Day 74 - snippets of my day!

Here's a few snippets from my day! Bear with me as I am going to recount them in a jumbled, messy order!

EL and I are hardly EVER separated! She does not go to school and is attached to my hip all day and night. (Yes, I am still letting her "keep Daddy's pillow warm".) When I was feeling sad she asked me, "Mommy are you sad" and I said "Yes I am sad about Daddy. Are you sad about Daddy too?" She responded with "No I'm not sad about Daddy. I know he will come back to me." There is a reason she is the joy in my day!

Today a friend took EL shopping with her while I had an errand to run. Poor friend left the store with a few things she had not intended to buy! Every time I take EL to the store by herself I always leave having gone over budget!

E has several friends now whose Dads are home for R&R. She has been very sad about it. I keep telling her not that much longer and she will see her Daddy too! She asked me when and I told her the Army will tell us when. She demanded I call them (the Army) right that minute and find out when! If ONLY you could call the Army and get answers! We'd all like that!

Someone in B's life must say, "Praise the Lord" because as we were driving he says, "Praise the Lord this light is green. Mommy doesn't have to run it now!". So maybe I ran a few red lights right after M2 left!!! Why do they have to learn red means stop so darn early!

Tonight I got a HUGE splinter in my foot. The kids always scream and fight me when they get splinters and I need to remove them. I found this to be a great time to call them all in and let them watch me remove my own splinter so they could see it doesn't really hurt! They were all excited to watch. Did I say it was HUGE?! Yeah - well I screamed like a baby!

And finally - in 2 more days I will be on my way to a sunny, HOT, beach to RELAX!!!!

Day 73 - Falling apart is GOOD!

I have been so incredibly stressed lately. It's not like I have any reason to be, right?! Everything came to the front this afternoon and I completely fell apart. I cried. I screamed in my pillow. I threw something (not glamorous I know!). Then I fell asleep for about 30 minutes. When I woke up I felt recharged. I think the falling apart is exactly what I needed.

When M2 is home I do not hold ANYTHING in! If I am angry, sad, happy, I let it all out to him. I am pretty sure he is the only person I can do that with. It's great when he's here because he and I don't have things that stew between us for weeks. When he is not here it's not so good since all my feelings, happy, sad, whatever they are - are held inside. So, a good falling apart is sometimes needed to get all that out and start over.

I feel exhausted emotionally now but I feel SO much better! I don't even feel bad for throwing something ;)! Next deployment I am clearing out a room and buying some cheap china and when I need a release I will just go in and break some - then I will therapeutically piece broken pieces together to form some piece of art. I have always wanted to do that! It's destructive YET constructive!

I hope all my other deployment spouses have ways to sometimes just reset themselves. It's so easy to get stuck in that whirlwind of funk!

Day 72 - Anxiety

I am dealing with quite a bit of anxiety today. At least I think that is what this is. It's a deep, pit of my stomach, take my breathe away, jittery feeling. I am not really sure what it stems from either. Usually I can pinpoint the cause and deal with it.

Not today.

It could be a range of things that are going on right now. Planning a spring break trip without M2, the fact that my dog ate 2 cooked chicken leg bones and might die, my 3 children who have rebelled beyond belief this past week, M2's situation still being rocky, all the things that I need to get done in order to move in less than 2 months, house work that never seems to end... my list could seriously go on and on.

I am ready for some peace!

On a more positive note. I really have learned the last few days how incredibly blessed I am to be married to the BEST man in the entire world. Hands down - no competition! I love him and OH MY GOSH I miss him! (I can hear my children saying, "ooo Mommy just said a bad word, gosh"!)

Another positive note, a few more days and I will be sitting on a porch listening to the sound of the waves on the beach!

Day 68-71 - Backlogged

This past week has been one of the hardest weeks with the kids! I think they have gone into full mutiny mode! I need someone who has lived this military life for awhile and now has grown children to tell me that they will turn out fine! Right now I have my doubts as to how I will pull them back in from complete rebellion.

