Juggling the girls and their individual needs has been difficult, undeniably, but I have to admit that at this point in the day, I am feeling extremely accomplished that I've managed to do it and have still managed to get a few other things done on top of that - for example:  actual meals for Amaris and me, a load of laundry, and I scrubbed the shower down.

I feel like Wonder Woman right now.  I hate that my kids don't feel 100%, and it is making me incredibly sad, but I feel like I am overcoming it and handling it on my own as best I can and I'm proud of myself.

I'm running on less sleep than I'd like and I've got a sad heart...  But for the first time, I feel like a real live mother.  I'm doing my job.  And in this moment, I don't care if I never have a paying job again.

I am going to need lots of chap stick.

Clearly disappointed, she accepts the stand-in kiss and heads off to sleep.  Raising military brats is hard and emotional work.  Though I am certain that being a military brat is even harder.

...And they know it.  Last night I was having dinner at our friends' house and their six-year-old daughter said to me (very matter-of-factly), "You have two to take care of, all by yourself.  It's hard to do it alone."  Such a grown-up thought for such a little girl to have.

I feel for my girls.  We're just over two days into this separation and they've been a long couple of days.

Anyways I am feeling extra sentimental today since he just left to the states for a couple of weeks, but I just sort of feel overwhelmed with everything.  He'll not only miss our anniversary, but Amaris' third birthday, and at least 6 months of time he could have spent with his little girls (and obviously his "big girl"), to include whichever holidays come and go during that time.

Last night he tucked Amaris in to bed.  I overheard him talking to her while he was in there but I couldn't really make out the conversation completely.  Later he told me that he had teared up telling her to be a good girl for me while he was gone.  Ever since he went to a jungle training event on the northern end of the island a few months ago, she has adamantly insisted every time he is gone longer than a work day that "daddy's inna jungle," so last night with her cozy in her bed, he said to her, "Daddy is going to the jungle for a long time, so we're not going to be able to see each other.  You have to be a good girl for mommy, okay baby?"  She said, "Okay."  He'll be back before three weeks go by, so really it's not a ridiculously long time or anything, but even a month is an eternity when you're not quite 3 yet.

A longer trip "to the jungle" is on the way very soon.  My heart breaks.

The evening before last, a man residing in this building died.  He was not old.  He was not unhealthy.  He was not much different from my own husband.  Had arrived on Okinawa in August, just recently celebrated an anniversary with his young wife, had a lovely two year old, and was in a steady and strong Marine Corps career.

In fact, he not only lived in this building.  He also worked in the same building Mark works in.  Mark knew him and considered him a friend.  His death hits close to home.  Well, when you consider that he lived just 4 floors above us, his death kind of hits home, period.

The most tragic part is that he did not have to die.  Several days ago, he was misdiagnosed at medical and was sent home and told that he was suffering from an ear infection.  As it turns out, he had meningitis.

Now, this community is small.  We are in close quarters regardless of whether or not we want to be.  When things like this happen, it affects us all in one way or another.  In the Marine Corps family life, it's not expected, per se, but is at least understood moreso than in many other career paths that death is a possibility.  You send your husband away on deployments and regardless of how confident you feel in his abilities, you are well aware of the daunting fact that he might not make it home with a heartbeat.  Sudden deaths like this somehow feel even scarier.  Even while your husband is home with you, working "normal" hours and you think he is completely safe, life is so precious.  It's impermanent.  It's fragile.  And quite frankly, it can end at any time, anywhere.  It's incredibly unfortunate that it takes tragedy to jog society's communal memory about those things.

I've been selfish.  I've taken for granted all of the things that I've unintentionally expected to always be there.  Tomorrow, for example.  My family.  My health.  I am so fortunate.  I am so blessed to have these seemingly simple things.

Life is a blessing.  Hold your loved ones a little closer tonight and appreciate their existence, please.  And say a little prayer for those less fortunate.

Yesterday I checked my email twice and looked up a recipe.  Other than that I was internet-free.  I folded and put away mountains of laundry, tidied up the kitchen, and that was it.  I feel like I should've been able to do so much more.

And now today, all of the remaining tasks are staring me down.  I am ultra-aware of everything I did not accomplish.  The floors, the kitchen, the bathrooms need to be cleaned.  My stack of receipts from February-now still need to be balanced into my ledger.  There's still more laundry waiting to go for a spin-cycle.  The chores never end.  It's like this circle of housework that just keeps on going and going.

Last night I was so elated to find that the job I had been wanting to apply for FINALLY got posted on the MCCS-Okinawa website.  I sat at the computer for over an hour re-vamping my resumé while Cadence fussed for no apparent reason and Mark didn't make it home till about 7PM.  When he got here I let him take over with her and continued on, but I think my spirit about the situation had already died.  Guilt took a hold of me over the fact that I'd have to put Cadence in day care and would miss out on a ton of time with the girls...

I stood up, pushed in the chair and said, "Nevermind."  The window with the online-application is still open on my computer screen now.  Over 12 hours later.  Half complete.  I don't have the heart to close it.

When I was little, I always said I'd go to college, I'd wait to have kids, I'd always keep a part time job at the very least, so that I could have my foot in the door and be a marketable employee in case of an emergency.  I didn't want to be completely dependent on anybody.  But here I am.  And don't get me wrong, I have loved every minute of my life.  I've changed my plans, I know, but I did that intentionally.  And I absolutely would not trade any of it.  My marriage, my children, my adventures... I might've stayed in school a little longer and applied myself a little harder to it, but that's really the only choice I've made that I consider a "mistake".  Even still, I know why I made that mistake and I know that there hasn't been much I could do to change it.  Which is why I hadn't finished any further college classes until this week.

