Breaking Apart

Josh left on Saturday.  Twelve hours later than scheduled, which none of us can complain about... but it made our Sunday rough.  Rough, I tell you.  I had planned on working through all that sadness Saturday, and spending Sunday at my parents house.  Life had other plans when Josh's plane couldn't depart for Seattle because of freezing fog Saturday morning.  The next direct flight he could get from PDX to Anchorage (he didn't want to stop in Seattle if he didn't have to) was Saturday night.  So after a tearful drop off curbside, I turned around and picked him back up. It felt bizarre to say the least.  Blessed, but bizarre!

We spent Saturday together, swimming at the local pool & picking up dinner as a family one last time.  Then we got the boys down and Josh's dad took him to the airport.  Again.

I sat on the couch in our room, crying as they drove away.  It doesn't matter how long he's here, or how many times we've done it, being apart (or "breaking apart", as Wyatt calls it) never gets easier.

I still wish he was here.  I still miss him.  I still ache for him to help me parent these growing boys, hold me when I'm sad, and rub my feet. (Let's be honest... the foot rubs are pretty high on the list of things I miss now that I'm nine months pregnant.)

I put myself to bed early Saturday night and awoke to an inch and a half of snow on the ground Sunday.  Aside from the weather, our Sunday was not going to be what we'd envisioned anyway because my poor mom twisted her ankle and spent the day at Urgent Care making sure it wasn't broken.  Between the sudden weather change and our lack of any plans for the day, it spiraled a bit out of control.  

I kept managing to pull us back together, but all day I felt like I was hanging by a thread.  Get ready for the day, make our beds, break up a fight.  Feed them breakfast, brush their teeth, break up a fight.  Get out toys, start paying bills, break up a fight, demand sentence writing of the older two.  Finish paying bills, order winter coats, beat myself up for leaving their snow gear in Alaska, break up two more fights.  Feed them lunch, gear them up, go outside, listen to Wyatt complain about "always" walking in the snow "every time" even though this is the first snow we've had all year, and certainly the first snow he's ever seen in Washington.  Breathe.  Pray for strength & patience, remember my new years resolutions (be patient. no swearing), break said new years resolutions.  Damn it. sigh.

Like I said, rough day.

But we got through it.  Managed to pull together a nice dinner, let the kids have ice cream for dessert and choose two books each for story time before bed instead of the obligatory one.  I was feeling good.  After prayers Logan & Jack quickly fell asleep while Wyatt remained restless.  Eventually he came in my room, where I was continuing to work on my to-do list (I'm trying to be better prepared for our homeschool days) and asked if I would lay with him.  I obliged, as I typically do, and even brought my phone so we could listen to some JJ Heller (his favorite).  

But nothing was doing. He would not fall asleep.  Finally I asked him, "Why aren't you falling asleep, buddy?" And he responded with, "I'm just not tired.  I'm sad.  I'm sad daddy's not here."

I opened my arms and he crawled into them, sobbing on my chest.  And there he stayed, crying like that, for at least a half an hour.  "It's just so hard, breaking apart," he squeaked out in between tears, his little eyebrows all red & splotchy.  

I was crying, just as hard, right alongside him.  Watching him hurt, missing his daddy, was almost too much for my heart to take.  It was gut wrenching.  

It doesn't matter to him that Josh comes back in three weeks.  It doesn't matter to him that it's only for this school year or that we're halfway done... All that matters to his four year old heart is that his daddy wasn't here to read his bedtime story, brush his teeth or tuck him in.  Every day apart is one day too many.

So I just held him, letting him cry all his sads out, assuring him that breaking apart from Josh was the worst, and I totally understood how he felt.  It must have worked because finally he sat straight up and said, "I'm better", even though he clearly was not. His breath continued hiccuping until he fell asleep an hour and a half later, but he had decided that was enough.  So we picked out a big stack of bedtime stories & read each one on my bed, hanging tight to each other.

And I imagine that's how we'll get through the next few weeks...
hanging ever so tightly on to one another. 

 ***

Just a Hard Tuesday

Today was hard.  My Monday was awesome (zero screens, lots of chores accomplished, plus play time at the park & a delicious homemade dinner), so my Tuesday found it necessary to compensate by sucking.

It started rough.  Seven hours of sleep, interrupted three times by boys at my bedside "needing" me.  At 11:30, 2 and 5am. Ugh.  Then it was fighting over the cat, school, boys wrestling, tending to a few business things (ie phone calls with bad customer service) and culminating with a trip to the park that ended with not one but two broken bikes.

We eventually got to the park, by god, but it was ugly.  Logan blew a tire skidding (he's a little boy, he loves to skid-- what can I do?) and Wyatt's training wheels have lost the ability to be tightened, so they're all wonky and he couldn't keep his balance without whamming his knee on his handlebars... So we limped home from about half way to the park with two grumpy boys and a frustrated mom.

Bike issues are a bit of a trigger for me. I turn to my husband for all things mechanical and the bikes are no different.  That's his area of expertise. So I am out of my field with these three bike-riding boys.  We each got a drink of water at the house and set out again determined to make our way to the park, be it by foot, and I could feel the lump in my throat growing larger.

