Our time in Montgomery

Our time together in the States has been priceless.  We’ve gotten to spend more time as a family in the past 6 weeks than we have in the past year combined.  It is so nice to have Mark home before 5pm every. single. night. and to be able to meet him for lunch 2-4 times a week because he has 1.5 – 2 hours for lunch.  He’s not constantly stressed out by work, or feeling guilty that he’s not at work when he’s home with us.  It has just been really, really nice and I’m sad that we only have a few weeks left in the States.  I think going back to Italy is going to be a rough transition for us all.  We’ve gotten accustomed to Mark working 3-6 hour days so going back to the 12-14 hour days is going to be hard on all of us.

Besides all the time we’ve been able to spend together, just being back in the States has been really nice.  The convenience of everything here is something I don’t think I’ll ever take for granted again.  I could go out and buy anything I could ever wish for within a 20 mile radius of where I live.  Businesses don’t close on random days at random hours.  There’s every type of food imaginable available, along with FAST food, which is basically non-existent in Italy, with the exception of a few McDonald’s and Burger Kings.  Restaurants are kid friendly and have changing tables and kids menu's and high chairs.  (Nine times out of 10 that doesn’t happen in Italy, and more than once we’ve gone to restaurants where their toilet is a hole in the ground – literally.)  I can listen to the radio and it’s all in English and there are a variety of genre’s to listen to, and they’re all in English.  I don’t have to download TV shows or wait for them to buffer to watch them.  We’re in the same time zone as our parents and the majority of our families.  I can watch HGTV and the Food Network as much as I want!!  It doesn’t take 3 hours to do one load of laundry.

However, the apartment we’re staying at here in Montgomery is HORRIBLE.  It has been the one downfall to our time in the States.  We’re staying at Azalea Hill Apartments in Montgomery, and we’ve had one thing after another go wrong with this place.  From the carpet being FILTHY, and them refusing to replace it, to the appliances all being from the 1970’s (no joke), to the washing machine leaking, to the water heater in the apartment above ours breaking and flooding part of our apartment, to our air conditioner breaking… twice, to the beds being so old and making so much noise when you move on them that it wakes up Ben every. single. time…  It’s just not been fun.  And it says a lot about a place when we can go out of town for the weekend and stay in a hotel and Ben slept 10 hours straight both nights.  This place just sucks and I’m excited to get out of here.  It is nice because it’s so small and there’s not much stuff in it so it’s super easy to clean.

We have two weeks left in Montgomery before we head up to IL for a bit to visit our families and then we head back to Italy.  I really miss my weina dogs and not being woken up 3 – 10 times a night, so I’m looking forward to getting home and putting Ben in his own room so we all sleep better!!

The trip to the States

Overall the trip back to the States went really well.  We managed to leave our house at 7am on Friday morning.  We got all of our luggage (4 big suitcases, 2 carry on suitcases, 2 book bags, the pack n play bag, the double stroller + case, and 2 car seats) into the XC90 without having to put anything on top.  My friend, Taryn, rode down with us and drove the car back at put it in our garage.

I was worried about getting the bulkhead seats on the flight since our flight went directly from Venice to JFK in NY.  They have little bassinets they can hook in front of you, so I wanted that so we didn’t have to hold Ben the whole time since we didn’t buy him a seat.  They managed to get Abbie and me seats, along with another guy, in the bulkhead row.  The guy didn’t want to trade Mark seats (he was back about 6 rows) because he had hip issues and needed more room to stretch out.  Luckily, the airline attendant was really cool and she upgraded his seat so Mark could sit with us.  Both kids did pretty well on that flight, although Ben and I both managed to get sick on that flight.  Abbie was already sick, so I think we both picked up her cold.  Not fun.

Mark and I were a little worried about how we were going to get all our junk picked up and on our next flight by ourselves.  (Once you go through customs in JFK you have to get all your luggage and recheck it if you come from overseas.)  However, it was a lot easier than we were anticipating, which just proves to me once again that Mark and I are the perfect traveling partners.  With all our luggage plus 2 kids, it was still easy.  Thank God.  We had like 5 hours to kill while we waited for our next flight to Atlanta, so we ate at Chili’s, which was I think the worst meal we’d ever had at one of those.  It was terrible.  Pretty disappointing. 

We got into Atlanta around 9:30pm, after a pretty rocky flight.  Both kids were crabby because we took off at 7pm, which was 2am our time and Abbie hadn’t napped all day.  Ben was just pissy, but the both zonked out about an hour into the flight, which was nice.  We plopped them into the BOB stroller when we got off the plane and they both slept while we got all our baggage, walked to the car rental place, stood in line FOREVER to get the car and then finally got our first rental car.  We had a bit of a snafu at the car rental place.  We had reserved a mid-sized SUV thinking that if we could fit all our junk into our XC90, that we’d be able to fit it all into a mid-sized SUV.  Wrong.  After us playing musical luggage for 30 minutes trying to fit all our junk into the car, the kind people at Avis upgraded us at no charge to the largest SUV they offer.  Thank God.

I was worried about all 4 of us being in a hotel room together and none of us getting any sleep, but it wasn’t as bad as I was anticipating.  Abbie did really well in her own big bed by herself and Ben slept in his car seat.  Ben woke up a few times, as usual, but Abbie did really well and even slept in until we got her up!  Maybe our cruise in July won’t be so bad after all.

We got back on the road around 11am and stopped for lunch at a Chick-fil-a, which was FABULOUS!  They have such outstanding customer service and great food.  Really made us realize even more why we miss living in the States.  We made it to our apartment around 1pm and got all checked in.  Our apartment is a complete dump, but more on that in a different post.  We went to Ross and Target (!!!!) and had dinner at a Lonestar and really enjoyed our first day back in the States.  Jet lag wasn’t bad for any of us, but this is the easy direction to come.  Going back will be much worse, but that’s 2 months away!

