Phone Calls

I got to talk to my husband for almost an hour tonight. It was great.

I had just popped a DVD in the player for my mother and me to watch when my phone rang. As my mother recently noted, my phone rings day and night, so I was taken by surprise when his contact info popped up.

In the morning he is headed off to a very hot place.

But tonight we got to laugh together. He always says how much he loves to hear me laugh. Luckily I live a great life so I laugh a lot. See. We're a perfect match.

Actually, I feel closer to my husband now than I ever have before. We've known each other for eighteen years and been happily married for almost twelve, so that's saying a lot. Lately, I've seen him in a new light. A beautiful new light.

I think that every marriage moves through its good times and its bad. But even when we were going through our hardest times I always believed that we would come out the other side with an even stronger marriage than before. I was right.

I feel tremendously supported and understood by the man I love right now. I hope he feels the same.

Phone calls like the one we shared tonight are a gift. I can't imagine how the military wives who came before me made it through with just written letters. Now I carry my cell phone with me everywhere I go so that I'll never miss a chance to hear his voice.

Waiting for Free

Okay. Yup. I finally did it.

I finally cried.

In fact, I am crying right now.

I've been waiting for this moment to hit me. This moment of finally being alone and letting go of my tight control and having myself a good cry.

I had gotten to a point where I was almost curious about what would finally tip me over the edge. I expected it to be frustration, or maybe even anger. Or it could have been a song or something on television.

But it was a comment on this very blog. A comment from my husband. Who would have thought?

It might not make sense, but to me this crying and letting go feels really good. At least it happened while I was alone with a pint of ice cream waiting in the freezer.

A feel a little free now. My goodbye cry has finally come and gone. Now I feel like I can finally get on with the business of waiting.

In My Husband's World

Today I drove down from my parent's suburban home to our own house on Cape Cod. Since the house has been empty for over a year, I'm here to clean and de-spider the place. My parents will bring the kids down in a couple of days.

We are so fortunate to have this house but it was sad circumstances that brought it our way. We ended up being the caretakers of my husband's grandmother's summer home when she was killed in a car accident a few years ago.

My husband spent all of his happiest childhood times here. When school got out each year, he would take his bike and hop on a bus to stay with his grandmother all summer. They were close.

I can't come here and not feel completely surrounded in my husband's world. Sadly, we've never been able to spend much time here together. He's had TDYs or he's started new jobs. Deployments have gotten in the way. This year, we had intended to finally take a real family vacation here. I was so excited.

But then the Army called.

I should be cleaning right now, but I must admit that I'm wallowing just a little bit. At home I am comforted by my husband's things all around. Here I feel almost like he's a ghost. I see who he was as a child and a teenager. But the man he is today is missing.

I finally have the time alone to stop and think and I'm starting to miss him so much.

Bittersweet Retreat

Getting a little time away from your kids is always a bittersweet experience.

On one hand, you get to experience the incredible sweetness of being someone other than Mom for a while. You get to spend time with your friends doing adult things and having adult fun. The time away can help you reconnect with who you are and help you recharge your batteries to be an even better mom.

Maybe that is especially important for stay-at-home moms who don't have daily interaction in a world outside of kids, schools and kids' activities.

But you also have the guilt. Oh, the guilt! Motherhood just wouldn't be motherhood without all the guilt.

Now I have never been the kind of mom who thinks that everything has to be done my way. I truly have always believed that my husband can take care of things just as well and in some cases better than I can. In fact, I think it is important for the kids to have time alone with him to bond. It is important for them to learn that the people who love them can take care of them in different but equal ways.

Since we live far from our family, I also think it is great for my kids to spend alone time with my parents. They've never cried when I've left them with my parents and they've never been homesick. To them, staying with Grandma and Grandpa is just a really great part of life.

So why do I feel guilty when I go away?

I just got back to my parents' house from my trip to New York City. I had a blast there and I don't regret a minute of it. But I always feel a little down when I get back to my kids. I usually want to take them away for some private "just us" time.

I won't get that private time just yet. But I think that it is important for families to give moms a break now and then. Guilt or no guilt, it makes me appreciate my kids everyday even more.

