The dust settles.

So, a month and a couple days has passed since Steven was deployed. And I must say I have a new found respect for military wives throughout the years. It is amazing to me that people would and still wait weeks for phone calls and letters when I spend my entire day looking forward to a phone call that may last only five minutes.
I find a certain motivation in accomplishing the days tasks before my evening phone call rolls around...and to be honest...I think I very well may go crazy without it.

But, overall, this month hasn't been that bad. I have learned how to do things I NEVER thought I would have to do. I have successfully managed to kill a number of spiders (leaving the black widow to the Orkin man of course), have climbed on rafters, learned how to operate a lawn mower, unclogged a drain and fixed a broken cabinet door. It isn't that I have been "uncapable" of doing these things...it was simply easier to have Steven do them. Knowing how, is awesome I guess, but I would take having him home any day over the 10 seconds of liberation I feel when I have the "I got this shit handled" moment happens.

My children, well, at least the boys. Have become the spawn of Satan...or maybe have just turned into exact replicas of their father as a toddler. They scream, they bite, the kick, the ignore, the scream, they throw tantrums. It isn't funny or cute and there have been days that it has taken everything in me not to pull my hair out, lock my children in their room and scream at the top of my lungs. But...I have managed. Deep breaths and evening time wine have made these days bearable. Kind of.
The boys have been approved for early intervention speech therapy and will begin services on Tuesday morning, though they have started talking up a store in recent weeks I am excited to learn more about idioglossia and what I can do to help them develop a correct speech pattern.

Adelyn is growing like a weed and has managed to double her birth weight (quite an accomplishment for a 4 month old) and jumped to the 80th percentile in height. My once petite little princess is hopefully going to be tall and lean like dad and not short and crooked like her mom.

So, it has been a month. Strangely, not much...but so much has happened. And it has been hard not having Steven here t experience the successes with me as they happen throughout the day. I can't call him in excitement when Adelyn sits without tipping for 5 seconds or when the boys learn a new word. I have to keep it inside and hope I remember. I feel bas sharing the successes with others before I tell him so I usually keep it inside...just waiting for daddy to be the first to know.

Making it through this month has taught me a lot about myself and about my kids. It has taught me that when I say "I can't" it normally means I don't want to. It has made me realize that a lot can be accomplised in a 12 hour day. It has taught me the value of the 5 minutes of silence I receive in the shower at the end of my day. It has made me value sleep and has given me a new found respect for ALL military wives and ALL single moms. It has taught me the value of taking a deep breath when I want to scream and reminded me that sometimes the only option is drowning out the chaos because no hug or kiss that I can provide will fill in for daddy.

My boys miss their dad. I am not sure that they know that...but they do. And it sucks. But...we are getting through...so as the dust settles I need to take a deep breath, brush myself off and get ready for another month of chaos as I start counting down the days until I get an ounce of sleep, an ounce of freedom and my hubby back.