SO excited!

I think most people are probably pretty unenthusiastic when they find out they have to go to Montgomery, AL for any sort of training.  It’s not exactly a top vacation spot, that’s for sure.  But Mark and I are SOOO excited about going to the States for 2 months TOGETHER!  One of his friends in the squadron just got back from SOS in Montgomery and said that he’d wished he had taken his family with him because they have a lot of free time.  We’re very thankful we decided to spend the money and all go back to the States together.

I’ve been looking at Google maps and it seems as though the apartment we’ll be renting is in a pretty good location.  There’s a big mall 2.5 miles up the road and TONS of restaurants and shopping (Target, Kohl’s, Ann Taylor Loft, etc) all within 6 miles.  PLUS there’s a Hobby Lobby and a Joann’s nearby too.

My parents are coming down to meet Ben in early April and we’re going to take a quick trip down to Mark and my initial stomping grounds – near Destin, FL.  We’re pretty excited to see Abbie by the ocean and to introduce Ben to the beach.  Mark’s parents and grandparents (and possibly other relatives??) are also coming down for a short visit.  And we’re REALLY hoping to see our good friends, Brian and Erika, and their two kids, whom we’ve never met (nor have they met ours).  We haven’t seen them in about 3 years and they were our first military couple friends that we met 6 years ago.  It would be SO great to see them again, and in Florida, no less, (where we met) with our four new additions to our families.  If time allows for it, we might try to head up to Nashville to visit my friend Liz and her family also.

Packing for two months with a 3 month old and an almost 3 year old is no small feat, that’s for sure.  Considering I brought back like 9 bags for just Abbie and I went we moved back to Italy, now we’re adding 2 more people to the mix, but we don’t really get any additional baggage.  Should be interesting…  Luckily a friend that we met while stationed at Vance AFB is sending some baby equipment with her husband, who is going to be at SOS the same time Mark is.  I’m very thankful for that because I was going to have to buy some stuff for him while we were there so this will save us some money.

Since we’ll only be renting one car, I’ll be without a car most of the time since Mark will use it to get to and from work.  So I’m taking the BOB back with us and I plan on putting that thing to GOOD use while we’re there.  I really want to lose quick a few pounds, and I figure walking (maybe running) will be the best way to do that instead of just sitting in the apartment waiting for Mark to get home.  Although we will have HGTV and the Food Network and Bravo and TLC again so then again, maybe I could easily spend all morning in front of the TV.  Man, I’ve really missed the States!

To go or not to go?

We found out last month that Mark has to go to SOS (squadron officer school) towards the end of March for two months.  We were really hoping that he would get to go en route to our next base, meaning he’d go in between moving from this base to our next base, but I guess the Air Force had other plans, as they usually do.  The kicker for this is that if he went en route, the AF would pay for the kids and me to go, but since that’s not the case, they won’t.
Mark’s schedule here in Italy is VERY busy.  Aviano is just a really busy base, in general.  Normally Mark works 12 hour days – that’s pretty much the average.  It’s a good day if he gets to come home after 10 hours.  So we don’t get to see him a ton.  Now he’s going through the FLUG (flight lead upgrade), which means he’s even more busy than he normally is with studying, taking tests, preparing for and doing check rides (flights that he’s graded on), etc.  They’re trying to get him through this before he goes to SOS, so he’s going to be extremely busy between now and then.  Plus they have exercises going on, so he’ll be working weekends occasionally also, in addition to studying on weekends at home and on base.  Basically, it’s going to suck.  And then he’s going to leave for two months.  Yay.
The stupid thing about SOS is that they just combined a course that you have to take when you first join the AF with SOS, which made SOS 2 weeks longer.  Mark took that other course (ASBC) already, and he’s also already did SOS online – he’s done all the reading and taken the tests, but the AF has this 100% capacity rule now that they have to fill these courses 100%.  While Mark is at SOS, he’ll pretty much work a 9-5 job, with an hour lunch break every day and all weekends off.
Mark and I have been toying with the idea of the kids and I going back to the States with him since we found out he’s going, and I think this week we decided that we would all go back to the States.  The huge downfall to that is that we’ll be paying 2 months rent on a furnished place, which is going to be about $2000/month, plus paying for a rental car, along with still paying our rent back in Italy.  So it’s going to be really expensive, but really that’s the only downfall.  We had to decide if the money was more important to us, or getting to spend that time together, and we decided that the time together is invaluable.  The military lifestyle takes him away from us a lot, and while we have this chance to actually spend two full months with him (IN THE STATES!!!! and not working 12 hour days), we should take it.  I found decently priced airfare (under $700 r/t), so I think we’re going to pull the trigger on this and get it.
Thinking about going to Alabama is bringing back a lot of memories for me.  Mark and I started officially dating right before he commissioned into the AF and he immediately left for ASBC in Alabama after he commissioned.  I got a wild hair one night while he was down there and decided to drive from Milwaukee to Montgomery to see Mark, so I packed up my little Jetta and left WI at 10pm, drove straight through the night and got to Maxwell AFB in AL around 10am the next morning.  We took a little trip down to Destin and went jet skiing and ate at The Crab Trap and had a good time.  Seven (7?!?!?!!!) years later, with our two kids, we’re going back.  I’m so excited to get to spend that time with Mark and have him not miss Ben’s 3rd – 5th months.  I think my parents are going to come down for a week or so to visit us while we’re there also, and meet Ben, and we’re going to try to tack on a week of leave after SOS is over so we can go up to IL and introduce Ben to the rest of our families and friends.
It’ll be a lot of planning and preparing and packing (again, but I’m a pro at that now), but I am so excited that we get to go back with him!

