My Sailor Home vs. my Sailor Deployed

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My Sailor Home vs. my Sailor Deployed

          As a Navy wife I have become aware of the many differences between time when my husband, Jimmy, is home, and time when he is deployed. [commas? correct, too many, missing one?] From co-parenting and date nights to raising two children alone and emails from far away countries, it’s like living two completely different lives.      [is this intro. too short? should I add a sentence? ideas?]

            My job as a stay-at-home mom is not an easy one, but when Jimmy is present he helps relieve a lot of the pressure and stress from my day to day routine. Whether it’s paying the bills, changing the oil in the car, playing with the kids, or helping cook dinner, every little thing helps our lives run smoother and makes my job a little easier. Whereas when he’s deployed I often feel like a single stay-at-home mom juggling a hundred things at once, half of which I don’t know anything about. How do I fix the car’s tail light? Why isn’t the water draining from the washer? How do I grill a good medium-rare steak? After all, I often wanted a nice meal after a rough day.    
                I didn’t do very much cooking while Jimmy was away though; in fact I learned that three-year-olds are pretty easy to please. Unless company was coming over I would throw something from the freezer into the oven and then I’d wait for the timer to tell me it was ready. The extent of my cooking would be some macaroni and baked chicken breasts with a can of green beans heated up. This laid back cooking routine was certainly easy, if not very healthy. When Jimmy is home I meticulously plan out a menu, full of delicious meals that require numerous cooking utensils, and dishes, and leave the kitchen in quite a mess. When we were newlyweds I was a terrible cook. Sometimes I wonder how we survived that first year without becoming malnourished. I remember the first time I was really proud of a meal I’d made. We lived in a small apartment and Audrey, our first child, was only a year old. In our tiny kitchen I made chicken and dumplings with cheesy garlic toast. The delicious smell filled our apartment, and even the hallway outside our heavy front door. It was one of the best meals I’d ever made, and was perfectly well suited for the blustery Chicago winter that we were experiencing. Cooking new meals is something I really enjoy, but, unless I’m motivated by my husband’s presence, I don’t do it often and instead rely on unhealthy frozen options.

            While cooking new meals is fun, simply trying new foods without having to do any work is my idea of a really good time. When Jimmy was home we would go out on dates once or twice a month and generally that included dinner at a nice restaurant, and some fun activity like a movie, bowling, or a trip to Seattle. It was so great to be able to get out of the house with my husband, leave the kids with the sitter, and really unwind. Half way through our first big deployment I decided the kids and I were going to go out and have a fun night together. It turns out a tired ten-month-old and a wild three-year-old don’t make the greatest movie theatre companions. It also probably wasn’t my wisest decision when I bought the large bag of candy for my daughter, thinking I could use it to bribe her to stay quiet and in her seat. Half way through the silly children’s film I made Audrey stop singing and dancing up and down the aisles, clean up the starburst wrappers strewn about, and carry her bag out the swinging theatre doors. I lugged my son’s heavy car seat, the diaper bag, and purse back to the car, pulling my daughter along the whole way. The memories of that night, which I had hoped would be so fun, entail an excellent example of the difficulties of parenting two young children alone.

            This African proverb always makes me smile: “It takes a village to raise a child.” I would’ve loved to have had an entire village of people helping me raise my two little ones during the deployment, but I would’ve settled for just one person, my husband. Every day new milestones were reached and new questions needed to be answered.

When my husband left, Audrey spoke in simple sentences and Jacob was just a newborn. Jimmy returned home seven months later to two children who had grown up quite a lot in his absence. Audrey talked constantly. She ran, she played, she had numerous friends, and she never shut up. Asking enough questions to drive a psychologist crazy was her favorite past time. “Why, Mommy? Why, Daddy?” she’d ask us a hundred times a day. Jacob was no longer a newborn. He was not only a very fast crawling professional, but he also loved pulling up on various furniture, babbling, and using a few signs to communicate his needs. [Should this be in here? It's not really comparing or contrasting much... but it does provide some humor I think, and gives a good picture of how much children grow up in seven months time. What do you think?]

During those seven months, knowing what decisions to make during any given situation was not an easy task. Audrey had a lapse in potty training about half way through the deployment. I was at my wits end washing dirty laundry. Every night I’d watch Audrey use the restroom, and then every morning I’d have to change her sheets. I remember sitting in the coffee shop that I went to every Wednesday to meet with a few friends of mine, nearly in tears, holding my white chocolate mocha as I explained the bedtime difficulties. These friends all had children long past the potty training stage and knew exactly what the root of my problem was. Audrey had recently started daycare and was therefore too exhausted at night to wake up to use the restroom. She was simply sleeping too hard to wake herself. I often found myself in need of solutions to tough problems regarding the children and would’ve loved my husband’s help. Even if Jimmy was just as clueless as I was, I know he would’ve made me feel worlds better just by being there and taking some of the stress away. 

            Regardless of whether Jimmy was home with the kids or out to sea, the one constant between the two brought me great comfort. He loved me. I knew that we had a very strong relationship, and that I was loved no matter what happened. Knowing that helped on the rough days during deployment. Sometimes there was no contact from him, but I kept in mind that I was an important part of his life. There’s strength and beauty in love that I know can’t be found anywhere else, and I’m very blessed to have that with my husband.  

            Life with Jimmy home and life with him deployed were two very different experiences. I’m proud to say that we all survived the long seven month deployment. While I much prefer having my husband home, I know now that I am strong enough to handle having him very far away, and that makes me lift my head a little higher when I think of the difficulties I overcame. [too short? suggestions? does it wrap everything up nicely?]