Sometimes I look around at the house during the week days, devoid of adults and commanding my constant attention and I think to myself that this is not at all what I'd had in mind.  And then I feel selfish for thinking that way because when it all comes down to it, I do enjoy being home with the kids.  I did choose this.  I chose to move excruciatingly slowly towards my college education.  I chose to get pregnant twice and have two beautiful daughters to care for.  I knew I wouldn't want to put them in child care.  I knew I'd want to be with them till they headed off to school, even if that meant "sacrificing" valuable, useable years of my life.  I knew that.  I was prepared for that.  I wanted that, even.

So I can't really put my finger on what it is about the situation that makes me feel borderline resentful now.  When it's what I chose for myself.  It's the path I insisted on.  When I quit my job at NAVSEA, I had begged Mark's blessing on it.  I said, "We can survive on just your income, I don't want this horrible job anymore.  I hate it.  I want to just stay home and take care of the house.  We could have a baby soon and then we'd want me home anyways."

I've always had these distractions.  The only new ones are the kids.  The house has never been perfect.  My "work" here at home never feels finished.  I feel like there's always one more thing.  And when I spend all day on the couch, meticulously folding every single shirt in the house, I feel like I am underaccomplished and underappreciated.  Not that Mark doesn't appreciate what I do.  More like I don't appreciate it, I guess.  I suddenly feel like I'm not even qualified for a paying job anymore.  I feel unmarketable and useless and dependent.  And I hate feeling like that.  I hate feeling like a burden on anybody, especially my husband (though he assures me that I am not).  I feel selfish or guilty for about 50% of the thoughts that cross my mind on a daily basis.  I feel like I've backed myself into a corner here as a housewife, a domestic, and I'm not even really that good at it.  I try and try, but nothing ever turns out the way I think it should and I wind up disappointed.

I don't want to put my kids in all-day every day child care.  I want to be with them as much as I can.  I want to have patience for them.  I want to be the best mom I can be.  But I also feel like I want things for myself that just aren't happening.  Things that won't happen.  Things that can't happen, because I won't let them.

Maybe I like feeling like this.  Maybe deep down this is just the way it's supposed to be.  There is no happy medium, obviously.  I'd be bitter and jaded either way.

I need to just let it go.  I am where I belong.  I am doing what I am supposed to, as best I can.

My chores around the house have become totally overwhelming.  I didn't know where to put the whites from the dryer so that I could move the towels in because all of my laundry baskets were full of clean laundry waiting to be folded and put away.  And I'll have to do more laundry tomorrow.  AND tomorrow is chicken katsu night.

I need to take some time off.  I need to devote myself to getting things back into order.  My organization has fallen all to pieces and I'm totally screwed up now and frustrated.  I stood in the hallway and fought back tears for no reason.  I haven't done that since the week and a half after Cadence was born when my emotions and hormones were on overdrive.  It's just been too much lately.  I think tomorrow I'll unplug the modem and the TV and give myself a rest so that I can be motivated to do the things that won't be doing themselves any time soon.  That'll help me to be wordless.

Sometimes the world is just too much.

This weekend we're going on a date - thank God for that, and thank God for our wonderful friends that we can wholeheartedly trust to watch the girls for us.  I've been researching date ideas for us this afternoon.  We'll come up with something.  It'll either be dinner and martinis, dinner and a movie...  or maybe an afternoon outing of some sort.  We need some "Mark and Kari time", so I'm looking forward to getting it.

I found out about a Montessori school today where the tuition is $180/month.  I am thinking of enrolling Amaris.  I say that all the time, I know...  But she really does need some structure.  So I've got to figure out something for her.

Good night.

Cadence is growing like a weed.  Amaris is too.  Amaris stuns me daily with all the new things she learns and says.  Cadence goes to bed at night a tiny baby swaddled up tightly and when I wake up to her in the morning, she's bigger and more beautiful than before.  I couldn't remember how old she was today and I kept trying to recall the exact number of weeks and then I realized that it really just feels like I can't remember life without her.

I just haven't been able to find the words.  I can't pick a thread and go with it.  I've been overwhelmed.  That's the trend lately.

Had I found the drive to blog last night as I cooked dinner with Amaris while Mark and Cadence napped on the couch, it'd have been happy, to say the least.  I was singing along to the music and dancing around the kitchen and thinking to myself, contentedly, that this is the way it's supposed to be.  This morning, I'd have been pitiful as I scrapped together the pieces of my unconventionally broken heart.  Things, feelings, emotions come and go.  The days all run together, I don't even really think straight most of the time.

The emotional cycle of deployment has begun.  I'm on a nonstop roller coaster and it goes deeper than the thought that I am going to miss my husband.  It's all sorts of worldly things that just zap me right into this uncomfortable state of reality.  I'm not enjoying it, and to be honest I think that without my little support system and these beautiful kids of mine, I'd probably have lost it long ago.  (Or maybe just last week - my sense of time is just totally screwed up lately.)

I haven't fallen off the face of the earth.  Though sometimes it does feel that way.  I'm just dealing with all of these things the only way I can think to at this point.