Above water

So I’ve been keeping my head above water with both kids on my own for the first time.  It hasn’t always been pretty, and it’s definitely not easy, but we’re getting through it.  The fact is, that this single parent kid-raising thing is helluva hard.  And I have a hard time not being bitter about the situation I’ve been put in at times.  It doesn’t mean I’m not grateful for everything I have, and that I’m not thankful for my husband’s job, but this is tough.

Ben is a pretty fussy baby.  I would say that at least 70% or more of the time he’s awake and not nursing, he’s crying.  Abbie cried a lot also, but it is absolutely exhausting to try to take care of Abbie and also deal with Ben’s incessant crying when I know I’m never going to get a break and just be able to pass him off to Mark for a few minutes so I can regroup.  He’s my responsibility all the time, and it’s extremely frustrating when I’ve fed him, changed him, rocked him, swaddled him and done everything else I can think of to get him to stop crying, and he still is.  It makes me start to think something’s wrong with him, even though I know that’s my over-active imagination.  When he’s crying, a lot of times he arches his back and throws his head back to scream, so I googled that.  Big mistake.  The two things that came up were autism and cerebral palsy.  So I worried about that for a good 48 hours, but I’m pretty much over it now.  His crying is subsiding a little bit, and I’ve read that the peak of their crying is around 6 weeks and it’s usually a lot better by 8 weeks.  (He’ll be 7 weeks tomorrow.)

Abbie has been VERY hard to deal with.  Her favorite word, and first reaction to ANYTHING I ask her to do is “NO!”.  It is beyond frustrating and half the time I just want to smack the snot out of her, which is flowing abundantly now as it is.  She is an incredibly strong-willed child, and I’ve gone more than one round with her about showing her who’s boss. (No, I don’t hit her.)  It took me a good 45 mins to get her to pick up her markers she had thrown all over the living room the other day.  I would tell her she could go into time out or pick up her markers and she chose the time out more often than not.  She can be absolutely infuriating at times, and it’s hard to like her when she acts like that.  I go between feeling sorry for her that her dad is gone and that she’s not the only one receiving my attention anymore, and just wishing she would behave and do what I ask and entertain herself for more than 5 seconds quite a bit.

Mark’s schedule, as it almost always is when he is gone, is much more free that it is when he’s home.  So he’s been going out to dinner every night with his co-workers/friends and going go-karting and going to bars, etc.  I’ll admit, I’m extremely jealous, especially when I talk to him when he’s on his way out the door to go have dinner with friends, while I’m dealing with a screaming baby and fighting my 2 year old to eat any dinner, all while going on not much sleep since I was up with Ben eight times during the night.

Thank God I have amazing friends over here.  My friend, Jessica, brought dinner over on Monday, and held Ben for me and kept an eye on Abbie so I could take a quick shower.  It was so nice to have her company and her food was great!  And Cassy came over last night and brought part of dinner for us and again watched the kids while I took a quick shower and kept me company.  I really, really appreciate their help.  Tonight I’m going to dinner with Jennifer and we also have plans tomorrow, so I’m trying to keep busy to make the time Mark is gone fly by.

Sorry I haven’t been blogging much lately.  I have a lot I want to say, but I just don’t have the time to get on the computer.  Hopefully when Ben is a little less fussy and I can put him down for more than 3 minutes without him screaming, I’ll be able to write much more often.  I  miss it!!

We’ll see how this goes

Abbie watching the jets fly by.

It seems like every time Mark goes TDY, I get sick right before he leaves, and this TDY was no exception.  The day before Mark left I started getting a stuffy nose and sore throat.  My ears hurt, I had a ton of sinus pressure and a little pain and I had a fever.  Perfect.  Luckily ibuprofen is helping all my aches and pains, because that’s really all I can take at this point.  The joys of breastfeeding.  If I take any sort of decongestant, most likely it will dry up my milk supply also and I’m not willing to risk that.

I tried to warn Abbie that Mark was going to be gone this time.  She’s been really attached to him lately and every single morning when I get her up she asks where daddy is.  I tell her he’s at work and she says “Well he’ll be home later.”  And then when she gets up from her nap, she also asks when daddy is going to be home.  So I wanted to warn her that he was going to be gone for a couple weeks instead of him just disappearing and we’ve been talking about daddy leaving all week.  Mark also talked to her the night before he left and told her he was going to be gone for a while and she said “But you’ll come back, right?”  After we’d put Abbie to bed that night, she’d call out a couple times and ask Mark if he was still here or if he’d left yet.  He’d say he was still here and she’d reply with “Okay daddy.  I love you.”  It was pretty hard to listen to.  It’s to the point where I don’t get sad for myself that Mark is leaving, but my heart breaks for Abbie that she’ll be missing her daddy.  Thank God Ben will be oblivious to the fact that Mark is gone for a while yet.

I’m not sad that Mark is gone (well a little), but I am scared this time around.  I’m nervous about handling both kids on my own for the first time all day AND all night, especially with my lack of sleep and the fact that I’m sick (which is probably caused by my lack of sleep).  I still haven’t exactly figured out when I’m going to shower since I always do that when Mark gets home from work so he could watch the kids for me.  And I’m hoping I can handle Abbie’s bedtime routine by myself since Mark always helps with that also.  One of us would get Abbie ready for bed while the other handled Ben, since he’s pretty screamy in the evenings.  I’ll figure it out somehow and hopefully I’ll have it all down by the time Mark gets back.

Luckily things have been pretty good so far.  Ben is getting past his “cry all the time” stage, which is really nice, and Abbie has been really good about taking naps for me lately.  Today I told her it was naptime and she walked in to her room and was in bed by the time I got in there.  That is most definitely a first.  Now if she goes to bed at night that easily I’ll be so happy.  And if I can get Ben to go back to sleep without crying for an hour after his early morning feeding, I’ll be even happier.  I’m really hoping I can get him sleeping better in the next couple weeks.  I’m going to try to get him into a routine during the day to help him switch his routine at night.  I’ve been just letting him sleep when he wants to sleep during the day and now I’m going to try an adapted version of Babywise.  I don’t even have that book, but I know what it’s about and I’m going to take try to get him onto a loose schedule during the day so he switches his days and nights.  Wish me luck.  I could really use some more sleep right about now!

