Tragedy Limits

I didn't know anything about the terrorist attacks in Paris until late last evening.  I was at work until almost 7:00 and not in touch with the news at all.  I caught something vague about the attacks on Facebook when I opened my laptop to plug it in to the TV so we could watch something on Netflix for movie night.  When I went to bed around 10:00 and checked my computer once more, that was when I realized the extent of what had happened.

I experienced that sad ache that occurs when seeing tragedy in the news.  I can't tell if we're feeling that with greater frequency anymore, or if I've simply been alive long enough that such stories are having a cumulative effect.  My first thought was for the people who are now dealing with unexpected loss, and next for people who needlessly died in fear.

I hate the senselessness of events like this one.  I am sad for victims of natural disasters who suffer great loss as well, but pointless stunts like this where people are the instigators of the suffering of others is also infuriating.  I'm sad, but I'm also angry.  I wish those feelings mixed together weren't so familiar.  I don't want to form opinions and make decisions based on fear or anger.  I remember after 9/11 wanting someone to hurt for what they did.  I don't want to feel that way again.  Revenge is never good policy.

As I was reading news reports coming into the BBC site, it suddenly hit me that my brother was supposed to be in Paris this weekend.

Of Memories And Editing (Babble)

I’ve been using most of my writing time lately to edit the manuscript I’m putting together.  I’m compiling my husband’s and my email correspondence during his first deployment back in  2006 and 2007.  A friend on the receiving end of both of our mass emails at the time said the juxtaposition of our stories would make a really interesting book.  On the chance other people think so too, I’m giving it a go.

It’s fascinating to put yourself mentally back in a place you used to be.  I’m shocked at just how much I’d forgotten, or possibly blocked out.

When Ian was deployed the first time we only had six days notice before he had to leave.  I was two months pregnant.  The girls were two and four.  I had so many responsibilities with work and teaching and performing that my life was not set up to work as a single parent and I was sent scrambling to figure out what to do.  It was a long fifteen months.
Ian’s stories are fascinating.  He was on a general’s staff dealing with information that gave him an overview of all of Iraq.  I’d forgotten just how upsetting some of his accounts were.  While sorting through and editing some of his own emails Ian actually became somewhat anxious and unhappy again.  I told him I would do the rest of it.  I shouldn’t have asked him to relive the war for my project, but I did need his help identifying what information may not be suitable for print because I don’t know what the army would approve of or not.  Now I only share with him the parts of the book about silly and funny things the kids did, which strangely mirrors the way I communicated with Ian back at the time.

I’m surprised, reading back, at just how difficult Mona was.  I remember her as being challenging, and I can still recount certain vivid moments and character traits, but she has mellowed so much that I’ve long since let most of those feelings of frustration go.  It’s strange to imagine her again as she used to be.  She didn’t really connect through talking for a long time, preferring to go through phases of only making puppy noises or quoting certain cartoons.  I had completely forgotten just how many lamps she broke.

I forgot just how much time both Aden and I spent crying.

Even if the book goes nowhere, I’m glad to be getting that crucial period of time in our family’s history down in some form for my kids to see later.  Only Aden may have vague memories of that first deployment, but it shaped so much of how we function as a family.
I wish so much I could convince my dad to write down what he remembers of his family history growing up, but he just kind of dismisses the idea when my brothers and I ask.  There have been small attempts to wrangle information out of him here or there, but nothing I could easily recount to my own kids if they asked.  My mom has created beautiful art books about my grandparents and great-grandparents, but I want to know her own story most of all.

One of the things we may sacrifice a bit as parents is a sense of our own story having much meaning after a while.  My life prior to my kids doesn’t seem as important somehow.  I enjoy focusing on my kids and the future.  But when I think how much I want to know my own parents as the people they were before I came along, I realize how much my own history may mean to my kids one day.  I don’t know what kind of time I’ll ever have to document much of my past for them, but at least this period of war and the blur of small children will be something they may find interesting.

I think especially when you have your own kids it makes you stop and reevaluate your parents not as parents but as people in a way few events do.  My children may be curious in the future how I juggled all of them with their dad away, and the ways in which their dad did his best to stay involved despite the distance and circumstances.

The one thing they may not see in the edited collection of emails is just how often their dad and I said we loved one another.  Most of my editing is removing emails that don’t advance any sort of narrative, and after the third little note that just says, “I love you” I’m sure readers would get the point.  It’s funny, though, editing out so much love and leaving in the trauma, because it’s the opposite of how I try to live my actual life.

In any case, this process of immersing myself in my own past for a bit has made me both laugh and cry, as well as make me thankful for my family all over again.  We’re in a better place today than we were five years ago.  Many things are easier, I’m doing more of the things that interest me, Ian is home, kids are growing up….  The one thing that hasn’t changed, though, is Quinn would be just as happy spending all of his time in my lap today as he was as a baby.  And his laugh still makes me melt.

(Kids of the past:)

Transition (Babble)

Ian’s been home from Iraq for about a month and a half now.  The time feels longer.  I can remember clearly enough how things were two months ago, but the anxious feeling that accompanied his being deployed has grown very distant.  When things are how they are supposed to be they tend to click into place and work as if nothing has ever been any other way.  I like that feeling.  Unfortunately reality is such that this kind of transition is not as easy as that.  It’s confusing when emotions click into place and habits don’t.  The disconnection between what used to be and what still is can be difficult to reconcile.

Now, I am quite certain that we have been, and are, adjusting better than many.  It’s sort of like when I read about marriage being so hard for a lot of couples, and I believe them and sympathize, but I can’t relate directly.  Ian and I don’t have a volatile relationship.  We’ve always been supportive of one another and we’re both pretty calm people.  We have moments like any couple trying to coordinate different lives together where we aren’t on the same page, but at least we’re usually using the same book.  I know many families welcoming soldiers home have it much harder than I do, where financial situations are tight or there are medical issues to struggle with or the amount of change that took place in that period of absence was life altering and the resulting homecoming is incredibly stressful.  I’m thankful our lives aren’t that challenging.  Our struggles to reintegrate Ian into our home again are minor.  But they are there.


The most awkward adjustment is still that we’re in a new house.  It was the right move to make and a big improvement that one day even Aden (forever loyal to her past) may admit to be true, but for the kids and I to have had a jump on making it home is still hard.  Not just for Ian, but for me as well.  I set up everything alone and got used to where it all is.  Ian uses things differently, and to have him change anything feels like it shouldn’t be annoying, but it still hits me that way.  We had to have a discussion about the pots all being in a jumble because we each had a different idea of which things went on what shelf.  He doesn’t like where I put the accessories for the mixer.  I’m not sure where to put the vacuum now that he’s using his little office space so it just spends a few days in each room as if cleaning the floors is imminent.  The first year in a new house is like a grand experiment anyway, figuring out how everything works with the changing seasons, but that sense is heightened with Ian’s late arrival on the scene because it was like reseting our experience.

And then there are old problems that I forgot about while he was away.  Little things that we don’t agree on that vanished while he was in Iraq.  Like the dishtowel dilemma.  I put up a small hook in the kitchen just to hold a dishtowel to dry my hands after I use the sink.  He’s always wetting the dishtowel for something and hangs it back up to dry.  Every time I go to dry my hands the dishtowel is all soaked, I grumble to myself and replace it and then toss the wet one in the back hall to go down to the wash.  This drives Ian crazy because he’s taken over the laundry since coming home, so he’s the only one who actually walks in that back hallway and doesn’t appreciate the ever growing pile of wet dishtowels back there.  It’s a charming little cycle we have going.  Of course I’d rather have Ian home and doing laundry than spending time by myself with a dry dishtowel, but it doesn’t make the dopey little problem less irritating.  And then I get to have a flash of guilt for not being anything but grateful that my husband is back safely from the war and I should let him hang wet dishtowels everywhere if it makes him happy.  (But boy that would be annoying.)

