he only saw me as a little sister type. He used to get on me for not doing my homework, or failing my classes. By the end of the night I was almost positive that he was the man I was meant to spend my life with.

And here we are, 7 and a half years later, 2 kids, still together, still mostly in love. As my friend had me thinking of that night, I couldn't help but think about the guys I dated before Tom. Of course being young, at least when I was young, I didn't really know what romance was. And to be honest I didn't really know what self worth was. Alot of my boyfriends I met at parties, had more one night stands than I care to admit. One serious long-term relationship before Tom, which ended with me getting my heart broken and my brother chasing him with crutches.

And then, here comes Tom. Totally unlike any other guy I dated, he was much older. But he was smart, and funny. I loved his smartass, dry I guess you could say, sense of humor. The man can find a joke in almost anything. I loved his smile, and his eyes. I remember when I was pregnant with Connor praying that he got Tom's eyes and smile. Which thankfully, he did. I'm not really sure what the point of this blog is, Just some thoughts i was gettin out of my brain lol. Get out and enjoy the sunshine.