Feast or Famine (Babble)

My husband and I have always managed to arrange our lives in such a way that one of us is always home with our kids.  When Aden was born Ian was in school working on an engineering degree, and I stayed home with an occasional escape to play a wedding gig or concert.  Eventually I was able to go back to work in the mornings and Ian would stay home with the baby. 

When Mona came along we were sometimes both home, because our expenses were low enough that we could survive on Ian’s weekend Army Reserve pay and my freelance work and part time violin repair job.  We don’t have cable, we like ramen, and taking the kids to the park is more entertaining than any activity we would have had to pay for anyway.  That period of time when we just had two kids was the most equal in terms of time and responsibility for us as parents.  We do things differently, but I truly feel like a co-parent in this child raising adventure of ours.  Ian is every bit as involved as you could ask a parent to be and I appreciate it greatly.  We feel very fortunate to have the kind of time with our kids that we do.

But with Ian’s first deployment the balance of time with our children didn’t just tip the scales one way or another, it left the scales mangled in an unrecognizable heap on the floor.

I had all the children (including the newborn who arrived halfway through that deployment) all the time.  There was always at least one with me in the bed or in the bathroom or on the stairs or in my lap or in the kitchen or in the car….  There is a particular kind of parenting overload that comes with deployment that I suspect is different from other kinds of single parenting situations.  There is an underlying fear and desperation at work that accompanies the average level of stress of trying to parent alone that affects your choices.  As much as I needed a break, simple options like hiring a sitter didn’t feel viable.  It’s not just that the kids didn’t want to be apart from their one remaining parent, I didn’t want to be away from them either, even as they were driving me insane.  Fear makes you clingy.  You know how sometimes when you hear an upsetting news story it makes you want to just hug your kids?  Deployment means you are living in the news story.


The second deployment was slightly easier than the first, partially because it was shorter, and primarily because I didn’t spend any of it pregnant or nursing a baby.  But it included the new complication of my trying to run my own business with the kids in tow.  I love having my own violin store, but it takes a lot of time to repair and maintain instruments.  I’m amazed we ended the year in the black considering just how often I had to keep the store closed because it was too hard to work with all the kids along.

In any case, all sense of balancing time between parents has been distorted in our home.  I have had so much time completely alone with the children that there is no demand I can make about using time for myself when Ian is here that sounds in any way unreasonable or undeserved.  I could announce I want to flee to a cabin for a month to write a novel or just do my nails over and over and no one would object.  Except my children.  And I don’t want to flee my children.

But after each deployment the shift in time spent with the kids was huge.  I love my work, I do it better when I’m alone, and with Ian available as the full time stay at home parent I shouldn’t have any qualms about going off to do it.  But I do.  It’s hard to go from being there every minute to having long work days apart from my children.  When Ian was in Iraq the Army provided us with steady income.  Now that he’s home, I’m the one who heads out to earn us money.  There is a weird lopsided sense to this, where the balance comes in large unwieldy chunks.  Instead of two parents trading off time by the hour or the day it’s like we’re doing it by the year.  As if Ian headed out the door in his Army uniform saying, “You watch them until next autumn, and then I’ve got them after that.”

I am not complaining about having a job, and I’m aware that we have more flexibility in our schedule than many could ever hope to have, but the transition is still hard.  Especially during a period like the last couple of weeks.  After returning from Detroit there was a lot of work piled on my bench so I had to put in a lot of extra hours.  Plus I had rehearsals three evenings a week.  On Wednesday I literally saw Aden for a total of forty minutes.  I’ve been home long enough to eat with my family and hug everyone before running out the door again.  That’s just not right, but I don’t know what else to do.  After my concert on Sunday my evenings should free up again and it won’t be so bad, but right now it’s hard.