A friend suggested it might have been the weather and I sure hope she was right because I can not take many more days of children screaming "no" in my face. Even M2 was a little shocked to hear his eldest talking to me the way she was today. He skyped and was able to tell them they needed to obey and go clean their rooms since when I told them they screamed "noooo"!! After he told E that she would go right then and clean her room she teared up as she was leaving the computer. I reached out to grab her hand and asked her why she was upset and the response was a jerking the hand away and "just let me go clean my room" in a tone I vividly remember from my own teens. She's 7.

They went to their rooms for a good hour and returned with smiles and let me know the rooms were clean. For a split second I reverted to an amateur mother and let them have a snack before checking the rooms. Of course they hadn't cleaned them!! A couple of rounds of discipline later and at least now I can walk through the rooms. Although I come to find out that first hour was spent eating a bag of cough drops they had stolen off the kitchen counter! I have threatened before, "You will go to bed right now with no supper if ..." but have never had to follow through. Let's just say that right now I have 2 sleeping children with possible rumbling tummies! I don't feel too bad though since their lie about the rooms being cleaned resulted in a pretty decent snack not so long ago.

All of this was to say - I am EXHAUSTED as a mother and a father and I really do not want the duel role much longer. 70 days was long enough for me! Can I please have my husband back now?!

The good thing is that on day 69 I was able to drop them off at daycare for 4 hours and go to a great MWR (Morale, Welfare and Recreation) event. Dueling pianos! That night was exactly something I needed to be able to refuel a bit and keep moving on! At the end of this week we start our Spring Break! I am going to the most relaxing place I have ever been to - my grandparents porch looking toward the beach!

Week please go by without incident for me :)!!

M2 - I have never missed you as much as I do today!! I love you ......

Day 67 - Frustrated!

I am completely frustrated tonight with E's school! It can be very frustrating having a child with a disability that does not show on the outside. I am not trying to be insensitive to those who do show on the outside and I am oh so grateful that things are not more difficult for us but having a child with Aspergers, such a high functioning one at that, can be overwhelming because other people are quick to write her off as just highly intelligent and undisciplined! E has so much to deal with concerning the deployment. Everything in her life that frustrates her right now I can not control. So when there is something so easy to control, like her nutrition, I feel like that one thing is VITAL. If that is all I can do to make her life more bearable then it is my top priority. A few years ago E could not be in a regular classroom. We tried and 2 years in a row we got called in for several parent/teacher conferences and had to deal with teachers who had no idea what to do with our child. Also we had to deal with parents who avoided us because they did not want E had their kids parties or playdates. This past year we have made great strides by just simply changing her diet. No dyes, no artificial sweeteners, no preservatives. We decided against trying the gluten free/Casein free route because we believe the things God intended us to eat should be eaten and are not the problem. Wheat and milk both appear in the Bible so I think God intended those for our bodies. (I do believe that for some children these things are not good but it was just not the route our family chose to take.) I don't recall the Israelites chowing down on HFCS or Red 40 though. Since we tweaked her diet we have seen amazing results. We tested them. We would yield and let her eat something at a party only to have all of us paying for it later when she went into complete meltdown.

This year she was able to make it in a regular classroom. Only small difficulties. Until recently that is!! She keeps eating other kids foods at lunch. Therefore, her behavior is WAY out of whack! I have talked to the school before, I have emailed the school, when M2 was still here we both went in and sat with the Principal. The thing that bothers me the most is if she had a peanut allergy they would definitely KEEP THE PEANUTS AWAY FROM HER!!!! Yet, this is destructive as well and it continues to happen. She comes home hopped up on all the crap she is not suppose to have and then has a complete raging meltdown. It is SO easily prevented! If the solution can't come from the school I will have to go take her out at lunch and bring her home to feed her every day. Hardly seems right! If M2 were here he would go up there in a heartbeat and talk with them. I so wish he could!

Ok, I vented - it's all out. I feel better now!

