Self-Imposed Deadlines

Stress is a strange thing. Being frustrated, anxious, worried. . . They are all states of mind that sometimes we can control and sometimes we can't. The ways in which thoughts or simple awareness can manifest into physical reactions is fascinating to me.

I remember the first time I needed stitches. I was in my mid-20s, and while carving something with a dull tool managed to stab it into the side of my left thumb. The doctor at the clinic we went to tied four neat little stitches into my skin, and I couldn't believe how much the whole thing turned my stomach. I told the doctor how weird it was that if I didn't know what was happening and couldn't see it, it would all be fine because the pain wasn't that terrible. It wasn't good, but it wasn't the worst thing I could imagine by a long shot. However, if I looked at my skin being stitched through like fabric, that was nauseating and made me a little dizzy. Wasn't that strange? How could that be? As the doctor finished up his last little knot, he said, "Only in the Western world are people surprised by the connection between the mind and the body." I don't know how true that is, but I've thought about it a lot since then.

We can try to forge a more practical attitude about that connection, but it doesn't always work. There was a stretch a few years ago where I had terrible migraines. It's easy to see now how much they were tied to upsetting events in my life. Certain thoughts and worries were literally hurting my head. The pain was so bad that at one point while writhing around on a couch at 3 a.m. it occurred to me that death, if it came right then, wouldn't be unwelcome because at least the pain would stop. When I couldn't stop the pain, I would try to accept it, and that helped somewhat. Fighting the pain made it worse. Simply letting it be what it was made it more bearable.

My life at the moment is [knock on expensive violin wood] really going quite well. This is the place where I could have barely dared hope for the pendulum to swing during those literally and figuratively painful times a few years back. I'm not taking it for granted, and I'm not foolish enough to believe such fortune will last, but I've enjoyed this year very much. I have the love and support of my husband, my kids are all headed in good directions right now, health and work are fine, I've gotten to travel and spend time with family and friends, and even have a trusty little dog at my side who reminds me to be in the moment. Life is good.

In fact, when I'm honest with myself, the biggest sources of stress currently going on for me are all self-imposed and a matter of choice. Which seems ridiculous, but hear me out, because I like to believe there is an upside, or at the very least an understandable explanation.

For the past couple of months I have had the joy of all three kids at home. My oldest has been home from college for the summer, and we've tried to cram as much into that limited time as possible. Which has meant putting my normal projects on hold. I have barely been in my home shop, so the instruments that were rolling along so nicely back in the spring have not progressed at all. And the novel I want to be getting out into the world sooner rather than later just sits and gathers virtual dust. I only recently started going back to rehearsals, because they were technically optional this summer, and I wanted as much time as possible with my kids.

So I have been operating like a person with no creative pursuits, and frankly, it's a much more relaxed kind of life. There is time to hang out and play games and binge watch things as a family when nothing I want to get done "needs" to get done. It's been fun. But it's also not really me. If I went on this way indefinitely, I'm not sure who I would be anymore. Because I'd no longer be a person who builds instruments or plays music or writes books.

All those creative endeavors, though, require deadlines that I invent for myself. Because none of them are things I "have" to do. Not really. There are people waiting for the instruments they commissioned, but completing them is still a matter of choice. If I woke up one day and realized building instruments is making my life worse rather than better, I can stop, even if it disappoints others. There is no one out there requiring me to write more books. There are plenty of other musicians to replace me if I up and quit playing viola and mandola.

Once my daughter leaves for college again in a few days, and the rest of us settle into a fall routine that has us interacting less often, I will get back into my shop, back to regular practicing, and back to editing my latest novel.

All of those things require self-imposed deadlines in order to make progress. Deadlines are stressful, even arbitrary ones.

One of the few self-imposed deadlines I've managed to keep up with over my summer of fun, is this blog. Barely. When I worked for (the now defunct parenting website) Babble, there was no explicit number of posts per month that I was contractually expected to write, but I aimed for about two a week. That seemed to match the rate most of the other personal bloggers on the site were doing, and it felt natural. Plus I was getting paid, so I certainly had to produce something regularly. 