Then there is the fact that life doesn’t usually take a break just because you may need some extra time for adjustment.  We have a friend who served in Iraq before Ian did, and when Ian got home from his first deployment our friend told us that the best thing he could recommend was to do what he did and just take a month off and travel as a good way of making the transition back into American life.  Sounds fabulous. This man is a marvelous person whom I admire greatly, but as you probably figured out he has no kids.  I remember standing there listening to the suggestion that Ian leave us again after fifteen months away, our children ages 5, 3 and 9 months making noise around us, and squeezing his hand tighter and tighter as I panicked that he might decide a little travel was, in fact, just what he needed.  Ian knew better than to even entertain the thought, but it was hard to argue that a break really would be ideal.  The hard truth is that there are still frustrating elements to running our business and bills to sort out and dentist appointments to arrange and a thousand little trouble spots that go with having kids and a house and cars and everything else our lives involve, none of which care if we need time for transition or not.  Ian’s had to kind of just hit the ground running, and I’m doing my best to assist but some troubles can’t be helped.

Ian’s written already about how the first month home was for him, but he didn’t describe too much of how things have been going with the kids.  I think he’s handled jumping back into the parenting role better than anyone could ask.  He was very good about stepping back from any kind of disciplinary role for the first few weeks.  The kids needed time to get used to the general sound and sense of having him around first, and I believe it’s helped.  But pretty much from the first week he had long stretches alone with them while I would run errands or go to work, and he was his funny, reliable self and had no trouble being dad again.  He’s much more willing to give them time at the park or to set up play dates than I’m usually prepared to do, and they’re very happy with that.

Aden loves having her dad back.  She was worried for him while he was in Iraq.  She’ll hug me at random moments and whisper to me that she’s glad her daddy is home.  Her biggest adjustment is having to suffer through the same lectures twice if she does something we don’t like, and sometimes her dad will offer up treats or exact a punishment in a way that I wouldn’t and she finds it a tad confusing, but that’s just the reality of having more than one parent.

Mona seems to have made the smoothest adjustment, but mostly because she exists in her own little world to start with.  She was old enough during this deployment to remember her dad in his absence, but too young for me to want to explain to her that her dad might be in danger while he was gone.  Dad was gone, now he’s back, and there you go.  I asked her recently what she thought of all of that, and she said, “Well…. The bad thing about having daddy away was that we miss him and you get more grumpy, but the good thing about him being away is he’s doing a good job with Army work and I have more time with you.”  Mona tends to be more intuitive than verbal, but sometimes she finds exactly the right words.

With Quinn it’s been very interesting.  Ian’s approach to Quinn has been not to stand between us.  He figures if Quinn wants mommy, he gets mommy.  It was hard, at first, for Quinn to have another guy in the house competing for my affection.  Once the three of us were hanging out on our bed chatting about something one afternoon, and when Ian draped his arm over my leg, Quinn literally reached over and moved it off.  He was visibly uncomfortable with any kissing or hugging between us, so we tried to be sensitive to that.
I did my best to prepare Quinn for weeks before Ian’s return that when daddy came home that there wasn’t going to be room for three of us in the big bed.  Quinn had been sleeping in Aden’s bed, sometimes Mona’s, and even occasionally in his very own bunk bed, but still from time to time curled up with me.  I just wanted him to understand that the choice to sleep with me was going to get more difficult with daddy home.  Ian’s first night home we hadn’t planned for Quinn to be in our bed, but as we were all turning in my little boy came marching into our room  hugging his stripey blanket.  I reminded him that, “Don’t you remember, sweetie, that you need to go sleep in a different bed now that daddy’s home?  Can you go sleep with Aden tonight?” and I could feel my heart break as his eyes filled with tears and he silently ran off to his sisters’ room.  I couldn’t believe that he did what I asked, even though it hurt his feelings.  I looked at Ian helplessly, and he shrugged and said, “I understand.  Go get him.”  So I found Quinn quietly weeping at the end of Aden’s bed, and told him we would make room.  He hugged me hard as I carried him back down the hall and fell asleep with his head pressed up against my neck.  We spent a long, uncomfortable night trying to make that work, but Quinn needed it. 

Since then we’ve explained that if he falls asleep in our bed we’re going to move him to his own bed before the morning, and that’s been fine.  He’s used to his dad being around now, and since he knows that my hugging Ian does not result in fewer hugs for him, he’s not as possessive.  I’ve been extremely impressed with Ian’s patience in the whole matter.  He’s an amazing husband and dad.

But I think the hardest thing to explain to anyone about Ian’s return is that there are things I miss about when he was gone.  I certainly prefer him home, but I will admit to missing the complete control that comes with being the only adult in the house.  I’m not going to say it was better, but I did things in a way I liked and I got used to it.  I liked staying up late to get through serial dramas on DVD.  I can’t really do that now.  I’ve been going through past seasons of Madmen on Netflix which doesn’t interest Ian at all, so I watch them in little bits while I do certain chores while he’s not in the same room.  I miss my private movie marathons, but they were something to do to make up for Ian not being around, so it doesn’t feel right to do them that way anymore. 

I miss my kids on the days I’m at work.  I don’t miss having them with me at work (although that still happens sometimes after school), but I liked being with them so much.  They were all mine.  I know it made me crazy some days, but overall I enjoy their company, and I’ve been going through a weird kind of withdrawal.  On the rare days I get to pick up Quinn from half day kindergarten I hug him so hard I fear I’ll break him sometimes.  And as much as I’m glad I don’t feel like a burden to my friends and neighbors now that Ian’s back, I miss seeing them.  I don’t get to talk to them as often now, because for some reason it’s easier to make time for people in a crisis but not just for pleasure.  I need to find a way to fix that one.

It’s hard to admit to having liked anything about the deployment enough to miss.  It reminds me a little about how when we grieve we don’t want to acknowledge any pleasant moments mixed into that time because it feels like a betrayal.  I remember the first time I miscarried how I felt like I would never stop crying, but then I had brave little Aden with me, trying so hard to make me happy, and how could I not be looking into that beautiful face?  The juxtaposition of that kind of sadness and joy was painful but ultimately soothing in its own way.  When Ian was gone it was scary and exhausting and frustrating.  It was also challenging, sometimes liberating, and often sweet.  I’ve had trouble letting go of some of my habits and routines that don’t fit with having my husband home, but not terribly.

All of life is a transition, from childhood to adolescence to adulthood, from being the child to being the parent, even just from weekdays to weekends.  This particular transition just happens to get more attention than average and comes with government supplied pamphlets if I need them.  But I don’t need them.  At some point the kinks we are experiencing will have to go under new headings, like growing pains or midlife crisis or just plain old family dynamics.  We won’t know the day that the return from deployment transition is done because life just keeps rolling on.  As long as we keep rolling together I’m happy, no matter how jumbled the pots may get.

Major Guest Blogger (Babble)

I am so fortunate to have spent over half my life with my husband, Ian.  I’ve written about him before in an introduction, a post about how we met, and another about our wedding.  He followed how we were doing here at home by reading this blog while he was stationed in Iraq for the past year, and now that he’s home he’s agreed to do guest post.  So here we go:

Er…uh…(shuffle feet)…is this thing on?
The first thing to know is that coming home is not one transition. It’s
about a dozen, and arriving home is actually one of the last ones. There
are the transitions from doing the job to turning in equipment and
preparing to leave, the transition to a transient existence during
movement back to the United States, the transition from the
Expeditionary Army with loaded weapons and real missions to the the
Garrison Army with funny black berets and lousy food and off-post
WalMarts, the transition back to a bureaucratic world of budgets and
important papers and Veterans Administration benefits, and finally the
transition from a unit -a temporary family- back to the world of
individuals and the real family I chose.

And then, finally, the transition to a lonely observer in a family that
seems weirdly familiar but pecks at each other in all new ways. The kids’
awe at my return lasted almost to the exit gate of the Army base. Then I
was no longer a novelty but a familiar friend-of-the-family for about an
hour. Then I was not-quite-Dad (perhaps Dad-but-like-he’s-sick) for a
couple days, present but not terribly useful, which I encouraged. Now
we’ve moved to somewhat-lazy-Dad-who-passes-the-buck-to-Mom-a-lot.
Finally, next week when school starts, the clouds will part and
independent, strong Dad will finally return and shine down upon the
Earth.