On a different note - Day 67 I starred in a commercial for a local car dealership as a saloon girl. Laugh it up people!!

Here's that lovely, beautiful, sweet, COMPLETELY OUT OF CONTROL RIGHT NOW child!

Day 65/66 - MAIL!!!

Finally we received mail from M2! It was dated way back in January. As you can tell it takes awhile to get here! Which makes my Valentine's Day card I got on Valentine's day even more special ;)!

The poor mailman comes by every day and sees me sitting on the porch waiting on him and before he even gets to my house he always starts shaking his head at me to let me know he doesn't have anything yet. He probably thinks I am in need of help since I have been obsessively waiting for mail from M2 but what he has yet to realize is really I am waiting out there for the B's bus!! But I like to harass him about where M2's mail might be. So when he delivered them today I know his heart was smiling!

This was my first spontaneous, didn't even see it coming, cry that I have had in front of the kiddos. I opened B's letter for him and M2 (who is quite the artist) had drawn him a picture. When I unfolded it I burst into tears. B and EL just stared at me. At that moment I just felt overwhelmed with how much I miss him.

Here's a glance at the picture he drew B. We are going to frame it and put it in his room. B thought it was the best picture ever and his face shone for hours as he grasped onto it!

Day 63/64 - 3 wishes?!

If I had my own personal Genie and he would grant me 3 wishes these would be my 3!

1. A PERMANENTLY clean home!

2. Children that listened to EVERYTHING I said and obeyed!

3. My husband to be here RIGHT NOW!

I thought about asking for M2 to be home as wish number one but I would be so embarrassed for him to see the condition of this house! I also thought it wise to wish well-behaved children before I get him here so that he would want to stay and not instantly beg to go back to war. Because frankly - I would about right now!

Day 61/62 - Soy Rage!!

This will be short since I am exhausted beyond belief :)!

Just wanted to drop a little update to say I am feeling better and I have gotten down to the root of the problem I have had with my emotions this past week.

Soy.

I am HIGHLY sensitive to soy. It snuck in via my protein powder. Soy makes me irrational and tired and teary! We call it "soy rage" much like "roid rage"! At least now I know where all those tears came from and am super excited about getting this stuff out of my system and moving on!

Here's to a great next week which is already looking to be full of LOTS of exciting things!

Stay tuned ...

Day 59/60 - Two months down.

Day 60 - Yay!

Whatever. Today was just plain awful.

I spent MOST of the day sobbing in various places in my house. The day started well. I went to the gym, worked out hard, came home and got some things done, skyped with M2 ... then it just hit me.

I don't want to do this anymore.

I REALLY do not want to do this anymore.

I spent the rest of the day sobbing. I watched the first 2 episodes of the first season of Army Wives and cried. I went outside for some sun and started talking to my neighbor whose husband is also deployed and I cried. I made supper and cried. I cleaned the kitchen and listened to sappy music and cried. I clean my bathroom only to realize the seal around the bottom of the toilet is leaking and then I really cried. So, I sat in my laundry basket full of clean, unfolded clothes, called my sister and cried some more.

Because I did not choose this!!! This was not MY idea. I married a man who first swore we would NEVER go to war, 9-11 happened 3 months later. The same man said he was only doing the army gig long enough to have some GI Bill money and then he was going to finish school and we would move on with life.

Obviously 10 years later ... we are still in an army that is still in a war. I am proud of M2 and I proud of his decisions and I support them - most days. I am just being honest in saying that today is not one of those days. Today is one of those days where I scream, "WHY DID HE DO THIS TO ME??".

It's ok though. I am allowed to feel this way today. You are allowed to feel this way on some days. Then we get over it. The crying stops, we pick ourselves up and we move on.

That is what I plan on doing tomorrow - but right now I am going to go watch some more old episodes of Army Wives (actually never watched it before a day ago) and grab the tissue and cry some more.

Here's to 2 months down and hopefully not much more to go.