Since moving to this blog, the only reason to write is if I feel like it. But one of the important reasons for me to maintain this blog, is that writing regularly is good for me as a writer. There are enough other things happening in my life that giving up the blog entirely would be very easy, and few would notice if it ceased to be. But I like the discipline that some manner of deadline requires. I like making myself create something in this space on some kind of schedule.

The self-imposed deadline I've given myself on this blog is at least one post a month. And I've managed to maintain that all these years. I've never skipped a month, which is a lot harder than it sounds.

I've been trying to put together a post about my trip to Austria since May. But that post is huge, and every time I work on it, I see the end of the month creeping up on the calendar, and have to switch gears merely to get something posted before the deadline. The number of partially started drafts in my Blogger folder is getting rather silly. But hey, at least I'm writing. That's the point. 

Since nobody makes demands about my being a writer other than me, I have to be some kind of task master to myself. Same with instrument making. Same with any creative project that is important to my identity and my soul. But I have to choose stress to do any of it. I have to convince myself it's necessary, and then put pressure on myself to actually make progress on any meaningful kind of schedule, or nothing happens. Nothing aside from watching more Star Trek and baking cookies, which is all a lot of fun, but not what I want to define me.

This month I also meant to finally write about my trip to Austria. But did you catch the date? And the time? I wonder how many of my readers actually notice the time stamp on the things I post, and realize how many of them bump up close to midnight on the last day of the month. The people in my house certainly notice. I had to pull myself away from my kids tonight, pausing the show we were watching saying, "I have to go write something!" And one of them said, "Wait, is it the last day of the month already?"

But hey, my streak remains unbroken. I have minutes to spare before I hit "publish." And I will take my manufactured stress in order to remain creative over the kind of stress inducing scenarios life sometimes likes to hand out. I just need to remind myself when I start to panic over either of them, that it helps to cut myself some slack, take a deep breath, and maybe walk the dog again.

And I need to remember that there are physical ramifications to being under stress, and that dwelling on certain thoughts can cause physical pain. There are too many things in life we can't control, to not appreciate the ones we can. When I have moments of, "Oh no! My blog!" I need to balance the tools I use to make things happen with my overall well being. 

After a "summer off" I'm taking stock of how much stress I need or don't need to choose even when times are good. I have a sense that by the time I figure it out, my life will be about done.

Babble Posts

I finished copying over all of my Babble posts into this blog.  (Well, everything except the slideshows--those you'll have to read over there if you want to track them down.)  I was tired of all that writing being buried and not searchable, and it's frustrating that most of the pictures were lost or that some of the posts were jumbled into other people's work.  The dates are gone, and the comments have been wiped out, which is a shame because there were some really interesting and entertaining discussions there.  It's disconcerting to have a heartfelt record of a stretch of your life mishandled in that way.  I feel better having copies of it all here.

I did a lot of writing at Babble!  More than I realized.  As of this date I am still about half a dozen posts shy on this blog of the total amount of posts I did for Holding Down the Fort, so I've doubled my archive.

It's been a tedious process doing that much cutting and pasting, and finding old photos again (any posts where the photos were merely nice but not necessary I just left photo-less), but it feels good to finally have all of it where people can read it.  There are many times I haven't bothered to write about certain topics here because I felt I'd already said what I wanted to say in an earlier post on Babble, but if nobody can find it it's the blogging equivalent of "If a tree falls in the forest..."

It's put my head in a strange place, reliving all that time during deployment again.  The same way you eventually forget the true toll of sleepless nights with a new baby, the deployment stress has faded to something I recall but don't usually feel.  It's good to remember and then appreciate where we are now.  It's amazing to go back to the earliest posts and see just how young my kids were, and see in what ways they've changed and in what ways they never do.