And most of those phases are deliberate. To prevent frustration. To
kids, a big man frustrated is frightening…and I play for the full
dramatic effect (yes, it’s one of my many flaws). It’s like being the
slowest kid in class all over again, the frustration of watching
everyone else in the house breeze along knowing things you are fighting
to just learn, and the kids don’t need that. The Army likes to assign
you a mentor and time for a transition. The family tries, but a
six-year-old just isn’t a great mentor about the new laundry system.
Older kids – lots of new rules and behaviors that I don’t know. How can
I control or discipline the kids fairly when I don’t know the rules?
When do they go to bed? What’s the routine? What do they eat? What
aren’t they allowed to eat? Who leaves the doors unlocked? Who sneaks
out the unlocked doors? Who showers and who bathes? Where are their
clothes? Where are their toothbrushes? Where are their shoes? Why don’t
they wear socks? Do they have socks? Where are their socks? Why doesn’t
Aden put her bike away? Who are their friends now? Who is allowed to
cross the street? Who do I need to watch most…and why?

New house – Kory knows where everything’s right place is, but I’m not
psychic and so forever looking in the wrong place for silly everyday
stuff like trash bags and towels. It took a week to find my old wallet
with my hardware store card. My old car keys -with my grocery store card
on it- are still missing (and I still miss them). Which new key opens
which door? What are the little tricks to each old door in the house?
Where does the floor squeak at night? Where are the light switches in
each room?

Why is there a drawer of weird light bulbs in the dining room china
cabinet? And which bulbs are for which lights? Why are they all
incandescent – what happened to my compact fluorescents? Why are there
two mysterious ‘utility’ drawers in the kitchen, with identical tools in
them? Why is Kory mopping the kitchen all the time? Am I supposed to do
that, too? What dishes aren’t dishwasher safe, and how can I tell? How
the hell do you program the washing machine? Am I supposed to be mowing
the lawn now? What maps and equipment belong in each car? How do you
open the garage door?

Who are all these new friends and neighbors? Who does Kory really like,
and who are we merely polite to? Who does Kory owe favors to? Who’s
garage door opener is that on the kitchen counter?

And we haven’t even touched on upcoming school, swimming safety and swim
lessons, meals and cooking, handling household bills, dentists, work,
car repairs, energy conservation, hobbies, holiday planning, exercise,
the weird list of projects (Why does she want me to move that pile of
rocks? They look heavy) and a thousand other important issues.
And over all of those thousand details is the most frustrating one for
everyone else at home: I simply don’t know what their priorities or
schedules are. Should I be mowing the lawn or feeding the kids lunch?
Should I be writing this blog post, or picking up the dratted crab
apples, or cleaning the kitchen, or moving those heavy rocks? I can do
them all, but which should be first? It takes weeks to learn the
*context* to everything again.

And finally, don’t forget that once I do learn everything, our family
might renegotiate it a bit. So there’s mild tension brewing. Much more
than you’d expect from normally dull issues like: Where should the
vacuum cleaner be stored? What meals should we plan? Can the treadmill
block this window in this room? Can these toys move to that room? When
should our exercise times be? We’re discussing change to The Way Things
Should Be to several family members…but I have definite opinions too.
So that’s what Transition Back To American Life is like – after many
changes even before coming home, it’s a balance between the frustration
of learning a thousand things you think you should already know, the
frustration of relearning the context of your spouse and family’s
priorities, and the frustration of learning it all -despite the best
efforts of my fabulous family and friends- mostly alone. But as I
approach the end of the transition, I have these amazing kids who can
read and draw and ride bikes and swim and want me to go with them, and a
spouse who still claims to like me enough to let me continue sleeping
with her…but she’ll like me even more once I get those heavy rocks
moved. So get to it, Hercules.

Kory has been amazing, giving me plenty of time to get adjusted. Trying
to get the family on more regular sleep cycles. Feeding everyone.
Keeping the household clean and running while I lumber along trying to
learn how. Telling me it’s okay to back off and rest. She understands
that it’s hard to learn. It’s hard for everyone else, too, to adjust to
this familiar man suddenly in the house.

Being in Iraq, and the transition to/from home life is neither easier
nor harder than being a parent. They are different, and most comparisons
are false. For example, the Army makes sure soldiers get plenty of
regular sleep, food, exercise, and other ways to counter stress (better
than parents), but very few parents get blown up by roadside bombs or
mortared in their bunks (better than the Army). Sure, I lost weight in
Iraq, and did good work fighting corruption…but I was also under a lot
of stress and in cramped quarters with other stressed out people, and we
had terrible food and lived in an atmosphere among the Iraqis of
complete uncertainty and hopelessness. It wasn’t harder than waking up a
2-year-old in midwinter to bundle him up and pick up older kids at
school at 5 below zero, but it wasn’t easier either.

Homecoming (Babble)

What a great week!  Lots of stress woven through bits of it and happiness to the point of feeling drained sometimes, but overall some amazing memories were made this week in our family.

Contrary to the look of final homecoming in these photos, that was actually the prelude to one last little goodbye.  Ian’s trip home took about a week.  For some reason the Army found it cheapest to get him back here by flying him from Mosul to Kuwait, then to Ireland, New Jersey, Atlanta, Minnesota, and finally LaCrosse, Wisconsin, where he was transported to Ft McCoy to turn in his weapon and receive some awards over the course of a few days.  My plan was to drive out to Minneapolis with the kids to spend a few days with my cousin and her family, greet Ian at the airport in LaCrosse on the way, and pick him up at Ft McCoy on the way back when he was ready.

The problem is that planning anything around the Army is complicated because there are no firm dates or times and things are up in the air until the last minute.  I got a call from Ian early on Sunday morning telling me that he was in New Jersey, and he promised to call me again from Atlanta.  When he did, he informed me sadly that he wouldn’t be in LaCrosse until almost eleven at night, and that would be too hard to do with all the kids and still get to my cousin’s house.  He happened to say something offhand about Minneapolis, and I said, “Wait, what?  You have another stop in Minnesota?”  I looked at my watch and realized if we didn’t really stop anywhere on the way we might just be able to catch him at the airport there.  I’d had the car packed since breakfast so I hung up the phone, told all the kids to use the bathroom and grab their shoes and we took off in our big black rental SUV thing.  We grabbed some lunch from a drive through, did one stop a few hours in to use a rest room, but otherwise just raced across Wisconsin.


I have to say I lucked out in the ‘traveling with children lottery,’ because my kids are great on long car trips.  They were no trouble in any way.  They napped a little, they pointed out cows, they played little games together.  My brothers and I were nowhere near that nice to each other in the car growing up.  I seem to recall my dad yelling at us to look out our respective windows a great deal.  Anyway, between their excellent behavior and the rental car’s satellite radio, it was a great drive.  Rural Wisconsin is beautiful, and the weather was gorgeous.  (I know there are more dramatic landscapes in the world, that Banff is stunning, and you can’t get your mind around the Grand Canyon even as you stand on the edge of it, vistas in Italy will make you melt, and I’ve driven through tea plantations in India that are lovely beyond words….  But Wisconsin farmland with its rolling hills and acres of corn is beautiful in an accessible and cozy way that is unlike anything else, and the kids were thrilled to see it and so was I.)

(Not the best photo since I just randomly clicked my camera without looking during a flat area, but still pretty.)

We experienced a rare moment of perfect timing.  All we had to go on was that Ian was flying into Minneapolis on Delta sometime around 7:15 pm.   We left Milwaukee at 2:00, parked at the airport at 7:20, found a desk with the word ‘Delta’ over it and got someone to figure out Ian’s gate and print us up a visitor’s pass. As we walked the last 20 paces or so to the gate, Ian called me on my cell phone to say he was about to step off his plane.  The kids and I waited maybe half a minute before we spotted him.  We got to spend a little over an hour together and eat a little dinner in the food court as a family before he had to get on the plane to LaCrosse.  I still can’t believe that all worked out.  I know he was pleased to see us at such an unlikely time.

