At Last

The day Bill returned home, we were supposed to have rain. Instead, the sky was bright and clear, the palm fronds were shiny from the sun and white caps were forming on the ocean. It was cold, but beautiful. He came in an hour after he was supposed to arrive, which considering he works for the government, is not bad at all. All of the wives, girlfriends, parents, kids and brand new babies waited outside, shivering as the busses drove in with our men. Six months, completed. We were so happy to see each other we were shaking, partially from the 50 degree weather, partially from the anticipation six months builds. I had to show him which car was ours since the Ford was an addition to our family long after he deployed. It was fully decked out with glass marker drawings on the windows welcoming him home.

The kids thought that Bill would be back on Sunday when in actuality, he returned Friday. I decided to have a little fun with them and didn’t tell them he would be home that evening. I had a couple of different people relay babysitting and I had Bill wait outside while I walked in the front door. The kids both ran over to me yelling, “MOMMY!”, clearly from being abandoned by me earlier that morning. Trey came over and gave me a hug, noticed a big, camouflaged man out of his peripheral vision and screamed “DADDY!”. His big blue eyes opened as far as they would go. Leah looked over at all the fuss, pointed at Bill, looked at me and matter-of-factly stated, “Daddy”. Yes, that’s the man you’ve been missing all this time.

It’s been great having him home. The kids have been crawling all over him, yakking his ear off instead of mine and I’ve only washed the dishes once in the last week. There are many other reasons I’m happy he’s home, of course, but sharing the brunt of parenthood is HUGE, especially with two preschoolers. We invited our closest friends over for a welcome home party Saturday night. He finally feels like he has some good buddies, and that’s huge. Now, if everyone would stop moving out of state, we could be on to something.

I’ve been happily banished to my room. My ungrateful kids made dinner an unpleasant experience. I cooked for nearly an hour. After some smart mouth comments, fits of crying, being climbed on and having my hair pulled out as my daughter used it as her swinging rope for her impression of Tarzan, I gave Bill ‘the look’. He told me to run and lock the door behind me. I love that man. He saves my sanity. And he buys me chocolate.