Pre Baby - Pre Deployment

So tonight was my 6 year old's first night back to Taekwondoe since June! The drive onto base tonight was quite the headache full of "I don't want to go", "I hate Taekwondoe", "My hand hurts, I can't punch with it". The funny thing is that as soon as we got there he was full of positive energy and great big smiles. I was expecting some type of disobedience from him but he followed along as though summer never happened and it was right back into routine! Maybe this was because he truly does enjoy it, or maybe it is due to the fact that his instructor is a black belt and also a member of the Canadian Armed Forces! You can't get much better obedience training than that anywhere else for a 6 year old.
During my son's lesson I enjoy having a gab session with some of the other military wives. We talk about what our husbands are doing at that point in time and what the military has planned for their (or should I say our) future. One of the woman's husband is currently preparing to deploy in the next week or two and another's only can home a few months back and is being asked to head over again in the spring.
I think it is important for people to remember that the military is a group of people bigger than the Canadian Armed Forces, it is also wives, husbands, children, moms, dads and so on. Everything that the army has planned for my husband effects me and my son (and our unborn baby). The thing that really sucks is that we don't have much control over any of these decisions that the army makes for our husbands and therefor make for us. It is a hard concept to get use to but I'm trying.
This past May the army sent my husband away for two months which was really hard on me, especially being pregnant. It is a hard situation (but worth it for the right man!) marrying someone in the military. The soldiers are always coming and going, training, deploying, working uncertain hours etc... It would be nice if they could at least build a base near civilization and not up here in the middle of the nowhere! I'm four hours away from my family and friends which makes finding a baby sitter a little difficult most of the time or just getting any help in general. I'm a little nervous about how I'll manage this coming spring when my husband goes overseas and I'm left taking care of 2 kids, a husky, 3 cats and a house all by myself! I don't even know how to mow the lawn! Guess I'll have to learn or hire someone to do it for me lol. The nervousness of how I am going to deal with things is nothing compared to how nervous I am about my husband going back over. I'm not sure anything can really prepare a person for it, and I don't have a clue on how to prepare my 6 year old. There are support groups offered through the base and I'm sure that I will be going with my husband and children before the spring comes.
The journey of work up training/pre-deployment has just begun, and I just hope that my husband will be given a few weeks off to spend with our newborn! I don't have a clue at this point of what is going to happen with that so I guess I'll just have to wait and see... I guess waiting is what an army wife does best...