Excerpt from Suzanne Britt's Neat People Vs. Sloppy People

"Sloppy people can't bear to part with anything. They give loving attention to every detail. When sloppy people say they're going to tackle the surface of a desk, they really mean it. Not a paper will go unturned; not a rubber band will go unboxed. Four hours or two weeks into the excavation, the desk looks exactly the same, primarily because the sloppy person is meticulously creating new piles of papers with new headings and scrupulously stopping to read all the old book catalogs before he throws them away. A neat person would just bulldoze the desk."

Ha ha ha, story of my life right there! :)

This week I'll be writing a Comparison and Contrast essay. :)

Help Me!...Descriptive Essay

Any help is greatly appreciated!

My Grandparent's House

I have always loved my grandparents’ house in Jacksonville, Texas. Hearing about how my grandfather built it in 1978 for his family has always inspired a sense of pride in me. Many of my fondest childhood memories were made in the house that stands at the bottom of the steepest hill on county road 3176.

As I step down from the car I hear the familiar crunch of pine cones under my feet. The heavy scent of the forest fills the air. I walk over to the long front porch and step inside the house. I remember, whenever I was visiting, I would run up to the front door and look out the window panes to see who else was coming to the house. The sheer joy of being at my grandparents’ house was so much I could hardly stand hearing a car pull up and realizing another relative was joining us for all the fun. The living room is kept warm by the cozy gas heaters in the corners. The floor is polished smooth and stained with a warm yellow color. There’s a china hutch in the corner, and soft comfortable chairs arranged around the room.  My favorite thing is the glass bowl next to Granny’s rocker. It is the candy bowl, always kept full of caramels and Werther’s. I remember sitting in her lap as a little girl and picking out a Werther’s candy. The wrappers would crinkle when I twisted them open and then tossed them into the waste basket. The sweet sugary treat always made my mouth water. After I had a piece of candy I’d jump down and run off to the big room to play with my siblings and cousins.     

            The big room is definitely the largest room in the house. When family reunions took place, this room was where you’d find everyone. The left side is full of comfortable chairs and upright card tables with dominoes waiting to be played. There are two bunk beds further into the room, against the wall, with their mattresses covered by beautiful quilts. Pawpaw’s pool table sits next to the staircase that leads to the loft. I run my hand across the table, feeling the soft green felt that comes up and meets the cool smooth cherry wood. It is a green wave of the sea meeting the sand on a familiar beach. I pick up a cube of chalk and place it on its shelf, its light green color leaving a residue on my fingers. The smell of chalk permeates the air and I remember hearing the squeaky sound of my grandfather putting it on the end of his pool stick before making his next shot. Two fans hang down from the tall ceilings and the blades rotate slowly making a repetitive but soft whirring sound. Up in the loft I’m much closer to the fans and can feel the cool push of air that the blades work so hard to procure. The soft beige carpet is the kind that invites me to take off my shoes and wiggle my toes. The loft was my get away spot. I loved that I could hear so many noises down stairs and I could still feel secluded. The clashing of billiard balls and clicking of dominoes, the sound of running children, and all the many voices in the room could all be heard from the loft. I would run up there and read books for hours at a time in the summers, until the bell would call me down to the kitchen to have a bite to eat.

            As I walk into the kitchen I notice the old rusted cow bell sitting on its little shelf by the door. The children would get to run around ringing the bell to make that clanging sound resonate to every corner of the house whenever it was time to eat. Just like the rest of the house, this room, right down to the cabinets and shelves, is made of beautifully polished spruce planks. The wall that faces the outside has a huge paned window that overlooks the numerous pine trees. My grandfather is notorious for fooling naïve children into turning from their dinner plates to look at the huge bear outside. I never saw a bear, but I always noticed a few bites of my food were missing from my plate when I turned back around. Pawpaw would grin while chewing a big bite and say something about the bear running back into the forest at the last second. The long kitchen table covers half the room. Fifteen or more people have been known to gather around that table during family reunions. The rings in the wood mix with the circles left behind from hot coffee cups sitting too long without a coaster. I stare at the mesh of ovals and circles as the bright sun hits them through the branches outside. It’s a beauty that I took for granted when I saw it often. When I look at the table now I see that it has had many years of love, has done its job very well, and continues to be strong and sturdy for anyone that is fortunate enough to sit at it.

             After eating a good meal and cleaning our plates, my siblings and cousins and I would all run out the back door and down the steep porch steps. A tire swing hangs from a branch of a tall sturdy pine tree. Another swing, just a plank with a rope through the middle, hangs from a tree close to the path that leads to the lake. The red clay fills the crevices in my shoes as I walk down through the sparse grass to the pier that goes out over the water. As the gentle waves push back and forth I can hear the sound of the paddle boat gently hitting the tin siding of the boat house. The water laps against the cedar logs that support the pier. Moss has grown up the logs, giving it a slimy feeling. When I would swim in the lake as a child I would brush up against the mossy supports and squeal, sure that it was a slimy eel trying to get me.

             As I take the winding road back up the steep hill, I look back on the house that my grandfather built. The large house, with its red brick fire place jutting out, stands at the bottom of the oval drive. The lake peaks out from around the back, with the tire swing swaying in the wind not far away. My grandparents’ house is one of my favorite places in the world. I will always remember the sense of comfort that filled me when I was there, in the presence of relatives and loved ones. It is a home that provokes laughter and joy. If I ever get lost in this big world, and need to find love and comfort, I know I can return to Granny and Pawpaw’s house amongst the pine trees.