Author: TheHappyHousewife

I think I should start a Christmas tree watch…. how long will Happy’s tree stay up?!?!

Seriously, I think I’m going to take it down soon.

Maybe.

I thought I would take it down tonight, but then I got busy, so I didn’t.

I’ve never had my tree up in January. Never. It seems strange to have it in my family room when we’re watching college football bowl games.

Christmas trees and college bowl games don’t go together in my house. 

The girls (except Cora) made it up until midnight. I’m proud of them. They really wanted to stay up and they did it. They’ll probably be a mess of tired because of it, but at least they can say they stayed up until midnight.

My boys are going shooting with a guy that works with their dad. They are excited about getting some boy time. I don’t like loud noises or cold weather so I’m thankful this guy is willing to take my boys out.

It’s stuff like this that really matters during a deployment. Folks who are willing to give up a few hours of their day to give something to my kids that I can’t.

I’m thankful.

My husband has been deployed to the Middle East for 274 days.  These are my real thoughts expressing my heart during his absence.  I appreciate your prayers and kind words as we cope, adapt, and carry on without him until August 2014.  To read from the beginning, click here.

My Christmas tree is still up.

Usually we take the Christmas tree down the day after Christmas, actually there have been a few years where the tree has come down on Christmas day. We put our tree up early so by the time Christmas roles around I’m ready for it to be gone!

The funny thing is that usually I take it down by myself so the deployment has little to do with the fact that it is still up.

I think the reason I’m putting it off is that most of our Christmas decorations are still packed from the move and I really need to open them all and figure out what we need to keep, get rid of, and what isn’t really Christmas, but got packed in those boxes by the movers.

I’m sure there are things in those boxes that I’ve been looking for since we moved here. I’m not usually a procrastinator, but this is my frog!

 

In other news, my son is dog sitting his friend’s dog. It’s funny, because I was just thinking that another dog would be just the thing I needed to keep me busy around here. Or not! 

One the bright side, I’m almost caught up on laundry.

Almost.

My husband has been deployed to the Middle East for 274 days.  These are my real thoughts expressing my heart during his absence.  I appreciate your prayers and kind words as we cope, adapt, and carry on without him until August 2014.  To read from the beginning, click here.

I got a Facebook message from an old friend. She’s not old, she’s just been a friend for a long time. 🙂

She knew me during the first deployment and was at my house almost every day. She gets it.

She also gets it because out of the last 36 months her husband has been deployed 30.

30.

She told me to hang in there. She shared how last year she didn’t even put up Christmas decorations, how it seems like she hasn’t made dinner in about a year, and how her kids are handling everything.

Her message was encouraging, because sometimes it feels good knowing that you’re not the only one who feels like skipping Christmas, or serves cereal for dinner, or gets mad because he left.

During our last deployment we lived on a base and were surrounded by folks who were either going through exactly we what we were going through or who had been there before.

Now we live in a neighborhood where people work Monday through Friday and go to the mall and out to dinner on the weekends.

Nice folks who don’t understand why anyone would want to skip Christmas or eat cereal three nights in a row.

Writing this every day (or most days) has been one of the hardest things I’ve done in a long time. It’s hard to put it out there and there’s always this nagging feeling that people will think I’m a terrible wife, parent, or friend.

But after reading my friend’s message I realized that hearing from someone else that the things I’m feeling were NORMAL made a huge difference. I felt like this weight had been lifted from me.

It’s like there is a little club (although it isn’t that little anymore) for folks who have gone through it. They understand most things without even asking a question.

They just get it.

It’s pretty awesome in a strange way.

My husband has been deployed to the Middle East for 274 days.  These are my real thoughts expressing my heart during his absence.  I appreciate your prayers and kind words as we cope, adapt, and carry on without him until August 2014.  To read from the beginning, click here.

I’m finally better. Well mostly better. Better enough to make meals and start cleaning up Christmas. Today the I spend five hours cleaning out the girls’ room. Five hours.

Who invented the Rainbow Loom?!?!?!?!?!?!? 🙂

My sister is in town and that’s always fun and a welcome distraction. The kids opened up their Christmas gifts from my sister last night and Cora got a little pair of hot pink slipper boots. She loves them. I mean loves them. They are furry and glittery and pink. Which is everything Cora likes.

She wants to wear them to church and even went to bed wearing them.

We got a box of goodies delivered from my sweet friend Stef and a box of popcorn from my friend Connie.

We also got signed up for grocery delivery. I’ve always thought it sounded like a cool idea, but I wasn’t sure about it. I think my sickness was too much for the Commander so he ordered groceries for us. I’ll let you know what I think of it soon since I didn’t see the price tag!

