Why Me???

John is leaving for Iraq soon. I know this, our families know this and anyone with any significance in our lives know this. So why is it that some people pick ME to vent their problems to??? For the next year I'll be faced with being separated from my husband and possibly losing him. I have the task of taking care of our children alone. I know that I'll have tons of family and friends around to lend a hand but at the end of the day I will still be here by myself with the kids. I have to explain to Marissa that John is off "fighting the bad guys" and answer that question Roman asks every time John is gone...... "where's Dad?" I'll be the one showing Shamus pictures of John every day so he knows who Daddy is when he gets home. I'm the one that will have to deal with their meltdowns and understand the underlying reasons for them. I'll be the one holding them while they cry for Daddy/John. If, God forbid, he doesn't come home I will be the one to tell them why. All of this stress on me for the next year, while being scared out of my mind as well and holding it together for them, and I won't even be able to talk to John about it until he comes home because while he's there he isn't going to want to hear any of it. He'll have his own stress. So the last thing I want to hear about is your trivial problems. Sure, they may not be trivial to you but to me, they are. Don't call me to tell me about the bad things in your life, for the next year I won't care and I won't have any problem telling you that I don't care either. I know I may sound harsh but frankly I don't care. I will have my own problems to deal with so please go find someone else to vent to.

Change is a Commin'

I know Roman is only 2 ½ (almost 3) but I swear he can sense what's going on. Every time John walks out the door he's at the window watching to see where he's going. When ever John is gone he asks "Where'd Dad go?" "Dad's at work?". He knows that John isn't going to be here much longer. The entire time John was is Minnesota (two weeks) he would ask where he was, when he was coming home. When John went back to Minnesota for SRP (only gone two days) he started waking up really early, sometimes 4:30-5 am and most recently it's been 5-6 am. He comes into our bedroom with his blue "gagi" (as he calls) and gets in bed with me and sometimes goes back to sleep and sometimes asks to watch his favorite cartoons. Last night was a little different. It was about 9:30 pm and John and I are in the living room talking and looking at stuff on the computer when we hear Roman's door slowly creaking open and there he is. He had been asleep for maybe an hour and we still have no idea what woke him up but he was up. We tried to get him to go lay back down but he started crying, he wanted to get into our bed. At his age he has no concept of time, all he knew was that he was asleep and he woke up and now it's time to get in bed with Mom. We let him lay down in there for a while (at John's protest) and eventually was able to convince him to go lay down in his room. 6 am rolls around this morning and like clock work there he is ready to climb in bed with me. I can say that I don't see an end to this any time soon and possibly getting worse before the year is over. Hopefully I'll be able to get him out of the habit before John comes home.