Deployment Day #58

Still sick, although slightly better than the day before. I forced myself out of the house in order to buy a memory card for the camera my daughter got for Christmas. (I ordered one, but somehow it got lost in the shuffle 🙁 ) and some storage boxes for those darn rainbow loom bands that have now overtaken my entire house.

I decided that even though I still didn’t feel great I would take my two younger boys to dinner and a movie. One of the things that stinks about deployment is that you are the only parent, and so everything falls on you. Since my boys tend to get in trouble frequently, some days it seems like most of my communication with them is correction.

Like today, when I walked outside to see the 20 foot ladder leaned against the side of the house and the open tool box in the front yard….

Apparently a toy had landed on the roof, and you know the rest of the story.

I wanted to have some purposeful positive interaction so we headed to get subs and then see a movie.

These two have been handling the deployment very differently. One acts like he doesn’t care at all and the other has become even more melancholy than usual.

It’s hard to get boys to open up about things (at least my boys) so I figured we could just have fun and forget about life for a few hours. It was going great until an ad ran in the movie theatre that showed families sharing notes to their husbands, fathers, brothers, sisters, etc that are deployed this Christmas season.

My heart sank as the ad played on the big screen. I could see my younger son shifting uncomfortably in his seat as the ad continued to play. He was trying very hard not to cry.

So much for being distracted.

The boys did love the movie (The Secret Life of Walter Mitty) and we had a good time together. Going to movies is always dad’s job in our family but I had such a good time I might try to steal it from him after he gets home next year. 😉

My husband has been deployed to the Middle East for 274 days.  These are my real thoughts expressing my heart during his absence.  I appreciate your prayers and kind words as we cope, adapt, and carry on without him until August 2014.  To read from the beginning, click here.