Category Archives: Family

Month of the Military Child: Her Strength

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We worry about what a child will become tomorrow, yet we forget that he is someone today.
~Stacia Tauscher

It’s Month of the Military Child and this week, I have a guest post from the fabulous Stacy of Raising Chaos. She’s the wife to Mr. Chaos and they’ve been married for six years. She’s also the mother to three incredibly adorable kids… Little Miss, Little Man, and Baby Chaos. They’ve been through five deployments together and are about to go through number six. After you read her post here, please make sure you stop over at her blog and check it out.  And without further ado, here’s her post:

 

April. Month of the military child. It took me a long time to figure out what to write for this post. There are so many aspects of the military and many children don’t understand, at least not until they are older. I realized that I have no idea what my children think of their Dad being in the military. I had no idea if they even knew what it meant to be a military family, to be a military child. So I asked one of them. Since my oldest is 6, I thought it would be interesting to see exactly what she thought of her Daddy’s job. So I sat her down with a list of questions and asked away.

Me-So Little Miss. You know that we’re a military family, meaning your Dad serves as a member of the military.

The three adorable Chaos Children.

The three adorable Chaos Children.

Little Miss- Yes. Dad’s in the Army right?

Me-That’s right. What do you think your Daddy does in the military?

Little Miss-Well, I think he has to practice a lot.

Me-Practice what?

Little Miss- He has to practice getting the bad guys for when he has real missions. He has to learn so he can protect people.

Me-Do you like when he has to go do his real missions (aka deployments)?

Little Miss- No because then I don’t get to see him for a long time.

Me-What do you miss most while he’s gone?

Little Miss-I miss playing with him and him tucking me in to bed and saying goodnight. And I don’t like that you are sad more often when he’s gone.

I had more questions but my daughter, my 6 year old, had put tears in my eyes. It was all I could do not to cry. Not to hug her. Not to tell her that she won’t have to deal with Mommy being said while her Daddy’s gone anymore.

When our husbands deploy or go on training missions or schools we think about how our home life will change. I have to think about the kid’s schedules and figure out how to do everything on my own without getting physically and mentally drained. When he’s gone, I have to think about who’s going to help me make all the phone calls to random strangers about who knows what (I hate talking on the phone to random strangers) and I have to figure out how to step out of my comfort zone. But most of all, when he’s gone, I have to figure out how it’s going to affect each of my children because no two children react the same to him being gone.

I have always felt that when he leaves for his deployments I have been the strong one, the one to help my children through but I realize, while watching my children play in the sandbox, that they are the strong ones. They are the ones that get me through each and every deployment. Without them, I’d be lost. Without their laughter and love and innocence, I would be lost.

My children are the strong ones. My children are the ones who hug me when they see me crying because I haven’t talked to my husband that day. My children are the ones that make me laugh when the internet connection was spotty and I couldn’t understand a word my husband was saying.  My children are the ones who get me through the bad times and who make those bad times good. My children are my strength. My children are warriors just like their Daddy. My children, my military children are everything to me and are the strongest little warriors I have ever known.

 

Now that you’ve read her awesome blog post, go check her out at Raising Chaos!

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Month of the Military Child: My View

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When you look at your life, the greatest happinesses are family happinesses.  
~Joyce Brothers

This month is “Month of the Military Child.” I hope to have some guest bloggers for you and know of one so far… if you’d like to guest blog, please let me know. I want to have the guest posts on Wednesdays.

I’m going to start off this series. I don’t have a military child (though I did for a day the other week before my IUI ended in a chemical pregnancy… more on that later). However, I have spent time thinking about what it will mean when we have a child and Huzzy goes back to sea. Huzzy started shore duty a year ago now and we thought we’d for sure have a kid by now so he could maximize his time with him/her on shore duty.

As it is, even if we were to get pregnant this cycle (which is not looking good at all), he’ll have just over a year before going back to sea. That’s much less time than what we wanted, but I can’t control it .

Photo from Seattle Times this weekend of families sending off loved ones on the USS Nimitz

Photo from Seattle Times this past weekend of families sending off loved ones on the USS Nimitz. This is an Operation Kid Comfort quilt.

There are several things I’d do for our kids when Huzzy went to sea, including Daddy dolls, videotaping Huzzy reading stories, etc. One of the things I came across… actually just yesterday… was a daddy/mommy quilt.

The quilt is actually a product of Operation Kid Comfort, part of the Armed Services YMCA. Children 6 and under are provided a quilt with photos of their service member and kids 7 and older get a pillow.  This is such an awesome offering and definitely something I’ll take advantage of if/when we finally have a kid.

