Hubby is home. Finally home. 4 days shy of 20 months is over. I am still learning to live with my Hero and having him around. The 4 oldest Kiddos are doing just fine with Daddy home. The Baby is just now starting to hang with Dad. But if Mom is around I am first pick. I watched the Baby go to someone else after Daddy tried taking him and saw the little amount of hurt in my Hubby's eyes. My heart broke for him. I know he knows to expect things like this to happen but it is stil hard to watch and see. The Baby will go and play with Dad and he is fine with him as long as I am not in the room.

As for me I am loving the fact that I have someone close to me at night and I do not have to have my cell on 24/7. I am not looking for the type of car parked in front of my house when someone shows up and I am sleeping again. I know that the hardest part is still to come but I look forward to relearning my Husband and knowing that we made it through 20 monthes separted and all kinds of other crap makes the adjustment sweet.

The picture is from the first night Hubby is home.

Now that I am down to just hours before my Hero returns to our home I am nervous and so excited. I sent all the kiddos next door so I could have some down time and it has hit me really hard that Hubby will be here soon. I am ready for it. I thought I was going nuts because I was not excited from the get go that Hubby was stateside. I knew he was and was glad but he was still days and miles away from me. I have changed my shirt 3 times today and changed my pants twice to day. I hope Hubby enjoys us and we have a wonderful time. I am off to bake brownies and cookies. My mind won't settle down.And my body has started to move and wants to go. More later.

I am so tired. So tired that I can not sleep. I am acting os if deployment has started and not just ended. I am still waiting on Hubby to return to us. I am so flipping jealous that everyone else gets to se him first and hug and touchhim. I am the WIFE. No one else is. Even through all the crap that I am still trying to get over I was the only one who either IMed, wrote letters to or mailed packages off at a regular rate. But everyone else has to claim they know the returning Hero. Fine I aknowledge you knowhim but did you have to do all I did in the last 20 monthes alone. Put up with crap from people and such??? NO they did not.

I am done whining. The weather has me down. It is thrundering and lighting and I would love to just curl up in bed with my Hubby and sleep. Actuelly I would love to just sleep for more than 4 hours a night.

I am done writing for the night. If I keep going I will spew more negative crap and be cranky. I am going to try a cup of hot tea and a hot bath. Hopefully that will relax me enough to sleep about 5 hours tonight.

Today Hubby is officially doen with the active duty. I missed the Welcome Hoome Ceramony but his dad took a video of it for me. At least I will get to see that. I did get to hear Hubby say his oath for his reenlistment yesterday. It is for 6 years and the last one he will take. Thank goodness!!!

I am getting extremly nervous. I want Hubby hoem and I want life to move on. How do I knwo that things have changed from the past? I don't. I have to go on his word and to be honest his word is really crap to me now. I have no clue what to think or do. I am not rushing around trying to clean my house from top to bottom before he gets here. I have 5 Kiddos living here with me. I will make sure all laundry is put awway and the bathrooms and floors are clean. I think that will be all I will worry about. Other things are really more important to me. We will see.

Hubby is spending the next few days in Vegas with his family. His mother talked to 2 out of 5 Kiddos tonight. Sweetness was in tears because her "Nana" wanted to talk to her and would not give her dad back his phone. Then they lost signal. She cried all the way home tonight. It broke my heart. She is sleeping on the floor in my room. I would let her sleep with me but she wiggles way to much for that. I am going to do her hair up pretty tomorrow for church and hopefully that wil make her feel better. We will see.

If all goes well in about 4 or 5 days Hubby will be here. I don't know if I will be posting again before then or what. When the mood strikes I will let it rip. LOL

Ok So I want to tell everyone who thinks they are helping by saying "I do not know how you did it". BITE ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You just do things. I don't know how either. Yes Virginia my husband has been gone for over 20 months. And I had a baby who did not meet his Daddy til he was almost 4 months old. Yes it hurt like all get out. Yes it was hard. (I will give you a hint IT WAS FRIGGING HARD!!!!!!) Ok I am fine now I think. I am just so tired of hearing the pity in people's voices and the amazement that both the Hubby and I could still be faithful. To be honest I don't think that was the hard part. The reunion is going to be murder. I am trying to stay positive and upbeat. I am praying and hoping for the best. I have heard horror stories of the best marriages having a really hard time after the deployment. The one left behind is so used to doing it all that it is easy to forget that the returning soldier needs to be included on something. And the returning soldier is so used to a uniform type living. And I mean working constantly and eating sleeping at specific times dailey. They forget that the "World" is not like that. Especially for those of us with kiddos. I know my Hubby has to sleep with music on. Fine I can handle that. He also likes pitch black to sleep. That will probaly be our first fight. I leave a light on so the Bully can come to my room at night when he wakes up. Plus I really hate sleeping in the dark with no other adult around. At least I can see where I am going and the kids have a landmark if they need me.

Hubby mentioned last night I believe that no tonly the returning Soldier can suffer from PTSD but also the spouse left behind. I was like "REALLY?" Are they just now figuring this out? Come on. How long do they expect us to listen to the news worry about everything that is now in our capable hands( I hope mine were) and not suffer from some kind of stress? It is harder on others than some. I have to say that if I had a TV and saw the news nightly and every little special bulletin they put up I would have blown a fuse a really long time ago. Then add the "studies" of the divorce rate and such to it and man oh man you have the makings of a very stressed out person. I mean what spouse wants to see the rate of divorce for returning soldiers? I know I don't. I want to see the rate of marriages that WORK. How hard would that be?

Oh well. I am off to bed and hopefully a good night sleep. Maybe I will finish this line of thought after the Hubby gets home. I know in my heart we will be fine. It is getting to the fine part that scares me.