I do have to say that people in military uniforms are more exposed than other people in an airport.  It was nice of strangers who took the time to stop and thank Ian for his service, but after awhile I kind of wished they would do it a little more quickly because our time was so limited.   I’m sure Ian would have liked that hour we had together to have been more private, but he was gracious to everyone who stopped to admire our little reunion.  He represents his uniform well.

Even though I must have warned the kids about two dozen times that we weren’t going to get to keep daddy just yet, they were still surprised when they had to say goodbye to him again and put him on another plane.  But this time we knew it was just for a few days.  That combined with his being here and not headed off to a war zone made this separation much easier than any of the past ones.

Once Ian was safely on the plane we went off in search of our rental car.  Maybe I was just too worn out at that point to appreciate whatever logic there is to the parking structure at the Minneapolis/St Paul Airport, but I found it to be the most confusing place I’ve ever left a car.  Luckily I knew I was somewhere on the ground level and at the end of a row which narrowed it down, and the kids and I walked around while I kept pushing the lock and unlock buttons on the key until we heard the car beeping.  It was in a direction I never would have thought to walk, so I’m glad the rental car came with such a feature or we might still be there.

The next few days we spent with my cousin, Ann, and her family.  (They are the same people who came all the way out to Milwaukee in February to help me move.)  I could not have asked for a better distraction.  If we had waited at home while Ian was at Ft McCoy I would have been climbing the walls.  The past couple of weeks have been really stressful in anticipation of him coming home.  The kids were acting out a little, I was not sleeping…. 

It’s hard to explain to people, because it seems like knowing our family would be reunited again should be all good–and it is good–but good is not the same thing as easy.  Ian told me from the soldiers’ perspective that leaving for the first deployment is stressful, and leaving for additional deployments isn’t as bad, but every return home is difficult.  He said many soldiers assume the physical symptoms they have before they return are due to the change of routine and diet that come with travel, but that often times it has more to do with stress.  There are a lot of unknowns about what ‘home’ is anymore, and that’s hard to deal with.

Staying at my cousin’s house removed me from the responsibilities and worries that come with being at home.  We could just relax, drink lemonade, and eat sandwiches made from tomatoes and basil from their garden.  Can you believe the view from their backyard?

My kids spent every minute possible in the swimming pool.  At one point we took all the kids out to a playground just for variety’s sake, and after a few minutes of watching them half-heartedly playing to please me we said it was time to go back to the house and they lit up and ran to the car.  They played Marco-Polo, they came up with a water dance show that required many rehearsals, and there was a lot of ‘look at me, Mom!’ stuff. 

It was one of those experiences where you didn’t realize how much you needed something until you got it.  Those few days of pleasant conversation and company and playtime for the kids in a peaceful setting were exactly what we needed.  I will always be grateful for that bit of time we spent in Minneapolis.  When we finally got the call from Ian that he was done with out-processing and we could come pick him up, the kids protested until I verbally shook them out of their idyllic daze to remind them that we were leaving to get daddy and bring him home with us.  To stay.  To keep.  That got them into the car.

The drive to Ft McCoy was beautiful, but the last leg of it got confusing.  The GPS took us through winding roads up in the hills above lots of farmland, and then five minutes from our destination kept telling me to turn where there was no road.  I passed the spot it wanted me to turn twice before I finally crept up on it very slowly and realized there was a grown over gravel path at that spot in the woods.  I pulled the car over and walked down the path far enough to see a gate with a stop sign on it, and past that was a real road.  Neat.

I decided that was not the best direction to take with three small kids in a car I was not familiar with in a spot where my cell phone wasn’t getting any signal.  I asked the GPS to find and alternative route, and almost half an hour later we finally pulled up to the main gate of Ft McCoy.

I discovered that my military spouse ID was expired (who knew such a thing expired?) but they let us in to pick up Ian anyway.  On his phone he talked us past the PX and lots of barracks and desert colored military vehicles until eventually we saw him waving near the road.  Christmas morning is a good analogy for how excited my kids were when they spotted him.  None of them could sit still.  I got to meet one of the soldiers he worked with (she seemed very nice, and you’d never guess she was the best person you could ask for manning the gun turret on a truck) then we loaded up all of his Army boxes and headed toward home.

It’s a little surreal.  He’s really home.  In some ways it was like he never left, because certain habits instantly fall back into place, but other things will take time.  I picked up food at the grocery store this morning and it took much longer than normal because while we were away they rearranged the whole place.  Cereal is where the greeting cards used to be, where pasta was is now a giant section labeled simply ‘Hispanic,’ and things like crackers are broken up into categories I couldn’t quite follow.  Most of what was on my list I stumbled into by chance.  While I was waiting at the checkout it hit me that if I found the new layout of the grocery store disorienting, how odd is it for Ian to come home to a whole different house?  It’s like a huge scavenger hunt for all your own things.  He laughed in the kitchen at one point because he started to empty the dishwasher and realized he didn’t know where anything was supposed to go, so he just stopped.  It will take time for Ian to get to know not just what the rhythm of our days are like here, but even just where the outlets are and in what drawer we store the light bulbs.

In the meantime it will be days before we finish sorting through all of the giant Army boxes of gear and military items that need to find a place in this house.  Ian’s going to be camped out in the living room for awhile, sorting through piles of paper and camoflage patterned clothing.  Not to mention all the boxes of mystery cords and books and computer items that have been waiting for him in the basement since the winter months.  I told him to take it slowly, we’d tackle it all together, and he can stop and take a nap whenever he likes.

It’s only been a couple of days, but in terms of the adjustment process, so far, so good.  I told him he needs to give the kids a chance to get used to the sound of him, and over time he can assume more of the old role he used to play in terms of exerting some authority.  Right now he’s just available to them if they want him, and he helps me when I need it, but we’re taking a slow approach with his involvement in our routine.  There is no pattern of him being in this home, and he has no experience with the kids being the ages they are now.  We haven’t had any problems yet, but I’m doing my best to head any off before they can develop.  At the moment I’m just proud of myself that he hasn’t had any allergic reactions to anything in the house.  (I remembered!) 

There’s more to tell, but it will have to wait.  Everyone is sleeping but me and it’s time for me to join them.  There are few things greater than the joy of knowing everyone who is supposed to be here is under the same roof.  We’re a whole family again.  It’s one of those things that makes me want to smile and cry at the same time.  There is no one on earth more fortunate than I am right now.  Life is grand.

Who Needs Words? (Babble)

Dear Ian, (Babble)

We’re excited to hear that you are wrapping up the last of your responsibilities in Iraq. 
Not long until you’re home!  Here are a few things to ponder on the flight to the United States:

Omega Burger closed down.

I threw out any of your clothes that had holes including that one nasty pair of sneakers.

The top dozen slots of our Netflix queue is just episodes of Mad Men.

That empty retail space near the violin store was briefly some kind of gym and now it’s empty again.

The birch tree you didn’t know we had has been removed.

Be prepared to address many computer issues when you arrive.

All the kids can use the microwave themselves, but still need to ask how much time to heat things for (unless it’s ravioli–they have that down).

Aden eats grape jelly, Mona eats strawberry.


Aden likes onions on her hamburgers, Mona likes pickles, Quinn would rather die than have either of those things with his meal but he does like salad.

The violin store is pretty messy, and there is a big stack of mystery papers on your desk there waiting for you.  Also that pole next to our building that I don’t know what it was is now gone.

The play structure in Humboldt Park was torn down awhile back, and they just started building the replacement.  Aden is upset because it will be different.

I will be asking you to move rocks in the backyard.  (But you’ll get two kisses for every rock and there are a million rocks, so it should work out in your favor at some point.)

The little girl ringing our doorbell repeatedly is named Karla.

The radio was stolen out of our car again.  (Ha!  April fools!  I didn’t have you around on the first of April so I’m getting caught up on that now.)

I have no idea where your keys or library card are.  (That’s not an April fools joke.  Sorry!)

Mona has four loose teeth.

Quinn has forgotten all his geography information but can talk about planets and write his own name.

Remember to turn right instead of left at our intersection.  The blue and white house may look like home, but the new neighbors will be very surprised if you show up there.  We’re across the street at the house with the lawn that needs mowing.

