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My Marine

Dear Garrett,

I miss you. I miss us. There are some things I miss more than others. Here are some of them in no particular order:

I miss putting our baby to bed together, watching her sleep and then cuddling on the couch and talking about what a beautiful, happy and angelic baby we’ve made.

I miss dreaming about the family we’ll one day have, when each child will be born and what we will name them.

I miss calling you whenever I want.

I miss watching you teach Nora new things.

I miss tickle fights.

I miss long runs together and feeling like I can keep up with you, like I’m an equal half.

…and then I think about the things you probably miss and I fell like I shouldn’t complain. You miss all of the above and from how you’re living now I bet…

You miss eating a sand-free meal.

You miss using a toilet and not a grocery bag

You miss having a cold drink.

You miss being able to shower alone.

You miss being able to have a day off of work.

You miss being able to get a back massage from your wife.

You miss fresh fruits and vegetables.

I know there is probably a lot more that you miss and yet you never complain. So I wanted to say thank you for all that you are sacrificing for your family, your community and your country. You are an amazing husband, father and best friend. I am so proud to call you my Marine.

I love you!

Kelly

My girlfriend Sadie went home for this deployment. She has triplets and decided being near her parents and grandparents would be best for her family during the seven month deployment. I was sad to see her go but completely understood her reasoning. As a surprise Toni and I prepared and sent her a Deployment Survival Kit. We filled it with silly and serious things that we hoped would help her get through the days. It included (in no particular order);

12. Cracker Jacks to be a kid again

11. A Baby bottle to keep your babies fed, full and happy

10. A Movie to help you chill out, vegetate, and forget the time for a few hours

9. Military Wives Prayer to remind you God walks with you always, and you can always lean on Him.

Military Wives Prayer

Dear Lord,

Give me greatness of heart to see,

The difference between duty and his love for me.

Give me understanding so that I may know,

When duty calls him he must go.

Give me a task each day,

To fill the time when he’s away.

And Lord, when he’s in a foreign land,

Keep him safe in your loving hand.

And Lord, when deployment is so long,

Please stay with me and keep me strong.

Amen.

8. Hair ties to pull your hair back and get the job done (on days when there isn’t time to vegetate)

7.  Bubble gum to mask the I didn’t get the chance to brush my teeth breath when you have surprise visitors

6.  An American Flag to show your pride in our country as well as to remind yourself what you and Adam are sacrificing for. So that EVERYONE may be entitled to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness.

5.  A Journal to write your deepest fears, darkest moments, happiest joys, everyday trials, to vent, to scream and yell; to just get EVERYTHING OUT.

4.  A USMC Wife Shirt to show everyone who you are and what you’re made of. And also to give you back a little piece of the home you left behind.

3.  Bubbles for the Babies So you can have a trick up your sleeve when they’re having a bad day and you need to distract them.

2.  Stationary to keep in touch with Adam

1. Smirnoff Green Apple Vodka as a last resort, just in case…

What would you put in a deployment survival kit?

I'm wearing the Dior sunglasses the ocean ate.

I have a secret to tell you. I have a slight obsession with designer things. Designer sunglasses and bags are particularly tasty to me. In my single life I thought nothing of spending $1,600 on one Gucci purse. Sickening; I know. Now that I’m a Mom my priorities have shifted and budgeting means no more Gucci purses for me. However my loving husband has allowed my obsession with designer sunglasses to continue.

This summer, before Garrett left we picked out an amazing pair of Dior sunglasses. I loved them. As you can guess by the title of the post I had to say goodbye to my Dior sunglasses and this is why…

Stacy, Nora and I were at the beach and playing along the waters edge. Nora thinks she can swim and will lie down on her stomach and kick her feet and move her arms. This is a lot of fun to see when she’s in a kiddy pool with two inches of water. It is not fun to see when waves are crashing on her. However Nora thinks getting tossed in the waves is a lot of fun.

My back was starting to get sore from having to scoop down and save Nora every ten seconds so after surveying the waves and deciding they were calm enough I asked Stacy if she wanted to walk out past the breaking point. She said, “Yes.” So Nora Stacy and I headed out.

We were out there for several minutes talking and Nora ‘swimming’ when all of the sudden a nine foot wave loomed before us. My jaw fell open, my heart skipped a beat and Stacy said, “Sh*t.” In that split second my mind literally fit in a minute lecture about how stupid I was to take my darling daughter out into the dangerous ocean. I was scared for Nora so as the wave was coming at us I held her high above my head and turned our backs to the wave (so the water would hit the back of our head and not our faces/mouths). I JUMPED and I treaded water for all I was worth. The wave smacked Nora’s back and went over my head and propelled us several feet forward in the water. I’m glad I’m a good swimmer (and that I practice swimming with Nora in the pool by doing laps with her in the lifeguard-saving-someone-without-a-preserver hold) because Nora was fine and had a big smile on her face.

