Just a quick check-in... things are going well, the trip to Mom's was uneventful (the way one would hope a flight and long drive would be), and the weather in Nova Scotia is foggy.

Nephew D's birthday party was yesterday and went over really well - but took a lot more time and effort than I plan on putting into a birthday party any time soon!!! My mom arranged a carnival day so they played a bunch of games where they won tickets and then they could cash them in for prizes at the end. Pizza, hot dogs, cheesies, ice cream, cake... all the stuff kids want. And a bunch of time in the pool too, of course. I don't know how many kids were here... 15+ anyway. Lots of chaos, but they all had a good time and no one drowned so I guess we can call it a success.

Haven't had much communication the last little while with hubby - things have been very busy for him so he hasn't had much time on the computer or phone. There have been four casualties (that I know of) in the last week, plus some other activities there, and all their regular work, so I'm feeling pretty bad about the lack of sleep he's getting. Hopefully things will work out that he'll get some downtime soon for a quick call home and a decent night's sleep. It's a little rough sometimes when we have these long gaps between chats... but keeping busy helps and we're definitely both doing that.

Anyway like I said, just a quick update. Not a whole lot of time right now for typing... but then there hasn't been a whole lot going on anyway, so... ciao!

My mom, every time we ever went away for a trip, always cleaned the house before we left. It seemed a bit mad to me, growing up. I never understood the point of stressing out and deep-cleaning the house for a week so that you were exhausted going into a vacation. And I confess, I still don't. However, in a small nod to my mom, I did wash all the sheets today so we will come back to clean beds. And I've spent a little extra time this week paying a bit more attention to things, so that when we leave tomorrow I will at least know that the dishes are all washed and put away, there is no laundry festering in the basement, and nothing on the floors to attract ants. But you know... I still don't feel a need to move all the furniture and wash underneath, scrub the cupboards, etc every time I'm going away for a week or two. I guess some things just are not inheritable. Which is probably good, for the sake of my children's and husband's sanity. LOL

Today was fun. We spent the morning a friend's farm on a tour with the local homeschool group. Lots of kids, animals, sunshine and space. A fabulous combination. I could have stayed there soooooo much longer... it was refreshing to be surrounded by nothing but animals and fields and smell nothing but farm smells. Sure, they're stinky, but it's sure better than car exhaust. And it was nice that for a few hours I wasn't surrounded by houses and concrete. Don't get me wrong - this base is really nice. It is well-maintained and a lot of work goes into making it very green. And where our house is, we actually have a fair amount of open space nearby. But it's not the same as having an acreage to wander and real work to do that involves life and dirt and seeing things happen. I was just walking along with A and feeling like, "aaaahhhhhh....." I think perhaps that's a sign that we need to get out more.

In sadder news, we lost another soldier today. A Cape Breton guy by the name of Sgt. James MacNeil, aka Jimmy. Which is sad. Thoughts and prayers appreciated for his friends and family... and also for my hubby and his section as they will be working the upcoming ramp ceremony for his repatriation. It's not something anyone looks forward to being involved in, but this will be their first so I'm pretty sure they're going to have a rough day.

Anyway... signing off, must go finish packing and get ready for this trip. Not to mention, it looks like rain and my car is wide open.

Oops.

Yeah. Well. I guess in this life we all have those "Wow, I really suck" moments. Trouble is, in the world of military wife, you rarely get a do-over. Today was one of those.

Don't get me wrong, the day as a whole was pretty good. It was warm and sunny, the kids got outside, we went to a yardsale, I remembered to return the library books, and we got a nice little thundershower to liven up the afternoon. And the kids are in bed at a reasonable hour.

It was just a little five-minute window where I blew it... one of those opportunities to be super-wife that fizzled into a whole lot of nothing. And I will have to get over kicking myself for it, but for the moment I'm still peeved.

Hubby called this evening with just 4 minutes remaining on his phone card. Which left me floundering just a bit. The call was unexpected as it was, but let's just say my brain doesn't function well with deadlines. So I ended up with very little to say, just a bit of everyday stuff, kids, weather... completely forgot to pass on the one bit of interesting news... and it hit me about a half an hour later... TOTALLY overlooked the fact that in his world it is already Sunday, meaning already Father's Day, and I didn't even mention it. Much less gather the girls to give their wishes to Daddy.

Talk about a sudden downward spiral for the psyche. Sigh. I am being plagued by this evil superwoman who sees the number on the phone, realized it's Sunday and calls the kids immediately over, answers the phone and has them tell Daddy "Happy Father's Day, I love you!!" before passing on the day's news and whatnot. Or at very least, realizes it at the last possible second before hanging up. Even THAT would be something.

Yeah. Perfectionist guilt really stinks. But so does forgetting to say the important words that need to be said, when the odds of a second chance are pretty much slim to none.