I think another awesome thing about Operation Kid Comfort is that you can volunteer to put together the quilts. From reading their website, it looks as though all the pieces are shipped to you and all you need to do is put the pieces together. I don’t know how to do a quilt, but I may learn in the future so I can do something like this.

What types of things do you do for your kids when your spouse is deployed? If you don’t have kids yet, do you have any ideas on how you’d try to make deployments a bit easier?

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The Twelve Subbie Days of Christmas

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I wrote this last year, but it’s worth re-posting. Or at least, I think it is.

The Twelve Subbie Days of Christmas

On the first day of Christmas, my subbie gave to me:
A seabag of clothes smelling of amine!

On the second day of Christmas, my subbie gave to me:
Two phone calls from topside,
And a seabag of clothes smelling of amine (ew!)!

On the third day of Christmas, my subbie gave to me:
Three strains of boat crud,
Two phone calls from topside (shhh, don’t tell),
And a seabag of clothes smelling of amine!

On the fourth day of Christmas, my subbie gave to me:
Four missed holidays,
Three strains of boat crud (*cough* thanks, hubby),
Two phone calls from topside,
And a seabag of clothes smelling of amine!

On the fifth day of Christmas, my subbie gave to me:
Fiiiiive emails at once!
Four missed holidays (yes my birthday counts),
Three strains of boat crud,
Two phone calls from topside,
And a seabag of clothes smelling of amine!

On the sixth day of Christmas, my subbie gave to me:
Six days of duty…
Fiiiiive emails at once! (Boy did I need that!)
Four missed holidays,
Three strains of boat crud,
Two phone calls from topside,
And a seabag of clothes smelling of amine!

On the seventh day of Christmas, my subbie gave to me:
Seven days to pay the rec bill
Six days of duty (New Year’s Eve, again?)…
Fiiiiive emails at once! (finally!)
Four missed holidays,
Three strains of boat crud,
Two phone calls from topside,
And a seabag of clothes smelling of amine!

On the eighth day of Christmas, my subbie gave to me:
Eight Single Sailors at dinner,
Seven days to pay the rec bill (WHAT did he spend it on?),
Six days of duty…
Fiiiiive emails at once! (finally!)
Four missed holidays,
Three strains of boat crud,
Two phone calls from topside,
And a seabag of clothes smelling of amine!

On the ninth day of Christmas, my subbie gave to me:
Nine different duty stations! …
Eight Single Sailors at dinner (how much do they eat?),
Seven days to pay the rec bill,
Six days of duty…
Fiiiiive emails at once! (finally!)
Four missed holidays,
Three strains of boat crud,
Two phone calls from topside,
And a seabag of clothes smelling of amine!

On the 10th day of Christmas, my subbie gave to me:
10 weeks ‘til the next deployment…
Nine different duty stations (I don’t even know where I am!),
Eight Single Sailors at dinner,
Seven days to pay the rec bill,
Six days of duty…
Fiiiiive emails at once! (finally!)
Four missed holidays,
Three strains of boat crud,
Two phone calls from topside,
And a seabag of clothes smelling of amine!

On the 11th day of Christmas, my subbie gave to me:
11 still-unpacked boxes!…
10 weeks ‘til the next deployment (yikes, already?),
Nine different duty stations,
Eight Single Sailors at dinner,
Seven days to pay the rec bill,
Six days of duty…
Fiiiiive emails at once! (finally!)
Four missed holidays,
Three strains of boat crud,
Two phone calls from topside,
And a seabag of clothes smelling of amine!

On the 12th day of Christmas, my subbie gave to me:
A 12-hour plane ride to see family!…
11 still-unpacked boxes (from three moves ago!),
10 weeks ‘til the next deployment,
Nine different duty stations,
Eight Single Sailors at dinner,
Seven days to pay the rec bill,
Six days of duty…
Fiiiiive emails at once! (finally!)
Four missed holidays,
Three strains of boat crud,
Two phone calls from topside,
And a seabag of clothes smelling of amine!

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The Birthday-Approaching Blues

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There is still no cure for the common birthday. 
~John Glenn

Today, I realized that my 30th birthday is less than two weeks away. I’ve known that it was coming, but it hit me tonight. It’s the first birthday that I’m thinking of all the things I “thought” I’d have/be doing by it. I mean…  10 years ago, I thought I’d be married with two small children and visiting my family once every other month or so.

I’m married, and married to a fantastic guy. But we don’t have kids even though we would both love to have them right now. I don’t know if the road to to having children will be rocky or not. What I do know is that I’m 99% sure I had an early miscarriage last month (called a chemical pregnancy). And while in my brain, I know that something like 40-70% of first pregnancies end in miscarriage (though most are chemical pregnancies and a majority women don’t even know they are pregnant before they… aren’t), it’s still tough to deal with.

