Day 194: The Eve

We've been busy busy busy around here for the past week. My to do list has been a page long almost every day.

#1 Get yourself put together, woman - by this I mean, I'd like to NOT look like I've spent the past few months struggling to have the time just to brush my hair in the mornings. Last week I treated myself to a pedicure with my BFF and later she touched up my hair for me and got rid of my skunk stripe.

#2 Buy the perfect outfit - I spent all day Saturday looking for a new outfit to make my soldier move just a little bit faster to get home.. if you know what I mean. Anyone that knows me knows I really don't enjoy shopping, actually I loathe it. Turns out, hating shopping makes you a sucky shopper. T-minus one hour until I had to pick up the monsters from child care and once again my BFF swooped in to save the day. She found me a shirt I ended up loving in 15 minutes. Seriously, I don't know how she does that. 

Let's just stop here and say... a good BFF during deployment is necessary. Go find you one, seriously. 

#3 - Buy your child a new mattress to be delivered immediately because he ruined his - Say What?? You heard me. Jack SOAKED his mattress in water, and somehow I missed it until days later when it started to stink. Sneaky snake, that one. Anyways, 3 days before the soldier is due home and Jack was sleeping in my bed. Um, yeah.. I love my kid but mommy and daddy don't want you in the middle ALL the time (; A trip to the PX and $300 later and the mischievous one got a new mattress delivered today (and they even hauled away the old one, I didn't even have to touch it).  

#4 Find a phone to use until your eligible for an upgrade next month because of course you busted your screen in the only week that it's important you have a working phone. - Self explanatory.

#5 Clean, clean, clean - My fellow milspouses will probably agree... you just always want your house to be spotless when they get home. Forget the fact that a month ago, he probably wouldn't have even recognized it with all the slacking you've been doing. He's going to come home to a perfect home, and yes.. you are totally going to let him believe you've kept it that clean the WHOLE deployment. And he's going to be so proud. (:

#6 Hurry up and do all those things you said you'd do while he was gone - only we don't have time for that, so really we'll just justify why we didn't do them ... moving along..

#7 Try to ignore the nervous feeling - Sometimes it's a good nervous, you just can't wait to see him, and hold him. Sometimes it's a scary, intimidating nervous .. "What if he isn't attracted to me anymore?" "What if the kids don't accept him right away?" "What if dinosaurs come back to life and RUIN EVERYTHING".. Okay maybe not that last one, but we (milspouses) are so emotional before a homecoming, we like to sabotage our happy feelings.

#8 Explain to your toddlers what is going to happen - Jack's questions consisted of "Is daddy going to sleep here?", "Can I ride in his airplane?", and "Can we mark 5 days off today?". Jonah still just screams "DADDDDDDY!" constantly and dances every time I'm on the phone. So, maybe they don't totally understand.. it's a work in progress.

#9 Keep busy to make time go faster - Absolutely NOT a problem in this house. 

#10 Stay sane through this roller coaster and 

Day 188 Pt 2: The Happier Post

I told y'all I'd always be honest around here (:

So now that my worries are spewed out.. 

Today started with Jack's voice saying "Mom, seriously I need your help. I can't find the ipad anywhere." So of course, I told him he looked tired and needed to lay down some more. That lasted about 4 seconds. I laid and listened to his ramblings about the "shun" being awake and how he had school today and how I needed to pack extra clothes for him because he likes the water table but he won't pee in his undies, he promises. At about 8:40 I remembered that I had to get Luna to the groomer by 9. Cue: supermom mode. Both kids dressed, equipped with snack bags of cereal and cups, and in the car in ten minutes. BAM. I did almost forget Luna though. Oops

After I dropped Luna off, my friend Nicole texted me with magic words. "Christmas rolls!" she said. AKA cinnamon rolls. 'Christmas rolls' is what her son Corbin calls them and pancakes are ram-cakes. haha. I stopped at her house for coffee and those glorious things. Let me just say that between her two boys and my two boys, the only time things are ever (kind of) quiet is when there's food being eaten. The tricky part is finding a food that everybody likes. But not surprisingly, christmas rolls are a hit. So our coffee was thoroughly enjoy in (somewhat) peace and quiet this morning. 

Coffee was following by a quick lunch and a few chores at home and then we were off on another adventure. Jonah and I dropped Jack off at school, we went to pick Luna up. She looks adorable as always. I think mini-schnauzers are one of those breeds that stay cute like puppies for their whole lives. Or maybe I'm just biased, but seriously Luna IS cute. She's all ready for daddy to come home and give her an unhealthy amount of cuddles, like I'm sure he will. 