I think I need to go to bed. I've been up too late the last couple of nights, and being overtired doesn't help when you miss the guy you love more than anyone, you wish you could be the one making waffles and bacon for breakfast tomorrow, and you feel like instead you let him down in a big way. Hopefully the boxes that are en route with goodies and surprises will make up for it.

Yes, the rational part of me realizes that he is a guy, and guys don't get all hung up on stuff like this. And yes, that part of me also realizes that he totally gets that we are missing and loving and thinking about him every day. It's entirely self-inflicted guilt-tripping going on here.

I do that sometimes. What can I say? I think it's part of being a girl - I swear it's hard-wired or something.

I had the most interesting conversation with littlest miss this morning.

"Mommy, I need this dress off, 'cause I wet."

"Oh." Feel the dress, it's soaked in the back. With a bare bottom underneath. Ugh. "Where is your pullup?"

"Right there." Points to a dry pullup that she has put on my nightstand."

"No, I mean where is your OLD pullup?"

"In the bathroom. I taked it off and I peed."

"In the potty?!?"

"Yeah."

"Well, good girl!"

As the light dawns.... she hasn't mastered the art, nor even grasped the necessity, of holding up dresses and nightgowns so that they don't hang into the toilet behind her.

Still, a pretty encouraging start to the day. :)

Another day done, and this one was definitely a good one.

After having the rare and fabulous opportunity last night to talk to my honey for a solid hour, and then an uneventful night with only one child-awakening, I woke up to a beautiful sunny day. How could things start out any better?? :)

The girls played outside for a while and I made some effort in the kitchen, then we headed off to the library (we were too late for storytime, but they did the craft anyway thanks to the sweet girl who runs it). I'm running errands this week getting loose ends tied up before we leave town for a bit - returning library books and movies, paying the car registration, just little stuff like that, but there is a lot of it. We also picked up a new portable DVD player for the trip which is charging up now for its first trial run.

They were really good while I got my little things taken care of, so when all was said and done we went to the Canex for ice cream cones. (Yes, all three of us. Yes, I'm supposedly on a diet, but if you can't have ice cream once in a while, what's the point?) Back home and more outside time, a little more housework, supper, baths... and both kids in bed on time. A was asleep at 7:00, C at 8:00. Fabulous.

Add to that, it's one week left til our trip so we're all a little happy about that.

AND add to that, little missy spent all day in training pants today and didn't wet herself even once. Even including the two trips we made to town and the hours outside. Let's say, that alone would have made me super happy, but adding that onto an already good day? Ahh, bliss. Happy sigh. :)

Week Two dawned bright and sunny... a gorgeous day perfect for washing the car. So we did. :) It's been a nice day filled with little errands and sunshine, and now a quiet spell with TV and naps. All good. I'm getting itchy for more contact from the man of the house... this business of having gaps of a few days between emails is a little harder to take than when he was still on Canadian soil and we could text or talk most every night. It's a good thing I'm not usually the needy/clingy/overly dependent type, or this would be really, REALLY hard. (Actually the whole lifestyle would be hard, but this kind of separation would be brutal.)

Which is not to say this is easy, because that would be lying - it's not easy to step into the functional role of two parents simultaneously. But I keep a positive focus on things - like being grateful that I don't have to juggle a job on top of everything else, grateful that unlike generations past we actually do have fairly regular communications, grateful that I have a rock-solid relationship and am not plagued by some of the worries that I hear expressed by some girlfriends and wives, grateful that I have two sweet little ladies to keep me busy and grounded... Focusing on the blessings, both big and small (sometimes especially the small ones), helps me to stay in the happy place for riding through times like this.

Now we are into the one-week countdown to our trip back home to visit friends and family, which C is mucho excited about! I'm looking forward to it as well, with the possible exception of wrangling kids and luggage through three airports in one day. At least at the third stop I'll have help!! And I'm really hoping that at the first stop the hotel's shuttle driver will be kind to me!! We need to be there at 7:00 am, which makes me grateful for continental breakfasts that start at 6:00!! We'll get a good breakfast and stock up on fruit and such to take with us on the plane, so we'll be all set. It should be a good trip. I'm really praying that the check-in staff will be generous and allow us to sit up front so that if the kids start kicking their feet against the seat in front I won't have to hear from the likes of Mrs. "Can't you make that child sit still?!?!" from the last time I had an excited two year old on a plane. That, and it will make our 40-minute connection much easier if we don't take 20 minutes to get off the first plane. With any luck they'll get a little sleep on the second flight and be fresh when we arrive - although I'm not 100% counting on that.

Now, to see about finding a portable DVD player for the kids...

