What Does This Mean?

I had a dream last night that I was making my way through a very crowded airport or hospital. So crowded that I had to keep stopping so parents could tell their kids to move out of my way, since I was dragging a rather large bag behind me while carrying another one on my shoulder. It took all of my energy just to drag these pieces of luggage with me and the frequent stops and starts were making them that much heavier. Out of nowhere and completely unexpected, I see Bill, standing there with his arms out. I dropped everything and ran over to him and fell into his arms in a big heap.

I can tell you what it means. My children are the luggage. Trey is the one I'm dragging behind me and I'm carrying Leah. They're not baggage in the sense that I need to dump them, but I'm constantly having to care for them and carry them around. My help mate is gone and I'm subconsciously finding this job overwhelming. There's a reason God intended parenting to be a two person job!

Here's the things we've dealt with on our own these past six weeks:

• Completion of potty training
• Crawling
• The beginning of pre-school
• Stomach flu
• Pulling up on any piece of furniture, stable or not, & thinking she can stand on her own
• Maintenance of a 2300 square foot home on my own
• Maintenance of two cars and trying to figure out when I can get them to the mechanic for routine oil changes and such with two little ones...and oh yeah, the truck needs a new clutch.
• Trying to plan my daughter's first birthday party which will be here before I'm ready and figuring out how I can capture it so her daddy can see her special day when he returns.
• Filing fed taxes, to include a schedule C which is a total pain since I have this little home based business and tons of write-offs
• Trying to fill out state taxes (his, not mine!) before the deadline this Friday
• Dealing with a particular department store who we've been battling with for almost two years since the outsourced employees in India have no idea what the store manager actually said in Carlsbad, CA and they can't get their facts straight
• Acting out and testing boundaries since we're three and our best friend is on the other side of the world
• Listening to the news and reading said news about IED's and shots fired, bombs, children being killed and how everyone hates our President while my husband is over there and his job is to try to get these guys to reenlist for four more when all he wants to do is be home with his family, play the bass at church on Sunday and grill some burgers in the back yard.

If it sounds like I'm complaining, I am. It's my blog and I'm allowed to have a woe as me kind of post every now and then.

Here's some things I have to look forward to experiencing on my own while Bill is deployed:

• My birthday
• Mother's Day
• Leah's birthday
• Leah walking
• Leah talking
• Fourth of July, ironic since it's almost like a celebration for him
• Our ninth wedding anniversary

I completely support our President. I'm not happy that we as a country are still in Iraq, but talking to one who is there and sees the truth and not just what CNN says is the truth, the Iraqi's want us there. They are getting closer to being able to do this on our own but there's still a lot of deception among the different groups of people. We are paving their roads, we are reaching out to the local people helping them to become autonomous, we are training their military so that they can stand up for themselves, we are helping. Not everything that has happened there has been ideal. There's been mistakes. There's been tragedies. The people you don't see on the news are grateful for our presence. Saddam is gone.

Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely -Animal Farm

(stepping off soap box now)