Daddy

 Ahh, yes.
Daddy.  
One word.  
So many emotions.

(Thank you Lisa Woodruff for this classic book. It's now a family favorite!)

The boys are overjoyed to have Daddy around again. "Daddy, look what I can do! Daddy, did you see that? Daddy, can you help me? Daddy, wanna play?"  The rough housing and laughter is back in our house. And I am so glad.

(The boys love to go play in the gym!)

I feel relieved to have him around.  I've got my co parent back.  If I need to take five, or the boys are being disrespectful he can dole out a fatherly, "Listen to your mother," letting them know he's got my back and they can't act that way.

(Especially if their friends Michael & Aaliyah- and their dad Joe- join them!)

Plus he's totally handy. In the last week he has hung the TV, weather proofed the door, helped me decorate the entire house, worked on the satellite & helped his friends get theirs set up.  I'm sure there is more that I'm not thinking of.

Having his help around the house lovely, but having his help in the afternoons & evenings with the kids is even better.  His presence makes my life so much more palatable.  I am a better mommy when he's around
.

When I am beating myself up for being short with the kids, yelling at them, or overreacting to their misbehavior, he can talk me down.  When I know that at 4:00 he will be home, I have more patience, find more joy & feel more at peace than when I was doing it alone. He comes home & plays with the boys or makes dinner. And once dinner is done we take pick between bathing the kids or washing the dishes. (No dishwasher... remember?)

 He also does all the "errand running", if you want to call it that.  Going to the store & post office whenever we need him to.  Our favorite is when he returns from the post office bearing boxes full of treats for us.  The boys are always disappointed if he comes home empty handed!

Falling asleep at night next to him is no comparison to having to fall asleep alone for so many nights.  It's a bit of a dichotomy. When I was living it (life as single mom to three boys) it felt as if time went on forever and our bit apart would never end.  But now that we are reunited, I feel like I can hardly remember when he was gone.  Like pieces of a puzzle, we instantly fit back together.

(They also love their new game table!)

Not to say that some days haven't been challenging.  Take, for instance, traveling with three small children. Those two days in air, and the first few days settling into a routine here were an adjustment.  Also, there are some decisions we've had to make that have not been easy.

 For example, we've decided (despite all his work on the satellite) that we don't want TV.  We need to save the money. Plus I like the nights free.  We can pop in a movie, or like the other night, we played games.  Yahtzee & Scrabble.  It was really fun, and reminded me of staying with my grandparents.  We always play card games at night there, once the kids are in bed.

Us being reunited means we are making these kind of decisions together, and at times that can prove difficult. Take for instance working on Wyatt's night time schedule.  He has a great daytime schedule, but the nights are killing us. He'll go down at 8pm (give or take) but then he's up again at 10, and midnight, and 3 and 4:30 and 5am... It's exhausting, and I'm not sure what to do improve it.  Josh thinks Wyatt wakes up to eat because whenever he wakes up, I feed him. I just feed him because it keeps him quiet (this whole house echoes with hard wood floors & no rugs!) and he falls back to sleep.  I'm not sure who is right, or if it matters. All I know is that the two of us are not sleeping, and that needs to change.

I think negotiating parenting is one of the most challenging parts of marriage.  He tends to be more black & white with the kids, whereas I am more worried about their emotional well being.  Like with Wyatt, I want to rock him to sleep instead of having him cry it out because I want him to know he is safe & loved; whereas Josh wants him to learn to fall asleep on his own.  I know Wyatt does need to learn to sleep independently, but for the majority of his short life he slept with me & has been fed on demand.  So changing that is going to be tough, and take a while.  For Wyatt, and for myself.  I felt like Josh was blaming me for Wyatt's bad sleep patterns, and I had to remind him that for the five months he was gone, I was simply in survival mode.  I did whatever I had to do to get by.  Josh said he didn't blame me.  But that now is the time to make some changes since I have his help.

We also had differing opinions on whether or not Josh should take a tutoring job three afternoons a week.  The position would mean that instead of being off work at 3:30 everyday, he would stay at work tutoring until 5pm those days.  I told him the money wasn't worth the time away from family.  Josh said he didn't come to Alaska to turn down opportunities to improve our finances.  Ultimately he made the decision to accept the position.  Two days later I was paying the bills and had to concede.  He had made the right decision.  As much as I hate that he's home later three times a week, we really need the money.  And the experience is a good one, too.  Dang, I hate when he's right! (And I tell him so!)

But the rewards of marriage are more than worth the work of marriage. That's for sure.  Like last night, we got all three kids to sleep & proceeded to do our taxes.  Even thought it was a time consuming process, we were rewarded for our hard work (and our three children).  Already being in Alaska is paying off!  But I digress...

I am so grateful every morning to wake up to my boys following their Daddy down the stairs to go play in their playroom.  And every evening to kiss Logan goodnight while Daddy is kissing Jack goodnight.  I don't want anyone to think that our relationship is perfect, it's not.  But we are in this together.  And we are committed fully to each other & the life we've created.

"Absence sharpens love, presence strengthens it."

-Thomas Fuller