Week One: I found a spare minute

Week One is complete.  We have survived.  It's been extremely busy, but we have managed.

The kids waiting for Santa on the firetruck.

We spent Tuesday evening with friends on base and enjoyed seeing Santa touring the neghborhood in a firetruck.  I mean really... Santa AND a firetruck?!  That's pretty much the best thing ever for my kids! The evening was a huge success in distracting us from Paul's ovbvious absense.


Wednesday was a busy day of Christmas singing at the kids' pre-school classes.  They had a great time and were excited by a surprise visit from Santa (again) after the singing was sung. Wednesday afternoon added a little more excitement with their last gymnastics class before the holiday break.  Matthew mastered some flips on the rings and he was thrilled with that.

Grace's class
(She's in the white dress - on the left)

Thursday we had a special playdate with Grace's favorite friend from school.  Apparently the playdate was just too much fun and it wore out all their good behavior.  Thursday night was a challenge with over-tired kids riding high on emotions, probably from saying good-bye to Dad and seeing Santa two days in a row. The worst of the week came on Thursday evening.... Grace had been complaining that her tummy ached for a little while.  She finally came up to me and said, "It's not my tummy Mom... it's my heart.  I miss daddy!" OH, GOODNESS ME.  How could she come up with that?!  Broke my heart.  I offered her a hug and as soon as she was cuddle up in my arms she completely burst into tears.  "I miss him because I love him." Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh.  Matthew came over and rubbed her back with me.  I cried a little too.  Fearing that we would all be puddles of tears and runny noses if I didn't do something quickly, I mentioned to them that when Daddy comes home we will meet him when he lands his plane (either one he is flying or one he is flying in with the rest of the squadron) and we get to run out to him and give him the biggest bestest hug we have ever given him.  Two sweet little faces looked up at me with big bright eyes.  Matthew was smiling the biggest smile and Grace (a little worrier) asked, "What if we aren't at the airport when he lands his plane?"  I couldn't help but laugh and promised her we would SO be there.

Friday was a decent day and ended with a fun Pity Party with the other Spouse Club wives.  My scheduled sitter was unable to come over as planned after her son had to go to the doctor and was diagnosed with croup (Booooo)... so about 4 hours before the party started, I was looking for a sitter.  Talk about Navy wives stepping up and offering babysitter numbers of even offering to babysit themselves.  THANK YOU!  I had a good time visiting with the other wives and even starting to plan our Halfway Party.  You know it's a "short" deployment when you start talking about the Halfway Party at the Pity Party.

Standing like flamingos.

I was incredibly not looking forward to the first weekend without Paul.  The weekdays are one thing; Paul's usually at work all day long; often has night flights.  It's not entirely odd for us to go a few days without him home except for sleeping.  But the weekends are another story entirely.  That is our family time.  That is my alone time.  That is my catch-up on chores, errands, running around time.  No such luck without Paul Meyer.  So I decided we were going to start the weekend off right... we headed over to Eggs N Things for breakfast (the kids devoured their breakfast which is an added bonus).  Then I took them up to the Santa Barbara Zoo.  I had heard so many good things about the zoo, particularly that it is a great one for small kids and it is!  We had a great time.  Membership purchased!  By the time we came home it was naptime for Sam, followed by a little playtime and dinner, etc.

Sam trying to climb the sledding hill.

Today was church and I was so entirely greatful.  The kids enjoy time spent in the nursery/preschool class, and I get to spend sometime getting my mind focused on what/who it needs to be focused on.  I am blessed with an awesome church that has shown great support to Paul and I in the past few weeks, as well as great friendship in general no matter a looming deployment or not.  We came home, Sam napped, the big kids and I worked hard on cleaning up and folding laundry so we could play outside after Sam woke up.  Their behavior was awesome, so we headed out in the trusty Odyssey to see some Christmas lights.  It was a great end of Week One.