Cookies

I bought these flowers for myself at the Aviano market on Tuesday.  There’s just something about fresh flowers that brightens up an entire room and I thought these were beautiful.

Yesterday I had friends over for dinner.  They asked if I’d taken on an Italian boyfriend while Mark’s away since both times they’d been over in the past week, I’d had flowers on my kitchen table.  (The other ones were from my friend, Cassy.)  I believe they even named in Guiermo.  We all had a good laugh about that.  I made risotto for the first time while they were here and it actually turned out pretty good!  I’m excited to make it for Mark when he gets home.

I think the worst part of being solo right now is dinner.  I hate eating by myself.  Granted, I have Abbie to keep me company, but I can’t exactly carry on a conversation with her.  And I spend most of my time telling her not to put food in her hair or throw food on the floor.  It gets a little lonely.  So I was very grateful for Dave and Lynn’s company last night.  But trying to cook a decent meal with a toddler literally hanging on your leg or grabbing things off the counter the ENTIRE time you’re trying to cook is enough to try anyone’s patience.  It reminded me of this quote: “You can learn many things from children.  How much patience you have, for instance.”  ~Franklin P. Jones

Last night was a rough night for me, for many reasons.  I’ll go into more details about it at a later date, but I am emotionally exhausted.  I love my husband more than anything in the world, and I would do anything to be with him, including putting up with all the military’s BS.  I just wish there was some consistency in this lifestyle.  But really, the only constant is that things change.  Frequently.  Makes me miss the days when you only had to worry about when you’d get your next cookie.

Preparing for spring!

I try to get out of the house every day, especially when Mark is gone.  Being cooped up inside with Abbie for an entire day, by ourselves, isn’t either of our ideas of fun.  I had planned to go to base this morning, just to get out of the house, but Brittney and I are going to run errands tomorrow, so I decided not to drive all the way to base just to check my mail.  (Although I have been known to do that before…)

Instead we played around in the yard.  Abbie had great fun watching Sadie tear around like a lunatic and she played on her slide some.  (She can go up and down the slide all by herself now.  That’s a fairly new feat for her.)  I de-weeded my garden, took all the plants from last year out of my pots, dumped all the old dirt on my garden and trimmed all my rose bushes.  And I got hot while doing it!  I just had a fleece jacket on, but I was warm.  It’s beautiful outside, and I wouldn’t mind if it stayed like this all year round!  Well it could warm up a little, but the sun and the crisp air is wonderful.  I’m so excited for spring to come so I can start planting my flowers and my garden.  Hopefully I can get my garden to grow better than I did last year…  I consider last year my trial run.  =)  What do you plant in your gardens?  And what are your favorite flowers to plant?  I’m a little bummed that I didn’t bring back some tulip bulbs from Holland for me.  I thought I was going to be gone all summer though, so I didn’t get any for myself.

It’s so nice that Abbie is at an age where she doesn’t need CONSTANT supervision now.  I don’t have to always have my eyes on her making sure she’s not going to get hurt.  I can turn my back on her and work on my garden and she can run around the yard and be just fine.  Well almost…  I usually run around with a pooper scooper and try to pick up all the land mines when we first get out there so she doesn’t step in them.  Invariably, I miss one and Abbie will come up to me later on, dog poop in hand, and try to hand me dog poop.  It’s really gross, but I have to laugh because EVERY time she does it she says “Dog-a poop”.  My dad says that’s the Italians rubbing off on her because it does almost sound like an Italian accent.  I’m trying to teach her that we only pick up poop with the scooper, but she’s just trying to help so I can’t get too mad at her.  It’s just a pain to have to drop everything and run inside to wash her hands, but we’ll live.

I think staying busy and getting out of the house is the key to making separations from your spouse go by more quickly.  While being away from Mark will never be enjoyable for me, it’s definitely getting easier, and that’s a very good thing.  What are your tricks for making separations go by faster?

Happy Monday!!

The fog is gone.

 

There’s not been anything too exciting going on here lately.  Abbie and I are in our routine, and the days seem to be going by, slowly but surely.  My internet has been EXTREMELY slow for the past week, and currently, it isn’t working at all, so who knows when I’ll actually get this posted.

It’s been really foggy here for the past 5 days.  Just today (Thursday), the fog finally lifted and I can actually see the mountains again.  It’s kind of weird and dreary living in a cloud.  It was foggy occasionally in northern IL where I grew up, but not for days on end like it is here.  Gets kind of depressing after a while, but it looks like sunnier days are ahead of us.  Now if my damn internet would work, I’d be happy.

I fell down a few stairs here a few days ago.  I’m fine, just a little sore in places.  Luckily I wasn’t carrying anything, specifically Abbie or one of the dogs, so that was good.  All our stairs here are marble with rounded edges, so they’re slippery when you wear socks.  Lesson learned I guess.  The whole incident kind of freaked me out though.  I keep thinking what if something happened to me while Mark was gone?  It could be days before someone here figured out something was wrong.  What would happen to Abbie if I was passed out or something?  I talked to people here often, but not so much that if I didn’t answer my phone they’d think something was wrong.  I usually talk to one of my parents every day, but sometimes I don’t and miss a few days so they wouldn’t think much of it.  The only person I really have set times to talk to is Mark and I think he’d be the one to realize something was wrong before anyone else, even though he’s pretty much the furthest away at this point.  It just scares me to think that something could happen to me at any moment, and while Mark is gone, I’m not sure anyone would pick up on that quickly, which makes me worry for Abbie’s safety.  I guess I’ll just pray nothing bad happens and hope for the best.