It was then that I realized my Dior sunglasses were gone. They had been stripped from my face as the wave crashed over me.

Stacy grabbed Nora and headed in to see if they had washed up on the sand. I dove under water and felt around for my sunglasses. Hoping and praying I’d find the cool, hard rims of my sunglasses and NOT the slippery, sliminess of a fish or stingray.

Alas, I could find nothing and I had to go home empty handed. Goodbye Dior.

Has the ocean ever eaten anything of yours?

Read part 2 here.

After at least five minutes of continuous vomiting Nora stopped. I knew I could never push a vomiting, feverish child in a jogger for for 1 mile much less 13.5 miles. So I changed my clothes, nursed Nora and rocked her in the rocking chair. I attempted to give Nora medicine to help her fever drop and she started throwing up again. She was just vomiting uncontrollably and there was nothing I could do to stop it. I could tell she was scared by the way she cried and clung to me as she vomited.

I figured it was a bug and I was just going to have to weather the vomit storm. When her fever went up to 102.8 and she started having trouble breathing I got more worried. I called the nurse advice line and gave them her symptoms. The nurse had an appointment at 4:30pm for me and she wanted me to give Nora some Tylenol while she booked the appointment. The second Nora had all of the medicine down she started puking again -all over me of course.

I had put the nurse on speaker phone so she heard the whole thing. She decided that since Nora wasn’t able to keep anything down I had to go to the ER. I left covered in puke. I was scared and I figured Nora was probably going to throw up on me again anyway.

At the ER Nora was listless, staring into space and crying non-stop. We went through triage relatively quickly and then had a two hour wait to see the doctor. Nora had to have a catheter to rule out a UTI as well as an x-ray of her chest. She cried HYSTERICALLY for all of these procedures and I wanted to cry right along with her.

Finally the doctor came back to give us the verdict. Nora did not have a UTI but she was very dehydrated AND the x-ray revealed that Nora had pneumonia.

So now Nora’s on antibiotics and anti nausea medicine and is doing much better. I am so thankful for modern medicine. I can’t imagine how scared parents were before all of these high tech tests and solutions came along.

What’s your scariest ER story?

Nora in the waiting room of the ER

Read part 1 here.

How is it I have ended up in the ER two times in one week? This is a personal record for me and Nora. While I felt silly taking Nora to the ER when it was just her fingers and nothing was really wrong, I have decided I’d rather be at the ER for that reason than a legitimate reason like our second ER visit.

The day started out great. I woke up at 5:30am and continued to get my things ready for my 13.5mile run that morning. Nora had woken up several times in the middle of the night with a slight fever (100.3) but I was confident she’d be able to last through my run if I gave her plenty of fluids and snacks. Nora woke up herself at 6:00am and I started to get her ready.

I was already in my running clothes and carried her to her room to get changed. As I was walking Nora started vomiting profusely. She couldn’t stop and I couldn’t let go. Vomit hit my face and poured down my chest and back. It was going EVERYWHERE and I just continued to clutch Nora and run towards to bathroom so that it at least could drip onto an easy to clean up surface. I was not in the mood to tackle vomit on the carpet.

What is it about us mothers that make us able to bear the most unbearable situations? Is it our unconditional love? I just know that I would have never dreamed of putting down my vomiting, crying child. If I was babysitting with a similar situation they would have gone into a bathtub and I would have pat their back or something.

Find out what was wrong in Part 3, coming in a few days.

In the meantime, what is it about mothers that make us able to bear the most unbearable?

Nora in the ER waiting room

While I was finishing up my blogs last week Nora was sitting nearby playing her favorite game of in and out. This time it was with Garrett’s sock drawer. She was opening the drawer, pulling all of the socks out, and closing the drawer. Then she was opening the drawer, putting all of the socks in, and closing the drawer. She loves this game and could sit there for hours putting things into and out of drawers, bags, anything.

The next thing I know Nora is screaming HYSTERICALLY. She had slammed the fingers of her left hand in the drawer and they were stuck. I had to open the drawer to get them out. It was scary.

Nora cried for quite a while despite my best attempts to soothe her. For the next hour she was favoring her left hand and would cry if I tried to touch it. She couldn’t close her hand and I could already tell her fingers were swelling. Thank goodness for the Nurse Advice Line! I called and the nurse said that since it was swollen and she was favoring it I should bring her in.

Three and a half hours later we finally get to see the young Navy doctor. Nora batted her eyelashes at him, smiled really big and let him touch every single finger. She even let him squeeze each knuckle. She also grabbed the pen from his hand (making a perfect fist) and giggled and wouldn’t let go when he playfully tried to grab it back from her.

I was SO embarrassed.

I apologized profusely telling him if she had acted like this at home I never would have brought her in. The doctor tried to make me feel better by saying that she probably had been favoring it due to shock and that the shock had just worn off.

I left as quickly as I could. Little did I know that in just a few days I would be in the ER again.

Stay tuned for part 2

Has something like this ever happened to you?