The Countdown

It sucks. Every day, waiting for that call to come in that's going to change your life. Wondering if your husband wants space while he prepares, or if you are giving him space, does he think that you are trying to distance yourself already? It's a nightmare. And then on top of it all, creeps in this overwhelming feeling that you want the damn thing to start already so it can be over already. Then you feel guilty for wishing your spouse out the door.

Deployment Madness people. I've had my fill and yet here we go around again. We've been through this enough time to catch ourselves when we start picking fights so we don't miss one another as much ((total lie by the way. You'll miss each other more and have guilt on top of everything else)).

Generally with each deployment comes something I like to call Sergeant Murphy's Law. Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong while your spouse is downrange. Some of my personal favorites include breaking down in the high desert of California with a preschooler, a toddler, an infant and a dog, and my daughter knocking out her two front teeth jumping on her bed. Everyone has their favorite Sgt. Murphy's Law story. I know of one lady who actually set fire to her oven and blew out the electricity for her entire building on thanksgiving one year.

Generally with Sgt. Murphy's law, you get some leeway, if only a day or two, after the deployment starts. Ours hasn't even begun yet but here we go already. My infant daughter I. is not gaining weight. At all. She's hitting all of her milestones to be sure, down to crawling around the house and eating solid foods like a champ. But she's only eleven pounds. So we get to go through the barrage of testing that her pediatrician feels is necessary at this point. poor baby was stuck twelve times without them getting a single drop of blood from her before they let me take her home. And now S. has gotten an infection. We spent the entire day in the Acute Care Clinic dealing with a 105 degree fever. The docs kept saying she didn't look like she had a 105 fever, I must be exaggerating. So they'd take her temp and realize i was right, not being overprotective. And then ten minutes later a new doc would come in and it would start all over again.

Perhaps this means that I'm getting it all out of the way now, and I won't have to deal with it after he leaves. There's no way I could get that lucky, but hey, a girl can hope right? I think DH may be winding up his call to his mother so I think it's safe to venture back into the room and spend some time cuddling with him before he goes.