I’ve been working on my quilting some.  For quilt #3, I have all my strips sewn together and ironed and I’m in the process of cutting the strips apart so I can sew them together in a different order.

For quilt #4, I have these strips sewn together and now I need to put the sashing and borders on it and the quilt top will be done!  This is a baby quilt so it’ll go together fairly quickly since it’s pretty small.

Other than falling down the stairs and quilting, nothing too exciting is going on.  I did order another pair of boots online off of Amazon, so that’s exciting to me (especially since they were over 40% off!!).  I’ll post a picture of them if my internet ever starts working again.  And I’d ordered batting for my quilts from Hobby Lobby at 40% off, so I’m excited to use that too.

I’ve been taking pictures of Abbie every day, but on my iPhone.  I send Mark a picture or two or a video of her every day and the iPhone definitely makes that easy.  But it makes it harder to put those pictures on here since I don’t put my pictures from my phone on my computer very often.  I’ll have to do that sometime soon.

Hope you’re all having a good January!

Attitude

“Happiness is an attitude.  We either make ourselves miserable, or happy and strong.  The amount of work is the same.”  ~Francesca Reigler

(Taken Nov 2006 in Florida)

Mark has left on another TDY.  This will be our longest one yet, but as I’ve said before, I can’t complain too much because I know many people endure MUCH worse separations than this.  But it’s still hard and I won’t wash his pillowcase until he comes home, just in case.

Last night Abbie was an absolute holy terror.  She’d seriously never been that bad and I’m not quite sure what was going on.  She didn’t really want to have anything to do with Mark, and wanted my undivided attention for about 5 hours straight.  The three of us were sitting on the couch, me in the middle, and Mark was trying to show me something and Abbie was looking at a photo album.  Abbie would reach up and move my face so I was looking at her so she could point stuff out to me in the album.  She just kept saying “mommy” over and over and over until I’d respond and look at her.  It was exhausting.  She threw a huge fit before her bath and after her bath, and when we were putting her to bed.  She only wanted me touching her and if Mark touched her she’d try to slap him.  And if he held her she’d try to claw his face off.  I honestly don’t know where she gets that temper.  My parents have said I was absolutely nothing like that and I don’t think Mark was like that when he was a toddler either, so I’m not sure where this is coming from or how we remedy it.  But it breaks my heart when she’s like that to Mark, especially when it’s the night before he leaves for quite a while.  If she’s like this while he’s gone, I’m not going to last 5 days, let alone 5 weeks.  But she tends to act out much more when Mark is around than when it’s just her and me.  Granted she has her moments with me too, but they’re few and far between.

I’m going to try to keep busy with my quilting while Mark is gone.  I have quite a few projects I have started, want to start or want to finish so it’ll be interesting to see what I accomplish while he’s gone.  But I’ll post more on that later.

Thank God it’s a BEAUTIFUL, sunny, have your windows open type of day here today.  I think that’s God’s little gift to me because it does wonders for my attitude.

“Every day may not be good, but there is something good in every day.” ~Author Unknown

2011

I’ve read a few blogs where people have picked one word they want to describe this coming year for them.  One word that they want to focus on as they go through 2011.  If I had to pick one word, it would be “survive”. 

Honestly, I just want to survive 2011 and get it behind us.  I know this is going to be the hardest year yet for me as an individual and for us as a family since we could be spending almost 3/4 of the year apart from each other.  That’s a lot.  Close to 8 out of 12 months.  We knew this would happen eventually, but that doesn’t really make it any easier now that the time has arrived.  I’m just looking forward to having this all behind us, instead of looming in front of us with me dreading what’s to come.

I think part of the “surviving” comes from other military spouses.  I’ve been around the military lifestyle long enough to know that not everyone handles separations the same way.  Wives seem to range from being a “hot mess” while they’re husbands are gone to being completely oblivious to the fact that they’re not around, and I’ve been on both ends of the spectrum in the past 6 months alone.  Obviously I prefer to be able to cope well when my husband is away because it makes it easier for all of us, but occasionally I fall apart.  Not normally in front of anyone though, it’s usually in the privacy of my own home, or my car.  I’ve read of few blogs of milspouses who “don’t understand why wives fall apart when their husbands leave” and to them I would like to say: You don’t have to understand it.  But try to accept it and not cast judgment on people who don’t handle things exactly as you do because you sure aren’t helping our situation at all.

I’m friends with many of the wives in our squadron on Facebook and it’s interesting to see their status updates as these long separations get closer.  Some say exactly what I would like to say, others say nothing.  But it brings me comfort knowing that I’m not in this alone and there are lots of great girls around here that’ll help me get through this, and hopefully I can help them too.

I’m trying to have a positive outlook about this upcoming year, REALLY trying, but it’s hard.  It’s especially hard since I know that Mark is struggling with this too.  I see him gazing at Abbie with that “look” in his eye quite frequently these days, and I have to turn my head before my tears come.  I see how he gives her extra hugs and kisses and snuggles and how he’s hesitant to leave her and it tears me up.  During my “rough” TDY last year, I was angry for myself.  I felt resentful for ME and my situation, but this time around I feel sadness mostly for Mark and for Abbie, knowing how much they’ll miss each other.  Of course I’ll miss Mark like crazy too, but at this point I am more concerned for them.  I guess that’s part of growing up.

With all that being said though, I know whatever this year brings us, we’ll get through it and we’ll be stronger people in the end.  I know there are many people who have it much worse than we do, as far as separations go.  Some people deploy for over a year at a time and my heart goes out to them and their families.  This year will be a challenge for us, but all things considered, we still realized how blessed we truly are.

He’s home!