One week down, a whole bunch to go. We have our Father's Day stuff nearly together so Daddy will have another package going in the mail to him shortly. :)

Today has been nice... although busy! It's funny how we can go a month and hardly see anything, then suddenly have a flurry of activity. And that was today. An invite to the park, followed rapidly by an invite for a beach picnic... so needless to say we've spent most of today outside! Here's to a good and LONG night of sleep for the little people!!! Although A actually went to bed last night at six after a long, drawn-out and really painful (for me) temper tantrum about this that and everything, so that will be hard to beat.

And on the subject of littlest miss, potty training is staying at the "rather hit or miss" level. We're making some progress, but it's sure not a quick thing. I am going to move away from using pullups though, except for when we're on the road, because I don't think they're helping the matter.

Not much planned for tonight except that my sponsor is coming over to tighten up the bolts on the swingset for me. That's what sponsors are for, right? ;) (It helps that they are friends of ours besides...)

Day Six.

I am soooooo tired. Not because it was a bad day, though - just because it was a full day.

This morning we hit the road early (as in, before 7:00) to scope out the residential areas of the base for cast-offs. This weekend is the annual "big stuff round up" event, and we were enthusiastic participants in the "curb-side shopping" aspect of it. I've never heard it called that before, but it's much more pleasant than "scavenging." LOL We scored big, too, bringing home a dresser, a coffee table and matching end table, a swingset, a bicycle trailer, a box of megablocks, and a treadmill. The treadmill turned out to be a dud, though, so it's out on my curb now. It works, but it's annoying, so I know I won't use it.

Then we were off to a friend's house to visit her yard sale/bbq and let the kids play together. I brought home some cute clothes and a puzzle for A, and C bought an Ariel baby doll, and we tried Bannock bread which was quite good and made for really good hamburgers :) After that, back to the base to do another drive around looking for goodies, a quick visit to another friend, and then off to a fundraiser yardsale at a nearby school where I LOADED up on books for 10 cents each. Love it. I put the swingset together (a tad challenging while alone), did some tidying up, made supper... and now I am sooooo zonked and I don't know if I'll even get the dishes done. A shower will take about all I've got left, I think.

However, the day ended really well when I got that much-needed and highly-anticipated first phone call from abroad. :) Mucho happy. Emails are great, but voice contact is better. We're hoping he'll have internet access set up in the next week or so, and then he won't be dependent on the "welfare computers" with their slow connection and limited access. THEN, we can get on video chat, which Cara really enjoys. :) He's adjusting... settling in... getting acclimatized slowly. My weather forecast said he was experiencing 42 degrees yesterday, but he corrected that and said it was in fact 49 in the shade. They even have guidelines on how to cope with working in the heat. No, thanks.... You know, I think I'll stay quite content with the temperatures back here in O Canada, thanks just the same. And I will probably think twice before complaining about the heat when it hits a mere 30 degrees.

Day Five is coming to an end, and things are still going pretty well. C's temper has been a little hot today, but I think an earlier bedtime will take care of that. A still has a cold hanging around, it never seems like it's very serious, but it is enough that it's making her more tired than usual. On the plus side, it seems like she's finally interested in potty training - we're about 30% potty and 70% wet pants, but it's a start anyway. And she's interested. Which is a huge step forward all on its own. Me? I'm doing fine - but I can't say the same for my diet. Blah. I have a great day then a bad one - yesterday was great so you can guess what happened to today. I'm working back up to it, though. In a lot of ways it's easier to diet when the hubby is away, because there's no guilt factor involved in making all the weird food choices and not having "man food" around - and the boredom factor of being alone is a good motivation to develop an exercise habit. Besides which... knowing that he's living in a 24/7 sauna, and working, and drinking lots of water... darn it all I can NOT have him coming back in better shape than me!!!

This time difference is really, REALLY weird. And it's going to make it challenging if not impossible to arrange for phone calls with the kids except for maybe on his days off when he can get away with staying up late. We've been looking at the clock through the day - I set up my Google homepage with a clock for here and for there, and with weather reports for here, there, and home so that C can learn a bit even while I just satisfy my curiosity. She was quite blown away that when we were getting ready for bed, he would have been just barely thinking about getting up... and today when we were enjoying the sunshine, he would have been snoozing and snoring. Likewise was she amazed at the weather differences... when she spied 40 degrees, her response was "WOW! I'm sure glad I'm not THERE!" LOL

We mailed out the first of what I'm sure will be many pieces of mail today - I'll be curious to see how long it takes to arrive. I really love that if you go to the military post office, you can send mail and packages for free. That is a huge blessing. When we're home for our visit I expect I'll plan a day trip to Greenwood to visit friends and send off a care package from the folks at home. :)

