...I'm a slacker. I am going to try to get around to blogging tomorrow.
Taking a moment
I have been cleaning house and doing laundry on and off all day so I thought I would take a minute and write a quick blog while I am trying to avoid the AI results that I am sure will be all over the internet very soon. Sheesh. Why can't California be normal and allow us to watch the show live with the rest of the world?
Today has been a pretty good day. Kailee often reminds me of what a slacker of a mother I can be sometimes...and how she refuses to be ignored. haha. Today Kailee was asking to watch a cartoon since Sophia was napping (because this is the only time she is allowed to watch cartoons) and I told her to wait just a minute because I was checking my email. A couple minutes later (after I had moved on from email and was checking facebook...haha) she asked again. I told her to hold on a minute. The next thing I know she has walked across the room and is standing beside me with the remote in her hand. She told me that she wanted to show me something and proceeded to tell me that I could do both things at once. So, she took the remote in one hand (telling me to watch) and she put her other hand on the keyboard of the computer and started to press buttons. She said "see, you can use the computer and turn on cartoons at the same time." I couldn't help but to laugh because, first of all, she is only 3 (and 3 months old) and secondly, because she called me out without even realizing it. I definitely should have turned on the cartoon since I had told her I would when Sophia laid down for a nap. She is so doggon cute!
I love the moments when she does or says something like that. It really fills my heart with love and joy. Though they may drive me crazy sometimes, I couldn't imagine my life without my girls! God has blessed me so tremendously. I will praise Him forever!
All of this being said, right now I think it is cute when Kailee says something off hand such as this but someday it is going to turn into a situation like this:
The toll society can take on us...
I have been thinking a lot about some of the things we, as mothers, say or do sometimes and how we allow (subconsciously?) society to mold the way we do things; whether it be the way we discipline our children, our parenting style, breastfeeding or not breastfeeding. I could really go on and on.
It is late and I am exhausted so I am going to bed but I wanted to say something about it so it will remind me later to expatiate on these thoughts. :)
Part 2...emotions.
I'm not even really sure how to broach the subject of emotions during deployments. First of all, you have to say goodbye. The goodbye seems to be one of the hardest parts...How do you say goodbye to the person you love more than anyone else in this world? How do you expect your children to say goodbye when they think that it is only for a short time...a trip to the grocery store for milk, a mid-day run, some time alone? How do you explain that night, as you put your beautiful, innocent children to sleep, that daddy isn't coming home tonight (or any night soon)? Just reading these thoughts as I type them brings up a well of emotions. I guess the best word to describe it is: heart-breaking. The other word that comes to mind is desperation. Desperate for one more hug, one more kiss, one more laugh, to hear him read one more night time story to the girls, to see him glance at me from across the room with those penetrating eyes, to hear him tell Kailee a "once upon a time" as she lays in bed at night...My heart literally hurts just thinking about it.
That is how we (military families) survive the emotional train wreck of deployments. We detach ourselves. We don't think about it. We just move...we just do. We do the dishes, we mow the lawn, we take our children for walks, we read the bedtime stories, we give them unconditional love, we let it slip (just this once...) when our children are misbehaving because, after all, how else do they show emotion? They miss daddy too. And when we hear the cry "I want daddy" during timeouts or after waking up from a bad dream, we just hold our little ones and cry with them saying, "I ,baby, Daddy loves you, and he'll be home soon".
I wish I could say that I am always strong in these situations. The truth is...I am weak. The worst deployment for me was only a 3 month tryst in Timbuktu, Mali, Africa. I longed for Seth...in every sense of the word. Kailee was young and I just felt like I was falling apart emotionally. I have heard people say that you should never tell your soldier about your emotional distress or if bad things are going on at home. I have heard that you should just deal with it because you shouldn't put your husband (in my case) in danger while he is deployed. "He needs to focus on his objective and nothing else -- He needs to stay alive." I will be the first to say that I think I am a strong person, but I couldn't bring myself to do this. During his short time in Mali, I can remember us both having complete meltdowns on the phone. It was hard. On one hand, I didn't want him to see this weakness in me but on the other hand, if I completely separated myself from the situation emotionally (which some people do -- to get through), I'm not sure our marriage would still be as strong as it is today. I can't just turn it on and off. Once you separate yourself like that, it is hard to get back...sometimes people never do. I truly believe this is one of the reasons divorce is so prevalent among the military.
This was the deployment that we decided Seth would get out of the Army. I NEEDED him. I wanted him to hug his daughter, to put his arms around me, to read her bedtime stories in person, not through a video he recorded before he left. Every night we would push play on the video to hear Seth repeating "In the great green room, there was a telephone..." My heart broke for Seth to have to be away from Kailee, and her from him. Will she remember it now? No. But he will. He will always know that he missed those times in her life. If I didn't love my husband, this would be easier to stomach, but I do. I love him with ever fiber of my being and it when he hurts, I hurt.
Are deployments hard? Yes. Do they sometimes feel like they are draining the life out of your family? Yes. Is God good? Yes. Does he have a plan? Yes.
Even after writing all of this and reliving the emotions that come along with it, I ask myself: Is being a military wife/mom worth it?
Yes. (Hindsight is 20/20)
(*more to come*)
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