And it was happening as I was sitting on a plane and then going into work the next morning. How do you pretend that everything is okay when that is happening? Because it’s really hard to tell people, “pretty sure I was pregnant but didn’t even make it to the doctor to get confirmed.”  It was also SO freakin’ early that it’s hard to even believe it might have been happening myself.

It’s also something that starts me worrying if this will be a long process. Because if we want to have two children (and we do!), if we don’t have them in the next five years or so, there’s a good chance that I won’t be able to have them thanks to some family history that will force a hysterectomy.

Anyway, I’m done talking about that. I wasn’t even going to post it but someone who I confided in said I shouldn’t have to go through it alone (though I wasn’t because Huzzy is here but it’s not the same). And I started thinking she was right. One of the reasons I started this blog was to share my life so that it might also help others. I’m sure some of you have gone though the same thing.

Other topic: Huzzy and I splurged this week! Tomorrow, we are getting new floors installed throughout the top floor of our house: our dining room, livingroom, hallway and the three upstairs bedrooms. We also bought a new couch! Unfortunately, the couch is on backorder and won’t get here until July, but still.

Oh gosh. I am old. We spend $10,000 on floors and furniture and I get excited and am extremely happy with the idea. My young self would have purchased a new car (coming later this year!) or gone on vacation or done something else with it. Furniture and floors? Yup, I’m old.

 

Shhh… I Have a Secret!

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I brought children into this dark world because it needed the light that only a child can bring. 
~Liz Armbruster

I have a secret. And I can’t tell my family. But Huzzy is already tired of discussing it. Because it still kinda scares him. So I have to share. You won’t tell, will you? Promise? Especially if you are on my Facebook or know anyone I know in real life.

Huzzy and I made a decision this morning. A decision that is pretty big for us.

You see, my shoulder is still injured. And my orthopedic surgeon is disagreeing with what the radiologist said on my MRI (yes, I will be seeking a 2nd opinion after I let him try one more shot of steroids to see if it helps). Which means I’m not anywhere close to getting this resolved. I was told I needed surgery according to the MRI report by my PCM. She said it was a tear of the labrum and since nearly a year of physical therapy hasn’t worked, then surgery was my only option.

Why is this important (other than I’m constantly in pain/uncomfortable and can’t do everything I used to)? Well, my shoulder had to heal in order for me to raise my hand and get Afghanistan over with. I’ve known for the last seven months or so that my Navy Reserve community was shrinking the number of billets needed and was told the next two years would decrease by a lot more. Now that President Obama has announced the draw down in Afghanistan, this is even more assured.

So why was Afghanistan so important? Because I wanted to get my deployment out of the way so that we could go on with our lives and start a family. I wanted to avoid having a kid be left with someone other than his/her parents (since Huzzy deploys too) while I went overseas. I wanted to get it out of the way before I found a full-time job here. I thought I’d be in Afghanistan right now. And I would be, if it wasn’t for my shoulder. Right now, my community is filling billets 10+ months in advance, so once my shoulder got okay, it’d still be nearly another year before I could start the deployment.

But I’m not getting any younger. And I’ve recently had a uterine cancer scare (won’t know for sure for another two months to see if the drugs I’m on stop my symptoms… if not, then I might and will have to do further testing).

So Huzzy and I have decided to forego raising my hand for Afghanistan.

And I’m going to take the next six months or so and lose the weight I need (from both recent drugs and a few years of it creeping up) and get in really good shape.

And then we are going to try and start having a family.

I even bought pre-natal vitamins today because my OB/GYN wants me to be on them for about six months before we try to conceive.

Of course, we never know what will creep up in those six months. And we aren’t telling our families or friends (keep ya traps shut! =P) because they’ve been wanting us to start since we got married more than two years ago. And I don’t want to hear the “are you yet?” questions.

And of course, if it does turn out that I have uterine cancer, I will most likely have to have a hysterectomy and not even get to try to have kids. But having kids BEFORE it turns to cancer could help push the cancer off into the future (family history says it’s 90% sure I’ll get it eventually… most likely in the next 10 years).  And of course, Huzzy still has another deployment and a half in the next year or so, so that may interfere with timing.

We already know we won’t announce it to ANYONE until we are 2-3 months along anyway, so this is the last time you’ll hear me talk about this. Unless I happen to have a hard time conceiving. Or something scarier happens… then I’ll probably need to vent.

But yeah… Afghanistan is out… kids are in!