DET #2. Sigh.

Charlie is currently gone on DET #2 out of 3 DET's (detachment - a training exercise) leading up to his deployment. Sigh. He left June 2nd & will return home on the 19th. Right after Father's Day & our 6 year anniversary. If I remember correctly we've celebrated 3 out of now 6 anniversaries together. Sigh. I'm not sleeping well; I never do when he's not here. The kids are starting to ask daily if daddy will be coming home for dinner today. Emma announced yesterday that she wanted to talk to daddy on the phone so she can tell him she loves him. Nathan pretends to be going to work but always announces that he won't be home for dinner. Sigh. The kids have only been able to talk with Charlie once since he left, I'm hoping she remembers how much she wanted to tell him she loves him. We get to talk about every couple days. This is probably the most we'll get to talk between all the other training exercises & then the actual deployment. He leaves again July 8th until August 1st, comes home for 11 days of pre-deployment leave & then he leaves the last week of August. This doesn't include the nights he'll be rotating staying on the ship with the squadrons belongings to ensure nothing happens to it. The XO printed in the newsletter that the deployment was to be 6 months long, what a shock, we thought 7. Then Charlie later had to break the news, that yes, it is almost certain to be 7 months long. Sigh. 3 deployments in 3 years. This is where I stop & say "I'm done, I don't want to play anymore." Most days lately I'm fine, really preparing myself mentally for what's ahead (and there seems to be quite a bit) but today, I'm kind of down about it all. I guess tired sums it up a little better. I'm mostly tired of being apart from my best friend. Of planning what activities we are going to do without him rather than with him. Sigh. I've really been trying to work with Nathan and his desire to feel sorry for himself. So as I said to him right before bed "we will not feel sorry for ourselves & pity ourselves." I will take that same advice. It doesn't bring honor to the Lord, and as hard as it is some days, I will bring honor to the Lord by my reaction to all of this. It would be much easier to throw an adult-sized temper tantrum, but in the end everything will still be the same. He'll still be leaving & I'll still be here trying to get through another deployment. I'll figure out how to sleep without him here; The kids will learn to understand that while daddy wants to be here, he's needed more somewhere else & the Lord will be "a father to the fatherless"; I'll figure out how to make Thanksgiving, Christmas & all of the kids birthdays special without him; And how to make him feel a part of what's going on here despite the miles (& oceans) between us. Ooh-Rah!