Lion Costume

On the day Thomas left for Afghanistan, we got home at 3am. I put the kids in their beds and eventually fell asleep. My kids wake up at about 6am every day, so I was pretty tired. I had decided the day before that retail therapy was in order and our outing for the day was a trip to Target. Who doesn't love a trip to Target?? With it's bright displays and impulsive items, it's a favorite store of mine. I'm lucky enough to have a super Target, so I was able to get several things on my list including my almond milk and eggs.

We hadn't ben to Target since the Halloween stuff had been set up, so that was, of course pretty fun for the kids to see and play with. I found an accessories kit for a lion for $5 and decided to buy it because the kids already had a zebra one I had bought on clearance a few years ago.

It was the best purchase of the day.

Since then the kids have taken turns being lions. Just like any toy it ebbs and flows for desirability, but overall this is a great addition to our dress up corner.

Revelations

I had a revelation today. I was trying to stay busy, and feeling a bit large. Large in that I-ate-my-feelings-for-the-past-few-weeks-so-I-gained-weight large. So I decided to go for a run right after dinner. This is not an odd thing for me, except that I had never taken the kids with me on a run at that time before. I ran. I ran and felt like I was running in jello. The extra weight and pushing both kids in the stroller tired me out.

Here comes my first revelation...

~I need to work out~

I need to do this to replace eating my feelings with running my feelings. I don't plan on crying over my love who is gone. I plan on using that energy on making myself a better person for when he returns. Because don't we all want to change for the better? Isn't that what life is all about? Finding challenges and tackling them? Putting ourselves to the test and if we don't pass the first time, keep trying again until we do?

This is my first revelation. I'm sure there will be more to come.

A Change for the Good

It's happening... A change in me that I feel will be so good, so inspiring. I want to make this time that Thomas is deployed one that pays tribute to what I have and not what I don't have. I want to show each of you how blessed we are, and how much we love that daddy who is (right now) on his way to Afghanistan. I want to give back. I want to show my body that I love it and I want it to be healthy. I want to show my children that I love them and to make them feel special to me every day. I want to create. I want to sew and to scrapbook and to craft with my children. I want to do. I don't want to cry. So don't ask me how I'm doing, ask me what I'm doing. Don't ask me if I miss him. Ask me what we're doing for him. I won't break down if I keep moving forward, and that's the goal. Because I want my children to look back at our time together and think that it was so cool of mom to give, create and love instead of moan, cry and give up. Let's make this journey better than it should be.

There are some things I dare not say out loud. Ideas swimming in my head that aren't ready for explanations of how I will put them into play. Thoughts that are still forming, still waiting to be completed enough to speak to others.

There's been a lot of that happening in my head since Friday.

Friday I had the day off. How does that work, you ask? Yes, I'm a stay at home mom. Yes I have a four year old daughter with high functioning Spina Bifida and a two year old son. No, I didn't just leave them home with a few snacks hidden near their favorite toys. We are blessed to have Naval support on the home front. Since Genny is EFMP (exeptional family member program) we finally made it up the waiting list to get a nanny to come to my house FOURTY hours a month! Some of my friends have expressed jealousy at this free daycare, but we'd much rather have a daughter with out Spina Bifida and not get this than be in our current situation... Moving on!

It was the end of my free day and I was going to check off one of my to-do list items: Read a book on the beach. I realized as I was driving towards the beach that I didn't have a blanket or chair, but I decided to just park facing the beach and read and snooze in my car for my last hour and a half.

Then Thomas called. He said he had been called and asked to take a deployment in two weeks. He asked if it was OK to go, and I could hear the waiver in his voice as he tried to guage my reaction over the phone. The funny thing is that we had had this discussion months ago, so I didn't feel like there was anything to discuss. "Sure baby, tell them yes."

Then my brain became a little too full. I thought about all the things we needed to get done in the next two weeks and did what I do best: I made a list. Included on this list is: Read books on the video camera, and figure out what I'll do when I go to school.

When my husband deploys, something changes in me. I start to think about things that I can do to keep me busy. I think of complex projects to pass the time in the evenings when he's not here and I'm lonely. Things like painting rooms, accomplishing great feats in sewing and changing the way I do certain things, in effect, making them more complicated, which makes the time go by faster.

The last time he deployed, I went home for six weeks. SIX WEEKS. I hadn't been back for that amount of time since I had been fresh out of the Navy, pre-marriage. It was great seeing my family so often, but living with someone else takes it's tolls on you (and them). When Thomas and I had discussed his potential deployment last spring, I decided that I would not go home this time. There are so many projects we need to complete with our house that I felt it would be better to spend the money on our backyard than three plane tickets.