My house is a mess right now.  There is stuff - laundry piles, throw pillows, shoes, dolls - everywhere.  But I just can't do it all and I'm going to let it go tonight.  I got to write and that feels good. I will clean it up tomorrow and late tomorrow night by dad will be here!  Hooray for Big Al's visit!  Weeks Two-Five are going to be soooo fun.

P.S.  Come back tomorrow for an update on my workout results!

WEEK ONE: a quick review

THIS IS WAAAAAAAAY BUSIER THAN I ANTICIPATED!!!!!!!  Thought about blogging every single night... never got to it.  More later. Maybe.

Let the countdown begin!

(An old photo of USS Abe Lincoln)
See the funny propellor on the left side of the bridge? That's the E2-C

This morning at 7am we said our 'good byes' to Paul.  The morning was hands-down the most difficult morning I have ever had.  It is one thing for a husband and wife to say good bye and it is an entirely different thing for a dad and kids to say good bye.  The emotions for Paul and I were definitely running high; there was sadness and there was overwhelming love.  The kids handled it well since they didn't really understand what our good byes were for.  Matthew and Grace knew Mommy and Daddy were feeling sad, but Matthew just tried to be goofy (the people pleaser) and Grace was just quiet (the non-emotional one).  Sam just played football.  I'm sure in the next few weeks, particularly after Christmas, they will realize that Paul isn't home yet and perhaps that is when they will begin to understand what "deployment" means.

While we got ready for school, I vascilated between weepy and okay.  Grace's teacher gave me a hug and I turned to a pile of mush.  I got to the gym and forced myself to run a mile and started to feel a lot better.  Luckily today was a training day with Steph and she had planned a heavy workout.  For one hour I focused on making my body do what Steph told me I had to do.  There is such relief in spending time with my brain turned off and pushing my little muscles to do more than they want to do.  By the end of the hour, I felt pretty wiped out with not much more energy to give to weepiness.  But then, I talked to my mom, and then there were a few more tears.  Eventually, the kids were home from school, lunch had been eaten, Sam was down for a nap, and I could take a nice long shower.  I took a short nap  and woke up feeling like a million bucks.

Monday nights are Small Group nights, so fortunately I had a babysitter lined up and was able to take a few hours with some wonderful friends from church.  When you can't be with your hubby, it is pretty darn good to be with good friends.  We even blew off doing the Bible study and played board games!  When you can't be with your hubby, it is really darn good to be with good friends and board games! I tucked the kids into bed when I came home, emailed a "good night" to Paul (who did indeed make it safely onboard earlier today) and now have an hour or so to relax. Not a bad ending to a not-so-happy day.

I am feeling relatively confident in our family's ability to make it through this deployment with a minimal amount of tears and stress and frustration.  (Knock on wood.) Paul and I have done quite a bit of prep work in getting ourselves "set up for success" and our expectations managed.

Our Deployment Survival Kit:
X Arm pillow for Betsy (picture will be posted on Friday)
X Build-a-Bears with Daddy's voice message for each kiddo (thanks for the idea, Ash!)
X A t-shirt of Paul's for each kid to snuggle with at night
X Jar o'Kisses from Daddy for each kid each night
X Pictures of all of each of us with Paul (for us and for him)
X Digital photo frame loaded with photos for Paul
X Envelopes/paper and color-coded stickers so the kids will see the sticker and know it's a card from Daddy for them.
X Lots of videos of Daddy reading nighttime books to the kids
X New camera for Mommy to take video of kids for Daddy (Merry Christmas, me!)

Deployment Expectations:
We will email every day assuming the email is up and running on the ship.
We will Skype when Paul is in port.
We will get a handwritten note from Paul (hopefully once a month - Paul, are you reading this?!) hee hee.
We will send mail to Paul every week... hopefully the aircraft carrier made a weight allowance for lots of finger-paintings and such from the Meyer kids.

....only 142 days left!

A little juxtaposition.....