We’ll need to shop for a lawnmower.

Neighborhood Recess is every Thursday at 5:00.  Wear good running shoes.

I’m claiming the side of the bed near the windows.

All those giant army boxes you shipped home are stacked in your little study room.  (Good luck getting into your little study room.)

There is supposed to be a new garage out back when you get here.  (Right now it’s a muddy mess that I like to think of as ‘the moat.’  That’s nice too, but I’m still keeping my fingers crossed for a garage.)

The kids want you to select the new Rock of the Week.

Aden doesn’t need a booster seat now, but she still likes to use one.

The grill has sat untouched since you left.  We all want you to grill stuff.

Don’t let the kids use the sidewalk chalk on the bricks outside the violin store because apparently that counts as grafitti and our landlord will get fined.

The squirrels are more entertaining on this side of the street.

Aden desperately wants to go to Incrediroll.

Tony and Megan have a baby girl with lots of names but they call her Katie for short.
Smokey Joe, Mrs. Coleman, and our mailman have all died.

Quinn’s favorite color is still purple, but Aden’s is now blue, and Mona is conflicted about the whole concept.

I apologize that the change from the glove box feels funny.

We have a garbage disposal now, so you don’t have to flinch when I toss egg shells into the sink anymore.

We may be picking you up in a brainless rental van.

We love you more than you remember.  We’ve missed you like crazy.  The kids are bigger than when you left so be prepared for some power hugs.

I love you.  I’m proud of you.  See you soon.

Kory

Fears (Babble)

I’m having trouble sleeping, even though Quinn is lying here next to me in bed.  Normally his soft breathing and his little arm across me as he sleeps makes the nights without Ian here better, but not tonight.  For some reason I’m having more trouble than usual quieting my fears enough to shut my eyes.  Rather than ignore them tonight I feel like laying them out like change on a table, and sorting through them for a little while.  Maybe listing them will make them look ordinary and dull and then I’ll sleep.

The obvious fear that everyone can understand is that I worry my husband will be killed in Iraq.

But since I live with that fear over an extended period, it grows and fractures and that particular fear gets broken down into parts.  I fear the initial shock of the idea of soldiers coming to my door to tell me.  If I let my mind linger there too long I wonder if I would be polite and let them in, or in such denial and distress that I bar the door and hide inside.  I don’t want to think about the funeral I’d have to be responsible for.  I recoil at the thought of what it would do to my kids.

But there are other fears about what could happen to Ian that scare me about as much.  I worry about him becoming a different person because of this experience–a person who scares me or that I couldn’t live with anymore,  I fear what would happen to him if he were responsible for the death of someone else, or if someone under his command were hurt or killed because of decisions he made or failed to make.   What if the person who comes back to me from the war is someone who hates himself now?  At what point do the unspoken vows to my children override the vows we made to each other at our wedding if his mental state makes him unsafe to our family?


I fear injuries that change everything.  Brain damage that robs me of the man I loved but will continue to care for for the rest of my life.  I fear missing limbs and destroyed skin and blindness.  I fear PTSD.

I fear that decisions that I had to make on my own while he’s been gone will have been wrong.  That he’ll be disappointed in me somehow, or that I’ve neglected important things that make his life harder when he comes home and he resents me for it.  I fear that adjusting to this life after the war will be dull.  I fear that after having so much responsibility and respect, that the drudgery of caring for small children will be frustrating and leave Ian feeling undervalued.

Okay, it feels good to lay those out.  Fears always look larger when trapped inside my head, and now I can be more rational.  Ian came back from the last deployment still the guy I knew.  He still sounded like my same Ian last I talked to him, so I’m crossing my fingers that the next few weeks don’t throw any dangerous surprises his way.  I don’t really think he’ll be disappointed in me for anything, but his opinion matters and I haven’t lived with him in what seems like forever so I don’t know if the husband in my imagination is accurate anymore, and it makes me uncertain.

The thing I remind myself about the fears of injury and death is that it’s not all that different from regular life.  I’m haunted by stories I hear on the news from time to time about soldiers who return safely from Iraq or Afghanistan only to be killed in a car accident on the way home, or something similar.  I remember very clearly a cold morning in February when I was still commuting 40 miles every day to violin making school hearing a news report of a man who had been killed in his car on I43.  He was in between two trucks, and when the one in front of him stopped the one behind him didn’t and he was crushed.  For some reason my first thought was that there was food in his refrigerator that he had expected to eat and never would.  There were a million details of his life waiting for him at home and he would never go back there.  None of us knows when our last day will be.

When Ian was deployed the first time and we had only six days to prepare, one of the things we had to do was sit down and go through all his important papers including his will.   He skimmed it for me and said, “It says here if I die then everything goes to you….” etc.  I didn’t pay too much attention until I heard the words, “And if you die while I’m gone….” and my jaw dropped because it had never crossed my mind that I could die while he was at war.  All I could think was, “What do you mean if I die?!  I can’t die!  I have to take care of these kids!”  But it was a good reality check.  I could be driving along between two trucks and never get to eat that lunch waiting for me in my fridge.

So my circumstance may seem extreme to someone else just living a regular life, but it’s not that much different really.  All of us are here temporarily and none of us knows how long we have.  It’s important to connect with the people we care about as often as we are able and to appreciate the time we have and use it well.

A quote that occurs to me often is, “It is a fearful thing to love what death can touch.”  It’s easy to focus on the fear.  That’s primal.  What takes courage is to get past that and to focus on the love.   I can’t stop the fact that things will end, but the days I’m most proud of myself are the ones where I really stop and enjoy how glorious the love I have is.  Even if it’s just for a moment, like when my kids are showing me a caterpillar and the pure delight on their faces makes any of the mundane things I’m preoccupied with most of the time disappear.  I make a point every day to hold each of my kids and consciously appreciate how glad I am they are in the world.  Even when they are driving me crazy.

Quinn is nuzzling up next to me.  He’s able to pat around and find my arm to wrap around himself even in his sleep.  I’m the luckiest person I know.  I’m tired of fear.  I’m tired period.  I’m ready to close my laptop now.  I think I’m okay to sleep.

Contact (Babble)

Someone asked in a comment thread something I get asked in person all the time:  How much contact do I have with my husband during his deployment?

The answer is not much, but way more than people had before email.   My grandmother actually gave birth to her second child while my grandfather was off in the Navy during World War Two, and there was no way to tell him he had a son.  She wondered for very long periods of time if her husband was okay.  That sounds unbearable.  By comparison, the longest stretch I’ve gone without hearing from Ian is maybe a month.  I’m able to scan things to show him if I have questions about bills or taxes.  He sends me brief notes on important days like anniversaries.  A couple of times we’ve been able to talk to each other on Skype, which is interesting because we’ve gotten to see the room where he lives and works, but the time difference is a problem.  Iraq is nine hours ahead of Wisconsin, so he’s usually going to sleep as we’re getting up, and there is no good time to talk.


I feel badly that I haven’t sent him as many packages as I should.  I sent one big one before his leave and one after.  I usually send DVDs of the kids, photos, artwork the kids made, a local paper of some sort, cookies, a letter, and anything else lying around that would remind him of home.  The hard part about putting together a package (besides making sure any food won’t melt or rot in the 135 degree heat over the two week journey) is sending things that are meaningful without being too precious.  Ian worries about leaving things behind when he comes home.  I assure him the photos are replaceable, the kids are always cranking out artwork, and none of us would mind if he passed on little gifts to people there. 

He’s sent a couple of things to us, including a toy camel, some pretty chai sets that the girls adore, a small vase….  My favorite things are the rare letter, and the last deployment he sent me a simple necklace with a pearl on it that I wear quite often.  I don’t write him as much as I should, but he does follow this blog, and I do email notes reminding him he’s missed and we love him.  I figure with limited time on my hands my priorities have to be with my kids and our life here.  He’s an adult and I trust him to take care of himself and to remember we love him even if we don’t get to tell him every day.  If I have a choice between playing a game with the kids or writing to their dad, I hope he understands that I need to focus on the kids.

