The Plan

A few weeks ago when I called Cameron to tell him that we had no water, he had some news for me too.  Another 4 week detail.  This means he is gone for four weeks and this time it is during "the most wonderful time of the year."  He will be back for the big day and there is a slight chance he can come home one weekend.

I'm a pretty big baby about this sort of thing and so a few days later we had a little talk about his timing!  In hindsight, it was probably good timing because I didn't have time to sit around and have a big long pity party.  I only had a little one.

This time, I'm coming up with a plan.  We won't try to entertain ourselves to death and stay so busy.  That sort of backfires into a tired, grouchy mommy.  Not what we need!  What we do need is something to look forward to each day and evening and no pouting!

We always tweak our curriculum in December anyway and this year we will be tweaking the way we observe the Advent season too.  For four or five years now, we have been doing the Advent readings and lighting a candle in the evenings and maybe singing a carol.  I know by the end of the day, I will be tired and they will be whiny and every evening without Daddy around will get pretty old.  So, we will be doing the readings in the morning and we will be learning about the history of some of the carols and the people who wrote them.  I already have a good book that I think Callie will enjoy.  We are going to be doing an art project that I'm pretty excited about and reading some special books.  I placed a little Amazon order last night and so the day that he leaves we will have something to open and be excited about.  We will keep our tradition of our Advent wreath too.  This idea came from this blog several years ago.  I can't decided which is more depressing though, to do some of the things we normally do without Cameron or to not do them at all and come up with something different.  So far, I haven't come up with any thing different that is still free.  I'm still working on that one.

I will let you know the books that we are going to use after I give them to the girls.  Callie sometimes reads this so I don't want to say too much.  I'm pretty excited about them and I think the girls will really enjoy them.

I'm going to have to figure out some quick and easy dinners.  I might be tempted to go all frozen, but those usually involve lots of wheat which Kate can't have much of.  There will be lots of paper plates.  I don't want to eat out a lot, but when the main eater and the one who is so encouraging and enthusiastic in my efforts is gone, cooking loses almost all of it's appeal. 

I know that many women deal with being separated from their husbands way longer than I ever have and I am determined not to whine (too much).  I also know that their are those out there dealing with much worse issues too.  I'm sure I will need a daily reminder of this though.

Every once in a while I think about how when I was in high school I always said there was no way I would marry a military man.  Almost every guy I dated ended up going into the military before or after college.  I knew they weren't the right ones! :)

Any prayers that you can send up for us would be appreciated.