The Mane Event

Being in New York means getting to visit with a lot of my friends who I haven't seen in a while. And because I haven't seen them in a while, they all say the same thing.

"Your hair is getting so long!"

My hair is getting long. I actually hate it, but I have a purpose.

When my son was small, he got a bald spot on the crown of his head. After much discussion, it was decided that he most likely had alopecia areata or spotty baldness. He hasn't had any bald spots since, and it's possible that he never will, but the scary pictures and stories of psychological effects we found on the Internet certainly had us scared for a while.

I had thought many times over the years about donating my hair to Locks of Love but I never had the patience to grow the ten inches required. I thought that most of the children Locks of Love provided hair for were cancer patients, but I happened to find out that most of the kids were actually affected by alopecia areata.

How could I not donate my hair?

So I've been growing and growing it for what seems like an eternity but has probably only been nine months. My thick and heavy hair has always driven me crazy, but now that I have some purpose in growing it, I have a little more patience.

Right now I have nine inches to donate. Just a couple of more months and I'll be there.

Simply growing your hair is such a simple thing to do but it is such a wonderful gift. I have to admit, I'll be quite glad when I chop all this extra hair off. I'll probably lose five pounds! It will be the best five pounds I ever shed.

Decadence

I affectionately call my best friend's New York City studio apartment The Pizza Oven, because with its brick walls and lack of air conditioning that's how it feels. But this morning I am very much enjoying being a house guest here.

My friend left for work a bit ago and I have an entire day to do whatever I want. Even if what I want to do is absolutely nothing.

I can't remember the last time I had nothing to do.

So I slept in late, I'm watching Charmed on television, and I'm going to take the longest shower ever. I may go shopping, I may meet my friend for lunch, or I may just read a book and take a nap.

It's funny, because in my life before I was a mom, I thought of luxury as beach resorts and spas. Now, just having a morning with no responsibilities is the most decadent thing I can imagine. Even in The Pizza Oven.

Flying Solo

It's another moblog!

I'm writing from Logan Aiport in Boston. It's in the 70s here right now and I'm freezing!

I must admit that I am more than a little sad today. My kids are staying with my parents for a couple of days while I take the vacation that my husband and I were supposed to take together.

We had plans. We were going to New York City to see my best friend. We were going to run a race together in Central Park. It meant a lot to me because I am very happy to see my husband and my best friend grow closer. And I was hoping my husband would fall in love with New York the same way I have. Seeing the city with a local is a totally different experience.

I miss the kids already but at least I'll soon be having fun with my friends for a few days.

Even solo, I'm lucky to be able to enjoy these times.

"How do you do it?"

People keep asking me, "How do you do it?"

I guess a twenty-eight hour drive alone with two kids and a dog does sound pretty daunting. But I must say that this year's cross-country drive couldn't have gone much better.

In fact, hours one through twenty-six were dang near perfect. The last two hours when the kids were hopped up on car snacks and I was exhausted weren't as much fun, but they were still okay. Throw in some good weather and hardly any traffic and we had it made.

Oh, and I must proclaim that if I ever meet the inventor of the personal, portable DVD player, I owe him a big, huge, wet kiss of gratitude. And I might just stop into the Crayola factory on the way home and pass on my deep appreciation for Color Wonders. Those things rock!

Besides the fact that my husband isn't with us, our extra long summer vacation is going very well so far. We dropped him off at the airport and said our goodbyes with very little drama. Our trip to see Grandma, Grandpa and the cousins completely distracted the kids.

I think the next time someone asks me, "How do you do it?" I'm going to tell them that I do it with technology, good planning, and the best team a mom ever had.

Father's Day Everyday

Today I took the kids to Target (again!) to pick out a Father's Day gift for my husband.

Shopping for a Father's Day gift for a Dad who will be leaving on Father's Day is not so much fun. On Sunday morning, before the sun comes up, we’ll be dropping my husband off at the airport and saying goodbye until Spring.

It’s not like we can give him something to take with him as his packing options are limited. And who wants to give someone a present they have to leave at home and not see for months and months?