Day 58 - A Story for Lucie

E's aunt recently sent her a spiral notebook to write in. She was thrilled! Along with it came a request to write a story about a spinning princess. She was horrified! Never before has she been asked specifically to write something. She agonized for days. I explained to her that she could just relax and it would come to her. A few nights ago, WAY past the time she was suppose to be asleep she came tromping into the living room with her story. I couldn't get mad at her for not sleeping :)!

I asked if I could share it here and she was excited to say yes!

A Princess Named Lily

(Chapter 1)

Once there was a little girl named Lily. Lily was a princess. Her dad had to fight his brother the mean king. The nice king and the princess's favorite thing to do was to spin and fall down.

One day, Lily really missed her dad and had an idea. She started to spin. She spun three times and did not notice that she had spun into the room that her mom and dad said not to go in. She felt cold, cool air. She was in the woods. She saw a lot of sliced branches. The she saw a troll. She said hi. Then the troll said "Hi my name is Bob . If you are wondering who made this mess it was a monster. It went that way". The troll pointed to a place where a lot of branches were cut. "Thanks" she said. She walked that way and saw a fighter heading her way. It was an injured man. She could not see his face because he was wearing a mask. Then he said to her, "Can you send a note to my daughter and tell her I am alright?" The princess was surprised. "My dad's in the army too, did you see him?" "But I was the only one that went to war" the man said. "What?" said the princess. "What's your daughter's name?" The man said, "Lily". Then she blurted out, "DADDY"!!

And that's the end of chapter one. She said she is adding another chapter but it will have to wait. She also wants me to write that she really hopes Lucie likes it ;)! She is dedicating that spiral notebook just to Lily's adventures.

She has a very hard time with make believe writing. She has a hard time with making up her own make believe period. As a small kid she could make believe for HOURS (just ask her Uncle Roo) but it would have to follow something from a movie she had just seen. Usually a Disney Princess film starring Roo as the prince. She didn't really ever just sit and play with baby dolls or anything like that. It wasn't until we set down with the second psychologist to diagnose her with Aspergers and talked that we realized she hadn't really ever just pretend played without a script of some kind being involved. She can write about her feelings in various ways for days! But i think the lack of imagination is what she was struggling with when writing this. I see a combination of 2 books she has read recently and at least one movie in the story, YET I also see her feelings bleeding out! One day, when this deployment stuff is over, I would like to write a blog about the joys and struggle of raising E! Lucky for me, there are WAY more joys!

On another note, we are fast approaching the 60 day mark! Somedays I can't believe it - others I feel all the days bearing down on me. I am tired and ready for a MUCH needed vacation! I just so happened to have one planned too! I am very excited to slow down the pace of life for a week! Now the mission is to make it to that week!

Thanks again to ALL of you for your AWESOME support!

Day 57 - *viewer discretion advised*

Spring is in the air! The sun is out and the birds are singing and the breeze is warm and LOVE is everywhere!

I went to the zoo today with a friend whose husband is also deployed and everywhere we were animals were "celebrating" spring with acts of love. How annoying! Do they not know that the United States Army is forcing me to be CELIBATE for the next who knows how long?!?! Do the zoo animals need to rub that in?!

I almost had to give a impromptu class on sex education to my 3 and 5 year olds before leaving :)! Let's just say that we can claim to have seen the making of the new baby meercat and the new baby giraffe when the announcement comes that they have been born!

It was a fun day though! After our excellent zoo trip we went for some lunch and then LOTS of shopping!

And at least at the zoo my friend, Robyn, was able to receive a little love of her own ...

Day 55/56 - What a beautiful DAY!

Do you see the pattern?! It is not intentional - this every 2 day blog thing :)!

So, yesterday was a somber yet beautiful day. It has been gross and rainy and cold here for the past week. Then yesterday the sun came out and it was BEAUTIFUL! Mind you still cold which I found out by NOT taking a jacket outside with me, being fooled by Mr. Sun is never fun!