So here are some links to Babble posts (as transferred to this archive) I particularly like that maybe you haven't seen, or that may still be of interest.  I have yet to address any of links in them (I suspect most will take you to a picture of Micky Mouse saying "oops") and if there are any weird mistakes I missed while up late doing my copy and paste thing please feel free to let me know.  (Think of this as a rainy day list for the times I am lax about posting often enough!  Just come here and pick an old post or two.)

My original two Babble essays before I started my blog were about Ian being gone, and about adjusting to Ian coming home again.

I think my funniest post remains The Ultimate Game.  But Styrofoam, how I hate thee, let me count the ways....  still makes me laugh, too.  The world's most hilarious/awful Christmas card was made in Mommy's Sweatshop.

Posts that people contacted me about years later still wanting to reference them were:

Revisiting the Fort

I recently came across a link to my old archive, which I thought was completely lost.  I'm feeling quite nostalgic for my kids when they were little after reading those old posts.  I do not miss the stress that came with my husband's deployments, but that has been interesting to remember as well.

For those who don't know, I started blogging at Babble.com back in 2009 with a personal blog called Holding Down the Fort.  Babble was a new kind of parenting site when it started a few years earlier, and my dad had sent me an article about it.  After reading that article I contacted them about writing an essay based on my experience as a parent whose husband was deployed.  My piece, called The Home Front, was rated their most inspiring in their first year online.  I did a followup piece when my husband came back from Iraq called Return to the Home Front, which got picked up in various places.

It was a good experience getting paid for my writing and interesting getting feedback from people in so many places.  Babble was quirky and surprising at the time, and the editors I was in contact with originally were great.

When my husband was called up for a second tour in Iraq I approached Babble about blogging my experience during that deployment.  The first deployment was incredibly isolating, and I thought blogging the second time around might help.  It did.  I enjoy the discipline of regular writing, and the personal nature of blogging and direct contact with readers is satisfying.  I loved my blog at Babble, and I'm still grateful for many of the contacts I've made through that site.

Although it started out fine, working with Babble was frustrating.  I was one of about a half a dozen personal bloggers at first.  The bigger names (such as Rebecca Wolf with her spinoff blog called Straight from the Bottle, and Katie Granju) didn't really involve themselves with our little community on the site, but others I felt close to, the way you do when you regularly follow a parenting blog and reach out through email.  Jane Roper I still actively follow on her new blog, and others like Dawn Meehan and Oz Spies are still at Babble in some capacity.  One of the best blogs I've ever read was Divorced with Kids, which was a spinoff of Irretrievably Broken, whose anonymous author is now one of my most cherished friends.  Our little corner of personal bloggers at Babble was a special place for a while.

Then the Voices started.  In preparation for the Disney buyout, Babble decided to create a wall of big name bloggers who were supposed to attract big numbers coming over from their already popular blogs.

Bad Guinea Pig

I had an epically bad psych teacher in high school who once randomly told our class that we had to decide how much we were worth.  That if we found a wallet on the street with $100 inside and chose to keep it, then we were selling our souls for a mere $100.

I get where he was going, but he used a terrible example.  My friends and I agreed that it was worth questioning where we draw the line for money, but it seemed to us the more you found on the street the more likely you were to return it.  If I find a nickel on the ground I'll likely keep it, and don't feel I'm selling my soul for a pittance just because I don't search for the person who dropped the nickel.  A bill I'd probably look around for evidence of where it came from and give it back if possible, but not feel bad if it seemed unclaimed and I decided it was now mine.  A wallet with any amount inside I would definitely return.  A bag with a million dollars?  Straight to the police.

