Should be studying

So it's spring break here. David doesn't arrive to approximately Sunday this week, which means he misses my entire week off. Such is life. I should be studying for my lab practical on Monday morning, but all I can think about it making it to Sunday without going crazy. My lab teacher is letting me test early so that I can hopefully pass and have one less thing off of my plate. We have 3 tries to pass. 5 skills, one of which we draw a card from a hat- and that's what we get tested on. So I have to know all 5! Yikes! Setting up IV, Reconstituting powder medication and adding it to an IV piggyback (and adding that the the regular IV), IM and SubQ injections, foley catheter, and sterile dressing changes. All of us are praying we don't draw IV piggyback, as that's the hardest one with the most steps to mess us. The good news is that my lab instructor really likes me, and I feel like if I started to fumble on something she would walk me through it and pass me anyways. Plus she knows my husband is coming home, and I think she wants to help me out.

Plus, Friday next week we have our first exam. Also should be studying for that. I don't want to. I just want to do well, and not study. Can't life be like that? Jeez.

Not much going on here. The weather is really warming up. Thank God for that. I've been taking the dogs (and kid) out and walking some local trails in town. Still trying to lose this baby weight before I get pregnant again. LOL. Everything has slimmed down and I'm happy with my body, except for my stomach! I don't know what to do, but this extra 5-10 lbs on my stomach that is ROUND and in the shape of a baby, is really annoying. My mother actually told me that I'll probably have to "have some work done" on it after I'm done having kids. Super, just what everyone wants to look forward to in life- liposuction and muscle repair.

OH well. After you have a baby, you kind of learn to accept your new body for what it is. My boobs will never be the same as they were. I have stretch marks on my sides (one OB doc told me that those were my battle scars). And I'm not even going to tell you about my nether region. ;)

Thank God my husband loves me despite all of this.


Here are some pictures of Delaney and I at the sugar shack

Surviving

So last night I was writing in my diary (the paper one, you know with a real pen) and after I was finished I went back and read a few past entries. I don't write in it very often, so I like to see where I left off and how much things have changed. I'm glad that Heather Thompson gave me this journal so many years ago and stressed to me the importance of writing down my history (I've always kept a journal, but her saying that really hit home with me last night). You forget so easily where you were and how you felt about it. We all move on with our lives.

I've been feeling really guilty for my feelings towards my husband lately. I mean, I still love him, and miss him terribly and want him in my life. But right now I'm OK. I'm actually just fine without him. I don't know if it's the combination of being in nursing school and raising Laney that is keeping me too busy to notice he's gone, or what? (I actually looked down at a pair of his boots the other day and didn't realize they were his, thought a friend maybe left them here after a party. Took me a few minutes to realize that they belonged here and to my husband!) But it's been 6 months without him, and I've moved on. I'm not saying I don't want to be married to him anymore and that it's all over. I'm saying that it scares the hell out of me that I can get up every day and go about my life, and it's as if he were never here. I really have to remind myself most days that I have a husband, that this is temporary, and that he is a part of my life and this child. I don't know,I guess you just get in a zone. You survive the only way you can. I guess if I was sad and crying all of the time because he is gone, then that would not be very healthy or productive (for either myself or for Laney).

But it all just worries me. How are things going to be when he comes home? Is our transition back to the way things were going to be easy? Am I going to be angry at him for interrupting my routine? Can I let go of my control, for him?

So reading my diary last night was probably one of the best things I could have done. It took me back to the beginning. Back to when I first knew that I loved this man, and that my life was forever going to change. Back to the days when we were living in different states, and I was in anguish over being apart. When I couldn't wait to say "I love you" to his face (and then ended up saying it over the phone anyways). Back to the memories of quitting a job that I loved, renting out my house that I loved, and packing up my entire life and moving across the country to be with him. To those early days living in New York, before he deployed- bursting into tears when he said, "I love your kisses" because I knew he was going to be gone for a whole year. Then to our dreams of starting a family. Oh how devastated I was when we didn't get pregnant that first try over R & R. And the joy in finally getting a beautiful baby girl over a year later. This is the man that I fell in love with, and will forever be in love with.

This thing that we're going through, it's just a way of coping. A way of surviving without your other half.