(Tonight's is a deployment post, tomorrow's will be also - I'm sure, then we'll get back to normal life.)

jux·ta·po·si·tion

   [juhk-stuh-puh-zish-uhn]  Show IPA

noun

1.

an act or instance of placing close together or side by side,especially for comparison or contrast.

2.

the state of being close together or side by side.

My husband leaves, signaling the beginning of the end of his deployment.

My husband leaves, signaling the beginning of the end of my friend's husband's deployment.

Butterflies in my stomach thinking about him leaving. 

Butterfies in my stomach thinking about him coming home.

Not wanting to fall asleep on the night before deployment.

Not being able to fall asleep on the night before homecoming.

The clock ticking by too quickly during our last hours together.

The clock ticking by much too slowly during the last hours apart.

Wondering how I'm going to make it through the months without him.

Wondering how I DID make it through the months without him. 

***The randomness of the writing will be off-set by random pictures taken in the past few weeks while we've been savoring some Daddy Time***
Generally when I sit down to write, I think I have something to say or a point to make.  Tonight I am sitting down to get my emotions out so I can hopefully lessen the queasy feeling in my stomach.

Sam's expression sums up how I feel.
(He was fearing Santa in this photo)

Paul leaves for deployment on Monday morning.  It is Saturday night. We have all day tomorrow, tomorrow night, and then "good byes" the next morning.  He is currently upstairs with the three kids doing bath/books/bed time; I've passed this job on to him for the last week or so saying A.) he needs to get as many chances to tuck them into bed as he can, and B.) I desperately want a break before I am on full-time.  So while he is juggling two in the bathtub and one in the shower, I'm going to take a moment and try to get my head on straight.  



First and foremost, I need to write a disclaimer.... We are facing a 4 1/2 monther.  In Navy standards that is short, short, short.  I have several friends who have completed or are currently completing year-long IA deployments, a friend whose husband was on the ground in Afghanistan and participated in gun fights that were acknowledged on CNN. I have friends who had babies while their husbands were gone (one will be doing so during this cruise), a friend who solo-parented twins and kept down a full-time job, etc., etc., etc.  This deployment is not a WORST.  I do not think I'll be dealing with the WORST.  But, it is 4 1/2 months without my husband, and so..... I will write about it.

Matthew is Paul's biggest fan.

Today was kind of a weird day.  I didn't really know what I wanted to do..... should I hang out with my husband like I'm glued to his hip since I won't get to do that for awhile?  Should I hang out by myself all alone with no kids talking to me non-stop, since I won't get to do that for awhile?  Should I insist we get stuff done around the house since I have someone who can help me and I won't have that for awhile?  Should we go on a date?  Should we hang out as a family? Can I just sit here and stare into space?  Well, I guess thinking back on the day we did just about all of that... although, the "date" was the two of us on the couch watching Navy BEAT ARMY(!) while Sam napped, and Grace and Matthew miraculously played together really nicely for an hour or so.  (They were playing with Christmas ornaments off the tree which is not allowed, but who can blame us for letting that go when a 5 & almost-4-year-old are playing nicely together?! In the other room?!)

Getting in the Christmas spirit and
decorating the tree.

I kept asking Paul what he wanted to do, anything special? wanna eat something in particular? go somwhere? He just said, "Uh, nah." Hmmmmmm.  That is my non-dramatic husband for ya!  I would certainly make everything a big huge hairy deal if I were heading off to a metally, gray, cold aircraft carrier for four months.  But that's just me.  The good thing is that when he comes home and I try to make everything into a big, huge, hairy, perfect deal for his homecoming he won't be disappointed if anything isn't quite right.  He's my calm Mr. Steady. And oh, am I going to miss him!

