My Deployment Journal – Some Days are Better Than Others

The closer we get to the end, the more slowly time seems to go. It’s agonizing, really. They say to keep busy, and with three kids 4 and under and a new homeschool year about to start, I am busy. It doesn’t stop the constant nagging feeling that time feels like it’s creeping and deployment is supposed to end soon.

I’m feeling a lot of stress as the deployment winds down. We need to move, so I’ve been looking at new houses and may be signing a new lease soon. That means we will be moving as soon as Luke gets home. We are both really excited about the new house we may be moving to, but getting everything taken care of on my own is rough! Plus, we will be sad to leave the country, but the space of this home will work so much better for our family.

Our daughter broke the TV. She threw a toy at the LCD screen and that was the end of that. We will look into getting it repaired when Luke gets home. The TV is way too large for me to handle on my own. We have been enjoying less TV, though. I didn’t let the kids watch TV all the time, but it was probably on more than it should have been. Just watching them play and use their imaginations without that background noise has been awesome.

I can see why having both parents in a kid’s life is so important. My oldest son is really missing his daddy time. He needs that male interaction so badly. I cannot wait for him to get his daddy back.

Apparently our baby did not gain enough weight from his 6 month to 9 month check-ups. I’m going to keep feeding him on demand and hopefully he will gain the half a pound in a month that the dr. wants to see. He has been breastfed this entire time, so I would really hate to even think of giving him formula. I have read breastfed babies gain more slowly during the second half of the first year anyway. He is ahead on milestones, so I really think he is fine!

I was just talking to Luke about the baby and how it is so weird that he doesn’t really know him. He got a glimpse of him at his birth and then he was pretty much gone. He doesn’t know the way Ollie smiles so big, or the way he waves his hands when he gets excited. He’s not here to snuggle him when he sleeps or make him laugh with a game of peek-a-boo. He just gets to see him on Skype and in the videos I send. Life can suck sometimes.

One positive thing is that every little thing that was wrong with my minivan is now fixed! It drives much better and my Papa got it all cleaned up for me, so that was nice.

So, this post is rambling, but so is my mind. I’m so ready for deployment to end!