Our eleven year old is really missing dad. His prayer at dinner was to keep dad safe and that Christmas just wasn’t the same without him.

I’m trying to figure out how to help him get through this, but I don’t have many ideas. He got to talk to his dad for a long time tonight, which helped. I think they talked for two hours, maybe longer. I have no idea what they talked about but I know he was in a much better mood when he got off the phone.

I got an email today from a reader encouraging me to hang in there. She reminded me not to lose my sense of humor. Lately I’ve misplaced it. I plan on getting it back today. Thank you!

 

My husband has been deployed to the Middle East for 274 days.  These are my real thoughts expressing my heart during his absence.  I appreciate your prayers and kind words as we cope, adapt, and carry on without him until August 2014.  To read from the beginning, click here.

Still sick, although slightly better than the day before. I forced myself out of the house in order to buy a memory card for the camera my daughter got for Christmas. (I ordered one, but somehow it got lost in the shuffle 🙁 ) and some storage boxes for those darn rainbow loom bands that have now overtaken my entire house.

I decided that even though I still didn’t feel great I would take my two younger boys to dinner and a movie. One of the things that stinks about deployment is that you are the only parent, and so everything falls on you. Since my boys tend to get in trouble frequently, some days it seems like most of my communication with them is correction.

Like today, when I walked outside to see the 20 foot ladder leaned against the side of the house and the open tool box in the front yard….

Apparently a toy had landed on the roof, and you know the rest of the story.

I wanted to have some purposeful positive interaction so we headed to get subs and then see a movie.

These two have been handling the deployment very differently. One acts like he doesn’t care at all and the other has become even more melancholy than usual.

It’s hard to get boys to open up about things (at least my boys) so I figured we could just have fun and forget about life for a few hours. It was going great until an ad ran in the movie theatre that showed families sharing notes to their husbands, fathers, brothers, sisters, etc that are deployed this Christmas season.

My heart sank as the ad played on the big screen. I could see my younger son shifting uncomfortably in his seat as the ad continued to play. He was trying very hard not to cry.

So much for being distracted.

The boys did love the movie (The Secret Life of Walter Mitty) and we had a good time together. Going to movies is always dad’s job in our family but I had such a good time I might try to steal it from him after he gets home next year. 😉

My husband has been deployed to the Middle East for 274 days.  These are my real thoughts expressing my heart during his absence.  I appreciate your prayers and kind words as we cope, adapt, and carry on without him until August 2014.  To read from the beginning, click here.

All I wanted for Christmas was to be alone. I realize that many people look forward to spending Christmas with the folks that they love, but I wanted something different.

I’d been dreading Christmas since we found out about the deployment this summer. I didn’t want to spend Christmas huddled around the computer using FaceTime to spend time together as a family.

Tired from all the shopping and wrapping and fighting a nasty cold I just wanted to skip Christmas altogether.

Instead of being alone I had extra people at my house all day Christmas Eve. We even had extra people spend the night. Normally I’m up for guests 365 days a year, but this year was different.

I woke up Christmas morning with a horrible headache, which got worse as the day went on. I tried to put on a happy face for the kids (the littles were just really excited about the big day) and muddle through it.

I tried to lay down throughout the day hoping to get rid of the headache, but it just got worse. My kids ate cereal for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

My house is a disaster.

I wish it went differently. Fortunately my kids were so excited about their new toys they didn’t really notice that I was up and down all day. They didn’t care that they ate cereal for dinner.

It wasn’t the day that I wanted, but it was the day I got and it’s one day closer to being back together as a family again.

My husband has been deployed to the Middle East for 274 days.  These are my real thoughts expressing my heart during his absence.  I appreciate your prayers and kind words as we cope, adapt, and carry on without him until August 2014.  To read from the beginning, click here.

I’m definitely sick.

Why this really matters, I’m not sure. Mom’s aren’t allowed to get sick. And when they do get sick, nothing changes.

They still make meals, do laundry, shuttle kids around, break up fights, wipe faces, fix toys, pick up messes, and sweep floors.

I’m sick enough to feel terrible, but not quite sick enough to sleep through Christmas. I’m doing all the usual Christmas cold sickness remedies, vitamins, lots of water, a only doing what needs to get done (which strangely takes the entire day).

On a happier note, our package arrived today. We hurried home from a Christmas party to skype with dad so the kids could watch him open his gifts from us. In typical Christmas fashion he wanted the kids to open “just one present” today while he was opening his.

How could I say no?

The kids got to open one gift and that made their day. Well except Cora, who has entered the “every gift someone else gets is better than her own” phase of her life.