So I decided that we would fill up one small sandwich bag with things Daddy might enjoy having on his flight, like gum and a snack. Each kid picked out a card and at the last second we decided to buy him a DVD he’s wanted to see. He can watch that on his laptop and then ship it back to us when he arrives at this destination.

Holidays are funny things when a member of you family is deployed. I remember that on his last deployment when he missed my birthday, Mother's Day, our anniversary and so many more he told me, “When I get back, we’ll celebrate every day we've missed together.

But it’s not the same and you start to see holidays differently. Now, to me a holiday is just a day on a calendar. There’s no reason why we have to be tied to celebrating something on a specific day. I've lowered my expectations too. Now a handmade card from my kids can mean more than anything else.

So he’ll miss Father's Day, and Thanksgiving, and my son’s birthday, and Christmas and who knows what else. Who cares? He’s still out there, somewhere, existing and being the best father and husband he can be.

It makes you realize that every day is special. Just like him.

Let the Waterworks Commence

I had my first pre-deployment, teary-eyed moment today.

My family has been able to spend quite a lot of quality time together this past week, for which I am very grateful. But we've also spent what seems like an inordinate amount of time preparing for my husband’s deployment.

Between appointments and shopping and logistics, it has been stressful. But we declared a few hours today as “Let’s Indulge the Kids” time and we headed out to the Boardwalk.

We let the kids choose where we would eat lunch. We let them order sodas. We let them ride the trolley. Most of all, we let them build a Build-A-Bear.

Like every kid that visits the Boardwalk, my kids almost always try to beg a bear out of us. This time they didn't ask at all, which made our special treat even a little more special.

Every night when we put our kids to bed, we hug a stuffed animal and fill it up with love. We say, “All filled up with love from Mommy and Daddy and Grandma and Grandpa and everyone who loves you.”

So we decided that with my husband leaving, it would be extra special to fill an animal up with love from the inside out. We even bought the recordable message boxes and my husband left a personalized little message of love for each kid.

It’s when I pressed the button to make sure that his recording worked that I teared up a little. It was just a tiny bit and only for a second so I’m sure no one noticed. But still. It was my first official deployment cry.

There will be many more, I’m sure. I’m not much a crier normally, at least not at really important things. Sure, I’ll cry like a baby over Extreme Home Makeover and long distance commercials. But when it comes to the important things in life, I can be pretty stoic.

We’ll see, but I hope I will grow immune to their bear’s recorded charm sometime soon. Or it is going to be a long deployment.

My Meddling Mom

Last week, sort of out of the blue, my husband turned to me and said, “I love you. I want you to know that I really appreciate you and I know I’m lucky to have you. It makes it a lot easier to sit through all these pre-deployment briefings knowing that I won’t have to worry about anything here at home.”

That’s quite a mouthful for a quiet guy like him.

He is a very low-key kind of guy. There are probably guys in his office reading this and laughing. My sense is that he’s not so quiet and low-key at work. But here at home he is the perfect compliment to me.

I appreciate that I have a husband who can say those sorts of things. I appreciate very much that he is able to balance his work and family life in a way that very few people can. I am very lucky to have him. Where did I find a guy like him, anyway?

That’s right. I found him at Purity Supreme.

I met my husband when I was fifteen and started working at the local grocery store. My mom and my brother both worked there too.

I remember sort of liking him right off the bat, but he had a mullet. He flirted with our middle-aged female bosses. They were probably younger then than I am now, but they were still middle-aged in my mind. I considered him just an acquaintance.

Then in 1989 when I was sixteen-years-old and being courted by a very inappropriate older boy, my mother must have decided to take action.

One night at work she grabbed my still mullet-headed future husband and told him that she had planned to drive me home from work but was going to leave early. She asked him to drive me home.

And the rest is history. Our first date to watch Rainman at his mom’s house was on Friday, October 13, 1989. We ate Oreo’s and played ping-pong. In the year’s that followed I would throw up on him at the movies, fight with him at our wedding, and yell at him while I was baring his children.