Before we hit the end of our street, the tears were streaming from under my sunglasses.  They were a raging river I was powerless to stop.  We got to the park where the boys immediately created some monster game on the slide and I found a spot in the shade to call my  mom and cry.

I just miss him.  I miss him all the time always.  But it's especially hard when I need him.  Today, I needed him.  I needed him to say to me, "I got this babe" or "New tire? No biggie."  I realize I could learn how to switch in a new tire, or replace an inner tube, but the point is just that I wish we were together.  And that makes some days really hard.

Emotions about Daddy

On Saturday mornings we FaceTime with daddy.  Some days it goes well, some days the connection is horrible and we end up nothing but frustrated.  I'm grateful for technology, but let's be honest-- nothing's the same as having the one you love here with you.

I have moved out of the crying-every-day stage, and the last two weeks life without Josh has felt "normal".  I was telling him on the phone last night that as nice as it is to not cry everyday, I hate that going to bed alone feels normal.  I hate that taking the twins to their baseball game alone feels normal.  I hate that bedtime stories without Daddy feels normal.

In my low moments (I still have those occasionally... I had one last night...) I think of our brightly colored countdown chain and say to myself, "Who cares? It doesn't even matter.  He'll come visit for a week, and then I'll just start this horribleness all over again."

But you know what? It's worth it.  Even if every visit is followed by two or three weeks of crying... it will be worth it. To have him here.  

To make memories with him, to see him with our boys, to hold his hand.

Right now we let daddy know we love him by sending him care packages.  Boxes filled with sticker-covered notes from little boys and loafs of cheese.  Packages with Seahawks gear lovingly picked out by his sports-loving son and tuna cause I hate that I'm not there to make his meals.

When he's here we can let him know we love him by hugging him (!), by spending time with him, and by sharing our life in Washington with him.  We are all so excited by this prospect!  Wyatt wants to take him to the movies.  The twins want him to come to one of their games.  I want him here for family movie night and at the pool when we swim on Friday night.

This time apart has not been easy for any of us. I don't imagine it's going to get any easier. (Especially after January when #4 has joined us...) But she is exactly what is going to have made this time apart worth it.

That daddy misses his boys,

and those boys miss their daddy...

But when baby girl makes her arrival safely, this time apart will have been worth every second.  

*

To stay connected when he is gone, we talk on the phone everyday.  I talk to him sometimes twice a day.  The boys talk to him pretty consistently every night at bedtime.  Wyatt likes to lay on his bed and rest the phone on his chubby cheek while he tells daddy about his day.  

We also FaceTime, as I said, on Saturday mornings.  

And in between, we send text messages.  Lots of text messages. 

Silly emoji messages,

messages painstakingly typed out by seven year old fingers,

pictures sent by an excited baseball mom,

and videos sent of our little shenanigans 

(reading our first sentences, laughing with our brothers...)

*

For a period of time, Wyatt carried around a tiny Lego my sister created that looks just like Josh.

We call him The Daddy Lego, but Wyatt took to just calling him "My Daddy".  So every once in a while he'll now ask, "Where's My Daddy?" and we all know he's talking about the tiny Lego guy with a baseball cap and jeans on.

My Daddy watched tablets with Wyatt, went to visit Nanny's house with Wyatt and even slept with Wyatt for a while.

The Daddy Lego made Wyatt so happy that I let it be.  Sure, it was a strange attachment, and sleeping with little Legos isn't my idea of "comfort" but it got Wyatt through those first few tough weeks, and for that, I'm so grateful.  Now My Daddy has joined the ranks of all other Lego guys, played with regularly, but returned to the box each night.  I think he was Wyatt's version of the "cry-every-day-phase" and now he's moved on.

We both still miss daddy, sometimes more than others, but we don't feel it quite so acutely as we did in the beginning.

*

Other than missing him, I've spent a lot of the last two months contemplating how much more in love we are than the first time we lived apart.  

The year was 2011.  

Wyatt was 6 weeks old, the twins had just turned three, and my husband was leaving for our Alaska adventure while the rest of us stayed behind to wait for new teacher housing to be built.  I look back on that time (ever grateful for God's infinite wisdom, and the baby he knew I'd need to keep me company in Josh's absence) and think "We barely even knew each other!"

It's a strange thought to have.  

At that point, we'd been together 11 years, married for 8 and had three children!  But it shows me how imperative our time alone in Alaska has been to our marriage.  How challenging and strengthening our four years there have been to our relationship.  Having only each other to lean on for much of those four years taught us to count on each other in ways that we never had before.  

I think at that time (in 2011) I was very immersed in parenting (obviously! with three kids under three) and our relationship naturally took a back burner to the demands of our little boys.

This time (now 15 years into our relationship, 12 into our marriage and our fourth baby on its way), my parenting demands are less overwhelming.  Still stressful, but less intense.  And my closeness to Josh is immeasurable.  My need for him (and his for me) has tipped the charts.  It makes being apart so much harder.  I can't decide if it's because I actually love him more, or if it's just that I'm less distracted by busy children and think about him more...

Either way, it feels good to feel more in love with my husband as the years have passed.  Even if that new depth of love makes the days apart seem longer.

***