"I Love My Husband and My Children with All of My Heart."
But....
I love them a little more when a majority of them are out of the house for at least 6 hours a day, Monday through Friday.
Army Guy has been on leave, because of his ability to stockpile leave, since basically March. MARCH. Almost 4 months. And while yes, it's been great having him home, it would've been nice to have a warm up period. See, Army Guy came home from his latest sandbox and pretty much instantly went on leave. So, we went from one extreme to the other. No warning, no re-deployment briefs, no prep....just home. All. of. the. time.
At first, it was awesome. He got up with the kids, I got to shower with only 10 interruptions, the kids taught him how the morning routine went, we'd run errands, have some downtime and then the older ones would escape school, the bewitching hours would begin, and then wham it was kids bedtime and we were curled up on couch watching TV. Then we added PCS prep to our lives. Not too much stress, but anyone who has PCS'd before knows that the husband being home for a PCS adds a different dynamic to having to do all the PCS prep. Typically, Army Guy is working his butt off while I'm at home figuring out what we are moving, tossing and donating. This move, he was home....asking questions. Not bad questions. Not invasive questions. Not rude questions. Just questions. I patiently (some times more patiently then others) answered all questions, explained how we moved, figured out the move.mil system, explained it to Army Guy, and we muddled through it all. And just as we were feeling all confident about our move, our movers showed up with a truck that was too small on the day that school let out, the day before we had cleaners and final inspection with the Property Management company that we listed our house with. Crap. Okay, no biggie...it's just stuff. We watched them load and then unload, and call for another truck. We hoped it would all get there and we let it go. School over. House cleaned. Keys to Property Management. Down the road we go.
At that point, I was looking forward to Army Guy being with Thing 1 in a different vehicle. Yes, I'm a bad wife. I was just looking forward to having some quiet, non-thinking time. And I did have that, for about 2 hours off and on over a 10 hour car ride. Somehow in my delusional thinking, I'd forgotten that I'd have Thing 2 and Sam-I-Am with me. And while I didn't have to have huge, thinking conversations with them, I had to acknowledge EVERY time one of them said "MOM!" like I was 6 car lengths in front of them instead of the 2 feet I actually was.
I then realized I was fighting a losing battle. I'd lost my quiet time. Poof. Out the window it went, somewhere along I-24 in Kentucky.
No big deal. We'll get done with this whole move thing (which included a 3 week stay in Texas with the parents...) and then my quiet time will come back. It'll bring coffee and pedicures. It'll be great.
And yet, here we are. Done with move. House setup. Still no quiet.
Insert Mommy Meltdown Here.
I'm trying to be adult about it and understand that Army Guy is getting ready to go into a job that will have him gone more then home and that he's just trying to spend as much time with me/us as possible. I'm trying to be adult about it and understand that the kiddos are just bored and anxious because they've just had a major change. I'm trying to be adult about it and understand that it's a good thing that everyone needs me because eventually they'll get to a point where they don't want to be seen in public with me and then they'll go to college across the country and my house will be lonely. I'm trying to be adult about the fact that our lives will go back to a "normal" schedule and that I'll crave quality family time.
Army Guy reports in tomorrow and school starts the first week of August...that'll help...right? :) I think I can, I think I can, I think I can...