But he’s stuck around all these eighteen years. It’s almost impossible to imagine that the grocery bagging kids we were back then would grow into the adults we are today, setting off on another adventure with words of love and commitment, all thanks to my meddling mom.

Moblogging!

Today I am out and about blogging live from Shreveport-Bossier!

And where does a stay-at-home mom with two kids go when the heat is oppressive for more days then she can count and she's all swum out from the pool?

Why, McPetrieDish of course.

A friend of mine coined the name McPetrieDish for those indoor McDonald's playgrounds that we all find to be both a lifesaver and a major pain in the butt, depending on our moods.

But today my mood is good. And I'm going to treat us to ice cream (no, not as a bribe to get them out of those suspended tunnels). And tonight we're having a babysitter for one last date night before my husband goes away.

Yes, life is good. Especially when you have your trusty (soul-saving) Treo and Internet access by your side. Even in the McPetrieDish.

Morbid Day

There is one day before every deployment that I have come to know as Morbid Day.

Morbid Day is that day when my husband goes to the legal office and arranges his will and all that other “just in case” sort of paperwork.

It’s amazing how differently my husband and I deal with that kind of stuff. He hates to think about what-ifs. I have a very difficult time getting him to tell me just what he wants to happen if the worst should come true.

“Where do you want to be buried?” I ask him.

“Wherever you want me to,” he answers.

“What kind of funeral do you want?” I ask him.

“Whatever kind you want me to have,” he answers.

In a lot of ways, I understand him. That is just his personality. He doesn’t care what happens to him as long as I am happy and comfortable.

But I’m just the opposite. I like to think of the what-ifs. It makes me feel much more safe and secure to know that decisions have already been made and details have already been handled should I lose him somehow.

Maybe to him, the thought of not coming back is such a remote possibility that it doesn’t even bare thinking about. But I have to think about it. I have my children to protect. I’ve hardened myself to the point that I can think logically about it.

Another Morbid Day has come and gone. I’m sure there will be more Morbid Days in the future. But for now, I actually kind of appreciate this life that we live that forces me to appreciate every minute we have together.

And I’ll pat myself on the back just a tiny little bit that I’m strong enough to handle it.

We All Have Baggage

In about a week, my husband will be boarding a plane with two military C bags and heading off for Army training.

I have no idea how he's going to fit all his stuff!

I guess I've always known that deployments were equipment intensive, but this is ridiculous.

For the last two weeks he has been collecting all of the things he is required to take on his deployment. Our entire foyer and hallway are filled with camo-print mounds of stuff. I have to admit I'll be glad to see it go. Too bad he has to go with it.

But I'm not looking forward to the moment when he realizes that there is no possible way to fit all that stuff in two bags. He's reminding me of a Gucci bag-rolling socialite with all her accompanying baggage.

Thank goodness for the US Postal Service.

What the heck was I thinking?

Maybe I was trying to out spoil my husband and his Arctic Soaker squirt guns. For some reason on Monday afternoon I thought it would be a good idea to buy the kids one of these:

When I picked it up off the shelf at Target (aka: my home away from home) the kids actually started to whoop and holler. They even danced a little.

Now I’m thinking I might have a bit of a masochistic streak in me.

Sure the kids have worn themselves out so much they are sacked out by 6:30 every night, but I’m a muddy, sunburned mess. And my lawn will never be the same.

Still…shhhh…it’s a secret but those whoops and hollers made me feel like The Man.©

I am officially the Best Mom Ever! Not bad for under 40 bucks!

Family's Family

A couple of years ago, I made the conscience decision to try and make new friends. And, man, has the effort paid off!

Making new friends as an adult is hard. You have to put yourself out there and talk to new people. You have to ferret out the ones you might have some kind of connection with. You have to arrange meet ups and exchange life stories.

Doesn't that sound an awful lot like dating?

I have been making that assertion for years. Making new friends as an adult is just like dating.

For someone like me, I think it is especially hard.

For one thing, I’m sort of shy.

What? I am. I swear.