The thing is, during the build-up to deployment I was worried about how I would wrangle three youngish kids on my own.  I know it won't be easy by any stretch of the imagination, but I do know I can do it.  The thing that gives me that pit in my stomach is knowing that I won't get to share the moments with Paul.  I love love love him. (Which is really good, because we are married married married.)  We have had a bumpy patch or two in the past few years, nothing big, just normal-two-people-married-living-in-the-same-space-trying-to-raise-three-kids-yet-maintain-some-sort-of-individuality-yet-being-married thing. But we have sorted that out and I feel like the last few months have been so fabulous.  We've been on the same page, on the same team.  I just don't want him to go.  C'mon, really?! Do you HAVE to get on that boat????  I guess it's better than him getting court marshalled for going AWOL.  Which would probably lead to him getting kicked out of the Navy, which would definitely mean we would get kicked out of military housing, which would probably mean we would move somewhere else, and if you ask me pretty much NOWHERE is as pretty as here.  I would have to go get a job, the kids would have to go to daycare.... yeah, he should just go on deployment.

Feeling sleepy after dad came home
from work on Friday.

And speaking of "you should go on deployment" I can't really say this is a surprise..... You joined the Navy, go on a boat! Surprise!  We (yes, I mean "we," as in Paul and I) did make the choice for him to apply to become a department head which we knew would mean a deployment or two.  So, there really is nothing to complain about.... other that my husband not being home, not giving me hugs and kisses, not watching the kids learn new things, not spend time with our friends, not open Christmas gifts, not celebrate our anniversary with me, not take me on a date of Valentine's day, not drink green beer on St. Patrick's day, not help with the mess of dying Easter eggs with three kids.  Really.  It's fine.  NO IT'S NOT!

Whew. It's like a tennis match in my head.

Okay, but seriously, if this lifestyle is really so tough then why do I do it?  I've seen this answered many times, especially recently, on different articles and blogs.  But it all comes down to the fact that I wouldn't do this for anyone except Paul.  I love him more than dearly.... he is my very very best friend, and has been for a long long time.  The love I have for him when he is home, is a million times stronger than the loneliness when he is away.

Two Lucky Babies and Two Amazing Moms

Back to blogging.  It's been a few weeks since my last post.  I didn't really know what was worth writing about after my last post, and then life got busy and I just didn't find the time to write.  I'm back now.

I've been thinking a lot about MOMMIES lately.  Two short days ago, my sister had her first child, a darling darling little girl.  Two short weeks ago, my closest friend had her third child and asked my husband and I to be Godparents to their sweet baby boy.  What a joy to welcome these two precious babies into the world!  Unfortunately, I'm only able to "welcome" the two new bundles with flowers via FTD, phone calls, and texts.  My heart is sad that I cannot be there in person, but I know that my friend and sister know I would be there if I could.  We are family.

My sister and I have had a close relationship for as long as I can remember.  Sure, we had our fights and arguments; she drove me  up the wall a few times (of course, I'm sure I never drove her up the wall).  But we have never really had a rocky patch of any significance.  K and I are only 19 months apart; she being the older, yet shorter, sister.  For my entire life, I have had a best friend.  What a comfort to have her next to me on the school bus in grade school, across the ice during kicklines in ice shows, behind home plate while standing on the pitcher's mound, somewhere in the building during the drama of high school.  She's always had my back, including yelling at an ex-boyfriend of mine... who later became my husband! She was my maid of honor and the first extended-family member to meet my first baby.  She is everything a big sister is supposed be.  They say you can choose your friends but not your family.... I'm sure I would have chosen her anyway.

My friend, M, and I are not family by blood or marriage.  We are family by Navy.  Our history doesn't go way way back, but starts in 2005.  At the time we met, P was finishing up his first deployment and M's husband had joined our squadron.  We chatted it up the first time we met and I remember thinking, "she seems cool." (It was "buddy at first sight.") Over the next few months, we hung out with each other often and bonded over Spouse Club meetings/silliness/drama/wine. Our friendship grew even closer when we ended up pregnant just one month apart from eachother and our husbands left on deployment when I was about 8 weeks along and M was... well, she found out the morning the guys left.  Anyone lucky enough to have a best friend by their side and go through a pregnancy and a deployment at the same time and live about 5 blocks away from each other... wait, has anyone else experienced this?!... knows that God could not have blessed us more.  We both lost our highly-functioning brains at the same time and enjoyed those incredibley dumb moments together.  We missed our husbands together and planned theme parties to distract us.  We may not really be "family," but in the military-spouse world the difference between family and friend tends to blur.  She too is everything a sister should be.

