The past week has been fairly stressful. We’re only halfway through deployment, and I flew by myself with my three fidgety children from Mississippi to California, only to find out that my mom was in the hospital.
In isolation.
And wouldn’t be out for Christmas.
But in just a few moments all the stress of deployment, airlines, travel with children, illnesses, it will all fade away.
Because in just a few moments, I will be eating my first In N Out burger in over three years.
Now my Southern and Canadian readers may not understand the importance of this, but my California readers?
Oh, you know. You. Know.
Three years without In N Out means there is a gaping hole in your soul -not to mention your stomach- that can only be filled by the words “Animal Style.”
And as I unwrap my fresh, never frozen burger with grilled onions and hand-leafed lettuce, my soul rejoices.
Because that’s what a hamburger is all about, ya’ll.
That’s what a hamburger’s all about.
(Click on letter to read)
So I’ve had this letter written for a week, and if I run true to form, it will sit around for another few days before I finally get it into envelopes and stamped and addressed, and then those will sit around for another few days before I finally get them to the post office, and then the letter will arrive in the mailboxes of our loved ones three days after Christmas.
But you all get to see it first. Because I love you so much and you are so dear to me.
Or maybe because I don’t have to leave the house in all my hive-y, calamine covered, benadryl-doped-up glory, to share it with you.
Merry Christmas, ya’ll!
So the Great Plague of ‘08 is on it’s way out. I still sound like I’m coughing half a lung up, but at least the fever and chills are gone, and I started being a productive member of the human race again, instead of huddling under a blanket 24 hours day.
Well. That was until The Pox.
Oh, ok, I don’t really have the pox, but I do have hives. I’m in the fifth day of having them traveling over my body, and the doctors don’t know what I’m allergic to that could be causing them.
They decided I needed to see an allergist.
In January.
Mid-January to be precise.
So if you’re out doing some Christmas shopping, or returning a hideous sweater in January, and you see a woman with three small kids discreetly trying to scratch her entire body on the side of a building or a convenient tree?
That would be me.
Feel free to say hi.
I promise not to cough on you.
Communication from Iraq is pretty bad. Calls get dropped, skype hardly ever works, emails get delayed.
So I try not to worry when I don’t hear from my husband, or the phone rings unexpectedly late at night. I know he has a safe job, on base.
Usually.
Sometimes he has to go on a convoy. Or take a helicopter. Or both.
On the same day.
And then there’s nothing.
No phone calls. No emails.
(Where is he? Why hasn’t he emailed? Please, God let him be safe.)
And a day goes by with no word.
And I wake up the next morning, thinking now there’ll be an email from him.
(Pleasepleaseplease)
But there is nothing.
(Please let him be ok. Please let him be ok.)
And then someone comes to the door. And I think maybe I shouldn’t answer it. Maybe I don’t want to know who is on the other side of it. Maybe this is it.
(Oh God, don’t let this be it don’t let this be it don’tletthisbeit)
And it’s not. It’s just a friend who was out and decided to drop something off.
And so I wait. And I pray. I feed my children and clean the house.
And I check my email obsessively.
Until finally, finally there is an email from him. The lines were down and he couldn’t email or call.
(ThankyouthankyouthankyouGod)
And I know that we’re not even halfway done with this deployment. How many more times will I have to wonder?
I’m sure we all take a little creative license on our blogs. But after my recent post on how to help someone with a deployed spouse, I had to reassure some friends that I’m really doing ok. I may have exaggerated just a little bit. So here’s the pure truth on a few points where I took some creative license-
9. Then stay and make breakfast (from scratch) while I sleep in until at least 9. Preferably 10. (I almost never make breakfast from scratch during deployments. And the only way I can sleep in? Is to get up, get the kids breakfast and change diapers, then turn on the tv and take a nap on the couch while the kids watch it. A common tactic when I am sick.)
8. Run to the store at 11pm when I discover I’m out of diapers and can’t move because I’m holding poopy baby legs. (Yes this happened, but I still had Luke’s pull-ups. Sure they were two sizes too big for Audrey, but they worked!)
7. After a hard day, run to the store at 9pm to buy me ice cream.
6. And chocolate. (Have I mentioned I’ve lost 10 pounds since deployment started?)
5. Come over at any time of day or night to kill a spider.
4. And a cockroach.
3. And anything that scurries and has a tail. (I did have a spider and cockroach I had to kill. In the same night. I have never seen anything that scurries inside my house, though. Only squished on the road down the block. But I’ve had to learn to brave the bugs.)
2. Figure out how to hook the new DVR up to the tv, dvd, soundsystem and ipod player thingy. (I figured it out all by myself. Because I rock.)
1. Run out and get me some cold medicine and a box of tissue, righthisverysecond before my head explodes and I am forced to wipe up the mess with leftover Chik-fil-A napkins because we are out of tissue, napkins, paper towels, and have only enough toilet paper to last for one more day, but only if no one uses it to blow their nose, and none of my children poop in the toilet, which would require us to use our reserve supply of Chick-fil-A napkins, which would stop up the toilet and then you’d also have to come over and plunge the toilet for me. (We actually keep our reserve Chik-fil-A napkins in the car. So I couldn’t have used them if my head exploded, which it truly was in danger of doing. However, I also had a whole pack of toilet paper in the car, so if my head had exploded I could have gone out and gotten it. That’s not where we keep the extra toilet paper, mind you. I just didn’t have enough hands to bring it in from the store and it was raining so I wasn’t about to make a second trip out to the car for it. I also know how to plunge my own toilet. I learned how last deployment.)
So how much creative license do you take?
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