But there are interesting questions to explore concerning money and integrity and feeling like you've sold your soul that are worth exploring.  I run into them every day when I make decisions for my business.  For instance, I use really nice strings on my rental violins.  It makes them sound better, which is important to me.  But none of the major stores in town do that because it's expensive.  They expect renters to buy their own strings if they want to sound better.  I think that's short sighted, because sounding good is the whole point, and what if they hate the sound and don't know it's the fault of the strings?  Anyway, I seldom decide what to do at the violin store based on money first.  I start with what's best and appropriate and what seems fair, and then factor in money enough to stay in business, and so far so good.  I will not be making the Fortune 500 anytime soon, but I'm happy and my kids are fed so we're a successful small business in my book.

When it comes to blogging I find the range of what people earn from it fascinating. 

One Year in the Quiet Corner

Today is the one year anniversary of this blog.  I like it here.

It's curious, and sometimes sad, to look at paths not taken.  When picking a major for college I decided of all the areas that interested me music was the most likely to deteriorate and not remain a viable option if I didn't continue it.  So I headed that way, unsure of what I would do with it since a performance career didn't appeal to me and at the time I didn't plan to teach.  When I stumbled on the idea of instrument making it felt like finding a home, and I'm glad it's something I pursued.  I'm unlikely to reach the top of my profession, but I appreciate the challenge of trying to earn a place there.

A different direction that I had the option to take was writing.  I love to write.  It was always the easiest thing for me in school.  I was one of those (irritating) people who could put off a paper until mere hours before it was due and dash off something that the teacher would not only give me an A for, but praise as an example to other classes.  But I only wrote as part of school assignments and that was it.  I didn't decide to take a stab at writing on my own until I was in my mid-30s.

The Fun and Frustrations of Facebook

Facebook is a treacherous place sometimes.

I follow about a dozen blogs, but I don't do anything with my Twitter account (other than occasionally check in on Horse eBooks because it's hilarious), and I put up three lizard related images on Pinterest and I was done with that.  I'm online most of the day with email and Hulu as I work, but it's more in the background.  I can't even imagine how many other social media things there are that I've never even heard of that I'm not doing.  Then there's Facebook.

Initially I joined Facebook simply to see what my brother's page looked like.  He has a vast network of friends and colleagues spread across the globe and it made sense to me why he would use it.  But I didn't think I had any use for such a thing and decided it would be funny to have a Facebook page with just one 'friend' on it.

But anyone who has ever used Facebook knows that's not how it works.  Everyone else who might know you is instantly alerted you are there, and there are friend requests that seem impolite to turn down, and Facebook scours the far reaches of itself even for people with names like yours to offer up as potential 'friends' you should connect with.  Eventually you end up with weird strangers in your news feed who you can't imagine how they got there, and on occasion post in a language you don't even recognize.  It's bizarre.

And beyond that there are moments when Facebook is downright creepy.

Welcome!

To my shiny new blog!

I'm proud of the writing I did for the past three years at Babble, and there is a link available to Holding Down the Fort above my blog roll in case anyone wants to check it out.  Leaving Babble was not my choice (and if anyone wants details they can email me directly since I don't feel like devoting any time to that here), but I'm excited about this new space.  It's mine in a way that my other blog never was, to change and do with as I will.  I feel like I have a new toy!

It will take a little time to learn how this toy works however, but soon I will have pictures up of our recent trip to the cottage, progress on my latest violins, and a look at what my kids are up to.

Thanks for reading.  It's nice to have you here.

Girl Aden (Babble)

Aden was my first baby.  Unlike my younger two children who want to be acknowledged as big kids, she doesn’t mind at all that she’s my baby.  She still curls herself into the smallest ball she can and tries to tuck herself into my arms as if she were a tiny bundle.  Her lanky seven year old frame doesn’t fit in my lap well anymore, but she still likes to be cuddled and cooed over and adored.  I’m happy to oblige.  I love my Aden.