Ian does all the pick ups and drop offs, arranges play dates, cooks, does laundry, takes the kids sledding, makes them cocoa….  He’s remarkably patient, especially with Quinn who is still having trouble adapting to his dad being home.  Most of the time things are fine, but there are moments it’s clear that Quinn is attached to me as the real parent in his mind and he doesn’t understand why I’m not around as much.  There are days Ian picks him up at school that Quinn gets morose and whines, “You do EVerything!”  And Ian responds, “I know!”  Talk about feeling unappreciated. 

But you can’t make someone love you.  It’s hard to explain to people sometimes how Ian’s return home was all downsides from Quinn’s perspective.  Ian left when Quinn was two, so Quinn accepts him as he would any other well-meaning relative, but I don’t think he remembered what a ‘dad’ really was.  So this man comes to live in our house and now the food is different and mom is gone all day and he sleeps in the bed Quinn prefers and all of that is difficult to accept, especially if you are only four.  You can’t just tell a little boy, “This is your dad and you’re supposed to love him now.”  We took as much time as we could afford to have Quinn get accustomed to Ian with me around, too, but now it will just be up to them.  They are starting to forge a closer relationship out of shared experience and habit, but at the moment Quinn’s cuddly kind of love is still reserved for me. 

It’s getting better.  Mostly because Ian is patient and kind and letting his son dictate the pace.  Quinn won’t be able to resist him forever.  One day, I hope sooner than later, Quinn will come around and realize what a remarkable dad he has and love will be easy.  He just needs time, and right now that’s something Ian has to offer, even if mine is in short supply.

Daddy Sounds (Babble)

The nice parts of having my husband home on leave from Iraq are easy to imagine for most people.  We’re happy to spend time together, things are easier with two parents around, etc. and so on.  It was a treat to have him here for Friday Night Movie Night.  I can run errands easily for a change.  Good, predictable things.

Then there are odd adjustments that take me by surprise.  The main one I’ve noticed this time is having to get used to the sounds of a grown man in the house.  We’re not accustomed to that anymore, and it doesn’t help that all the sounds in the current house are exaggerated at the moment since it is getting progressively emptier as the move continues.  Daddy sounds are bigger, and decisive in a heavier way, and everything echoes in our house right now.  It’s interesting how adding Ian’s footfalls to the rhythm of our days is so noticeable.

The trickiest thing is Ian’s attempts at keeping the kids in line.  He can say the same thing I would in the same tone of voice and at the same volume, but it just sounds more threatening coming from a man.  He raised his voice at Mona the first day back because she appeared to be ignoring something I’d said, and she burst into tears.  She hid behind me for about fifteen minutes, telling me that she was too scared to go near her dad.  He felt terrible, and we agreed that during this trip he should forego any disciplining of the kids at all.  Mona’s long over it, but it took lots of assurance from her dad that he wouldn’t yell anymore before she would trust him again.  Not that what he’d done had even crossed the line into yelling, but to her it felt like it.  Men just typically sound different, and to kids in particular different can be scary.

The kids need time to get used to the general sense of having daddy around so they’ll have a baseline to work from.  Eventually they will associate the sounds of daddy with feeling protected again.  Unfortunately, just as they get comfortable now, Ian will have to go back to Iraq.  Then we will adjust to him being gone all over.   But I will file this experience away as one more thing to keep in mind when this deployment finally ends.  (After having had just a few days together again, that can’t come soon enough for me.)

Adjustment (Babble)

Okay, so let me start off by clarifying that it is amazing having Ian home for a couple of weeks.  I love him, we love him, he loves us, home is where he belongs, lots of wonderful things here.  The following post is not me being ungrateful or whiney–it’s me trying to explain to others what the reality of our situation is.  People are often content with what they imagine things are like elsewhere, and if left unchallenged those ideas take hold in people’s minds and start to look real to society at large.  That’s why I think it’s good when parents are honest about the boring and irritating parts of raising children, because it’s difficult and should be acknowleged as such.  Otherwise when we struggle alone we think we are crazy.

