April is Month of the Military Child. Since Huzzy and I don’t have children, I put out a call for guest bloggers to help out. I originally wanted to do a guest blogger every Monday, but I had so many fantastic responses that you’ll see a guest blogger every Monday and Thursday!

My final guest blogger is Julie from Soldier’s Wife, Crazy Life. Julie is a 30-something Army Wife and Mom of 3 little boys living in Tennessee.  She loves blogging, photography and reading lots and lots of books.

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There are some different things that Military children have to go through.  Deployments, lots of time away from Mom or Dad, moving a lot, having to say goodbye to friends and not growing up near extended family.  However I think there are some really great things about growing up as a Military Child.

Julie's three adorable boys

April is Month of the Military Child. Since Huzzy and I don’t have children, I put out a call for guest bloggers to help out. I originally wanted to do a guest blogger every Monday, but I had so many fantastic responses that you’ll see a guest blogger every Monday and Thursday!

My next guest blogger is Amber from Random Rants of An Army Wife. Amber and her husband, Doc, were married after just four months of dating and six+ years later… they are still just as in love. But just like any love story, this one has its twists and turns. During his most recent deployment, Doc was injured and subsequently has TBI (Traumatic Brain Injury). Amber and Doc have two adorable girls.

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Earlier this month my husband, Doc, came home from work to see our 4 month old daughter in a Red Sox onsie, he asked me where I got it.  I reminded him that it had been our 2 year old daughter’s when she was a baby.

Sweet TC

Me:  Remember she wore it to one of the Red Sox games that we took her to when she was 5 months old?

Doc:  We took her to a Red Sox game?

Me: We took her to two.

Unfortunately this isn’t uncommon.  Doc has very little memory of our 2 year old’s first year.  TC was born 3 weeks after the accident that left him with a mild TBI.  He was deployed and his vehicle rolled over on the way to a target.  After coming to he had a few broken bones in his face and a concussion.

When he came home we had no idea how bad it would be, in fact Doc declined the midivac overseas and continued to run missions while injured.   He was a Ranger, that is what they do.  We didn’t know what we were in for, he came home early from deployment to be home while I had the baby.  While he was home the headaches wouldn’t go away, his memory was spotty, he would get disoriented and lost in places that he should have known, his temper was out of control, he couldn’t get his head and mouth on the same page.

Our oldest daughter TC turned 2 in February, she is a spitfire.  She looks just like her daddy and thinks he is just the coolest.  She was born just weeks after his accident, he knows he was in the delivery room but he doesn’t remember her birth.  He doesn’t remember her first steps, he doesn’t remember when he spooned her first solids into her mouth.  Luckily we have way too many pictures of all of these events but that doesn’t replace his memories.  She can now pick up on when he’s having a bad day, she can see it in his face like I can.  At two years old she knows when daddy is going to be in a bad day.

While some of his symptoms are better his temper is still horrible.  It breaks my heart because he’s just so short with her when she’s acting out.  He’s not always bad, they have their fun and I pray that those are the memories that stick with her.

Smiley A

Our youngest Little A was born this past December, she’s lucky that Doc will most likely remember her birth.  Hopefully by the time that she’s 2 Doc’s temper will have mellowed.  I think she will be more sheltered from Doc’s bad moments because her sister is so loving.  This damn TBI will force TC to grow up faster to protect her sister. I know many military children grow up fast I wish mine didn’t have to because (as Dr. Phil would say) daddy’s a monster.

I guess we are lucky that the girls didn’t know Doc before his injury, they don’t have the confusion of “why did Daddy change”.  As they grow we will have to decide what we want to tell them about what happened and how it changed him.

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April is Month of the Military Child. Since Huzzy and I don’t have children, I put out a call for guest bloggers to help out. I originally wanted to do a guest blogger every Monday, but I had so many fantastic responses that you’ll see a guest blogger every Monday and Thursday!