We picked out her name many years before she was born.  During the first phone conversation I had with my (now) husband in college I tried to stump him by quizzing him about things on the world map by my bed that I was sure nobody could just know.   He knew everything I could throw at him, and my last ditch attempt was to ask him the capital of Yemen.  “North Yemen or South Yemen?” he wanted to know.  I hadn’t even noticed Yemen was divided, but I picked south because it sounded more obscure.  The answer was “Aden.”   At some point ‘Aden’ became the placeholder name for the imaginary child we might someday have, so when she finally came along she couldn’t be anything but ‘Aden.’  Anyone who has been within earshot of any playground in recent years knows, however, that the name Aden/Aiden/Aidan/etc. is about as popular as it gets right now, which seems deeply unfair to us having picked it out at a time when it didn’t crop up anywhere, but our daughter has been the only girl we’ve run into with that name.  In school she is commonly referred to as Girl Aden.


Aden is both serious and silly,  She has an excellent vocabulary and a scientific mind.  She negotiates everything (which is sometimes maddening), constantly looking for loopholes, and it’s easy to imagine her as a lawyer one day.  Although if you ask her she’ll currently tell you she wants to be an astronaut, a scientist, an animal rescuer, and a Pokemon expert.  She’s also very artistic and has recently started the violin which she has lovely instincts for.  I knew if any of my children played the violin people would assume I made them do it, and if I’ve learned anything from all my years of teaching private lessons it’s that it has to be the child’s idea for it to be a positive experience.  I let Aden beg me for a violin for a year before I finally said, “Well, okay, if you MUST play violin….”  I found her a wonderful teacher (I decided not to teach her myself because there is only so much the mother-daughter bond can take) and it’s one of the greatest joys of my life to hear her play the violin.  I promised her when she’s ready for a full size instrument I’d build her something special.  (Being currently obsessed with narwhals, she has visions of something with a narwhal for a scroll.  I’m not sure if that’s something I can sell if she ever tires of it, but it would certainly inspire some interesting coversations at the Violin Society of America conventions.)

She’s going into second grade this fall and she’s convinced it’s going to be overwhelmingly hard compared to first grade.  I’m not sure where she gets that impression since she’s in a mixed aged Montessori classroom and can see that the second graders aren’t doing anything impossible, and the teacher who indulged her drawing narwhals on all of her assignments is the same one who I’m sure will let her draw narwhals on everything this year as well.

My oldest child is incredibly sensitive.  I remember reading somewhere when she was about a year old that children don’t develop empathy until age six or seven.  That struck me as ridiculous because Aden showed empathy from very early on.  I once cried while listening to a radio story when she was 4 months old and she touched my face and burst into tears.  (Now, when I had Mona I decided that if she develped empathy by six or seven I would be thrilled, so maybe that concept has applications after all.)   I have to be very careful about displaying my emotions around Aden because I don’t want to upset her unnecessarily. The problem is she doesn’t let me remove myself from the stituation.  She wants to comfort me the way I comfort her, so sometimes I just have to let her.  When I had my first miscarriage and couldn’t stop crying she tried to understand it as best as her four year old self could manage.  After sitting with me and stroking my hand didn’t help she ran off and got one of her baby dolls.  She put it in my lap to hold and said, “Here, Mama.  This baby won’t die.”  Looking at the remarkable child I had instead of focusing on the one I’d lost is what got me through that ordeal.

Aden is the person I am most worried about during the upcoming deployment (husband at war aside, of course).  I know last time she picked up on my own anxiety and frustration and sadness and reflected it back at me.  I am resolved to try harder this time to have a better outlook and thereby take some of the stress off my daughter.  Aden can be incredibly strong but I hope not to lean on her too much.  I’m glad we will have each other as we await her dad’s safe return.

Meet Mona (Babble)

When people ask if we have boys or girls, my husband usually says, “We have one of each:  A boy, a girl, and Mona.”

The most common phrase I hear from people after they’ve spent time with my middle child is, “Mona is interesting.”  They say it in an amused and astonished way that I understand.  I find Mona interesting, too.