We had the memorial service for SGT Gould yesterday. It was also a beautiful service. I was so happy for the family that God made the day so beautiful for them. I came away from the service with a change of heart. I hear soldiers talk ALL the time. They can be the MOST vulgar speakers - hands down! Once our FRG meeting had soldiers stationed to watch the children in another room while we attended a briefing. I was terrified my child would come away from the experience with an enhanced potty mouth. I say enhanced because by no means am I delusional to the fact that they hear some things already. Public school = Potty mouth. Enough said. Back to my point! Two soldiers spoke about their good friend who they just lost and I am telling you they were some of the most eloquent speakers I have ever heard. Their words touched me. Then more soldiers who were not able to come and attend due to being at war of course, wrote things to be read. Still - hands down some of the most eloquent words I have ever heard spoken. It was beautiful. Our military community came out in full force, showing that we truly are a family. Until you have been here you will never know the feeling of family that military life can bring. I am not sure there is another place, profession, where you feel this way. You share in tragedy that civilians will never have to know. You bear the pain of things civilians can not even comprehend and you do it so that they may never have to. Unfortunately, I am starting to feel a divide I do not like feeling between us and the rest of the world. Sometimes I fear that our civilian world is blind to the fact that we have been at war for 10 years. That we have lost countless troops to battle. That we have families fighting to keep it together. I walk through crowded stores all the time wondering if these people know what is really going on!?!?! (oops ... I went into a rant, my apologies!) The first soldier that spoke quoted something from Aristotle that I had not heard before. I think it is one of the greatest quotes I have heard! "The beauty of the soul shines out when a man bears with composure one heavy mischance after another, not because he does not feel them, but because he is a man of high and heroic temper". I know a lot of men right now whose soul is shining out! I know a lot of women left behind whose soul is shining out as well!

So yesterday was somber and beautiful! Today was beautiful and relaxing! So beautiful in fact that I almost attempted wearing shorts! I attended an Operations Fellowship for Families at a local church. The kids got some neat play time and a group of us moms went to a quiet little town and walked around looking in antique shops. The slow, peaceful pace of the town helped me relax. Unfortunately, it also gave me a HUGE sinus headache. Antique stores always do that to me! Overall though it was a pleasant, relaxing saturday!

Oh the joys of "springing forward"!! Just remembered that it is an entire hour later than I thought! Tomorrow has promised another day of fun so I best get to bed!

Day 53/54 - Lets not get too excited!

Here I am. Not being my normal pessimistic self - I am feeling SUPER optimistic!

I am going to keep my hopes high that I will wrap my arms around M2 on his birthday this year. I am going to pray for that and focus on that! If my hopes are let down I will just deal with that when it comes!

I watched that new Lifetime show "Coming Home". I think I'd cry watching it even if these were not my same circumstances. Being that M2 is gone - I cried EXTRA long and hard. The looks on those faces when they saw their loved ones shows a glimpse into true love! Oh - the great JOY of seeing someone you have longed for for so long! I think every wife around here that watched it thought the same as me, "I can't wait for it to be my turn".

S0 - even though the rain is falling here and the day looks ugly and I feel TIRED beyond belief! I WILL REJOICE that the day shall come when I will see that man's face again! Hopefully SOON!

Day 51/52 - Anticipation

To start off I just spent about 10 minutes trying to figure out if today was Tuesday or Monday. At least that lets you know how far gone my mind is :)!