The kids are getting excited about Christmas and I’m hoping that we can keep enough of our Christmas traditions to make things seem at least sort of normal around here. I’ve been dreading this day since I found out about the deployment, but I’ve realized that looking ahead doesn’t get me anywhere.

One day at a time….

My husband has been deployed to the Middle East for 274 days.  These are my real thoughts expressing my heart during his absence.  I appreciate your prayers and kind words as we cope, adapt, and carry on without him until August 2014.  To read from the beginning, click here.

We had our 14th annual cookie frosting party today. I still cannot believe that we’ve been doing this for 14 years. It started when we lived in Norfolk, VA when when our oldest kids were three and five. I think we invited neighbors and a few friends from church.

Over the years we’ve had parties with just a handful of kids and one with over forty. Each year they are a little bit different, but always filled with sugary, sprinkle-y, fun.

I’m definitely getting sick. It stinks. I’m trying not to think about it too much because I don’t want to be sick on Christmas. Not because it will ruin Christmas, but because all I can think about is being strong on Christmas for the kids.

I have no idea how they are going to feel on Christmas, whether there will be tears or if the gifts will make then forget, just for a bit.

 

My husband has been deployed to the Middle East for 274 days.  These are my real thoughts expressing my heart during his absence.  I appreciate your prayers and kind words as we cope, adapt, and carry on without him until August 2014.  To read from the beginning, click here.

In a moment of insanity I decided to head to the mall with my three little girls to get them a few long sleeved shirts.

We also did this….

 

She was so brave, not even a tear until after it was all over!

As we were heading up the escalator and I was giving myself a little pat on the back for surviving the mall with the three little girls… Cora fell down the escalator.

Like head over heels, out of control, fall down the escalator.

I was able to grab her after the second tumble and she was fortunate to only have a little scratch on her leg.

I think I’m starting to get sick, which would just stink but is probably inevitable.

I can’t believe Christmas is just a few days away and that we will be celebrating it without dad for the first time. I know this is nothing new for many families, but it just doesn’t seem right.

Not at all.

My husband has been deployed to the Middle East for 274 days.  These are my real thoughts expressing my heart during his absence.  I appreciate your prayers and kind words as we cope, adapt, and carry on without him until August 2014.  To read from the beginning, click here.

We baked cookies today. Lots of them, in preparation for our annual cookie frosting party. Usually it is a really big deal, but this year I’m just happy to get cookies made.

I’m considering taking the kids out Christmas shopping. I haven’t actually been Christmas shopping  this year. I’ve done all my Christmas shopping online, except for the candy I bought at the grocery store this week.

I miss Christmas shopping which is kind of funny because usually my shopping goes like this.

Leave all the kids with dad and head to the stores. Wander the stores, overwhelmed by the endless choices, people, and lack of parking. Also, I’m usually freezing. Come home and order everything online.

This year we’ve given the UPS guy some great cardio has he walks up our driveway delivering gifts. My four year old calls him Santa.

But without actually attempting to go to the store it doesn’t seem quite right. I hate leaving the kids because I already have to leave them for necessities like medical appointments.

If there is one thing this deployment has taught me is to stop being so judgmental. I’ve never really thought of myself as that way until I was at the commissary last night.

When I parked my car there was a car parked in front of me and had something (or someone) bouncing around in the backseat. As I walked by the car I noticed a boy, about seven or eight sitting (bouncing) in the back seat and a sleeping toddler strapped into the carseat next to them.

My first thought was… OH MY WORD, THEY LEFT THEIR LITTLE KIDS IN THE CAR!!!!

But then I started thinking about it.

• Maybe they are just running in for diapers.
• Maybe they are out of milk.
• It isn’t very cold outside, actually it is quite nice and the kids are dressed appropriately for the weather.
• We are on base, it is pretty safe.
• Maybe they are a single parent.
• Maybe the kids are being picked up from day care after a long week and they didn’t want to wake up the sleeping toddler.

I’m not saying it is a good idea to leave your kids in the car (I don’t think it is), but I also realized how quick I was to make a judgement about the person who did it.

I don’t know their story, their situation. Rather than be judgmental I need to be more grace-filled, more compassionate.

We’ve all seen people make choices that are bad in public. But the reality is, we’ve all made bad choices. Whether these choices are fueled by circumstances or just plain and simple that guy’s a jerk we’ll never know.

But what I do know is that gone are the days that I think I’m somehow I’m a better parent than the person who did it. Because I’m not.

I’m learning a lot during this deployment….

My husband has been deployed to the Middle East for 274 days.  These are my real thoughts expressing my heart during his absence.  I appreciate your prayers and kind words as we cope, adapt, and carry on without him until August 2014.  To read from the beginning, click here.