It’s funny, because some people who know me would scoff at that statement and others would think it was absolutely true. In truth, if someone shows any interest in getting to know me at all, I’m a loud-mouthed, open book. But the other person has to make the first move. If it were completely up to me, I’d live in a safe, warm cocoon with just my husband and my kids.

And for another thing, I do live in a cocoon. I call it Barksdale Air Force Base.

As a military wife it is easy to fall into the habit of only cultivating friendships with other military wives. They instantly understand your life and your challenges. We even have our own language. Once you have kids, it’s even easier to fall into that military-only circle. Until my daughter went to school, my only friends were the other military stay-at-home moms who lived in my neighborhood.

Now, don’t get me wrong. Those women were wonderful. They offered tremendous support and understanding when I needed it most.

But I’m complex.

Since I was old enough to choose my own friends, I've always managed an eclectic mix. Being surrounded by lots of different people helps me thrive. And it’s just more fun.

What’s not fun is breaking the news to all these friends that my husband will be deploying. I can see in their eyes (or read in their e-mails or hear in their voices) that they feel bad for me. Their reactions have been such a great mix of appreciation, understanding, and…well…love.

Maybe I’m just lucky, but when times get tough, my true friends seem to come out of the woodwork. When you’re so far from “home” you have to make family of your own. My friends are my family, and my family’s family.

And I love them.

Army Wives

Ever since Lifetime started advertising its new show Army Wives my civilian friends have been asking me what I think of it.

My stock answer was that I wouldn't be watching it so I had no opinion. My policy near deployment time is not to watch any television that will make me emotional. There was that one Extreme Home Makeover that nearly did me in.

But curiosity got the better of this cat and I TiVoed the premier last night. I figured I could watch it this morning while the kids were at soccer camp and if it was awful, I could fast forward through the worst parts.

At about ten minutes in I almost gave up, but like a car crash, I just had to see how it ended.

Now, I’m not sure if I thought it was so far off center because of the differences between Army life and Air Force life, or if it was just the writing, acting, costumes, or settings but it sure didn't look like my life.

Except for getting written up for not mowing the lawn. That looked really familiar.

I've heard from some Army wives that they detest the show. They say that it doesn't bare even a passing resemblance to their lives. The women are all too beautiful, catty, and dramatic. And the men are afforded way too much reverence.

But I've heard from other Army wives that they love it. They say that there is finally a dramatic show out there that they can relate to. According to them, the women should be even more beautiful, catty, and dramatic than their real life counterparts, because that’s what makes for good television.

I suppose that is true. Dramas are dramatic for a reason. I just hope that viewers can remember that too.

Much like those of us who aren't doctors or lawyers tend to base our opinions about those professions from what we see on television, I suspect that some will characterize military wives from what they see on Lifetime, Overly-Dramatic, Poorly-Acted Television for Women.

Did you tune in to Army Wives? What did you think?

Who Needs Sleep?

I didn't sleep last night. Not even for a moment.

It suddenly struck me yesterday that May is…well…over and June is here. Which means I have about fifteen days until my husband leaves for his deployment.

I've decided that the kids and I will start our annual trek to Massachusetts right after we say our goodbyes. It might sound kind of crazy, but experience tells me that is the best time to get going.

Upon hearing that I drive my kids almost three thousand miles once a year, most people exclaim that I’m nuts. They say, “I don’t know how you do it!” But to me it is just not that big of a deal. I've done so many things with these kids on my own. Why should driving on vacation be any different? I am a military wife after all.

That’s not to say that the whole trip is like a walk in the park.

Did I mention that I take the dog too?

But my decision to leave in mid-June, and my realization that June is here now have left me a little stressed.

I spent most of yesterday scheduling and making lists and preparing to do all of the things I need to do just to prepare for this trip. When it came time to sleep, I just couldn't shut off my brain.

And once my brain gets going, it’s off to the races.

The good news for my husband and children is that when I haven’t been to bed at all overnight, I am as chipper as can be in the morning. This is a stark and welcome contrast to the ogre I usually portray before ten a.m.

Excuse me while I go swan dive into a vat of coffee. This chipper mood won’t last long.