I’m sure anyone who hasn’t experienced it believes having a deployed spouse home again is all wonderful.  The reality is not that simple, especially for a visit.  First of all, the whole concept of ‘visiting’ your home is odd.  I cleared my stuff out of Ian’s dresser so he could use it as before, but things just aren’t set up with him in mind anymore.  Because he’s not usually here and that’s just the truth.  And we can’t go back to carving out space for him everywhere just yet because he’s leaving again soon, and that would be ridiculous.  I want him to feel ‘at home,’ but I don’t know how settled he can really feel here.  The logistics of a visit can be awkward.


Emotionally it’s also complicated.  The kids are thrilled to have daddy back, but they have their own expectations about what that means, and too much emotion of any type can be exhausting.  After a day or two of hugs and excitement and everyone trying to tell daddy important things all at once, all the kids kind of fell apart.  They all need naps at unexpected times lately which is throwing their sleep schedules out of whack.  They are quicker to cry right now.  There are times they want to want to be with daddy, but they are more comfortable with me.  Mona was torn last night when I asked if she wanted to come with me on an errand or stay home with dad.  Her first reaction was to stay with daddy, then as I was walking away she looked alarmed and said, “No, be with you!”  They’re not used to having a choice and it’s confusing.

Ian’s been concerned that even though he now has training in climbing out of overturned armored vehicles and administering an IV in the field, his skills in the parenting department have become rusty.  There are so many little things that change in a couple of months away from small children that you can’t just jump right back in.  Children like routine and the routines have shifted since Ian was involved.  The kids are used to something other than what he provides.  Aden asked why the noodles tasted different last night when Ian made dinner, and I could see it hurt her dad’s feelings, as if he had done something wrong.  I explained to Aden that daddy makes them differently, and I pointed out to Ian that his daughter wasn’t being critical, it was an honest question. 

The girls like the idea of daddy helping them with violin practice, but they are used to my approach so we make sure I’m the one to do that in the evenings to avoid frustration all around.  Ian’s not sure what the current rules are for the kids regarding the TV or cleaning up their toys or doing homework.  It’s all stuff you don’t think to explain until there is a problem–so we bump into a hundred little problems before things get straightened out.

The final stressor that looms over everything is accepting that this is temporary.  I want to enjoy being with Ian without somehow thinking about the upcoming goodbye, but I don’t know how.  It makes me want to hold him tighter and push him away at the same time.  The kids may be going through some version of that themselves, and it’s hard to know how to help.  It would be easy to get too comfortable with parenting as a team again.  It’s lovely to not have to do everything all the time.  It’s nice to let Quinn sleep in because his dad can stay home with him while I drive the girls to school.  It’s nice to have someone else cook a meal or run a bath.  It was great during Aden’s birthday party to be able to play with the shy kid on one end of the house while my husband kept the masses entertained upstairs.  Those are luxuries I don’t want to give up before the start of the new year, but I know I have to.

So there has been a lot of adjustment these past few days, but overall, the pain is minor.  It’s like an intensified version of normal life, which when we remember it is short can hurt on any day.  We only care about loss when something matters.  We love Ian, and we love our life with Ian, so being confronted with a specific number of days to be together is as hard as our love is great.  But we will make the most of the time we have.  The way we all should every day.

Cleaning Up (Babble)

The kids and I are settling into a new routine without their dad.  We’re doing okay so far, but this isn’t the hard part.  Ian is only in Louisiana for training before heading to Iraq.  From our end, this is inconvenient, but not scary.  I’m juggling everything alone, but I’m not fearful for my husband’s safety.  I know from experience that comes later, when the war sneaks up in the form of news reports or bumper stickers or heartbreaking questions from children.  That part’s coming.