Mona is 5. She starts full-day kindergarten in the fall and she’s very excited about it.  In half-day kindergarten her best friends were the bad boys–the ones who were always made to sit out of snack time as punishment.

The first thing that strikes people about her are her sartorial choices.  I’ve had several moms tell me at the half-day pickup at her school that they can’t wait to see what outfit she’ll be wearing when she comes out with the class.  There was a hat phase, and a coat in hot weather phase, the bathing suit in winter phase, and any day is fine for a costume in Mona’s world.  I remember one day in May she went with me to Target in a bathing suit, rain boots, winter coat and a baseball hat.  She was ready for anything.

Here are some photos I grabbed somewhat at random off my computer from over the past couple of years.  Keep in mind not one of them is from Halloween:

When I told people I was expecting a boy when I was pregnant with Quinn, many of them said something along the lines of, “Wow!  You are not going to believe the amount of energy a boy has!”  And all I kept thinking was, “It can’t be more than Mona.”  So far Quinn remains most like his sister, Aden, in energy and mannerisms, and Mona the middle child reigns supreme in feats of crazy physicality in our home.  She’s the climber and the jumper and the one who could spend all afternoon chasing her shadow around the block. She was crawling at 6 months and walking at 8 months, and she practices unusual walks and different facial expressions.

Mona wasn’t interested in talking for a long time.  During her toddler years she communicated mostly through a system that her dad and I referred to as interpretive dance.  When people tell me they aren’t surprised by how articulate Quinn is at such an early age because he has older siblings to model after, all I can think is, “Yes, but how does that explain Mona?”  But there is no explaining Mona.  She adores her older sister who speaks clearly and well, but didn’t emulate any of those traits for a long time.  Mona was always Mona and she does things on her own schedule.

She is the most internally motivated person I have ever known.  Disciplining her was always a challenge because there was nothing to take away; her favorite thing has always been herself.  For a long time rewards didn’t work either because nothing was as interesting as simply jumping around.  Luckily I’ve only had to battle with her on very few issues which I had to win, and for the most part it’s been fine to let her live in her own little world (which seems to operate about ten minutes in the future from our own).  She has managed to reduce me to tears of frustration in public and yet also makes me laugh every day.  She gives amazing hugs.

I don’t think Mona remembers her father’s last deployment.  She was younger than Quinn is now when he left and I think memories between ages 2 and 4 are hazy for most people, even 5 year olds.  I know she remembers certain things that happened, but I don’t think she associates anything from that time with her dad being in Iraq.  They are just memories of familiar things.  This time she will be far more cognizant of what is going on, and I know she will miss her dad.  But Mona adapts quickly.  As long as I’m there and she has her sister to follow, she may come through this experience better than any of us.  Of course, to say the girl is hard to predict is a vast understatement.  She surprises me all the time, so I suppose it’s possible she’ll melt down when her dad leaves in September, but I bet she’ll do okay.

Raising Mona is like living with a circus act.  I feel sometimes as if I’m observing her while peeking from behind my hands–afraid to watch and even more afraid to look away and miss something great.  People often observe Mona for awhile and then shake their heads and say they don’t know how we live with all that wacky energy, but honestly, I’m not sure what people without a Mona do.  Life without Mona would be very dull, and we’d have much less to talk about here.

Introductions: Quinn (Babble)

Technically, blogging is new to me, although anyone in the long list of friends and family members who have been receiving my mass emails for years will tell you otherwise.  They already know the cast of characters I write about, but the Babble audience could use some introductions, so I’m going to go in order of age starting with my baby (who is quick to remind me he is NOT a baby).

Quinn is 2 (but I guess in baby speak he is 33 months).  If I know nothing else in this world, I know that the boy loves me.  He would do nothing but lounge in my lap and smile all day if I’d let him.  Not a day goes by that I don’t look at him with wonder and think about how we almost didn’t try for that third child.  I had two miscarriages after I had my girls, and as much as I wanted another baby I didn’t know if I could handle one more failed pregnancy.  I’ve never been more glad that I took a chance on anything in my life.  Quinn is adorable and funny and he rounds us up to the family of 5 I always hoped for, but I never imagined kids or a husband as remarkable as the ones I actually have.  I am a very lucky person and try hard not to take that for granted.