My next guest blogger is Nadine from The Albrecht Squad. The Albrecht Squad is a Proud Army Family always looking forward to whatever adventure the Army decides to throw at them next! Whether it’s deployment, training or just Army life in general, there is nothing they can’t survive together!  Nadine is an Army Veteran herself married to an active duty Soldier who has served for 23 years and counting.  Together they are raising three boys who are 16, 14 and 10.

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My husband and I met in the Army back in 1995.  We got married and started our family a year later in 1996.  Our three boys who are now 16, 14, and 10 have only known this Military Lifestyle.  Our kids have spent more time apart from their dad than they have spent together.  I figure at some point, the time together will match up to the time apart (how is that for a positive attitude!). 

2010 was the first year that we lived consecutively for the entire year as a complete family.  It was a very difficult year.  My husband returned from Iraq in June of 2009 and we PCS’d  to our current duty station four months later.  For the previous decade during Drill Sergeant duty and deployments, our Soldier was gone a lot.  My boys and I grew very accustomed to finding our routine without dad.  He was gone so much that we often found ourselves feeling off balance when he was home.  The boys had learned how to deal with the constant separation and fell into their routines easily.  They were very used to having just me in every aspect of their lives.  Don’t get me wrong, we worked very hard to keep their dad involved in everything in their lives but the physical absence made it hard to connect in some aspects.

Since Kevin was never home for very long periods of time before we moved here, the boys wouldn’t completely adjust to having him home and it rarely broke their stride.  Then we got here.  We were and are very grateful for the assignment my husband has here that affords us more time to do things as a family but it was very hard to adjust to having another full-time authority figure in our lives.  The boys were not used to having to answer to two people.  Kevin and I have discussed since the very beginning of our marriage how we were going to raise our kids but we had not really had an opportunity to put a lot of it into place as a team.  We supported one another but the reality was, I was the main caretaker and the boys weren’t used to this other person telling them what to do.

They rarely asked my husband for anything.  Permission to do things at school or to even go to things at school, the assumption was made that he wouldn’t have time.  They didn’t know how to adjust to him giving them chores that weren’t the “normal” things I had them do and sometimes they resented it.  Some of his expectations for household chores are very different than mine and the boys didn’t know how to accept that either.  There was often conflict in our house because we didn’t know how to balance it out at first.  It was hard for the boys to accept that their father would actually be home longer than a few weeks and that we wouldn’t just fall back into our boys and mom routine.

It isn’t that they don’t respect and love their father, but for 10 years we had done things on our own and during the short periods of time that Kevin was home, we focused on the time spent together instead of establishing full ground rules as a family.  It was easy for me to say that I would just deal with things since he would be gone anyway soon enough and it would fall on my shoulders anyway.  I realize now what a disservice that was to my husband and a large part of the reason 2010 was such a difficult year of transition.

The Albrecht boys welcoming home their dad in 2009

I also realize part of the difficulty of transition for my boys was the fear to believe that our Soldier would actually be home long enough to finish a project or to establish a routine.  Another emotional aspect involved the fear of  disappointing their dad.  Even though we were parenting the same way, they didn’t see it that way.  If I got upset with them for not doing something, it didn’t bother them the way it would if their dad got upset.  They didn’t want to disappoint him because they had spent so much of their life worried that their dad would leave upset or disappointed in them and then something would happen to him and it would not be resolved.  My kids put a lot of pressure on themselves about things like that.

2010 was a year of adjustment, learning and to be honest plain confusion.  We were all trying to find our balance to be the family we wanted to be.  We were a great family that was balanced in an odd sort of way while enduring constant separation, now we had to figure out how to be a great family together.  Even though that year was difficult, I look to where we are now and smile with joy in my heart.  Even during that time of tribulation, one thing that there was no confusion about was the love that my boys had for their dad and the love he has for them.

2010 was another testament of the strength and courage our Military Children have and it is through them I learn the most.