But for now, the big project is cleaning up.  There is a lot to reorganize when running the house alone.  Ian and I run the house differently, and he’s been the primary person at home for awhile.  He did all the grocery shopping and most of the cooking.  When he left I didn’t know what kind of food we had in the refrigerator.  We buy different things.  For instance, I like to keep chicken stock on hand for making soup; Ian doesn’t make soup.  Ian makes a lot of things on the grill; I can’t get the fire going.  Ian uses frozen vegetables; I prefer fresh ones.  Ian bakes bread and makes his own pizza dough; I think of those as things to pick up on the way home. 

They are small differences, but they add up to a whole new way of doing things, and it ends up being a big adjustment for the kids.  As much as I’d like to keep things the same for them, it’s just not reality.  I have to do things my way.


Ian is brilliant at many things: geography, science, writing, staying calm in a crisis, setting up play dates, anything to do with a computer….  Keeping the house neat is not on the list.  He apologized to me before he left about the state of the house.  It’s nothing health inspectors would shut us down for, it’s just cluttered and I hate not being able to find anything.  I need clear surfaces to feel calm.  I like to have space to do a project well. 

In Ian’s defense, a lot of the problem is that tons of paper pile up and he doesn’t know what to do with it all.  He’s not the final judge of the fate of the mounds of artwork the kids produce, or letters from my dad, or photos from our last trip.  When I’m at work I can’t sort those things and they end up like drifting piles of trash all over the house.  The other problem is that we lack storage space.  We have essentially no closets.  There is one big one in the upstairs hallway, and a tiny one in a small guest room downstairs, but that’s it.  No front hall closet, no linen closet, no closets in the bedrooms, no attic to speak of, and the basement is gross.  I used to be a pack rat because I can think of so many possibilities for using old things, but now I’m keen on giving things away and throwing things out.  When you are forced to look at everything you own all the time, items that are not functional or beautiful are irritating.

I’ve been doing what I call a barium sweep.  I’m a Star Trek fan, and there was an episode of The Next Generation where they ‘clean’ the ship by sweeping a barium wall of light relentlessly from one end to the other.  I start at the front of the house in the living room and remove everything from it that doesn’t belong there.  When it’s done I push ahead to dining room, etc and so on until I end up in my bedroom and I go to sleep.  Normally I do a light barium sweep to get things looking presentable, but this time it’s a serious event.  I don’t want things to just look nice, I want to organize the drawers and label boxes and know where everything is.  I’m making progress and it feels good. 

I know part of it is just being able to have control over something at a time when I’m feeling vulnerable, but it’s empowering to be able to find a pencil when I want it, or know if we have fresh batteries, especially since living with small children usually means nothing is where I left it.  I have friends across the street without kids, and they always have beautiful decorative objects on display and things set up just so.  It’s like walking in a mythical land for me, because if I did that in my home the minute I turned my back everything would be rearranged into some inexplicable game.

I’m sort of excited about all the cleaning at the moment because I’m getting back in touch with the house and how we use it.  It feels good, but that feeling won’t last.  Cleaning usually makes me grumpy.  The only thing I really like to clean is my violin shop.  I love organizing my tools and sweeping up wood chips and something about that always feels productive.  I hate the sense that I’m wasting my time by picking up the same items over and over and over and it eventually gets on my nerves. 

I get particularly resentful of dishes.  We don’t have a dishwasher (well, we did–his name was Ian) and there are many evenings when I wash dishes where I think about how much I’d rather be carving a scroll or reading a book.  I have a friend who edited a marvelous book about the spiritual side of cleaning called ‘Next to Godliness,’ and I should reread to get my attitude aligned ahead of time.  The first essay in the book is about how when you wash dishes you shouldn’t wish to be somewhere else.  If you’re not living in the moment (even a dirty dish filled one) you’re not living a true experience.

As long as I stay on top of things it will help.  A lot of staying sane during deployment is about avoiding the last straw.  If I can prevent small things from exploding into large problems we will all be happier.  Stepping on a lego in bare feet on the wrong day could be the difference between me being able to enjoy an evening with my kids or me simply falling apart.   Better to pick up the LEGO early.