I have had it pretty easy for the past week. My husband has been able to Skype and call on a daily basis because my husband has been training. I have been "spoiled" to be able to talk to him as much as I have. I wish it would stay like this the whole deployment, but it won't. The frequent conversations with their dad seems to have helped the kids for the most part too. This morning we got to video call Ian again and the kids got to see and talk to him for a few minutes.
After the phone call, we got ready for the day, ran some errands and then spent the rest of the day together. I made an awesome dinner for the kids, we sat together and ate and talked. After dinner I took the kids to VBS. Daniel had another good day at VBS and behaved himself pretty well. When I picked up Natalie, however, she was crying. She did not have as good a time tonight. VBS was mostly good for her, but towards the end, she was putting on her shoes and the class left the room, not realizing she wasn't ready to go. It scared her and hurt her feelings that she was left behind. She caught up with them, but still, the breakdown started there. Then, her craft, a turtle she made for daddy, fell apart in the bag they put all the crafts in. So, then the tears kept coming. It was heart breaking. There literally was nothing I could do but hold her, tell her she was ok, and tell her that we would fix the turtle at home.
When we got home, she was still crying and it took me a while to get her to calm down and go to bed. Of course, in the middle of that, she started missing daddy even more. He is her favorite, I know that. My hugs just aren't the same as her daddy's hugs. I feel so inadequate at times like these. I know she misses him and that she wishes it was daddy holding her, not me. It shouldn't bother me, because I know she just misses Ian, but it is hard because all she wants is daddy, and I can't give that to her. Not even her daddy doll helped tonight. I just wanted to cry too, but for reasons other than someone breaking my craft. I wanted to cry because I felt so useless and because I miss Ian too.
Oh, how hard it is to try and be strong when you see your baby girl crying, especially when you know it is justified and you would love to join her. Instead I have to be strong for her. Tell her that I understand how she feels and tell her that I miss daddy too, but avoid crying. It makes it worse for them when I cry. I have to try and keep it together for them. I don't mind, really. It is getting easier to do, but still hard at times like this. Even before Natalie's little breakdown tonight, I have been missing my husband more and more. It isn't stopping me from functioning like it used to. It is just the normal thoughts I usually have of him throughout a normal day, now have had a tinge of sadness to them because I am missing him. I am not sure why it hits worse on some days than others, but, it does. Despite that today was one of those days where missing Ian was center stage in my head, I still was able to be strong for my daughter.
Another day done, another day closer to seeing my husband again.
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