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April is Month of the Military Child. Since Huzzy and I don’t have children, I put out a call for guest bloggers to help out. I originally wanted to do a guest blogger every Monday, but I had so many fantastic responses that you’ll see a guest blogger every Monday and Thursday!

My fourth guest blogger is fellow Navy wife Sailors Princess from My Life as a Navy Wife. She has been married to “hubs” and  a navy wife for 5 years now and is currently going through her 2^nd deployment, with their first child “D” who is 2 ½ years old.

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We are finally at our half way mark of this deployment. This is D’s first deployment, and mine and hubs 2^nd. Having a 2 ½ year old who  doesn’t really understand why the ‘guy who lives with us occasionally” is gone for longer than the usually 2 to 3 weeks has been difficult but we are managing just as fine as we can. We have tried to get into a schedule, but anyone with a toddler knows how hard that can be. We’ve been keeping busy with church, friends and other activities. But that doesn’t help when we miss daddy.

Thankfully there is a program that is available called United through Reading, where service members can record DVD’s of themselves reading books to their children. The DVD’s get sent home to the families or even given to the families before they deploy so that the children can read with Daddy or Mommy. It has been so awesome for us because we have a couple of the books that daddy read and D can try to follow along. It’s nice for us because we can watch daddy

So Huzzy’s home from his patrol. He checks out of this sea-going command on May 1st and goes on leave for 30 days before reporting to shore duty on May 31st.

This is a whole new world for me. I started this blog three years ago, just days before marrying my husband. And just a few weeks before Huzzy checked out of recruiting and into sea duty.

Recruiting duty was… not really a shore duty. Sure, he was home every most nights, but if he was home by 8 p.m., I was asking him why he was home so early. Huzzy once went 13 weeks without a day off. Including Sundays. I know people do this all the time when deployed, but this was SHORE duty, where he was supposed to recover from the high optempo of the previous five years. So it really wasn’t much of a break for him.

But now? Now he’s going to be home most weekends. Depending on the division he is assigned to when he checks into the command, he may be working long hours (as long as recruiting), but he’ll have most weekends off. He should be able to actually take vacations and such without worrying about it being canceled last minute.

We are entering a different time in our marriage. One that may actually somewhat resemble the civilian world. (sorta… not really). It’s scarily exciting. I’m afraid I might not have much Navy stuff to write about (please let that be the truth!) for the next three years.

Now all we have to do is figure out my medical issues. I’m still dealing with my shoulder and my girl issues. Tons of fun.

P.S.  I hope you are enjoying the Month of the Military Child series of guest bloggers. I’m so blessed to have such awesome women stand up and want to blog about such an important topic.

April is Month of the Military Child. Since Huzzy and I don’t have children, I put out a call for guest bloggers to help out. I originally wanted to do a guest blogger every Monday, but I had so many fantastic responses that you’ll see a guest blogger every Monday and Thursday!

My fourth guest blogger is Army wife Kate from  jak{ofhearts}.

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Hi, I’m Kate from jak{ofhearts}! My husband, John, and I are high school sweethearts. We’ve been married for 3 years and have 5 years of his Army career behind us. We have a 2 year old daughter, Aliyah, who had a heart transplant when she was two months old. Our lives are full of her laughter and the reminder that every moment with her is a gift.

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“Boots off.”

Those words are first. They are before hello, they are before a kiss. She knows that when Daddy’s boots come off, he is home to stay.

She couldn’t understand why Daddy was gone for so long. She didn’t know that it was just field work and that he’d be back in a few weeks. She didn’t understand why we couldn’t always talk to him, but when she opened the coat closet and saw the empty space where Daddy’s boots are supposed to be - that she understood.

