Hurry Up and Wait.......this is not a fun game

Well we are officially in the waiting period to see when Michael will deploy. The date has moved three times now and I have a funny suspicion it will move yet again. So during this "wait" period I am trying not to let my emotions get the best of me and just enjoy the extra days with my husband. It's funny because you would think it's a wonderful thing to get added time and while it really is, it also can make things harder. You try to somewhat prepare yourself for a deployment and get in the "single mom" mindset but it seems every time you start to do this and semi come to terms of dealing with the "loss" of your husband/father for the next nine months, you have to start all over again when days are added to his time at home. As stated before don't get me wrong I feel blessed to have the extra time but I'm ready to get this started. The anticipation leading up to a deployment is WAY worse than the actually deployment. Every military wife knows the beginning and the end are ALWAYS the hardest. We have started to talk to Parker a little bit about where daddy is going and what he will be doing. We want him to at least give him the opportunity to understand that daddy is going away for a long time but he will be back. And although he may not understand we feel better knowing that we have at least started the process of talking to our child about what his daddy does. And to our surprise he does somewhat understand. Our friend Katie so graciously watched Parker a few nights ago so we could have a date night and to my surprise she said Parker had told her his daddy was going bye bye. Now I am not saying he understands why but at least he has grasped the concept that daddy is leaving. So bittersweet. It already breaks my heart to think he associates daddy's truck in the driveway with daddy being home, and well that truck will be sitting there for nine months with no daddy to step out of it. Deployments hurt there is no way around it but I have, I am, and I will always be proud to serve this country by standing behind my man;) Although I can't disclose the exact date of his "expected" departure for safety reasons, I can keep you updated after he is already gone so that I will do. I hope you enjoy the pictures of our last days with daddy before he leaves!