I was asked a question...

And I wanted to give everyone the answer.

How can you watch your husband deploy over and over and still be able to do what you do?

Would you like to know what I do?

Day 1 looks a little something like this. Apply adhesive to the back of my phone and stick it to my palm as it never leaves my hand for fear I will miss his call. Cry, yell, cry some more and then pass out because I have cried so much and my heart literally aches for the unknown. Pray that the dreams are of good memories and no nightmares. Tell the kids it's going to be ok. Daddy will be home before we know it, and begin our chain of days.

Day 2. Day 1 and day 2 really run into each other because you never really know if you fell asleep.

Week 1 is the easiest. It's getting through the next 7 months that is the hardest.

Soon enough the crying is only when you watch the news. Or you see a bus on base full of Marines in my case and you say it will be your turn next and then you go home and look through every picture you have ever taken.  Repeat day 1 and 2 here.

Soon enough you get excited to staple that strip of construction paper to the rest of them because it is growing so much that it means daddy is coming home soon.

Before you know it you find yourself sitting up late googling everything you can for Military homecomings. Where you can get signs made, decorations etc.

Then you look in your inbox for THAT email with your date of arrival, or you answer your phone and it's someone on the other end to give you your dates. It's an amazing and almost a more overwhelming feeling at that moment.

If you think you nested when you were pregnant?! You have no idea. If so much as one thing finds itself out of place you turn the whole house upside down just to fix that one thing. It all has to be perfect, no matter what. And yet they don't even care (well they do just not as much as you think).

And then they are there. Turning in their weapons and waiting for that one fantastic word that I couldn't wait to hear when I was in school..

Dismissed.

That one very tiny word means so much. Thats when your heart starts aching again, thats when the tears start to flow faster than the did the day they left. Thats when you get to say....

Look!! There's daddy!!!

To be able to say those words means more than anyone will ever know. To see those smiles is worth everything. Some may say how though? How is that worth it? Is it worth you kids missing the dad for that long?

Yes. It teaches them something different. That something that we all know.

Freedom.

And that my fellow blog readers is how I can stand by and watch my husband deploy over and over again. When he is home it's family time. And we are able to get those 7 months back. Trust me!! Plus you learn something about yourself that you never knew. A new strength and a new weakness!