The hardest thing about communicating with my husband while he’s overseas isn’t the how, it’s the what.  We can stay in pretty good contact using a combination of letters and email and Skype and occasional phone calls, but time apart makes what to say harder to come by.  It’s often easier to find things to talk about with someone I saw yesterday than it is to someone I see rarely.  That seems counter-intuitive, since there would be more to catch up on with someone you haven’t talked to in a long time, but you lose common ground.  The flow of conversation is harder to establish when there is too much to tell.

With Ian it gets very frustrating because we are used to talking to each other easily, but after so many months apart once we say, “I love you, I miss you,” several times, it’s hard to think of anything to add.   He doesn’t have a current idea of what our lives are like at this point–small changes add up and turn into big changes.  Anyone with little children knows how much is different in just a few months, let alone a year.  We’ve moved, the kids are older, there are new people in our lives he doesn’t know….  I’m sure I’ve changed in ways I don’t even realize.  And the thing is if I try to describe things really well, in some ways I think it only highlights for Ian how disconnected he is from us now, rather than helping him feel included.  No one wants to have home explained to them.  In the meantime I can’t relate to what his days are like at all.  Most of what he describes I either don’t understand or don’t want to know because it scares me.  He doesn’t want to add to my stress, but everything about him being in Iraq causes me stress, so what can he say?  Not being able to find things to talk about makes us both feel bad, so just because we can talk doesn’t mean it’s always a good idea.

We’re also both limited by what we are allowed to say or simply shouldn’t.  From his end, my husband is an officer, and privileged to sensitive information.  He can tell us a little bit about what he’s doing, but sometimes in emails he has to change names of places and people.  Email is convenient but not private.  We have to assume whatever we write may be seen by others.   That could include the people he’s fighting, so for safety reasons he can never tell me when he’s coming or going. 

On my end, it’s unfair to burden him with any problems he can’t fix.  It’s a nice idea to keep him informed of important details, but I can’t tell him about a trip to the emergency room, for instance, until it’s resolved.  I can’t tell him anything with loose ends because it’s cruel.  I don’t want him distracted because he has dangerous work to do.  Complaining to him about my problems would be selfish, but I don’t want to lie to him either.  If I told him everything was perfect he would worry because he would know that wasn’t true.  So I keep him informed after the fact.  Quinn was sick but now he’s fine, the insurance thing at work was messy but now it’s taken care of, selling the old house was tricky but now it’s done.  When I talk to Ian on the phone there is a time delay not just in the sounds we’re hearing, but in the topics we can discuss.  It’s awkward, but it’s what we’ve got.

Our circumstance may or may not be typical.  He tells me for most soldiers it depends on time and opportunity.  He knows other people who contact home every day because they have the free time to do it.  Ian tends to be extremely busy with no days off.  (People always seem surprised when I say he doesn’t have days off, and I remind them it’s a war.)  It’s usually inconvenient times like midnight or very early morning or dinnertime here when he would be available to chat, and most of the time that doesn’t work out well.
 
Recently we had a discussion where he asked if I could please find a way for him to talk to the kids one on one when he calls.  I’m used to having all the kids with me all the time, so when he calls I tend to put him on speaker phone and then it gets to be a mess.  I explained to the kids that we’d have to take turns and be in different rooms, and they agreed, and the last call went much better.

In terms of making decisions, my husband trusts me to make choices that are good for our family and our future.  That’s part of why he loves me to start with.  When it comes to our home or the kids’ school or major purchases, he knows I’m not going to get us into debt or do something ridiculous.  The craziest thing I did was move, and it was the right thing.  It was hard to do without him, but I’m glad I did it.  I can take care of everything with him gone, I just prefer to do it with him.   Some things he definitely does better than I do (he doesn’t cry about computer problems, for example), but I know for a fact he doesn’t really want to pick out rugs or futon covers.  We make a good team.  I’m just looking forward to the team all being in the same time zone again.

(A picture Ian took of us almost exactly one year ago when I was first putting together this blog and Babble needed photos.)

(This is a photo of us exactly one year later taken by Aden’s friend Karla.  My baby isn’t a baby anymore, Aden seems more grown up, and Mona’s clothes don’t stay on very well.  But it’s still us.  I think Ian will know us when we finally meet him at the airport and decide we’re worth coming home with.)

Support a Troop Day (Babble)

This is nothing but a blatant request for comments today.  My husband has had a rough go of it lately and could use a little boost.  He’s been feeling a bit forgotten and unappreciated.  He sounds worn out to me.  He checks in on my blog as often as he is able, and I think some random words of cheer his direction would be a welcome treat.  Think of it as ‘Holding Down the Fort De-Lurker Day.’  If you are reading this, even just a ‘Hi Ian!’ would be appreciated.  If you aren’t comfortable thanking someone for Army service, thank him for being a great dad.  All of us could use a day where we are singled out for doing the important things we do, and I’ve decided today is his.  Easiest way to support a troop you will come across.  Please help.  Thank you.

The Little Things (Babble)

I’m in a good place.  The new house is so much easier to function in than the old house that I’m calmer in general.  No one is sick (except Aden has a cough and Quinn tells me his stomach hurts at odd times and Mona has some bug bite on her shoulder the size of coaster, but you know, the baseline for sick in a household of kids is different than for normal people, so none of this counts as anyone being sick in my book).  Work is good, kids are happy, and I’m hearing from Ian a little bit now and then and that’s always nice.  I even got a letter this week letting me know that an essay I submitted to the ‘This I Believe’ series on NPR is being published in a collection due out in the fall.  How cool is that?


It probably sounds like I’m setting myself up for karmic disaster by admitting to hogging too much of the good at one time, but I’m just going to enjoy it while it lasts.  Because the really nice thing about that ‘calm and everything is under control’ feeling is that the little things aren’t getting under my skin.  When I’m pulled too many directions and I’m anxious I tend to snap at my kids a little too quickly, which makes me feel guilty, and then I’m just not nice to be around. 

Right now?  I’m the fun mom on the block with extra kids from the neighborhood hanging out and staying for lunch and we plan paper mache projects and paint and bake cookies with mini M&M’s in them.  That’s so much more satisfying than being the mom who is always yelling because we’re late for somewhere and no one listens the first ten times I tell them to do something.  It’s summer.  I’m not even enforcing a bedtime.  I can’t get upset about them not following rules when there are almost no rules to break.  The big ones at the moment are:  Don’t come downstairs naked, don’t leave the yard without telling me first, keep the back door shut (that one they are bad at), and when the fireflies come out it’s time to come home.

There are still important codes of conduct that apply, but they don’t feel like rules.  Occasionally I have to remind someone that at our home no one may be excluded from playing any of the games going on, but that seldom comes up.  I would clamp down on any of the kids if they were being rude or mean or overly careless, but those times are rare.  As long as everyone is being nice things are easy.

There is one funny side effect, though.  Mona craves either a little more structure, a little more conflict, or both.  I’m not sure which, but it manifests itself in her choosing periodically to punish herself.  Aden and Quinn do that too from time to time, but with Mona it’s more dramatic.   Aden at around Quinn’s age once famously told me when she was angry (I think the offense was we weren’t going to go someplace because it was closed) that, “FIne!  I won’t eat sugar for a whole day!”  I just looked at her and said, “Okay” which made her more angry and she upped it to a week.  Last night Quinn was so tired by the time we got home from work that when he asked me to open a chocolate milk for him and I pointed out I’d already done it, he was furious.  He said, “How could you do that?  I didn’t ask you yet!” and he stomped off as loudly as possible and collapsed on my bed and passed out.

But Mona is in a class by herself.  She has what I think of as her Garbo moments when she wants to be alone, and I don’t have a problem with that, but she can’t expect to be alone in a public space.  She can’t, for instance, claim the play structure as a place to be alone, or the TV area, or the kitchen.  That’s just not fair.  I will clear people out of the music room for her, or give her my room, or even clear kids out of the toy room for awhile if she wants it, but today she tried to use the computer in the middle of the dining room and tell her brother he couldn’t look on.  I told her that wasn’t nice and she took great offense and banished herself to her bedroom screaming, “Fine then I won’t have breakfast and I don’t love you anymore.”  She stomped up the stairs (the new house offers much better opportunities for noisy stair stomping apparently) and when she turned around at the top of the banister to add something else I was fed up and raised my voice and told her to be quiet and go to her room already if she couldn’t be nice to her brother.  She wailed that she hated me and moped on her floor under a blanket.  After some cooling off I went in and told her I was sorry I yelled.  She told me I should yell.  I asked her if she wanted me to punish her more often and she said, “Yes.”