I’m fine with talking about Daddy’s work in terms of his boots because I know that someday she’s going to ask harder questions to answer than, “where are Daddy’s boots?”. At two years old, she doesn’t understand that her Daddy is a part of something bigger, but she knows everybody wears the same clothes. She doesn’t know what sacrifice means, but she knows what it looks like. She doesn’t know that he could die. She doesn’t know her Daddy is a soldier. And all of those things, those questions and fears that make my stomach turn inside out, she will have them someday. She will eventually realize what it means when we see people without legs and missing arms at the grocery store. She will understand that the fear surrounding her Daddy’s job isn’t like the monsters in her closet, it’s reality. She will come to terms with that reality – but not today.

Today, if you were to ask her about Daddy, she would tell you that he has a nice hat and big boots, and drives trains (strykers, trains, same thing.). She would tell you that he holds her hand and that they ‘nuggle before bed every night. She would tell you that he is silly and has big socks. She would tell you that he is her world.

She cried big crocodile tears the day he had to go back to work after 2 back to back months of training in the field. We have since given her distinctions – “work” means he’s home for dinner, “mission” means he’s going to be gone for a while – but distinctions won’t prepare our little Daddy’s girl for a deployment. Nothing is going to prepare her for Daddy’s boots to be gone for months and months. I’m not going to tell her that he is fighting bad guys. I’m not going to tell her that he might not come home. But there will be no way to avoid the empty space where Daddy’s boots go.

And when the time comes that she asks so sweetly where Daddy’s boots are, I will tell her as simply as I can. ”Daddy’s boots are being brave, baby. We will see them soon.”

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April is Month of the Military Child. Since Huzzy and I don’t have children, I put out a call for guest bloggers to help out. I originally wanted to do a guest blogger every Monday, but I had so many fantastic responses that you’ll see a guest blogger every Monday and Thursday!

My third guest blogger is fellow sub wife Chelsey at the bubblehead bride.

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Hi! I’m Chelsey. I am a Navy wife, new mom to the worlds sweetest little boy, and dog mom to two naughty fur-babies. I consider myself the coordinator of all that is crazy in our household, and really…sooo that entails pretty much everything! I am a bit sassy…a bit funny….and a lot sarcastic! I am so excited to be over here at Wife of a Sailor to tell you a little bit about my life as a military wife raising a military child!

Chelsey from the bubblehead bride

As a new mother I am plagued with concerns for my son. Is he eating enough? Is he developing on track? Is he suppose to be doing that?!? It’s normal for mothers to worry about their children. It’s what we do. It’s why we’re mothers. As the mother of a military child, though, I have found that my worries reach far beyond that of any regular mother.

When I married my husband (and the United States Navy) I knew what I was in for. Having survived an eight-month submarine deployment, a brief stint in the shipyard, and routine sub duty, I figured there were few surprises in store for me. Simply put, I knew how to be a Navy wife.

When our son came along, on shore tour, I realized that everything I thought I had figured out about this lifestyle was no longer important. Gone were the days of living on chocolate ice cream and red wine. Now I am responsible for feeding my little person a healthy and nutritious dinner. No longer was I going to be able to fill my abundance of free time with reading books, girls nights with fellow Navy wives, and quality time with my DVR. I could no longer just focus on getting myself through. I realized that I was now responsible for someone else. And it was important that he more than “got through”. Thus began my mission to make my son (and future children’s) lives as happy and routine as possible…with or without daddy.

With the help of Pinterest and some other “super Navy moms” that I know, I have long been preparing myself for how I am going to handle raising military children. We have books we can read, like When Dad’s At Sea by Mindy Pelton and My Dad’s a Hero by Rebecca Christiansen and Jewel Armstrong. Many moms that I know have created Daddy Dolls, which allow their children to still have daddy with them even while he is away. The web is full of endless resources for military families, and most importantly military children. Websites like www.deploymentkids.com have free patriotic printables, military puzzles and games, and ideas for deployment journals to help children get out their thoughts and feelings about deployment.

One thing we can all agree on is that this is not an easy lifestyle. All families have their unique challenges and there are days when all you can do is pray that tomorrow will be better. The one thing we can rely on, though, is that we are all one big military family, and together even the insurmountable tasks seem manageable.