Tomorrow's plans are kind of up in the air - I'm hoping to either visit a friend or have a visit from a friend... maybe a small yard sale in the morning.... and definitely at least one drive around the base to see who's tossing out what (it's a junk collection week, and 'curbside shopping is encouraged'. lol). Sunday will be pretty full between church and the kids' craft day at the MFRC. Should be fun. And the weather is forecast to be beautiful. :)

Day Four

Well today was kind of interesting. This morning I decided we were staying put because the girls are snuffly and I'm still plugged up... so we were just chilling out. THEN, at 8:10 the phone rings and it's someone from hubby's work, needing paperwork, and needing it before noon. Um, okay, sure I can do that! Enter scramble mode - because the paperwork needed all had to be looked up and printed off the computer. Not to mention I was still in my pjs. But I got it all together and dropped off by 9:30 - well done, I think. :)

Then, since we were already out anyway, and the kids seemed to be shaking off most of the morning snuffles, we went ahead and dropped in to storytime at the Deployment Support Centre. It was nice - once a week they have a drop-in program where they read a story, do a related craft, share a snack, and have some time to mingle. I thought it would be good to go to some of their activities so that C can relate to other kids whose Dads are away. And A, well she just likes other kids regardless. So we went. And it was a good time... although I am always a little disappointed by how some parents control their kids (or don't, more specifically) in a group setting. However aside from a couple of live wires, it was a good group of kids and parents. And they had a good time, which is what I was hoping for. There wasn't anyone there I knew, which led to me being a tad slow to find anyone to talk to, but I did make some good contact with the ladies who organize it so that was nice.

It's going to be helpful being in a base community while he's away - when we were back home and he was away, the nearest base was 2.5 hours away and that's a bit far to go for drop-in playgroups and the like. (Of course I still had family around, so it wasn't really required anyway.)

Still awaiting word from my love about the whens and wheres and successes of his travels... hopefully sometime tonight if I'm lucky. Having some twelve hours between us will make arranging communications rather interesting.

Day Three

A funny thing happens when the mister goes away. Suddenly I get overtaken with this urge to clean. And I don't mean just washing the dishes, either... it's like everything around me needs to be tidied and reorganized. Yesterday I did our bedroom, the girl's rooms and the playroom - tidying, vacuuming, throwing away stuff. Today I have a smaller goal of just cleaning the bathroom and the upstairs hall floor, because we're going to be out for part of the day.

Just for a few minutes I wondered about this, because it's not just me. It seems to be a nearly-universal thing among the wives I know - as soon as he leaves town, the house must be cleaned. It's compulsive. I wonder if it is, as people say, just a need to keep busy... or whether there's actually something a little deeper at work. Like a need for control. Life as we know it just got turned on its head, but by jove there is something we can do, and that is to clean and organize and put things just so all around us. I'm thinking that is in there, albeit in a sort of unconscious way. Of course, "keeping busy" is a part of it, too. Not to mention that it's just a really good opportunity to do things in your own way and not worry about stepping on anyone else's toes in the process. But I don't think we're all that simple. ;)

Day Three today. And so far, so good. We've had a few "I miss Daddy" moments and the occasional "What if he doesn't come home?" - have I mentioned that Miss is a bit melodramatic from time to time?

... and here we go again ...

Hubby left yesterday for a six-month deployment overseas. This will be his first trip so far away, and it's admittedly a tad surreal to think about us having half the world between us. So we just don't think about that too much. Thankfully he's not in combat, but rather in a rear support role where he's in more danger from heatstroke and spiders than enemy fire. Not that we want to be totally complacent, either, but that line of thought keeps the stress level pretty low.

We spent Sunday as a fun family day, took the kids to the West Edmonton Mall to check out the theme park and see a sea lion show, and spent the night at a hotel with a pool. Then Monday morning we brought him to the airport to see him off, which was rough for a few minutes but then I bought off the kids with some dinosaur-shaped mint chocolate pops and headed for the highway. I'll tell you, those steps and each kilometer down the road were just as brutal as the times we left the Halifax airport or left Ontario... but we made it. We spent the afternoon at a McDonald's playplace with some friends to play with, then got home a little past supper time.

So far the tears have been pretty few. Tempers are a tad short in the littles, but we're working on keeping the minds occupied so there are fewer opportunities for confrontation. I'm trying to think of things to keep their focus on happy things like making stuff to send to Daddy, watching fun movies, and planning some playdates. And we'll be headed back home at some point for visits with family and friends, so that will be a nice distraction.

And me? Well, I guess you could say I've hauled out the toolkit from last time. Some might think it's unhealthy, but I have kind of mastered the art of compartmentalizing this part of life, and I have shelved the box containing the negatives. I'm sure at some point it will try to open itself or fall off the shelf, but for now it's good. I'll buy some extra-strength duct tape just in case. ;)