It rains here all the time, regardless of the season.  But something about this rain was different.  This rain was...  fall.  I could sense it.  It was different.  And I had a really intense feeling of hope and optimism as I squinted through my wiper blades.

I think I should bake something.

I spend my free time doing chores, cooking, and browsing the web these days.  And my routine is getting quite boring.

It'll be nice to have something else going on.  I don't mind being a homebody at all.  I just like when there's another adult to do it with me.

No, not really.  I'll of course make it through all of this too.  I just feel like I am finally hitting a total wall and am ready for this to just be behind us.  I'd love nothing more than to sleep through the next month or so.

I can tell he is on the down-slope of it all, too.  We are bickering again, where we hadn't bickered at all the entire time he's been away.  The littlest things all seem so dramatic.  Eggshells abound.

Amaris is pinching my nerves.  Cadence is fussing more than usual.  I am exhausted and stressed out.  And no amount of sleep makes it feel any better.  Everything anybody says to me is subject to extreme scrutinization and potential blowing-out-of-proportion.

I'll survive.  I'll get through this.  I just need to relax and take things as they come.

Mark has been gone for more than four months and we did have a return window, which I was cautiously optimistic about...  But for the moment that window has been taken away and replaced with a giant question mark.  Which really makes me sad and disappointed.  I'm back to being utterly in the dark.  I don't know when he will be home.  Don't even have a clue.  And due to his specific situation right now, I don't even have a clue who to look to for answers about it.  Part of me just wishes he was messing with me and that he'd unexpectedly burst through the door at any moment.  And I'd probably pee my pants and spring up off the couch, Lucy III clattering to the floor, and run to him.  And it would be very classy - me wrapped around him completely with my frumpy pony tail, no bra, oversized t-shirt, dirty socks and pee-soaked yoga pants.  Does that not paint the loveliest picture?

It makes my heart hurt.  Amaris, lately, has really become obsessed with asking questions about him.  Where is he, what is he doing, when will he be home...  And it's exhausting because so frequently I don't know the answers.  How do you keep things simple when they aren't?  How do you explain to your three year old that daddy is far away in a dirty and ugly place doing a job that is dangerous but that fills him with love and pride?  How do you tell her that he'll be safely home again soon, but you don't know when?  She saw a Marine in his cammies one day last week while we were walking from the car to our building and she laughed and said, "Wookit, mommy, he's wearing daddy's."

Being a military wife sucks.  But I think being a military brat must suck even more.  And sometimes, I am thrilled that I brought my children into this lifestyle, with all of the pride and life experience and community that comes with it...  But other times, I feel guilty that my children are experiencing some of the things they face.  It seems so unfair for a child to have to deal with such grown-up things.

I know we'll all be fine.  But sometimes I do struggle and I do feel sad about it.  I guess I just hate to blog about all the sad things, so I haven't blogged at all.  I should get over that.

I'll admit I'm pretty disappointed.

Typhoon Morakot is heading this way - they anticipate we'll be experiencing it tomorrow and Friday!  I'll admit that the weather right now all by itself is rather exciting - the wind is blowing, the rain is coming in in patches...  It's a little like the anxiety I remember from being in labor.

I kept Amaris home from school today, and will most likely have her out for the rest of the week as well.  Tonight she is going to church with our neighbor and I'm certain that she will have a blast.

I ran errands this afternoon out of last-minute necessity and also to divert my attention.  I spoke with my grandma on the phone earlier today and got an update on my mom's situation.  The doctor seems to believe that it's most likely Alzheimer's.  Which, deep down, I knew.  I had been SAYING that right along.  But to hear somebody else, somebody who knows what he is talking about, say it...  That is different.  And a little bit heartbreaking.  All of these fears immediately arise - many of them selfish.  Ok, well, technically they could ALL be considered selfish.  But they're all very real and very harsh.

