Day 169: Alone again

My husband's time home has been and will be pretty busy. Today he drove down to his dad's house to help his sister with sorting through things, organizing the shed, emptying out the house.

My father-in-law had become a pack rat in recent years, perhaps reverting to his youth of poverty where one did not discard anything that might be of use someday. Megan has made significant inroads into discarding junk and selling items of no use to her, but apparently he has a shed full of stuff that is just too much for her to go through alone.

Chad decided to take 24-36 hours to go down to south Texas and help. I know he needs to do it, and it really is the least he can do after she worked so hard emotionally and physically to care for Dad the past year or so, but it is still hard to say good-bye even for a night. When our days are so limited and we've had so little time to just BE together, it was emotional to go to work yesterday and even harder to kiss him good-bye this morning. He did get the baby up this morning and got to see how excited and happy she is first thing in the morning. I've been trying to capture it on video for months, but now he got to see it. I could tell how happy it made him that she squealed and giggled when he came in her room to get her. How can sweet baby giggles be anything but awesome!

I am trying to look at the positives. I can watch all my girlie shows while he is gone tonight and eat healthier than we have been. I can hog the bed all night. He will be back tomorrow, hopefully by the time I get home from school. It is just hard to not have the emotions about missing ANY of his precious hours home, especially when we still don't know if they are going to extend his leave and let him take R&R back to back.

It was hard even leaving school tonight, not having him to rush home for. Wow, all it took was a few days of totally getting spoiled having him home. The baby has been asserting her authority by way of temper tantrum. During an extremely frustrating moment of trying to wash dishes and entertain a baby who was completely finished being entertained by either me or her exersaucer, it occurred to me that I am going to have five months alone again after he leaves. While that is less than I have already done, it feels like forever.

This morning, I was running behind so he dressed the baby. Of course, then the sink was full of dirty dishes piled precariously and the garage was cluttered after his thwarted attempt to clean it which impeded my progress out the door, kinda bringing me back to even, but I got to kiss him good-bye. I got to see him laugh at the sweet baby antics. All day I could text him whenever I wanted and talked to him twice.

This night alone hasn't been tragic, but it wasn't easy. I will be glad when he gets home tomorrow and am still crossing my fingers that they will allow him to tie his R&R to his emergency leave because if they don't, he is back on a plane Friday leaving me and the kids to spend Spring Break without him and frankly, I've had enough time without him. A few more weeks before I am alone again are definitely what the doctor ordered.

I can't wait for our date night. Mmm, all the possibilities of what to do and where to go. Now if I can just keep from freaking out about leaving the baby with a sitter. . .  one hurdle a day. I wouldn't want to be too ambitious now. 

Day 177: Home

This waiting to hear from my husband is so hard. He can't tell me about transportation or travel while in Iraq for security reasons, but it is so hard to wait. Especially with all the planning I have to do to be ready for this week, it is hard not knowing when I will have to take off to go get him from the airport. I am hoping to have tomorrow so I can take care of a few things. I have so much work to do in one day. I don't know how I will get it done.

The past two nights I have woken up in the middle of the night to check email. Then this morning, I get a text message at 5:06 a.m. telling me he will be landing just after lunch. ARghhhh! I immediately fly into high gear. I had thought I might have one more day to get things done. I had three class sets of essays to print out, four days of lessons to plan and all sorts of little nitpicky things to do, like teach all morning before I could take off to go get him.

I ran around slightly panicked for the morning, but managed (just barely) to get everything done. Then racing to get the baby and get to the airport, I got one more change of plans text message. Flight got delayed. I took care of one more errand and gave myself a few minutes to eat lunch. Then drove, shakily, to the airport. It started to sink in that he would be home in a few minutes. It was hard not to drive 100 miles per hour the whole way. I still got there in 11 minutes, when my GPS said it would take 22. I just took a route without stoplights. Lil Bit and I sat at the cafe area and waited to see a plane come in.

From the corner of my eye, I saw a plane on the runway. For a second I couldn't tell if it was taking off or landing. I kept checking the board to see which flight was coming in, but no flight was listed. I texted him, "R u here" and got back "our plane just landed." I was so excited to watch his plane pull up to the gate. Then we waited for daddy to deplane and come past the security gate. It was a pretty rare moment, just us waiting, not racing in from the parking lot, standing there excited looking expectantly from face to face.

Then he was there. After a quick hello and kiss, he scooped up his baby girl. She immediately grinned and tried to kiss him, which is little more than a poorly aimed headbutt. She remembered him and felt immediately happy in his arms. In fact, she pouted every time he put her down or gave her back to me for the first thirty minutes he was home.

While he didn't manage to stay awake past 8:30, he is home. The circumstances of his return aren't the best, and we are going to have some hoops to jump through in order for him to be able to stay for R&R as well as the emergency leave, but for today, he is home and even as I prepare to drag him off the couch, it is all that matters.