This afternoon I had my first "online meeting" with my professor. Very cool that she opts for this versus a physical meeting, definitely helpful for those of us that have children and require babysitters most the time. I think she may be my favorite professor yet. She is eager to help her students, very clear on her policies, and she is very personable. Maybe it's because this is only my second semester, but I still found it amusing that my professor used a smiley and LOL when we were chatting. 

The highlight of my day was finally getting to meet this princess:

My friend Jackie welcomed miss Brynzee to the world about two weeks ago. Some of you might remember that her husband deployed with Jeff last fall. I'm happy to be able to say that daddy was able to get home to see his baby girl be born. Stories like theirs make my faith in the Army a little stronger. Someone somewhere took the steps necessary to get this precious girl's daddy home for her, That's the best gift the Army can give any baby, their parent.

Brynzee is so tiny, she was swimming in her preemie clothes. She's up to about 6 pounds now I think Jackie said. I had flashbacks of when my sister Avery was little (well littler). I don't think you realize how little they are/were, until they grow bigger. Little Miss B is the sweetest thing, she barely made a peep during the hour that I cuddled her. Jackie said I was lucky that daddy wasn't home, that he is a "baby hog." More daddies should be that way. Nothing more precious than a daddy and his baby, that's for sure. 

All I can say is that it's a good thing I already got the "too bad you have baby fever, it ain't happenin'" depo shot... because if anything will give you baby fever, it's this girl. 

Day 188: Letting Go

Here's a post you will completely understand and never understand all at the same time. Enjoy.

Never fails, I think I've got something all figured out... I have asked the right questions, got answers, figured out my plans for every "what if" that could happen... and then something slaps me in the face that I absolutely didn't see coming.

I think I get most pissed off that things don't go my way. I like to plan things, and when I make plans I expect them to go exactly as I planned. Unfortunately that's usually never the case. 

I'm not sure how to deal with changes. I get scared. I cling to what I love. I usually get whiney and need lots of reassurance. When things are changing for me, that's when I'm most vulnerable... and I hate being that way. If I could run away, I totally would. But I'm a big girl and it's not really socially acceptable to do that anymore. 

 I can't handle the nothingness. I don't like the unknown. I want to know how and why and when things change(d). Mostly, just why. 

I need to know that all that time I spent wasn't a waste. I need to know that the juice was worth the squeeze. 

Sometimes though, you don't ever get answers. And that's the point, where you just have to let go, I guess. Letting go is the hardest part. 

I will always wonder where I went wrong. And I'm not sure I'll ever stop caring. But the weight on my heart has got to go. 

Day 186: The Homestretch

Man, has it really been 2 months since I've posted? 

Ironically, tomorrow is my first class of my second semester at HCC.

I finished my first semester back to college with B's in both of my classes. Eh, not what I'm used to but I will take it. I'm so very glad I chose to go back to school. It was hard at times, there were some very late nights I spent juggling sleepless children and writing last minute papers, and LOTS of coffee and mt dew was had... but it was worth it. (And it definitely made time go faster, in terms of deployment). This semester I scheduled easy classes. Intro to Computers and Foundations of Learning. I will have a lot going on in the next couple months and I didn't want to be tied up with just school. I will have softball 2-4 nights a week and a certain soldier's deployment may or may not be getting cut short (:

(Shhhhh, only those who read for themselves get to know that)

The boys are doing great, still growing like weeds. Jonah has an amazing vocabulary and is learning new words every day. His favorites lately are seet-sa (pizza), buckle, ow-si (outside), milk, potty, hug, co-bin (Corbin, the boys' friend), and of course he still yells DADDY every time the phone rings. Jack is mostly enjoying having a playmate around all the time, and now that Jonah is a little older they actually play together. Of course there are arguments and sometimes little battles over toys but they mostly love each other... mostly.

Their new favorite movie(s) are the Cars series. Jonah said "queen" for the first time today while pointing out a Lightning McQueen gift bag in the store. No joke, I've probably sat through that both movies 10 times each... and we just bought them two weeks ago. This is proving to be a bigger obsession than the Lorax stint a few months ago, and I never thought anything would beat that. There is supposed to be a similar movie called Planes coming out in August and Jeff and I have decided that will be our first theater date as a family. The boys will love it!

Off to do some Zumba and hit the sack, 6:30am comes way to fast.