Will this be a hereditary concern for me and for my children?  When we return to America, will she remember us?  Will she recognize us?  Will any sort of treatment change the situation at all?  Or are we just doomed to be this way?  Will she never improve - only worsen - as time goes by?  Will this kill her?  Will I ever get any semblance of my mother back?  Or can I just count on the way things are being the way things will be, and that's that.

It's a little too much for me.  I'm trying to occupy my thoughts elsewhere but the truth is that I'm scared.

A little bit of good news (which I'm not ready to share yet - and no, it has nothing to do with more babies), and then a big piece of bad news.

Amaris turned three and despite her little bout with that fever she had on the 27th, we made the most of it. Tinkerbell cupcakes, tutus, and pedicures...  Looking back, even though I cancelled her party, she didn't go without by any means.

When Mark calls, he talks to Amaris on the phone.  She takes control of their phone conversations like a typical girl and rambles on and on about the goings-on in her day to day before cutting the chat off with an, "Ok I'll talk to you way-ter.  I wuv you daddy and I miss you, too.  Bye!"  I don't think he ever really gets a word in edgewise, poor guy.  When she hastily hands me back the phone, nine times out of ten, I am the one to hear his "I love you too!"  I don't tell him that, though.

The other day when he called, she proceeded to tell him "I lost my daddy and I need to go save him from the parking wot."  In Amaris' world, it seems that a lot of important things happen in "the parking wot."  He was quite saddened by her concern over having apparently misplaced him.  She tells me daily that "Daddy's in the 'reen corn."  And the 'reen corn is "Inna desert."  She's a bright little girl.

Cadence has been growing like a weed but more out than up these days and strangers in public can't help themselves when they see her, they just feel so compelled to clue me in on how "fat" she is.  Which pisses me off to no end.  She's not FAT, she's a baby.  Thankyouverymuch.  And she's adorable.  She looks more and more like her daddy every day.  Which is funny because she was born looking like me!  She has a lot of my personality, though.  She's not a people-person.  And when she's done crying over strangers getting in her face and trying to impress her, the fact that she is so introverted just totally cracks me up.  She is definitely the opposite of her social-butterfly big sister (whose personality is nearly identical to Mark's!)

They get along really well, though.  Amaris has taken to feeding Cadence her last bottle before bedtime each night and I think they both get a kick out of the sisterly snuggles that come with it.  Cadence is Amaris' waking thought most mornings and it's all I can do to keep her from bursting through her little sister's bedroom door each day to see if she's awake yet.

Life has been good lately.  Peaceful.  I can't complain aside from Mark's absence.  I miss him a lot.  It never really gets better.  Just more routine.  I write to him, I buy him goodies to fill care packages with, I hang on to every blissful moment we spend emailing or on the phone with each other.  And each day I feel this bittersweet anxiety about bedtime.  Getting the kids to bed each night is what I look forward to as my beautiful, peaceful milestone marking the end of another day...  But it also means that I'll soon be heading to bed myself.  Alone.  And that is less enticing.  I wake up sometimes in a position where I feel like I am naked because he is not alongside of me.  His pillow is cold.  His smell really doesn't even linger there anymore since all of the laundering of the sheets.  It makes me sad.  And a little hollow.  Some nights I am tempted to just sleep on the couch but I talk myself out of it (mostly to avoid the incessant buzz of the dehumidifier I'd be sharing a room with here in the living area...)

I know that before I know it, he'll be home again with me and all of this will seem so trivial.  But I think I felt it the most when he said on the phone, "It seems so much harder this time.."  It does.  Rightfully so.  During his previous trips, we weren't yet married.  Had no children.  Had lots to occupy our time (I had work and school, he had a different job that was a lot more intense).  Had California and all of it's familiarity and comfort.  Things this time are decidedly different.  And more difficult.

The cicadas are out across the island and their loud and crazy buzzing makes me feel like I am in the jungle.  Even though I tend to be surrounded by concrete, generally.  There is a lot that I love about this place.  (Not the cicadas, that was just a weird segue.)  I'm trying to take it all in and not worry about the rest.