Hello, hopefully all my still awesomely wonderful readers. I’ve reached that point in motherhood where I think my kids are devouring my life. Phillip is busy busy busy, and hello is apparently obsessed with cell phones, remote controls and laptops. Brian is an emotional six year old; and thankfully I have an amazing friend (who happens to make beautiful purses here) and told this is normal. *hallelujah* I also have an amazing three, almost four year old, who is either going through her terrible two’s now (which she didn’t really when she was actually two and way more controllable) or she apparently is a 13 year old trapped in a 3 year old’s body. All of that to say, my great blogging plans have gone awry. But I really want to thank everyone who is still there, and those that read my MOM post and commented. It was a really emotional post for me and all the comments were amazing.
So onto Military Monday. I’d love to get more questions from you guys to answer on these days. I get asked so many all the time, sometimes I forget them, but if you guys have any let me know and I’d love to tackle it. But for today I’d like to talk about Deployments, or any type of separation you may have. Me and the huzz have quite a few. You’d think we’d be pros at it but we are still learning. This is a pretty hot topic in the military world, so why not tackle it myself. What do you tell your significant other when they are away? Do you try to keep intense information to yourself? For me I try to keep it together as much as possible when we do get to talk. I try not to pester him with the stressful stuff that happen around here if I can help it. We sort of work on a need to know basis. One particular incident came up where a far removed family member had passed away. I was notified of it and made the decision not to track down my husband, which was at the time almost impossible. It wasn’t a close family member, someone my husband had met as a young person maybe once. I had to handle it myself, and protected him from what could have been a potentially been an extremely high stress situation for him for various reasons. If I get a flat tire, get locked out, the car has a multitude of things go wrong, the kids go nutso, and about a million other things that do go wrong as soon as those boots leave my house, I choose to keep as much of that as quiet as possible. Although sometimes I wonder if me trying to be all happiness and sunshine and rainbows will only truly be successful if I’ve got a strong support system. I think when we were only two hours from my family and a lot of my closest friends all of that was easier for me. Now that we are across the country I’m finding that it is harder for me to keep a lid on my emotions. I have less of a support system here, I haven’t found steady babysitters for mom time, and now that we are technically on guard status, many programs that were previously available to me aren’t. With the stress of moving, getting settled, and children at three very different and very demanding stages in life, throw in a mom and many close friends that happen to be three hours ahead of me and very busy themselves, it makes for a very tough time had by all in Cammo Love house.
If you asked me on any day of the week I would tell you that in my most humble, ten year military significant other opinion, trying to keep things as stress free when your guy or gal is gone is probably the way to go. Of course, this doesn’t mean one should bottle up every emotion you might have for however long they might be gone. Recently I’ve discovered that that is a rather horrible idea and it only leads to complete emotional overflow and word vomit on your poor unsuspecting husband *ahem..me* Finding balance in all aspects of life is important, and this common military conundrum s/o’s face is no different. Find your balance, talk about what you expect during a separation and what your deployed spouse, boyfriend or fiance expects. Find your support system whoever, and wherever they might be. Take lots of deep breaths and find your way to breathe. Mine is crocheting and knitting, finding a good book to read and sometimes eating a pint of ice cream and having a good cry.
How do you handle separations? What do choose to tell your deployed significant other and what do you decide can wait until later?
And to get in a little mommy and me monday photo op here ya go!!!!