Poor girl is serious.  The thing is, she doesn’t really do anything bad.  She does what I ask of her and volunteers to do things like crack eggs or set the table.  She’s not perfect, but she’s six.  I correct her or explain things when necessary, but other than trying to shake her little brother off her tail once in awhile (which I get) she is a very good kid.  There isn’t much I have to tell her ‘no’ about, and maybe that’s a problem for her.  It reminds me of a quote I heard from Fred Rogers in an interview a long time ago where he said he thought it was a very cruel thing to do to children to never tell them no.  No was a way of outlining clear boundaries for children in a world where they needed to feel safe.  No was a way of showing them you care.  Maybe I need to take Mona to a place with broken glass and poisonous snakes so I can clutch her close and say, “NO!  Don’t touch!  Keep your shoes on!  No snake petting for you!”

Could this be a deployment thing?  That she has fears and frustrations and she needs an excuse to vent about them and she can’t find a good one lying around?  Maybe having daddy away feels like a punishment and she wants it to have a name.  Or maybe she’s crazy.  In any case it doesn’t happen frequently, but when it does happen it’s loud.  After about an hour of self-imposed exile in her room she drew me a love note on her magnadoodle and placed it outside her door for me to find.  She was all squeaks and cuddles again and she told me she loved me.  The dark cloud had passed.  Don’t know when I’ll see it again, but it’s scarier than the tornado warning we lived through the other night so I hope not soon.

But other than those odd moments when the kids are trying to get a rise out of me, everything else I’m able to take in stride right now.  It’s nice.  I first noticed how much better I was handling the little things lately when I had cluster of scheduling problems and it just kind of made me laugh.  The refrigerator was making a buzzy-screamy sound one morning, and since our house came with a home warranty I called them about it.  The soonest they could get someone in was three days later right smack during the time we had dentist appointments for all four of us scheduled.  It was painful to cancel those dentist appointments, but we couldn’t keep living with the horrible noise in the kitchen so it had to be done.  Do you know how hard it is to get four dentist appointments together on one day?!?!  Hard enough that the new ones are in October.  I had to think about the kids’ school hours for the reschedule for crying out loud.  In the meantime we’re on a waiting list so if people cancel and I want to sneak each of us into the dentist one at a time over the summer we can, but ugh.  Anyway, to accommodate the refrigerator guy I also had to move an appointment at the violin store and change my plans for grocery shopping.  Fun all around.

But that’s not the best part.  The best part is when the refrigerator guy got to our house, examined our appliance for twenty seconds, and then told me the fridge was fine, it was the doorbell box mounted above it that was screaming.  Apparently the heavy rain we’ve had here affected the wiring on the doorbell on our side door and triggered some kind of doorbell alarm mode.  A friend was kind enough to come out and disconnect it later in the day.  A couple of months ago I would not have found this funny.  Nowadays, well, it’s just not enough to bug me.  The dentist appointment thing is annoying, but no one’s teeth are falling out that shouldn’t be falling out, so it doesn’t really make any difference.  Life is fine.

Also, the freedom I have since Aden is around to help watch Quinn was unexpected.  I was thinking with the girls out of school for the summer that it would be more work, but it’s turned out to be less.  Aden is old enough (and a kind enough big sister) that instead of me having to help Quinn every time he has a computer problem or wants a piggy back ride or needs someone to push him on the swing, Aden can do some of that too.   When we’re all at the violin store and I need to work, Aden is wonderful about assisting both of her younger siblings with whatever they could use help with, and it’s really nice.  Quinn is crazy about his big sister and would prefer to do things with her most of the time anyway, and Aden thinks her little brother is adorable and doesn’t mind having him tag along.  This is also contributing to that sense of calm I’m currently enjoying.  (At least when Mona is not literally asking for a time out.)

This is not to say I still don’t have panicky moments when I worry about Ian in Iraq, or that there still aren’t a hundred projects I’d like to get to, but I can’t do anything about Ian and the war so I try not to dwell on it, and I remind myself how lucky I am that my biggest source of frustration is that I have too many choices of great things to do. 

I did get thrown for a loop the other night when I was watching an episode of Friday Night Lights on my computer before falling asleep, and the last scene was of soldiers showing up at a character’s door to inform the family that their soldier had been killed in Iraq.  I was not expecting that and wouldn’t have watched the show if there was any way to know that was coming.  I was pretty shaken up and didn’t sleep well that night. 

But those moments are few and far between right now.  Quinn’s smile always sets the morning right no matter how badly I’ve slept.  Mona makes me laugh.  Aden touches my heart.  How can I complain?  The little things that used to get me down are outnumbered.  I’ve got enough little things around that make me happy that right now every day is a good day.  I’m doing my best to appreciate that for all it’s worth.

The Home Stretch (Babble)

If we are lucky, it looks as if Ian may come home before the summer is over.  We’re not allowed to know exactly when because that counts as troop movements and for their safety that’s classified, but for the first time I have a vague idea, so we’re in the home stretch.  I know summer is just starting, and for other people looking at a couple of months to care for kids and house and business without their spouse sounds like a long time, but at this point for me it looks like nothing.  So I’m already getting antsy and starting to let my guard down, which is dangerous.

When you know you have to get through a long ordeal, you can steel yourself to it.  You can take care of what you need to take care of, and worry about how it feels later, when there’s time, and it’s safe to do so.  I’ve had little breakdowns here or there during this particular deployment, but for the most part I think I’ve done a good job of keeping everything running and the kids happy.  I was all set to keep it up through Thanksgiving.

But then I learned I might have my old life back before Labor Day and some of my defenses, some of which I didn’t even realize I’d built up, began to crumble a bit.
Just imagining being able to share the workload of our daily family life with my husband again has made me realize how tired I am.  I realize I miss feeling desirable and pretty because I’ve had to shut those needs down for so long.  I miss not keeping track of all the bills and all the appointments and all the everything alone all the time.  I miss being able to say, “Go ask your dad.”  The thought of having my husband back and in our lives again is akin to winning the lottery.  There is no other thing I can think of that I want more right now.  But who can live with that kind of anticipation stretched out over an entire summer?  There’s delayed gratification (which, frankly, I’ve never been a fan of) and there’s torture.


I’m assessing the toll this journey has taken prematurely.  I can’t help myself.  I can see the finish line and I shouldn’t start poking at the blisters on my feet until I finish the race.  I often think about how hard it was to appreciate my grandma’s stories of living in Milwaukee while my grandpa was away in the Navy, because we already knew the end of the story.  We already knew grandpa came home, so the frightening suspense she lived with for years was lost on us.  There is an underlying terror to my daily life that goes with knowing my husband is in a war zone that most of the time I’m able to keep at arm’s length in order to function.  But I don’t know the end of this story yet, so it’s still a scary one for me.

It doesn’t help that the things my husband says to reassure me, aren’t reassuring.  The life he’s living is so far removed from anything I can relate to that he doesn’t realize how the snippets from his life sound out of context.  He’s done remarkable work, and I’m very proud of him.  The amount of corruption he’s uncovered and the areas he’s been able to cut costs has more than paid back the taxpayers for the service he’s been hired for.  (Then there’s odd stuff he gets into that’s kind of funny.  Well, Ian makes it funny, even while in a war zone.  I’ve watched that clip dozens of times just to hear his voice.)  That’s all good. 

But accomplishing those things and exposing problems makes him a target, and when I tell him that makes me nervous he says things like, “Don’t worry, I’m always the most heavily armed person in the room.”  I know from where he’s standing in his combat boots on Iraqi soil that seems like a sensible thing to say.  Listening to it here in Milwaukee where the biggest danger we face is Mona’s clothing choices, it doesn’t do anything to calm my nerves. 

