deployment

As we were driving home from the store last week, Anika said to me, "Mama, you shouldn't take Papa to work". I asked her what she meant and she told me that I took Papa to work in the morning and he got on the bus and the bus went too far away from us. It's been over 2 months since we watched him get on that bus at 4am on a cold October morning and she thinks he could still be here if only I hadn't driven him to the base.

In many ways this deployment is going quickly. We are somewhere near halfway through it. We get to talk to Eric on a daily basis and see him on the webcam almost every day. He got to see Anika open presents on her 4th birthday and he was able to join us for gift opening at Christmas. That webcam is a must have for any military family.

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We have had some rough patches (more detail in previous post), but nothing us girls can't handle. The girls have days when they talk about their papa and whine a little that he's not here and how much they miss him. I have days when I listen to the kind of music that fits my mood and don't even bother getting out of my pjs.

Other days we just stay busy, have fun, and go about our daily routine like nothing is different. This week is a little bit hard. We are sick so no story time at the library or playgroup with friends to distract us. We can't play at the playground until Emily's cast is off (9 more days!). Maybe we'll paint in the backyard or pop popcorn and watch a movie :)

I'll end with a bit of military wife humor. I didn't write these, but there are variations all over the internet and I don't know who did to give them credit.

You know your husband is deployed when...

You cook something one night and the leftovers are still there in the morning

You find yourself carrying home a stack of those customs forms from the post office because you know you'll need them later

You only shave your legs when you think someone might see them

You get excited about "unknown" phone numbers calling you

You've exhausted every idea you could ever have about what to put in a box

You walk outside to get the mail and immediately run back in to get your cellphone

You enjoy weekdays more than weekends because you don't like watching other families

You lose all concept of time and/or day of the week, all you know is "x-ish" number of days until he's home
 
You go to the bathroom, in the middle of the night, with the lights out, and the toilet seat is still down

You see a couple kissing in the supermarket and immediately run to the tools section to find a sledgehammer...
 
You check your email every 15 minutes

You know what a "freedom 'stache" is...and secretly hate them

You save messages he has left on the answering machine just to hear his voice at a later time
 
You only have one load of laundry to do - and it doesn't contain any PT clothes

You're already trying to decide what to wear on the day he comes home - and that's within five minutes of when he left

  

Every time you go to check the time, you do math in your head to figure out what time it is over there