Reintegration

I'm staying VERY busy in anticipation of Joshua's return...it's still not so close I can feel it but I definitely see the light at the end of the tunnel. We've talked about visiting friends in Nashville, Houston and El Paso. We've talked about a trip to Great Wolfe Lodge. We've talked about family bike rides and camping trips. We've mostly talked about just turning off the phones and computers and staying home. It's going to be great.


That said, I'm realizing more now what people mean when they talk about some of the difficulties of reintegration. I'm not worried at this point...just more aware. Today, the boy came to me and said that he was excited for Daddy to come home and sleep in the boy's room with him just like the girl sleeps with me now (I co-sleep with the baby because I'm nursing and it's just what works for us). He even pointed out the fact that he has a second bed just for Daddy (bunk beds that we separated). I was able to brush him off and say that's silly-baby girl sleeps with Mommy because she's a baby and he's a big boy. I tried to remind him about before Joshua left and how at R&R he had his own bed and we had our own bed. And then I told him about all the big boy things he and Daddy will do like fishing and buying a big boy bike but I worry that the sibling rivalry we've somehow miraculously avoided until now will make an appearance.


I'm a little anxious about what it will be like to actually be a family of four together. Other than R&R, we've never parented two children and since R&R was at Disney World, it wasn't exactly a real life experience (which is what we were going for at the time). I have zero doubts that Joshua will step up and be the amazing Dad to both kids that he's always been for the boy. Seriously, he's awesome and it's totally natural. Kind of annoying really. I majored in child development and was a nanny for years...to kids ranging from two weeks to twelve years and for families with one kid, triplets or in one case, ten kids (yeah, ten...T-E-N!) and yet, it's not uncommon for Joshua to teach me a thing or two about parenting. 


Like I said, I'm not really worried at this point, just more aware. I guess it's kind of like when you're pregnant and everyone decides that's the best time to start telling you all the pregnancy and birth horror stories they know. I've just been hearing some not so pleasant reintegration stories and I think I just need to treat them like I treated all the stories when I was pregnant. Ignore them. Prepare the best we can. Hope. Pray. And deal with whatever happens.

Florida

Well. We're happily in Florida...sadly it's less sunny Florida and more tropical storm Florida but we expect clear skies again soon. The drive took a total of 18 hours...4 to get to Grandma's house-normally only takes 3 but we had a few stops in town before we could really hit the road. Once we had Grandma in tow, we drove overnight (so the kiddos would sleep more) 14 hours to Nana's house. I'm so proud of my kids! We only stopped 3 times for gas, diapers and nursing and neither of them had a meltdown the whole time.

After arriving at Nana's house, we did what we always do with Grandma (my mom), Nana (my aunt) and GG (my grandmother)...we went shopping. For hours. Surprisingly, both kids did ok-not as great as the drive out because they were fed up with their car seats but overall really good. We got back to Nana's house where we had left Bubba, our Rhodesian Ridgeback. Less than an hour after being back, Bubba fell in the pool and was struggling to get out. I ran barefoot outside hoping I wouldn't have to jump in and save him since I suck at swimming and he almost weighs as much as I do but thankfully my cousin Tommy was home and got to Bubba first. Bubba was clinging to the side of pool and Tommy just scooped down and yanked him out. Nana told us that dogs often drown in pools because they fall in and don't know how to get out but from the look of it Bubba understood the concept of get to the side which gives me some peace of mind but Bubba is worse at swimming than I am-which says a lot! He doesn't kick his back legs...he just sort of flails his front so his bottom half sinks and all that stays above is his little nose. It's pretty pathetic. So, yesterday we went shopping and I bought Bubba his very own lifevest. He loves it and although thankfully he hasn't fallen into the pool again, he's safe if he does. 

Goodnight Moon

Last night, I had to run a quick errand a little later than normal and as always the boy was with me. Before I go any further, you should know that he has a thing for the moon...long story short, he and his Daddy were on a let's-go-outside-and-look-at-the-moon-kick before Joshua left for his deployment. So with it dark out, the boy immediately started looking for the moon. After about five minutes of searching (it was too low to be seen unfortunately) the boy announced that the moon was "too far away" and it was "sad." And then he said "the moon sad, moon cry." At first, I was impressed with his ability at two and a half to understand the linkage between sad and cry because he's not an overly emotional kid so we haven't focused much on emotions. In fact, he's pretty easy going and great about listening to the rules even if it's not a particular favorite as long as he's had the reason behind the rule explained to him. But then his train of thought continued and he said "Daddy too far away too...Daddy sad." And then he just got quiet and starred out his window. It was sweet and heartbreaking and kind of beautiful too. The boy has taken this deployment better than I had expected but moments like that remind me that it hasn't gone without notice.

Man Work

Ohhh...I'm going to be sore tomorrow. BUT I'm pretty proud of myself today. I did some MAJOR Man Work ALL day. The front yard now looks perfect! And the back yard looks better...better is all that matters right now. Lol. I trimmed the hedges (btw, we have too many hedges) with our giant scissor trimmer things, weed whacked EVERYTHING, pulled some new weeds in the flower bed, prayed over my blueberry and raspberry bushes (nothing else seems to be working), took the boy's pool down so I can mow the back yard tomorrow (oh yay) and fixed both the lock on the shed and the wind chimes which fell in the last storm (I used real tools and everything). To top off my man day, the boy and I ran through the sprinklers for an hour and played catch with his favorite ball for another 30 minutes. In our family, most, if not all of these tasks would normally have fallen to Dad but I'm learning, slowly, to embrace the Man Work at least for the time being because it all still has to be done and the boy needs more than just tickle time, cuddle time and reading time (my particular areas of expertise), he needs to be chased through the sprinkler and play catch with someone who loves him.

Tangent: While we were playing catch today, I decided to grab his ball and play keep-away from him...after running back and forth a couple of times, the boy decided the only way to get the ball back was to tackle me...yup, that's my boy lol.

Anyway, I'm not-so-secretly hoping that when he returns, Joshua will not only take over the Man Work but maybe also embrace some of the Woman Work at least for a few days. I'm pretty sure he will. He's a good guy....much better at it than me.