They say it takes a village to raise a child and that’s exactly what we are doing in the military. Together we are raising a village of miniature heroes that can be proud of themselves, their country, and their daddy and mommy.

I am in no way affiliated with and/or receiving any perks from the mentioned websites and products. I just think they’re awesome on my own. 

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Today is our third anniversary. I’ve been fine this whole deployment and didn’t expect this day to really bother me. But it really is. Hope I pull out of this funk because I really don’t want to be in it for work.

Anyway, if you haven’t read it before, go see How We Met. It’s pretty funny. And also something to scare you if you have daughters, because in my case, drugs are good.   Oh, and of course, there are wedding photos

Note: This post was written CENSORED TIME ago (yeah, I try to be funny, but in reality, it’s an OPSEC thing so I can’t tell ya nuttin’!). 

Last night, my husband came home and told me that in 20 minutes, he’d know if he was leaving for his patrol (deployment) the next day or possibly the day after. Cue my panic attack. He wasn’t supposed to go for another week. I know things change, but I like to have a bit of notice. Even a day or two would be good.

So I ran around trying to get his halfway box put together (which I planned to do this weekend since I actually had some days off). I hadn’t purchased everything I wanted for it, but I had enough stuff to fill it. Twenty minutes came and then an hour. Huzzy called the boat and they hadn’t heard word yet. So we went to bed.

At 0400, we got up because even if Huzzy didn’t have to leave for his multi-month patrol, he had duty and therefore had to be at work at the buttcrack of dawn. Actually, before dawn.

I drove him to the base and stopped at the bus station (since only submariners are allowed to go to lower base) and kissed him and watched him board the bus. I don’t know when I’ll see him. It could technically be tonight, if they are indeed leaving tomorrow or the next day. That is, if the other crew does “last night duty” for them. Basically, that’s where the other crew fills in duty so the guys going on deployment can spend the last night before leaving home. However, if it is, indeed, tomorrow and the other crew can’t or doesn’t want to come in to relieve the guys, I’ll see him when he gets done with his patrol. If it’s the day after, I’ll see him for a few hours (hopefully) after he gets done with duty and before he has to leave to go to the boat for the patrol.

Of course, it may still end up happening when it was originally scheduled, or anytime between now and then. Or after then. Who knows.  He told me he’d call me and give me a sign (because he can’t say anything about boat schedule) if he was leaving. I haven’t heard from him. But that doesn’t mean something isn’t still happening.

I hate not knowing when I’m going to see him again. But I’m looking at Facebook and several of the wives are talking about making dinner and hoping their husbands come home in time. So I’m assuming it’s not today/tonight.

That’s one thing I dislike about submarines. The guys come and go and there’s no fanfare. No “welcome home” that most other commands and other service branches have. It’s silent. No one knows our sadness of our guys going away because we can’t tell them. And we can’t tell them until well after they are gone.

And we can’t even begin to show excitement about them returning because that would signal they WERE returning. And for a submarine, that is deadly.  We silently gather on the pier and wait for them to come back. There’s no excited tweets or Facebook posts saying we are SO FREAKIN’ excited to head off to base to get our guys. Just the internal excitement. Sometimes it’s like a great secret that only you know and no one else does. But it’s a secret you just want to SHARE.

Of course, I just got the call as I was finishing this up and I know he’ll be coming home tomorrow. At least I’ll have that. He’ll tell me when he gets home what the plan is. Ya know, until it changes again! It’s always something! Such is the life of a sub wife.

*After-the-fact note: my husband ended up leaving AFTER his original scheduled date. However, between the time this was written and the time he left, the schedule changed or was threatened to change many times!

It’s finally happening! I’m going to have surgery in exactly four weeks. While I’m scared and nervous, I’m also so excited. I sure hope this will finally fix my shoulder.

