Together Forever

I am kind of having a rough weekend. Will started packing for his deployment yesterday. I was cleaning the baby's room and walked into our bedroom and he had all of his flight suits and gear all stacked up on our bed and was checking them off a list as he loaded it into his bags. It just hit me full force that he's really going to be leaving. And boy am I struggling with that! This will be the first real deployment for us. He's been gone before, but only for about 10 days at a time at most. And those have been few and far between for us since we've been here. I just don't know how to handle it. And I can feel myself sort of going into that mental shut down mode, where I push people away. I don't want to do that. I'm trying to avoid that at all costs. SO, distractions are welcome and much needed!! He leaves the 29th, so this Christmas is going to be kind of bittersweet. While I love the holidays and am welcoming all of the Christmas excitement for my kids, I'm also dreading it because I know that he leaves right after.


I've known that he needed to pack this weekend. He has to have his bags ready to turn in tomorrow for inspection and then to be loaded onto pallets. I really didn't expect to have it affect me that much when I saw him packing, but last night we were kind of distant with each other, which always bothers me. By the time we went to bed all was well, but I still cried myself to sleep because it's really hitting home how limited our time is before he leaves. I try to keep it to myself because I don't want to do the guilt thing on him. He already feels bad that he has to leave and he already knows how upset I get just when he does a week long trip, let alone FOUR months.
Anyway...these are a couple cards I've been working on to send him when he's away. I'm hoping to come close to sending him one for every day he's away...but we'll see how that works out since I'll have the house, 2 cats, 2 kids, and work to take care of all on my own while he's gone. :-) He has also requested that I regularly send him some of my *almost* famous chocolate chip cookies. I think I need to stock up on postage!