The two words used most often to describe my son are cute and smart.   Indulge me in a proud mom moment as I present evidence of both.


Here is proof of cute (off my husband’s phone):

And here is proof of smart (filmed by my brother at Christmastime):

Quinn was heavily into puzzles from about 18 months old until pretty recently.  I think he specifically liked map puzzles because with their clear shapes they were actually easier, and I know he liked that the individual pieces had names.  He used to be proficient at Asia, Africa, the United States, and most of Europe and Canada, but then his interest waned and now he’s just into things that are purple.  He has passing phases like that, where he dives in wholeheartedly, masters something, then lets it go.  Just after he turned 1 he was obsessed with sign language and could recognize probably over 100 signs at his peak, but now it doesn’t interest him and he seldom does signs for me anymore.  If I could just get him hooked on doing the laundry for awhile….

Of all my children, Quinn is the one who shows the most impact of birth order.  He would not be the same person he is now if he did not have 2 strong older sisters.  At the moment he shares their room, and his life has always been about following them around and keeping up with what they do.  If he’d been born first he would still have been cute and smart, but I honestly can’t imagine him with his sisters out of the equation.  For him the house has always been full of playmates and toys that aren’t his and he’s always had someone to share the tub with.  As long as one of them isn’t climbing into my lap he adores his sisters.

I can’t predict how the upcoming deployment will affect him.  He was 9 months old when his dad returned from the last assignment in Iraq and he adjusted quickly, but this time is very different.  Ian has been the stay-at-home parent for the past couple of years, which means dad has been making the bulk of the decisions about what the kids eat and where they go and how they do everything.  Not only will they have to adjust to a parent being gone for a year, they will have to adjust to mom’s way of managing their world.  I suspect at first Quinn will be glad to have dad not around to compete for my attention.  On regular Army reserve weekends he is thrilled to have me by his side all day and doesn’t ask about his dad at all.  I have a feeling he will begin to notice the things Ian contributes after they have been missing for more than a week.  He lets the kids take way more risks on the playground than I’m comfortable with, I don’t do horsey rides, I’m no help with their computer problems, and there will be no more cake batter for lunch (not that that happened often, but the likelihood with me around will drop to zero).

I hate that Ian will miss nearly all of Quinn being 3.  Despite the whining, I have always loved age 3.  That’s always seemed the age to me when kids are the most uninhibited and expressive and you get a real glimpse of who they are.  I will take a lot of photos and video footage and hope that Ian doesn’t feel too left out.

Next post:  Meet Mona  (Trust me, you don’t want to miss it.)

The Letter (Babble)

Dear Family and Friends,

This letter is to let all of you know that Ian is being deployed to Iraq for the second time at the end of September.  He is currently a Major in the Army Reserves, and he will be leaving with a Logistics Maintenance Assistance Team (LMAT) based in Madison.  This mission is different from the one he participated in during his last deployment where he remained on an American base.  This time he will be helping to train members of the Iraqi Army.  Frankly, this new assignment has me more concerned than the previous one, but Ian feels prepared and ready to do his job, although he’s wishing he’d had time to learn some Arabic.  Just like I informed everyone back in 2006, please do not approach Ian with the attitude that news of this deployment is like cancer.  He is confident he can make a difference and wants to use his skills to create positive changes in a troubled area of the world.  He will miss his life and his family here, but he promises me he will come back to it.