So, my niece and godson were born just two weeks apart.  They both get to be surrounded by the love of an amazing woman.  They will grow up with a Momma who is strong, intelligent, opinionated, funny, loving, kind, caring, amazing.  I know those babies are going to grow up to be strong, intelligent, opinionated, funny, loving, kind, caring, amazing people.  I look forward to watching these tiny (and not-so-tiny-but-very-very-handsome) babies grow up and learn from my sister and "sister."  I wonder what the relationship between the children and moms will look like; I am confident they will be awe-inspiring.  I'm sure there will be trying times, but knowing the K & M like I do, I know they will sail through those storms with wisdom and genuine selflessness.  Motherhood is a challenge like no other, but there is no doubt my two best friends are going to succeed.  I am blessed to know these two incredible women.

Why Black Friday Shopping Works for Me

It is nearly impossible for me to get myself out of bed before 6am, except on Black Friday.  I pop right out of bed while its dark - not even close to the sun coming up - get dressed, grab a cup of coffee, and am pulling out of the driveway within twenty minutes.  I have done the Black Friday shopping thing for the last three years and anticipate doing it for several more.

I'm not a crazy shopper and have never gotten to the stores early enough to stand in line waiting for the doors to open.  I'm not dedicated to one type of product enough to snatch it out of another person's cart.  I'm definitely not competitive enough to ever use pepper spray on my fellow shoppers.  Those are all just wrong.... literally not-right.  I do not understand why anyone would do those things.  Seems like a terrible way to start the Christmas season, if you ask me!  I will always spend my Thanksgiving day in the comfort of my home, eating delicious food with the people I love, NOT in a tent outside of Target.  I will always remember two rules in our household while I'm shopping: "No snatching." and "You get what you get, and you don't have a fit." And really, I have nothing to say about not using pepper spray since that just seems like common sense. 

So off I go into the "craze" of Black Friday, equiped with my coffee and a list.  This year was a piece of cake as it seems most people went out late on Thanksgiving and by 6am on Black Friday it was pretty calm.  It was actually more calm than any other day.  I went to Toys R Us first, since I had to pick up a toy that I had bought online (wait til you see what it is... on Christmas morning, I'll post a picture) and the parking lot was hardly full at all.  I got a few little goodies for the kids.  I put back several things I had initially picked up after thinking to myself "do I want to be picking this up day after day?" 

After Toys R Us, I headed to HomeGoods since I had a gift card to use there.  Obviously this is not a big "toy" spot, so it too was pretty empty.  I, however, got a good deal on some toys for the extended family kids and a bonus is that they are more unique than the toys at the big box stores.  I also picked up a few holiday decor items, much to my husband's chagrin.  Do we need more holiday towels?! Yes we do!  Plus, it was all paid for by a gift card, so it was kind of "free." Next, I stopped at Best Buy, but that wasn't really for Christmas shopping, I just needed a memory card for my camera. Then it was off to the outlet stores and the beginning of the craziness.  Talk about a busy parking lot and people all over the place. I was able to get some really great deals on a few outfits for the kids and high tailed it out of there.  

Anyway, so what's the point of shopping at the break of dawn on Black Friday?  For me, the best part is that I'm all done Christmas shopping.  I got a few good deals, and that's a bonus, but most importantly I get to spend the next three weekends spending time with my family, decorating the house, visiting Santa, making cookies, talking about the real reason for Christmas with the kids.  To me, that makes the whole Black Friday shopping ideal. The commercialized part was finished almost before it began; I got what I needed to get and I didn't have a fit.  And now I get to spend the rest of the Christmas season with those that I love the most and focusing on the many blessings we have in our lives.