Mark made it home yesterday and we were very happy to see him.  Abbie immediately wanted him to take her to get some food at the airport.  She grabbed his finger right away and started pulling him towards the little restaurant in the airport while pointing to her mouth and saying “eat!”.  She doesn’t beat around the bush at what she wants.  She was ALL OVER him (quite literally – see above) once we got home and she would get very upset if he left the room.  She is 100% a daddy’s girl.  When she woke up from her nap she asked for daddy as soon as I opened the door and she was more than thrilled when he went in to get her up this morning.  I listened to the two of them laughing at each other from the living room.  It just melts my heart every time I hear them laughing together, which happens quite frequently.  Today Abbie and I took Mark some lunch, but we didn’t really get to do more than say a quick hi and hand the lunch over.  Naturally they wouldn’t give him any down time when he got back from a trip.  He’s in the swing of things full force, but we’ll enjoy his time off on Thursday and Friday in Cinque Terre.  Abbie was running around the squadron calling for him while she was looking for him.  I think it confuses her when she sees almost everyone dressed the same as her daddy usually is, but I held her up to a board with everyone’s pictures on it and she picked Mark out right away.

This time when Mark was gone was INFINITELY better than last time.  I don’t know what my deal was last time, but this time was the polar opposite of last time.  Abbie and I had fun, she slept GREAT the entire time he was gone and I wasn’t stressed.  She is doing better at entertaining herself now, which allows me to do other stuff besides keeping her occupied the entire time she’s awake, and that helped out a bunch.  She wasn’t teething, another HUGE plus.  She is going to the sitters now and I had friends babysitting so I could go to practices, so I got some breaks which was great.  (But VERY expensive…  The last week Mark was gone I spent over $150 in babysitters….)  And I was feeling much more settled before he left than I did the last time.  In August I was still adjusting to life in Italy, and now I feel comfortable here.  Fingers are crossed that the next TDY goes as well as this one did.

I almost got everything done that I wanted to.  My Christmas cards are pretty much done.  I have to finish 15 more of the letters and then stuff a bunch of them with the letters and pictures and put stamps on them all and then I’ll be done.  I’m praying to God I find my address stamp soon because that’s going to take a TON of time if I have to hand write our address on 150 envelopes…  I have no clue where that stupid thing went!

My quilt is almost done.  I have 2 more sides to finish the binding on and then it’ll be done and ready to send.  I have a bunch of boxes that I need to get ready to mail so they get to the States on time.  I plan on doing that next week when we get back from Cinque Terre and before we go to Amsterdam.  Whew!

In between good and great.

 

So far, this TDY is worlds apart from the last one.  Granted, we’re only 3 days into it, but I was completely falling apart by this time during the last one.  Now I’m doing great though.  Well maybe not great, but good at least.  In between good and great.

Abbie really is a daddy’s girl.  She really loves Mark.  She has a very special bond with him and people comment on it all the time.  She’s been asking for Mark first thing every morning.  “Da-ee?”  “No, daddy’s not here right now.”  “Da-ee bye-bye?”  “Yes, daddy is bye bye.” <10 second pause>  “Da-ee?”  Well, you get the picture.  She asks about him all the time.  Any time we go on base and go through the gate she starts asking for daddy.  And any time she sees a guy in a flight suit she points and says “da-ee?”  Last night she had a rough time getting to bed and when I went in there she asked for Mark.  And before she went to bed, she was looking for him behind a door that he’s hid behind before when they were playing.  Kinda breaks me heart, but at least he’ll be home in a few weeks.  Mark does her night time routine with her when he’s home so that’s when she really starts asking for him.

Abbie is a LOT of work and by 6-7pm, when Mark usually gets home, I’m about at my rope’s end.  But this time I can laugh about it instead of cry.  I took these pictures about 15 mins after she got up….  She’s a little tornado!

She’s definitely moving into her “independent” stage.  It’s VERY hard to get her to cooperate sometimes and she’s pushing every button she possibly can with me, multiple times.  And she spends half her time awake bossing the dogs around.  She tells them to sit and stay and “no!” and to get in their cage and to go outside and to stop it…  I guess she hears that a lot from me.  I’ve finally gotten her saying “good girl” to Sadie when she’s being good.  Yesterday she took a helmet off this Harley stuffed dog from my parents and put it on Ollie!  I’ll have to get a picture of him next time!  (I would LOVE for her to leave barrettes like this in, but it was in for about 3.26 seconds before she ripped it out.  Just enough time for me to take a picture!)

When she’s not bossing the dogs around, she’s in their cage.  Sadie was thinking “What on earth did I get myself into this time..”  =)

Today we got our pictures taken by the jet.  Obviously Mark was supposed to be there, but he’s not, so Abbie and I did it without him.  I thought it was fitting anyway.  “Here we are by Mark’s jet, without Mark.”  Typical military lifestyle.  Everyone got a kick out of Abbie running around pointing at the jet while yelling “JET!!  JET!!”.  As I said, daddy’s girl.

I have 5 more blocks (out of 36) to quilt and then my quilting is done and I just have to bind it!  I’m hoping to get that done this week!  Then I have a zillion other things to work on, but it’s good.  It’s making time fly by!

Trips, trips and more trips!

I feel like I haven’t written a blog in forever!  I’ve been pretty busy here, but that’s a good thing.  I love being busy.

Mark leaves for his TDY to Vegas tomorrow.  He’ll be gone a little over 2 weeks.  While he’s gone, I need to finish the quilt for my grandma.  I’m about halfway done quilting the top and then I need to figure out how to bind it.  I need to do all my Christmas cards (about 150 of them).  I have a few of them done, and I just got the pictures ordered.  I have the letter written but I think I’m going to try to emboss the letter since I’m just printing it on plain paper.  And I’d like to finish a few scarves for a few special people.  I should be plenty busy while Mark is gone.