From my end, I’m anxious because we’ve done this before and I have some idea what sort of challenges lie ahead, but things are already easier than last time.  First of all, I’m not pregnant, and that alone will make this deployment seem like a cakewalk compared to 2006.  The kids are all older (currently 7, 5 and 2) and much more self-sufficient which should help.  The girls will both be in school full time, and we know more families than we did when Aden was just starting half-day kindergarten before.  Having months to prepare (compared to 6 days) has been useful, and Ian has helped me get many things in order, including getting me a GPS so I will still have a voice in the car telling me when to turn even if it can’t be his for awhile.  Ian’s unit is based in Wisconsin this time, not Texas, so I have hopes that there might be a family readiness group to lend a hand for a change.  (The Army was useless to us the last time, so I will admit they are not high hopes.)

We’ve hired a friend to take over Ian’s work at the violin store, but without Ian home to be with the kids I will have to cut back the store hours to overlap with school.  We have a lead on a neighborhood grandma for hire who may be able to watch Quinn some mornings so I can get more work done, and I hope that works out.  (Otherwise barnacle boy will be stuck to my knee for twelve straight months, and it’s very hard to work on violins that way.)  We’ve really enjoyed running our own business, so I hope our customers are understanding enough about our circumstances to put up with my limited availability.  I love my work, but of course my kids come first so I want to be with them as much as I can.  One of the ways I’m planning to stay occupied while being at home is by writing a blog for Babble.com.   I was going to put regular updates about our family on a blog during this deployment anyway, since it seemed like an easier way for people to check in on us, and I’m happy that Babble was interested in sponsoring it.  The wars we are involved in are seldom in the news anymore, the soldiers tend to only be remembered on patriotic occasions, and the families of those soldiers are largely invisible to the public.  I think putting our story out there as a reminder could help.

I am always touched by the fact that people genuinely want to help, but most of them aren’t sure how.  Here are some ideas:  It’s wonderful to have adults to talk to.  Call, write, visit…  Having Ian away is lonely and there are only so many conversations I can have with my kids about Webkinz or opening yogurt containers before I start to feel like a zombie.  Any night I don’t have to cook and then clean the kitchen is good–invite us over and I promise to tell amusing stories about my brothers.  (See guys?  You’re helping already!)  It’s nice once in awhile to get out alone to run errands instead of going as a group, so if you have a little time to hang out with my kids let me know.  I am lousy at asking for help, but if you offer me an hour here or there I will take you up on it and be grateful forever.  I may hire a lawn service in the spring, but anyone who wants to help fight back the grass in the fall after Ian leaves is more than welcome.  I plan to tackle a lot of the shoveling myself this winter, but wouldn’t turn down help with that either.  I could use a list of people willing to be specific kinds of contacts–people good with a computer crisis or plumbing disasters, and especially people who would forgive me if there is an emergency in the middle of the night and I need help at an inconvenient hour.  I’m pretty sure I know whom I can call, but it helps me to have your permission in advance.
This time around I’m more worried about the kids.  I don’t think Mona remembers the last deployment, and Quinn obviously doesn’t, but it was very difficult for Aden to not have her dad here.  They’ve all enjoyed having Ian as the stay-at-home parent for the past couple of years and his absence will be deeply felt by all of them this time.  Distractions would be welcome.  Anyone from out of town who would like to see Milwaukee, this coming year would be a fine time to do it.  Mail addressed directly to the kids would also make them happy.  Play dates at other people’s houses always gets them excited, and we are happy to reciprocate.

Ian will know his mailing address after he arrives in Iraq, and I will share it once I know it myself.  Until that’s available you can always send him a note through his Army email account.

If you want to “Support the Troops” in a more general way, Ian says to donate to the USO.  The care packages they provided were the most useful, and he says any organization willing to send Stephen Colbert to Iraq to entertain soldiers is worth giving money to.

We will be fine.  It will be difficult, and I’m not pretending I will handle everything as well as I’d like, but Aden, Mona and Quinn are creative, sweet and endlessly amusing.  We will have each other, and in Ian’s absence I can’t wish for anything better.

Love to you all,

Kory, Ian, Aden, Mona and Quinn