Day 11

To be honest, I felt quite lazy today.  I had a horrid sleep last night.  I didn’t get to sleep until almost 2am.  Shortly after falling asleep I was dreaming about someone breaking into my house and I swore I heard knocking… no really, I heard someone knocking on my window… and I shot up out of bed and went out into the hall way to get away from my window… I thought I was going to throw up.  I’ve never felt my heart pound so hard.  Then I realized it was just the cat in the next room using the litter box.  What a horrible way to wake up.  I’ve never felt the urge to vomit when scared before.  That was a new one.  I already wasn’t feeling good, and I was severely lacking sleep so perhaps that’s why I had that reaction. 

I went back to sleep and my son woke me up at 6am.  “Mom, I peed.”  He’d been doing so good up until two nights ago.  He wet himself, but not the bed… then he wet the bed this morning… then he had an accident at school today (he said he was even standing in the bathroom and just couldn’t get his pants down fast enough).  I asked him why he waited so long.  He said that they told everyone to wait until they had to go really bad.  I explained that “really bad” was sooner for most people than it was for him.  So I told him to go when he thinks he won’t be able to hold it very long.  He said that was okay, he would do that.  He has missed his dad a lot the last few days, I thought the Skype chat last night would make it better, but I think it made it worse… he seems to have more accidents the more emotionally strained he is.

He had a hard morning… he was cranky and completely out of sorts.  I know I was cranky because I didn’t get enough sleep.  When I picked him up from school he was okay, but then cried shortly after getting in the car.  We made a video tour of the new place to send to my hubby… my son was so excited to be the tour guide/reporter and that we could send the video to his dad.  But he just wanted to show his dad his own room, my room, and the kitchen.  The rest of the house wasn’t important.  He had another melt down at the house so I decided it was time to go get some food… he said he was hungry, so we went to buy some food from Wal-Mart to take home to make dinner.  On the way there he had another melt down and talked about how he missed his daddy; I keep telling him that his daddy gave me all his love so that when he needed it I could give him love from his daddy and from me.   So as soon as we got out of the car he got a huge hug and some kisses.  He then said “I am so starving, can we go to McDonald’s drive thru?”  I figured we’d just make a quick trip inside and go home to eat, but as soon as he saw the little Subway shop he asked “oh! mom, can I eat here? They’ll let me get whatever I want!”  (apparently he’s seen commercials even though we haven’t had cable for a very long time) I decided to let him, because I know how hungry I can get all of a sudden and he’s been that way a lot this last week.  He got a 6” ham & cheese with pickles and olives on flatbread.  After we sat down that sandwich was gone in 2 minutes.  He was definitely hungry and it made me feel good for my decision to let him eat right then and there.  Based on his emotions it made sense that he was hungry… and tired.



When we got home he was able to talk to his dad on the phone, but he wasn’t able to talk long because my hubby started crying.  Whenever his dad cries on the phone he automatically hands the phone to me.  He had such a distressed look on his face.    My hubby said he’s finally feeling the effects of the separation… it’s finally hit him, and now we’ll be out of contact again for a while (not sure how long).  My husband is not enjoying this part of his deployment.  He and one other have been completely separated from their group and they do not fit in at all with the people they’ve been assigned to.  Apparently the C.O. he’s been put under has decided that since they don’t fit in he’s going to pick on them and get them in trouble.  I won’t go into details, but I am glad that this guy won’t be his C.O. for the next stage of the deployment and that my hubby and his friend will be back with their normal crew. 

So we all had a difficult day dealing with the separation… with little sleep this was very stressful.  I asked him if he heard his dad cry on the phone.  “Yes.” “I think I need to cry too.”  “I didn’t know grown ups cry.”  He had that same perplexed look on his face from the phone call.  “We sure do, just the same as you did earlier.”  He gave  me a hug to make me feel better, just like I had given him one before.  That seemed to make it all better.  We read a story and I was tucking him in, “Daddy’s crying was because he loves you very much.  He wants you to know that he’s coming back and that’s it’s hard to be away from you.  That’s why he gave me all his love to give to you.”  I gave him some hugs and kisses.  “Aren’t you glad you’ve got all that love?”  “That’s a lot of love.”  He smiled and giggled.  Then we took “Daddy Bear” and listened to his daddy’s goodnight.  I turned the lights off, closed the door, and he went right to sleep.

Knowing he’s okay makes me feel good.  I am glad we’ve had “practice” over the last two years for this long stretch apart.  I know a lot more about how to talk to my son about his daddy being away… and he understands that daddy isn’t leaving him and that he doesn’t want to be away from him.
My son was pretty funny today though too.  I’ve been talking with our roommates about how they’re expecting a baby since Saturday… and then today he finally understood what we were talking about.  His eyes got wide and his mouth opened in a surprised “Oh” and he looked at me, then grinned and made the surprised face again when he saw my reaction.  Then he said to them, “you’re having a baby?” and made the face again.

A few days ago we had also been talking about how my hubby has all sorts of crazy ideas when my son said, “his ideas aren’t crazy!  They’re great ideas!”  and today we were talking about something and he decided to make a very silly suggestion (I wish I could remember what it was) and I told him it was silly (he knew anyway) and he said “what? It’s just another of dad’s crazy ideas!”  “But it was your idea.”  “Yeah, I know.  But it’s dad’s fault.”

So in between all the emotional ups and downs he was still able to have some fun and I am very glad for that.
He was so tired he went to bed an hour early.  He’s been waking up so early lately that he needs that extra time in bed.  Considering how much he’s been eating I think it might be time for him to grow again.
So with that, I am going to bed.