Three days after Mark gets back we’re going to Cinque Terre for Thanksgiving.  Just us, Abbie and the dogs.  We’ve heard lots about Cinque Terre since we’ve been here, so we’re excited to finally see it for ourselves!

Four days after we get back from Cinque Terre, we’re going up to Amsterdam for 5 days.  I’ve never been to The Netherlands so I’m pretty darn excited about that.  Mark has to go there for a session in the altitude chamber and we decided Abbie and I would join him.  Mainly because we’d spent $375 on plane tickets for our Ireland trip that isn’t happening, and they’re non-refundable.   So we paid extra money to switch the tickets to this trip.  It’s expensive, but we won’t travel much next year due to Mark being done most of it..

Ten days after we get back from Amsterdam we head to Austria for our squadron Christmas/Ski trip!  Pretty darn excited about that too.  Childcare is included in the cost and I haven’t been skiing in forever.  We’ll get to go on a horse drawn carriage ride and drink hot cocoa and hang out with bunches of great people!  I wish it was longer than just a weekend, but we’ll take what we can get!

Two days after we get back from Austria Mark’s family is coming for Christmas!  Yay!  I’m pretty darn excited about that and Abbie won’t know what to do with all the attention!  It’ll be good for her to be around family and we’re all excited about sharing in her excitement during her 2nd Christmas.

Six days after Mark’s family gets here all of us are headed to Rome to spend a week there!  It’ll be fun to travel with everyone and to meet Alex’s girlfriend, who is going to meet us there.

Less than a week after we get back from Rome, Mark heads out on another month-ish long TDY.  And then a month or so after that I’ll be headed to the States for 5-6 months!

Life is a bit of a whirlwind right now.  Sometimes I have to just sit down and catch my breath, but as I said, I love it.  I love having lots of things planned and lots of things to look forward too and lots of things to keep me busy.  January will probably be a hard month for me because I get so excited about Christmas and all the activities surrounding Christmas, it’s kind of a big disappointment when it’s all over.  And on top of that Mark will be gone.  But I have lots of great friends to keep me company during his absence.  And honestly, I’ll probably spend the majority of the time preparing for worrying about our trip back to the States.  If I can survive the trip over there with 2 dogs and a 21 month old by myself I’ll be doing good.

In other news, Sadie had a vet appt today.  She’s maintaining, but not really getting any better.  She’s still on steroid pills and she will be for the next 2 weeks and the dr. wants to see her back in two weeks and then he’ll try to have the back dr look at her.  She’s still pretty wobbly in her back end and he said no stairs or jumping on/off furniture, ever again.  Good thing we just moved our bedroom upstairs….  But really good thing that she’s a little dog.  =)

Oh, and all 3 of us are sick right now.  Darn cold season!

Lots of changes

So there have been lots of schedule changes lately.  The 7 week TDY that Mark was supposed to leave on soon has been cancelled (thank GOD!!).  They’ll go sometime later, but at least they’ll be home for Thanksgiving. 

Mark’s mom is coming out Oct 6-13th and Mark was supposed to leave while she was here, but now that he’s not, his mom and I are very happy campers.  It was not at all fun having Mark and my parents here, and then have Mark leave and then my parents leave.  That wasn’t my idea of fun to go from all to nothing so quickly, so I wasn’t looking forward to the same thing happening again, but I had gotten my mind around the fact that it probably would happen and was mentally preparing myself.  I was trying to focus on the fact that my MIL was willing to drop everything and come to Italy to help me out for a week, which I am really thankful for.  Now she’ll get to see both of her sons while she’s here and Abbie, which I’m fairly certain we are all pretty excited about.  Mark’s older brother, Ryan, has been studying at the Vatican for over a year and hasn’t seen the rest of the family since last July, so I know Donna is excited to see him too.  And I’m really excited for her to see Abbie.  I feel as though it’s important for her to see Abbie as much as possible.  I’m not sure why, but I feel like it’s different for Donna than it is for other family members.  She was the only one to cry when we told her we were pregnant and Abbie is her first grandchild.  And I feel like Abbie is kind of the girl she never had since she had 3 boys.  So I’m not sure who’s more excited for her to spend time with Abbie, me or Donna.  Okay, probably Donna.  =)  But I’m pretty excited about it too!

Because Mark isn’t going on a TDY now, our original plan of going to Ireland is back on!!  Mark was smart enough to not cancel the leave he’d requested, so we’re headed to Ireland Nov 11-20!  I have our car reserved and booked our flights already.  We’re flying on Ryanair, which is a super cheap airline that flies throughout Europe.  Our actual tickets were only like 106Euros, round trip, for all 3 of us, but then when we got done paying for luggage and priority boarding I think it ended up being about 242Euros.  Still not too bad.  And our car rental is through Avis and was like $120 with taxes and everything for all 9 days.  Now if I can just find good deals on places to stay we’ll be doing good!

The iPhone’s that Mark got us for my birthday got here and we’re having lots of fun playing with them.  We have to wait for the unlock code to be produced for the software version our phones have on them, but we can still use them when we’re around wireless connections.  They’re pretty neat and we’ve had a lot of fun figuring out all the capabilities they have.  I can’t wait to actually use it as my phone!  We’ve been using Pandora radio on it which has been WONDERFUL!  I’ve missed American music.  Now we can plug it in to our Bose iPod stereo and we have TONS of awesome radio stations.  They even have this one called the toddler station, and it plays lots of good songs!!  I think I like it more than Abbie does!  It plays lots of Disney music, soft rock that’s kid appropriate, musical music (like from The Sound of Music), etc.  I love it!  Right now I’m listening to country since Italians don’t have any country radio stations.