Hubby is STATESIDE!!!!! I am so happy. Now I can be excited. It is still a cautious excitement but an excitement none the less. He will be in demobbing for a few days and then to Reno and then to Vegas and finally on his way here. The first time he called me I had to call back to make sure it was him and I was not dreaming. It was a wonderful call to get at 2 am. LOL

The Kiddos are happy. The Bully still thinks Daddy is at work and the rest love the fact they can call him when they want to. Buddy Lee is so excited to have his daddy back. He loves him so much. These last few months have been rough on him. The rest of the kiddos are just as excited. I am glad they are looking forward to having him home.

As for me and homecoming it is still a big ole bag of mixed feelings. I am excited and ready but I am still leary of what will go on with us as a couple. With the family and relationship issues I know we will have problems and all but oh well. I am looking for the best and not the worst. Sometimes old insercuities will pop up and I will have to squelsh them down. It is easier somedays and somedays it is really hard.

I am off to clean house and take the kiddos to the library.

I am kinda bummed tonight. I missed two phone calls from Hubby and missed him online last night. I have not heard from him today. I know he is well just missing seeing him.

As homecoming and reunion come closer I do not know what to expect from him or me. I know we have talked about it and all and set up some very basic guidelines but GOSH it is still feeling like I am having a stranger move in. Will the kiddos take to him again? Will we get along? Will we fight? It is always going through my head. Somedays I can make it stop and somedays I can't make it stop. I do love him and the essesnce of him has not changed. Will that be enough to hold us together? I pray that it does.

The Kiddos spent all day at someone else's house. I do not mind but it was kinda lonely around here. My neighbor came over and we chatted for a few. I will be so happy to have the Hubby home very soon. Oh well. I am off to see if I can get the kiddos to bed at a decent time tonight.

Well the day is still not here. Hubby is still sitting in the Stan waiting on the AF to get him outta there. Days keep changing and times are always everchanging. I will be excited when he calls to say he is on his way to Texas. No where else.
I feel more sick to my stomach than anything else. I want my Hubby home and to be His Wife again but that wil have to wait. I am still so scared and anxious about how we will work together. It seems no one but the people who have done this will ever understand. It takes more than a few days to find that right groove again. Plus add a stressful marriage, no job and reunion in a whole new state. It makes it a big scary thing to think about. So guess what I do. I DON NOT think about it. I do not want the acid reflux or the hair falling out again. I like eating what I want when I want and I like that my hair stays on my head.
The Kiddos are getting excited for Hubby to be home. Big MAn smiled about it for the first time the other day after he got off the phone with his Dad. It was cool to see. Sweetness was jumping up and down when told Dad would be leaving the Stan soon. The 3 smaller ones really don't care I think. They will be once Dad gets here.
I am off to try and get some more housework done. Then I will take a nap. The Baby is napping and Bully will be napping soon. Have a good day.

Here is a picture of the Bully snoozing on the couch. I do wish he would sleep when The baby sleeps. It would make my life so much easier. Oh well.
Ok we are one day closer to Hubby coming home. He called this morning to say that so far nothing has changed since the last update. That is enough to make my day. We talked some about Big Man's educational issues and the help he will now be getting from our new school district. We also talked about how soon to expect him home. And since he has no clear date yet as to when he will be released all he can tell meis sometime by the end of the month. Not really what I wanted to hear. Oh well. He is still coming home.
I do not have the heart to tell the kiddos that Dad wil be home sometime this month just don't know when. It is a god thing he told them. It would have been to hard on me and them for me to give them one more piece of bad news. I am still not excited for The Hubby to be coming home. It has been so long that I am more anxious about how things will flow for us as a couple. Other than that I am still ready to be a wife HIS wife and a mom. Not just a Mom and Dad. I guess I am not going to fret to much over it. What will happen will happen. We have decided to make things work and once that decision was made then the rest has fallen into place. The only thing missing is the Hubby to make the rest of this work right.
I am off to shower and get ready for revivial. We have to drive about 1/2 an hour but it is so worth it.

Well today the Hubby called and told me that they have a new set time and day they are leaving. For the life of me I can not get excited over it for nothing. I will get excited when he is stateside. I have turned his cell on and am ppaying for it but he won't use it for awhile. Oh well. At least we will have it when Hubby is stateside.

The Kiddos are doing fine. All 4 of the big Kiddos was able to talk to their Dad this morning. It made their day. It also mademy day too. :)

I am off to finish getting ready for church and try to beon time. Wish me luck on that one. LOL

So you would think I would learn never to trust what the military syas the first time around or even the second. HUH?? I thought I would. Hubby called me today to say yes he is in a tent and that he was officially pushed BACKED not up but BACK 2 days. Oh well. I have not told the Kiddos this yet. I am afraid to. They are holding it together pretty good this week so I am keeping my mouth shut.

I did turn Jerry's cell back on today. They could not do it post date it to turn on for next week. I would still have to pay for the whole month no matter what. So I went ahead and had them turn it on today so I do not have to worry about it. That is one step closer for me. For Hubby it was the moving into the tent that made coming home real for him this week.

I have spoken with one of BigMan's teachers and she was great. She wants to stay in contact with me and even gave me her home number. I am really impressed with her so far. We chatted for about 15 minutes today and she sees the same things I do in regards to Big Man's learning abilities. I feel validated now. I was beginning to fear that I was being the over protective mother with the old school district we lived in. I am very content so far with this school system here.

I am off to find out where the locksmith is so hopefully I can make it to church tonight. Either way I am headed out to get groceries no matter what time he gets here.