So here I sit, a 90lb dog on my lap in what may look like an uncomfortable situation, but is, in fact, what my life will consist of for the next seven months, listening to the new Missy Higgins CD and feeling this feeling that only I can feel. My husband, my love of my life is leaving for seven months. I will become a single mother while he's gone. It will feel like when my brother, my closest friend and confidant, went to prison. Like he died, yet was alive enough to make it painful to think about. Just enough contact to keep you in mourning. But these are the thoughts and feelings that are only expressed through writing, something that can't be said because it's a slippery slope to inability to function. No. We must show a casual and strong front. Show that we don't mind our husbands leaving to a war where we can count how many before him has gone and not come home. A war that is so present yet so unrecognized that we can all claim to know someone who has gone and come home, yet we can not truly explain the effect it has had on us because we have become immune to the idea of combat and our brothers and sisters in uniform.

I will leave you with this, a visualization of my inner workings of my mind... When a close friend of mine (who is still a Corpsman, and currently deployed in support of this war that still goes on) heard what my husband will be doing while he's gone, my non-chelance of his position caused her to say something to the effect of, "Ok Kari, you tell me that again if he comes home." Now, for the safety of my husband and his unit, I can not divulge in what capacity he will be serving (and he may have told me something different anyway to keep me unaware of his position) but all I know is that this feels different. Maybe it's because we've been married longer, so I've had more time to expand my heart to fill with more love for him. Or maybe it's because our children are older and asking for him when they're hurt or tired, or just plain missing him. I don't know what it is. But my heart aches for this man in a way that was easily pushed down during the last deployments to a point that I was able to pretend he was just away for the week at a conference. Sure, these feelings surfaced every now and again, on nights I couldn't sleep or evenings I had a little too much wine. But for the past week, all I can think about is how much I will miss this man, how much I need this man to complete my day and evening. How much I rely on him to be the yang to my ying.

Keep this post in the back of your head when you read my happy posts about our days while he's gone. Because behind my smile and laughter is my ache for my husband, my worry and my loss for the moment.

Be Back Soon...

Hello followers (all one of you). I just wanted to let you know that I will be back soon... Hubby is deploying in the next few weeks. Let's see where this blog will go while he's gone... Perhaps just a diary of our goings-on. Perhaps a more intimate look at my thoughts and feelings... I guess we'll see what comes...

Toddler/Preschooler Alarm Clock

5am. 5:30am. These are the times I wake up. My son (thankfully still in his crib) starts calling for me at these times every day. For a good long while I would have to get up with him because he was waking up my oldest, who is three and a half and across the hall. I would collect him, bring him into the living room, and laying with him until he fell asleep or until Genny woke up. This was an exhausting ritual which lead to afternoon naps every day, which lead to feelings of the inability to get everything done every day because I was laying on the couch for over an hour every afternoon.

There's even more to this sleep-deprivation story, but I'll stop there. I've found my fix. I've found a clock that is so simple and works so well. You can find the one I bought for Genny here and the one I bought for Glenn here. Such a simple concept. The bottom half of the 'clock' is a sleeping animal. The top half is an awake animal. When the lower half is lit up, the child knows it's still time to sleep. When the top half is lit up, the child can get up out of bed. I have Genny's set at 6am right now, and am waiting for Glenn's in the mail.

This is something that will help me be a better mom. I'll get more sleep and so will the kids, which means we're all happy and well rested.

The bottom half is lit up

It was a bit larger than I anticipated, so here is my hand next to it to show size.

Easter Eggs with Pipe Cleaners and Beads

I love being a SAHM. It affords me the opportunity to raise my children and teach them the values I believe in and want them to have when they grow up. I understand that some moms are more comfortable to work, and I did that for a short period of time but then the cost of daycare for two children in a nursing-level facility was just about what I made when I was working. So now I focus on the fact that I'm a SAHM and I even helped start a meetup.com group for us SAHM's who want to get together, craft with our kids and chat. Thinking of crafts for the kids is fun, but sometimes things don't work out (I forget a supply, or a tool). That's what happened yesterday. So instead of doing the craft I found on pintrist, we used pipe cleaners and beads to make Easter eggs. They were great for our preschoolers to work on getting the beads onto the pipe cleaner. I had the girls put the first bead on, then I looped the pipe cleaner over it so it wouldn't fall off. When they were all done, I formed the shape of the egg, then made the zig-zag of the center and had them put three beads on. Then I attached it to the egg. So easy!!