My little girl lost 2 teeth this past week!! The first one really wasn't all that loose. It was one of her front uppers, I am sure that my more dental savvy friends have an actual name for it! She was playing with a friend in the dark and he didn't see her an accidently punched her in the mouth! They recovered the tooth and showed up downstairs to his mom with a bloody mouth and a tooth exclaiming, "He punched my tooth out!". She was actually glad at first that it happened! She has 2 VERY loose teeth on the bottom that have "shark teeth" behind them. They really need to come out but until the punching in the face incident she was afraid to let me try. The next night we tied a string around loose tooth #1 and gave a tug and it came right out - no pain! Then we tied the string around loose tooth #2 and right before I pulled she freaked out! She started screaming to get the string off and that this one was going to hurt and the worse thing she screamed was, "I don't trust you". Broke my heart! I had a knot tied in the string and was so afraid after that comment I would not be able to get it off! I reminded her that both other teeth had not hurt but she was sure that this one was not even loose and continued to scream! I had her pray out loud that God would guide my hand as I carefully untied the string. We were able to get the string off and then she jumped up to look in the mirror. Instantly I saw her face fall further. I was not sure what was wrong and she was not ready to talk so I put her to bed. A good hour later she came to me in the kitchen saying she needed to talk. She wrote on a paper that she had hurt her feelings and was afraid she had hurt mine. She then explained that when she looked in the mirror she saw how loose it was and was disappointed in the way she acted. She said she realized the second she saw it that it would not have been painful to remove it and now she was going to have to keep it there until I was ready to try again. I told her she was right but that it was ok - and then I explained what anticipation was.

We all deal with it. She had anticipated the worse causing her body to rush with emotions she could not contain. Sometimes we anticipate good things and good emotions take over. Anticipation is not bad. Yet, when we anticipate irrationally - it turns bad. She had evidence from the last few teeth that nothing bad would happen when it came out. Yet for some reason she could not think rationally.

After this past week I have had some negative anticipations. I have just been anticipating the next "incident" within our unit. How awful is that?! I have all of these harmful emotions running around inside that do not need to be there. I have consistently anticipated the worse will happen regarding M2 coming home early. I have no rational cause to anticipate that!! I have LOTS of evidence that says things will work out fine!

Lots of times we don't do what God asks of us because we anticipate the pain that will be involved. Later we look back and see that it would have been better to have done it and now the blessing is gone. I learned a lot from this little tooth pulling incident!

After Emma and I talked and I told her that I have done the same thing and freaked out over nothing and that is was ok she seemed relieved. Although I was a little bothered that she said that she was afraid she had acted like a "you know what". No, I don't know what!! I was afraid to ask and even MORE afraid when she said she would have to write it because it was a very bad word. Then she scribbled in the smallest writing she could manage, the word jerk. She said she gets called that a lot at school. BROKE MY HEART ALL OVER! I told her she was the least jerkiest kid I know and wanted to say, "And you can tell all those jerks calling you a jerk that". But I refrained!

The next morning she dealt with more negative anticipation over what the kids would say at school about her now snaggled tooth smile. Since she skipped a head a little most kids in her class already have grown up teeth back in. I was able to remind her about our talk and then she was fine. She came home and told me kids laughed at her but that was ok because she needed adult teeth and this is the only way to get them!!

I can see her growing up. A few months ago she would have thrown a fit like that and never thought twice about it. Here she is - thinking her actions through without even being asked!

Thank you God for giving me this child!

Day 50 - Wow!!

50 days down.

Last week I would have posted that it has seemed like he just left. After the stress and circumstances of this last week have settled in I would have to say it seems right now like he has been gone forever. My world changed forever this past week - realizing what our men do and go through and the pain and sacrifice of our families. Of course I have thought of all of this before but this past week it was made real for me. The fact that this shift within myself happened and he was not here to experience that with me almost feels unnerving. I am sure he has changed in his own ways which I am not privy to just from sheer distance.

I am ever so ready to see his face again. Yet, I feel guilty when I let myself think that that might be a possibility before too long because it will not be that way for all of these dear girls I have grown to love. Knowing that if M2 gets to come back early I will feel relief like never before yet at the SAME time I will feel a tremendous sadness for my friends who will endure longer separations.

This past week has ended and a new one has started. I am anticipating great things for the week ahead!

Day 47/48/49 - Sorry guys!!

The past 2 weeks I feel like I have failed the blogging world!! In my defense, they seriously have been the busiest, CRAZIEST, weeks of my life! Lots happened and I am glad that now it is time to move on! I really want the next few weeks to be as boring as they can possibly be!

