Over and out!

It is kind of funny how on a Friday afternoon half the population up here packs up and heads home! Many of our friends in the military are from all over Ontario, and others come from different ends of the country. Those who are lucky enough only have a 2 to 8 hour drive to their home town. You would think the drive would be agonizing doing it that often but it's not, it is rather freeing.
Before my husband and I were married he would drive down to see me every Friday and head back up to base on Sunday nights. That's four hours in one direction and not cheap on gas! Now that we are married and I am living up here with him we don't head down as often anymore but still manage to go a couple of times a month. I guess there is something about Lake Ontario that keeps me coming back.
The reason for our trip this weekend is tomorrow our families are throwing us a baby shower. We decided to have the shower in a town just outside of Toronto so it would be a half way point for the two families (I don't think anyone would have driven up to Pembroke for it!). My husbands family will be coming from as far as Windsor and there was no way my body would have been able to handle a drive that far from Pembroke and then back again within 48 hours, Ekk! I'm still curious to see how we manage to get everything from the shower back home to Pembroke, should prove to be interesting.
My son and my niece will be at the shower as well. I'm going to use this as an opportunity to get him to start helping me with the baby. I can't really think of a better way to start the help off than to have him open the gifts for me! I think tonight when he is at his Grandma's I am going to go out and buy him a little something so that he has a gift for him too, I don't want him to start getting jealous though I know it will more than likely happen. I'm sure his jealously will be nothing compared the how jealous our dog is going to be! lol

Oh shoot, a night shoot...

So tonight my husband is going to be home late, the military has him doing a night shoot. It would be nice if they could give a day or two of notice for these sort of things but what can you expect when you have a bunch of grumpy old man who are stuck in the stone age as the higher ups. I know things have to get done but can we show some respect to the families please?
I'm very curious to see how hard of a time my husband has getting his week off when our baby is born. I am not going to be a happy person if they try and ruin this for us and I will be calling base myself if these dinosaurs give us a hard time about it. I don't know exactly how the process works but I do know that there are people for the family members to get a hold of if we feel we are being treated unfairly. At this point in time I wouldn't put anything past them.
I hate to totally complain about my husband's job considering there are some good aspects to it, but the downers to the job can be so overwhelmingly stressful and outright depressing. I do love the fact that they get long Christmas breaks and extra time on long weekends but lets face it these soldiers have earned it, and so have the families! It is just hard living in uncertainty especially when you are a person who likes to have things totally planned out in advanced. I just hope as the kids get older they understand that it isn't their Dad's fault if he can't be at certain events. That doesn't really bother me, I spent our first wedding anniversary by myself but I understand it wasn't his choice to be away. I knew before I married him that he wouldn't always be able to be here but I really didn't expect that it would be happening around the time that I am due to have a baby (which is probably why I am a little more emotional than usual when it comes to this sort of stuff). Back when we found out we were pregnant we had no idea that we'd be dealing with this again since a certain somebody said anyone who has done two or more tours wouldn't be going over seas again and my husband has done 3 tours! Figure that one out, I'm still trying to!
I just really want to see my husband be able to spend time with the baby before he leaves, it will be hard enough of him being any from his new baby for 6 to 9 months. We totally expect that the baby is not going to remember him which is really heart breaking but is expected with such a young child. At least our oldest boy can talk to him on the phone and over the internet, I think my son has some comfort in that.

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...

Day One

Today is the first day of my new blog! I'm pretty excited to get started - there's so much to write about it. I just moved from Petawawa (how boring) to Pembroke (a step up in the world). My husband is in the military so it's not like we have a vast selection of cities to live in. And not that there's anything wrong with Pet, it's just not my type of place. I'm enjoying Pembroke so far, but mostly spending my time getting fatter with military brat #2 who will be joining us in October!