Unfortunately, the doctor isn’t sure what is wrong. My MRI came back fine, but he wasn’t expecting to find anything on it. He said labrum tears (which is what he’s expecting to find) are hard to see on MRI and because it’s been 18 months months since the injury, he said it would have been even more unusual to actually find something. He also says there is a possibility of me having stretched ligaments (like a rubber band that’s been stretched and won’t go back in place). If it’s the labrum tear, he’ll fix that by shaving off the flyaway pieces and, depending on the severity and type of tear, re-attach it. If it’s a stretched ligament, he will have to tighten it back up.

The doc has said the goal of the surgery is pain relief and the prognosis is “good to excellent.”  That’s good news for the most part. If all I get from this surgery is pain relief, I’ll be happy. He says there’s a good chance that I will have pain the rest of my life. There’s also a moderate chance that if the ligaments are fixed, they could be fixed too tight or too loose… and then I’d have to have surgery again.  And while he expects me to be back in Navy-shape six to 12 months after the surgery… there’s a chance this won’t happen. Which means I’d be medically separated.

But I’m focusing on the positive… I have a GOOD chance of lessening the pain after this surgery. I’m so excited about that. I’d love to sleep more than 3 or so hours without waking up and having to re-adjust my sleeping position. I’d LOVE to sleep on my left side again. I miss it. And my right shoulder gets tired of being the only one slept on.

According to the doctor, I will need care 24/7 for the first 10 days. After that, I should be able to return to work since I do office work. I’m going to have to rent an “ice machine.” Apparently, it’s a gizmo that is wrapped around the shoulder and delivers a continuous flow of cold water to keep the area iced and the swelling down.

Huzzy has told his command about the surgery but they haven’t given him the okay that he can take care of me for either that day or for the entire 10 days. And while I know I have friends in the area who wouldn’t mind shuttling me to the hospital for the surgery (while it’s total anesthesia, it’s a same-day hospital stay/surgery), I loathe to ask people to help. I will if I have to, don’t get me wrong, I just don’t really want to.

I’ll be in a sling for quite a while and I’ll still be in it when Huzzy goes on his next patrol (deployment). This should be our second-to-last one before shore duty. Four in 2 1/2 years so far. Pretty normal for our community except deployments 2 & 3 happened back-to-back and that’s what’s going to happen to deployments 4 & 5. That’s not normal but we’ll have been with three different commands during these five patrols, so it happens. The final deployment looks like it’ll be a long one (so far). Oh well, I know it will (or should) be our last, so once we get through this one, we are one away from being home free! Well, at least for a little bit.

As I go through my daily routines, I’ve been thinking about how that will be with a sling. And not just a sling, but I won’t be allowed to move, turn or lift my shoulder for fear of un-doing whatever fixing/tightening the doctor will do in there. I’ve wondered things like….

How in the WORLD do I get a shirt on?

Not to mention my Navy uniforms… how am I supposed to wear those and still be in regulations?

I drive a stick shift… uh…..

How do I put muzzles on the dogs?

How do I open a jar?

The bathroom. ‘Nuff said.

I am going to have to become a one-handed pecker. (get your mind out of the gutter, I’m talking a hunt-and-peck typist)

How do you pull a chord for the push-mower while holding down the bar thing on the handle?

I’m glad I don’t have kids and have to deal with them one-handed. But dealing with the dogs should be interesting.

This should be quite the adventure… and one I will hopefully not have to repeat. The Navy hasn’t given me an LOD (Line of Duty) letter yet, so right now, I’ll have take those 10 days off unpaid and also not be able to do my second job and lose the pay from THAT. The letter was supposed to be here a month ago. My choice is to either do the surgery now and hope they will eventually back-pay me or put it off… and have the surgery while Huzzy’s deployed.

Have any of you had labrum surgery and/or tightening of the ligaments/tendons? How did it go? Am I worrying about not having help afterward for no reason?