In a bad mood

I’ve been in a bad mood for quite a while now.  I just seem to be in this funk that I can’t seem to shake.
I found out today that the squadron deploying before Mark’s is going for longer than we originally aniticipated, which means Mark will probably deploy for longer than we originally anticipated too.  Yay.  So he’ll most likely be gone 10 out of 16 months including his TDY’s and deployments.
This sucks.  I hate being alone.  I hate being a single parent.  I feel that marriage is a companionship and it’s really hard to be someone’s companion when they’re in a different country than you are more than they’re with you.  I was talking to a friend tonight, who’s husband is in Mark’s squadron, and she said it’s like we live two separate lives, one when our husbands are around, and a completely different one when they’re gone.  And it is completely different when they’re gone.  You just kind of go into survival mode and wait for the next phone call or email from them.
I get really angry about him being gone so much.  I just want to scream and yell and say it’s not fair, but it wouldn’t do any good, and there’s no one here to listen anyway.  I get jealous that these TDY’s are like summer camp for the guys.  They always have someone around to talk to or hang out with.  They all eat together, they share rooms, they work together, they work out together, they play x-box and basketball and soccer together, they watch movies together, they always have someone to keep them company, and I’m here by myself, night after night, week after week, soon to be month after month.  They don’t have to worry about caring for kids, buying groceries, paying bills, taking care of animals, fixing cars, etc.  They don’t have to worry about kids waking up 2 times a night and then not napping at all.  (Thank you Abbie.  Let’s hope tonight and tomorrow are better.)  They don’t have to worry about anything except doing their job and then relaxing with everyone else after work. 
I really, really wish I was the type of person who didn’t care so much that they’re gone a lot, and I wish I dealt with it better, but I’m having a rough time with it now.  Sometimes all I can think about are these dreaded separations.
One of the other wives came over today and she said she missed her husbands touch, and the security she feels when he’s around and I almost started to cry right then and there.  There’s just nothing in the world that can replace your husband or the way he makes you feel just by his presence.
I really miss you Mark.

“On the road again…”

For some reason that song pops into my head at times, except I say “All alone again”, instead of the “on the road again”.  So yeah, Mark’s gone again.  He was supposed to come home in 2 weeks, but the cargo plane bringing them back here backed out so now they have to stay an extra 3 days.  Yay.  Some of the guys, the ones flying the jets back, get to come back on time, but the ones taking the cargo plane back get to wait 3 more days.  Pretty much sucks.  It’s bad enough that he’s gone for 2 weeks, but when there’s absolutely no reason for him to be there for an extra 3 days, it slightly, okay, REALLY annoys me.  The AF acts like they only have 1 fricken cargo plane!  They have hundreds of the stupid things.  So instead of getting a plane up there to bring everyone home, they’d rather pay for 150+ people to spend 3 more nights there.  Gotta love the logistics of the AF at times.   Grr…
Abbie has been extra screamy lately, which wears me out.  She’s getting pretty good at walking by herself now, so naturally, that’s all she wants to do.  Try to put her in the cart in the grocery store and it’s a full-on battle.  Screaming, tears, kicking.  *sighs*  Two and a half weeks seems like a REALLY long time right now.
And when the guys finally do get back, Mark will have to work later than he normally does.  During our usual routine, I obviously deal with Abbie all day while Mark is at work, but Mark usually gives her her bath, and he gives her her night bottle and puts her to bed.  Those 20-30 mins that he has her are very nice for me.  I don’t find myself counting the minutes down to her bed time as much when her daddy is here to help out.  But he’s gone now, and then it’s a while of working late so he won’t be home to do her night time routine, and the another TDY.  So between now and NOVEMBER he’ll get to do her night routine for maybe a week.  Ugh.  That wears me out just thinking about it.
But on a positive note, we’re going to Prague in August for a week.  Mark’s been there before but I haven’t so I’m SUPER excited to see that.  We’re going to drive, and it’s about a 8.5 hour drive.  So researching everything there is to do in Prague should keep me occupied while Mark is gone.
 

Mark’s Israel trip

This last TDY Mark was on was to Israel.  He couldn’t tell me where he was going before hand, but he could show me the pictures once he got back.  If I asked him to write this blog, it would no kidding, take him at least a few hours to do it, whereas it’ll take me about 10 mins.  So all this info is 2nd hand.  He told me all the stores the day after he got back, which was a good 3 weeks ago, but I’ll tell you what I remember.

This is out in the middle of nowhere Israel, which I guess is what the majority of Israel looks like.

This is Masada National Park.  Apparently the Sicarii built this huge fort on top of this big hill and lived there, until the Roman’s came along.  The Roman’s built this big ramp up to this fort, took them days to do it and when they’d finally completed it, the stopped for the day and were planning on invading the fort the next day.  Apparently the Sicarii knew the Roman’s would either kill them or make slaves, so all the Sicarii committed suicide to prevent that fate and the Roman’s came up the next day to a fort full of dead people.  You can read more about it HERE.

This is the ramp the Roman’s built.

View of the Dead Sea from the fort.

The Dead Sea near Jerusalem I think.

I *think* this is a view of Bethlehem as seen from Jerusalem.  They’re in the process of building a huge wall to separate the two since the people in the two cities don’t get along at all due to the whole Muslim and Jewish thing.

 

More Jerusalem.

This is the Dome of the Rock on the Temple Mount.  Click HERE for more info on that.

The Wailing Wall.

They went swimming in the Dead Sea one day.  Mark said it was really weird.  Because it’s like 30% salt or something, you float REALLY easily.  There are pictures of guys floating on their sides.  Mark said you do NOT want to get this water in your eyes though.

He got me a few lotions from the area and they work REALLY well.  He got me this mineral foot stuff and my feet haven’t been this smooth in a LONG time.  It works great.

Overall, I think he really enjoyed his time in Israel, despite being away from Abbie for so long.