It also highlights dramatically that in certain ways I don’t know my husband at all.  I can’t picture the life he’s led for the past year, I don’t know the people he works with, I don’t know the rhythm of his days or the food he’s eating or where he does mundane things like wash his laundry.  His life looks nothing like the life we’ve built together.  And yet somehow we’re still a family and this will all work out, even though I have trouble wrapping my brain around the fact that this pistol-toting uniform guy is somehow still Ian.  That that IS Ian.  It’s surreal and unnerving.

I also find myself worrying already about the possibility of yet another deployment.  I know that probably sounds absurd since he’s not even back from this one yet. but I can’t escape it.  When I tell people about when he’s coming back, they all ask, “Is that when he’s coming back for good?”  It’s an interesting expression “for good.”  My brain tends to run with it in odd directions and I think yes, it is good, and he will do good things here, so his being here is for good. 

This was kind of how we thought of our pet rabbits.  We always talked about how they weren’t good bunnies, they were good at being bunnies, which are two very different things.  I tell people that he’ll be done with this tour, but that “home for good” depends entirely on the state of the world and whether we are done fighting wars.  It’s not the giddy all positive response I think people want from me, but only the President can really answer the question of whether or not when my husband comes home how long he gets to stay here.  I don’t actually know.

In the meantime I’m trying to pace myself.  We have more than enough to keep us busy this summer, and as long as I concentrate on sweeping up the sand the kids track into the house and doing the laundry and keeping my business running, I shouldn’t have too much time to wish my husband would walk in the door.  Soon.  But not today.

Goodbyes hurt more than a fat lip (Babble)

It was hard taking Ian to the airport.  I didn’t want him to go.  Two weeks of leave from the Army went by too quickly, especially since half of that got sucked up by travel to New York.  I’m really glad Ian was able to go with us on that trip, but part of me wishes the two events hadn’t overlapped.  The trip to see my brother was supposed to be a nice distraction from Ian being away, so obviously with him along it became something else.  It was great, and I’m glad he is a part of those memories, but we could have gotten so much more done that I need help with at home if we’d stayed in Milwaukee.  I guess what I’m really saying is we needed more than two weeks.  Three would have been better.  A lifetime would be best.

(Mona, Quinn, Aden and Ian on our new porch before going to the airport) 

 

In any case, we had our last few days together in the old house, then we went to New York, then we came home and finally spent the night in the new house.  Ian was incredibly helpful moving the last of the big objects left in the old place.  One of the lovely things for me about having a spouse is that I don’t have to feel beholden to him the way I do with anyone else.  We’re part of the same team, the same life, so when I ask anyone else to move something it’s a favor, but if I ask my husband it’s more part of a long term deal.  It’s his stuff too, so he should be helping move it.  I appreciate him greatly–I don’t mean I take him for granted–but his help is expected in a way that doesn’t apply to anyone else.  If a friend comes to my home and does a chore like my laundry, I would have to keep a running tally in my head so I could adequately return the favor one day.  If Ian does the laundry I can just give him a kiss and not worry about it.  It all balances out as we work together to make our lives run.  It’s part of what makes life easier with a partner.  I miss that.

The trip to the airport was sad.  It’s not even a ten minute drive so the kids barely had time to settle in before their daddy was hoisting his bags out of the back of the minivan and saying goodbye.  Mona and Quinn waved to him from their seats, but Aden’s eyes were full of tears and she had to get out and hug him.  She’d somehow gotten her days mixed up and thought we had one more day with him than we did, so Aden was still in a bit of shock that her dad was actually going. 

By the time Ian disappeared inside the airport and we drove away all the kids were wailing.  I gave them a moment to be sad, and then suggested that we go home and put together a package for their dad and see which got to Iraq first.  Ian needed a utility knife at work that he wasn’t allowed to take on the plane so we have to mail it to him.  I got the kids excited about making artwork to add to the box, and now Mona keeps asking me which is winning the race: the box or daddy?  (His flight was stuck in Atlanta the last I heard, so the box may have a shot.)

(Aden and her dad at the airport) 

 

After saying goodbye to Ian we ran some errands, and then spent most of the day in the house so I could work on organizing things.  (It’s so amazing to have a choice of closets to put things in!  Now I just have to make sure I can find stuff again.)  The kids watched cartoons and played, and at some point I reminded them that they needed to do violin practice.  Mona volunteered to go first, but then took a turn for the dangerously grumpy.  I made the mistake of correcting the position of her arm (I really should know better than to try to teach my own kids) and that was basically the end of violin practice.  I’m sure a lot of it was just about her dad being gone, but after the goodbyes I’m the only one left around to take her hurt feelings out on.  So violin was a disaster and we both got upset with each other and I left her alone in the living room where I heard her muttering about how much she hated me for a good ten minutes.

I ordered pizza because I wasn’t up to cooking and then I went into the living room to see if there was any way to cheer Mona up.  I scooped her into my lap and told her stories about what she was like as a baby (she always likes that) and made her smile despite her best efforts to keep a mean look on her face.  I nuzzled her and made her giggle, and just when she was starting to really warm up I tickled her and she thrashed the wrong way and BLAM I got a swift knee to the mouth.

Oh my lord does that hurt.  I fell to the floor and clutched my mouth where I could feel my upper lip swelling, and Mona was so freaked out she couldn’t decide whether she should punish me more for making her feel bad about something new, or actually help.  I called for Aden who ran and got me a bag of frozen corn to put on my lip, and after I determined I still had all my teeth and wasn’t bleeding things calmed down and Mona burst into tears and gave me a hug.  Poor thing.  Mona was so nervous I might not love her anymore and I had to keep reassuring her through lips I could barely move that I knew it was an accident and I would always love her.  It must be scary for her to say goodbye to one parent and then worry about alienating the remaining one.  I told her she should add her knee to the mouth move to her arsenal of defense techniques that we talk about in case a bad guy ever grabs her, and that made her happy.  (If someone really had tried to nab her in Central Park that poor fool would have been bitten, kicked and eye gouged beyond recognition.  We have a strict no hurting each other rule in our house, but I’ve told my kids all bets are off against anyone who tries to lead them anywhere that seems wrong.)

Aden’s good in a crisis and made sure to get me ice and refill the ice trays.  She found me some ibuprofen and a glass of water.  She helped pay the pizza guy when he arrived because I looked a little too icky to go to the door.  The swelling has gone down a bunch and I can talk again, but I can’t smile yet.  My kids aren’t convinced I’m not mad about something, so I’ve developed a goofy half grimace to let them know it’s all fine even if I don’t look happy in a normal way.  I can’t decide if wearing lipstick to cover the dark red welt would be more noticeable on me than the welt itself.  I never wear lipstick so I’m guessing the welt is the better look.

So that was exciting.  My lip still hurts, but it’s fading.  I notice Ian’s absence more frequently than I notice my fat lip.  By next week my lip will be fine but Ian will still be gone.  It’s already hard to remember exactly how the knee to my mouth felt when that was happening, but I feel like I relive the goodbyes every day.  That hurt doesn’t fade.

As I sit here in my new bedroom with a view of my old house (and all the things in the backyard I still have to move), I can’t help but think what a double edged sword love can be.  I’m glad Ian was here for these first few days in our new home so that he could be a part of it, but now we’re all aware that a piece is missing.  It’s good we can picture him here.  It would have been very strange to establish a whole life and routine in a new place and then have to find a way to add him later, but it hurts to have a particular spot at the table be empty and know he should be there.

But we’re over the hump, I think.  Ian only has about six more months left in Iraq.  In that time my kids will finish the school year, we’ll sell the old house, I’ll figure out how to run the violin store with the kids along during summer vacation, we’ll proabably do some trips to Michigan and Ohio, the leaves will change and Aden will start third grade, Mona will start first, and Quinn (who already owns a purple backpack in anticipation) will start half days at the Montessori school with his sisters.  That’s enough to keep us distracted from looking too often at Ian’s empty chair.  I’m looking forward to Hello.