Day 51: Independence Day

Today was bittersweet for me, and I'm sure many military spouses. Today we celebrate the freedom to practice democracy and our religion. Today we celebrate declaring our independence and winning the battle to become free.

Families and friends all over the country gathered today. Barbecue grills cast off tantalizing aromas of cheeseburgers and hot dogs. Small town parades started the morning. We watched the parade from my mother-in-law's front yard. Lil Bit was interested in the fire trucks and the bands. She waved to a few other floats, but got very hot quickly. I think her favorite part of the parade was the candy, rice crispie treats and pop-ice that were thrown by the parade participants. She ate a rice crispie treat and a pop-ice in the shade while Grandpa held her. She imitated the fire engine sirens and clapped along with the cheerleaders.

We spent the rest of the morning and afternoon barbecuing and eating. We had all sorts of goodies and lots of good times with great friends. Then we decided it just wouldn't be the Fourth of July without fire works, so we drove to a friend's house who came to our place for the parade and post festivities and watched the fireworks from her front yard. It was perfect. Lil Bit was pointing and signing "again, again" and "flower" which is a new sign that she just learned. But Grandma always says, "pretty flower" so when I tried to teach her a sign for pretty - she went to flower. For 14 months, she was amazing. She stayed awake the entire time, sat in my lap or arms and watched the amateur and professional fireworks for at least an hour.

But while we celebrated today, it wasn't far from my mind that the real reason we celebrate today is because of brave men and women who fought and still fight for our freedom. They decided to stand up against an unfair government, risk being hanged for treason or die in combat. Today, our military heroes stand up against tyranny and fear and say, no, this isn't how people should live, any people, any where.

Lil Bit's Daddy missed watching her real "first" 4th, since last year she was too little to understand or even really observe much of what was going on. She had a great day. And I held her in my arms, training her properly in the "ooohing" and "aaahhing" of fireworks' viewing, I got a little teary eyed. He missed it all. I talked with the kids about how their dad is defending our freedom today while we celebrate the gift that he and men like him have given us. They were quiet until Trenton wanted to know if Daddy got to watch fireworks in Iraq. When I said no, I didn't think so, that was when he looked really sad.

I hope you had a nice Independence Day. I hope your cookout was great with just the right dash of relish in the potato salad or paprika on the deviled eggs. But I really hope you took a moment today mentally to thank the veterans past and present and service members and their families for the sacrifices they make so we can watch mostly cheesy parades and have cookouts with run amok children splashing each other with water balloons and lemonade and brownies. Our freedom is always precious, but we sometimes take for granted what it took to gain it and what it takes to protect it and spread our values to oppressed people.

Happy Independence Day to you and yours, may your family be safely asleep under your roof tonight as I and many military wives around the nation pray desperately that no insurgents chose today to make a political statement with a rocket or bullet aimed at our husband. I have about a month left (it looks like they'll be shortening their tour a little bit) and my prayers are for his safe return daily. Remember me and my fellow wives in your prayers for peace tonight. 

Day 315: Friendship Ratio

Recently,  I heard a study that says the average woman only has enough room in his/her life for 5-6 intimate relationships and every time she adds someone, she has to let someone go. I have done my best to keep a lot of friends in my life. I try to make time to call friends from whom I have moved away or the army has moved away from me. I even try to remember my friends who are not on Facebook and send them pictures and updates. But I don't have as much time for things as I used to, and about half as much energy.

I feel like I am being a bad friend to a lot of people. I don't mean to be!!! I do think about you . . . trust me if you're reading this (and I know you personally), I do think about you at some point.  I think the ratio is more than one to one, get one give one, when a baby is the get one. I feel like I had to give up too many friends. I don't want our friendship to suffer or end, but I spend a lot of time just holding my $h!t together, people. I have a baby who for someone so little takes an AMAZING amount of time, a dog who wholeheartedly believes she deserves the same amount of attention, a yard, garden, a pool, a job and apparently can't give up the need for sleep or food. I miss being able to go see a friend's play or have an evening out during the week. In fact, if I do go out at all it has to be directly after school for an hour or so or I have to rearrange and juggle everything else in my life to make sure I have the time, energy, etc. to include the outing and make up for whatever I didn't get done while I was out having fun.

I don't know how I seem to people. I know I spend a lot of this blog complaining or whining about being tired, but this is my vent. I try to be uber organized, super controlled girl in real life and don't know if people ever really know how close I come to losing it sometimes. Other nights I have talked about letting some of the juggling balls drop. I can't drop work or the house or the baby, the dog, eh, she has her moments; I can only run for so long without a good night's sleep, so the only place I have room to let go is sometimes my friends.

So here is my big letting go of control - You're invited!! As long as you call first to make sure I am wearing pants or have five minutes to put some on, and don't care about my hair or how clean my house is, come over. Bring wine or beer or don't and come by and sit or drink what I have open. We can order pizza or eat Lean Cuisines. Hold the baby so I can dash around for a second. Come watch my DVRed Glee episodes. I may not have some of the freedoms I used to, but you are on my heart more than you know. And I miss you too!