Happy Belated Birthday JD (May 17)

Happy Birthday JD and may you rest in peace.

Ever had one of those days when all you want to do is...

...scream ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!
sigh. There's a part of me that wants to just go some place away from everyone for at least 24 hours. No husband (I love you dear, but you're on that list too), no child, no dog, no puppy, no roommate, no nothing. I should also buy a lottery ticket as well. I'm not going into details, but I just feel the need to scream and probably have a good cry and a cigarette. :) Yea I know I know, but I still want one anyway.

HAPPY BELATED MOTHERS' DAY

Happy Belated Mothers' Day to all. Military Moms are special, we must endure more and be stronger. When our child(ren) enlisted so did we but we carry that enlistment into the world of Military Moms with honor.

Army Mom Out

The Addendum

My addendum from my last post. I have a question. Many if not all of us can't wait until our child returns home from war, we truly don't want our children in harm's way. So my question is this, and maybe it's only me, then why is it that when our son/daughter returns home and maybe even gets out of the military do we still don our military "stuff". I still have my Army Mom license plate in the window of my car and I can't seem to bring myself to remove my "shrine" of my son and all military stuff from my office. I think this is the true love / hate relationship.

The Love Hate Relationship between Military Moms and the Military

Where do I start. You're proud of your child joining the Military, but then you hate them because they are taking your baby away and more than likely putting them in harms way. But then you see how much your child matures, and you love (maybe a strong word) the Military for making this change.

Then deployment comes and you hate the Military again. Well maybe that's a bit of a strong word. You agonize for a year or more of your child being in imminent danger and jump and run every time the phone rings. You check your cell phone numerous times a day to make sure it's on and you have cell reception and most importantly you did not miss a call. Of course the one and only phone call that matters. You rehearse in your head how you will exit a meeting in the event your child calls. You're not happy with the Military again for taking your child from home.

You finally receive a call from your child and because the Military doesn't operate in the same time zone as you, no matter where you are located, you hate the Military for having your child call at 2:30 a.m. on a workday. You love the Military for having the facilities to allow your child to call, but hate that everything the Military does seems to be before the rooster has awaken. I do remember asking my son doesn't the Army believe in at least starting after 6 a.m? Really, even that is early, for me at least, but it would be easier to take on a workday than 3 or so in the morning.

You get the call your child is coming home soon on leave and you love the Military again. You see your child you want to hear everything that he/she has gone through, the good, the bad, and the ugly. You take your child back to the airport and you hate the Military again for taking your child.

Now when your child completes his Service Time and his coming home for good, you love the Military yet again. You still read the articles about the Troops and what they are doing and you begin to miss the Military. You remind yourself about all of the sleepless nights you had worrying about your child and scared something bad may happen. You remember how much you hated that feeling and don't necessarily want your child back in that arena, but you love the Military still and all they have done. It's a family and a wonderful family of Military Moms. You miss that. The happy medium is you don't have to have your child in the Military because once a Military Mom, always a Military Mom. You don't have to leave the forums, you don't have to stop going to the meetings, because now you're a Vet Military Mom. Take a deep breath, this is the easiest part.

Now this was kind of the ride I've been on and while I didn't enjoy the deployments, I enjoyed the stories, well the good stories and the pictures. I found it all fascinating. Do I want to go back there, not at all. In some ways, it was an interesting ride.

Army Mom Out

Oops....

...ok so it's not tomorrow. I had every intention but it just didn't happen. Now the sucky part about having blogs is that I usually run through them quickly. In other words, it's not like an essay that I'm preparing for work or something and I'm checking for every grammatical and spelling error. However, I hate it when I go back and read them and think, sheesh Karen, you can write. Now I know I'm a product of the California School System but it was better back then. lol Oh well, here's my disclaimer, I'm a survivor of ADD, CA School System, Deployments....you can fill in the rest; I'm lucky I got this much out. lol Prime example, today, I'm at lunch and realized I never posted my follow-up blog after stating I would. So I jumped on to get something out there. It seems ok, but tomorrow when I re-read it, I'll find that my brain has once again moved faster than my typing (which isn't too bad) and my eyes aren't catching the errors. Oh well.

I'm running out of time so I think my next post will have to cover what I really intended to cover. The Love/Hate relationship between Military Moms and the Military.

The Sounds of Home

I'm sitting here in bed kinda watching Richard Jeni and giggling. Then I hear loud snores, nope, they're not coming from my husband but the dog. The cat is curled up on my leg and the puppy is in the crate. sigh and best of all, I'm off tomorrow. No work for me but I still need to get up early to let the puppy out. Can't wait til she's completely potty trained. She's still too young to be really good at holding the bladder.

Somedays, a lot of day, I'm exhausted. Work can be a big drain and coming home to two dogs running around enjoying themselves and then the occasional, grab what the puppy has stolen from somewhere. But all in all, life is good. I have no restraining orders in my life, I have a job, and I have people around me that love me.

I read some of these blogs and my heart goes out to the mothers who are dealing with deployment for the first time, or the first time their child goes to basic. Yea I still remember those days well. I remember crying at times from the letters I received from my son. Basic isn't easy, and for him, it wasn't the actual physical work that made it hard. It was more of the melding of different guys, kids, put together in an environment that is scary and some just don't cope well. There are fights, arguments and bonding. It's not all bad but eventually they learn to work together. Remember that mothers out there, you're stronger than you think you are and you will get stronger. I say this out of experience. I was having pre-separation anxiety when my son was 17 1/2 years old knowing he would be moving out of the house soon, or so I kinda hoped. At this point he hadn't decided to join the Army yet. When he did leave, that was hard, my baby was gone. I still have every letter that he ever wrote while in basic because quite frankly, the moment he had access to the internet all written letters stopped. Deployment was no different. That's ok, I still have letters. Hang in there to you ladies that are now going through this. Say a lot of prayers if you're a believer, try it if you're not. It got me through along with tons of pictures. After basic, you'll have the privilege of seeing your child graduate. I wouldn't have missed that for anything.

Well my husband is yawning and giving me that look of, can we go to bed now? lol I'll have to write more tomorrow. Until then, Army Mom Out.
Hooah to you Army Moms
Semper Fi to you Marine Moms
and I"m not sure what to say to Navy Moms but good thoughts your way.