Since the last blog I have been super busy just doing. Nothing really that I can blog about. Spending INSANE amounts of time on the phone making FRG calls, making meals for members, grocery shopping, retail therapy :), trying on clothes for an upcoming fashion show (yep - no mockers please - you KNOW who you are!), spending time with great friends, meetings, LOTS of gym workouts, oh the list could go on. Nothing big. Nothing that just stands right out. And while all these things have kept me so busy that I am almost in shock that day 50 will be tomorrow and I am grateful for that, I am still really ready for some peace and quiet. Maybe just one week of nothing would be nice!

As I blog this I am looking at next week's calendar and realizing the next 2 weeks are almost AS full as this one! Oh well ... But I will have one goal I hope to meet for at least 5 consecutive days! I want to NOT be on the phone so much that my battery dies at 3pm! Just for 5 consecutive days! I think if I can make this possible then I will feel a sense of relaxation!

I will earnestly try to get back on track starting tomorrow! I do feel like there is something so special about getting my day out on this blog that helps me start anew the next! I have missed it!

Day 46 - Through a child's eyes

I have one of the neatest 7 year olds around. She is also very gifted with the written word. I know she is having a hard time processing this deployment and a lot of the times she can not express her feelings to me. She is the type of child that will say "nothing" every time you ask what's wrong. Quite like her Daddy. I do NOT like the word nothing! But she is able to write her feelings down. I love that. She also gives me permission to read some of her writings. If I spent 24 hours of every day reading I still would not be able to cover all of her material. We actually had to start telling her no to more notebooks and journals because her room has been taken over! Every gift occasion when we ask what she wants it is always something to write with and on. Spiral notebook is always at the top of every list. It makes for an easy shop! She has been this way as far back as M2 and I can remember.

I asked her permission to share a few of the things she has written so that she could help people see deployment through her eyes. She agreed.

Here is a poem she wrote at the beginning of the deployment.

"My Daddy has had to go far away,

He'll come home some other day.

One day someone will say,

Your DAD has come home today"

(Pretty sure she heard a similar first line on a Shirley Temple movie but I can't be sure.)

Here is a little excerpt from an answer to the question, "When my Daddy is away I worry about ..."

"Are you mad at me? Are you sad at me? But what I say every day is: is he going to die? Am I ever going to see him again? Is he dead already? I hope I get to see you again and I hope you don't die. But I KNOW God is not going to let you die."

And lastly, she was sitting, sneaking rather, in her hallway without me knowing. She unfortunately overheard some phone calls I had to make a few days ago and knew that a soldier had passed on. I had no idea until the next morning when she brought me this to read.

"When a Soldier dies, it's like kids. It's like a bully is hurting a lot of other kids and you kick him in the back and everybody cheers. Then the bully turns around and really hurts you. And you don't go to school for 10 weeks. Those kids will remember you and honor you. They will fight back for you and soon the bully will stop and leave everyone alone. It's the same thing as a soldier fighting for his family, people and nation."

I read that last one there to M2. At first I had a hard time understanding it. M2 understood her right away. They are so much a like. I have often said if what makes E so quirky is this thing called Aspergers than M2 just missed being diagnosed because she is a carbon copy of him.

Just like blogging has helped me let go of stress, I believe being able to express herself on paper has allowed her to cope well. I am so grateful for that!

Day 45 - When times are hard

I am not going to link this post to FB. I feel like if you read this enough then you will read it. I want to limit comments on my FB wall for this one post.

This has been a very hard week and it is only Tuesday. M2's unit saw it's first set of casualties over the weekend, including a fatality.

War is a very ugly thing.

I recently read this quote and I feel like sharing it for this occasion.

"It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat."

I really like this quote. I wish I could tell you who said it but let me just be honest here and tell you I FB stalk! And I read this on someone else's FB page. I am a little disappointed that he did not have the author listed. Shame on him.

It has been a long couple of days. If you read this, please be in prayer for M2's unit, the Soldiers, and the families.