The Wounded Warrior Reflection

I imagine it would probably be pretty hard to be married to me. Independent, bordering on stubborn. Ambitious, yet oddly lazy. Overscheduled, but naps when life gets too overwhelming.

Sure, the eye candy factor is there. (Heh.) Volunteering and work and kid activities are out of control but can you imagine being thrown into an instant family with loud (but awesome) kids and an eccentric wife who is constantly on the go?

R will be thrown.

He will be thrown back into our crazy hectic lives very soon. I’m afraid that somehow blogging about it will jinx the actual retirement date but how much worse can everything get? I mean, honestly, between recovery, therapy, a huge thyroid the size of Texas and we’re still fine.

What I cannot seem to grasp is how I’ll need to change.

I look forward to being part of a parenting partnership for the first time in God knows how long. I look forward to consulting with another adult about our dinner plans, sharing chores, and holding hands. I look forward to being us again.

I will probably forget to consult R about day-to-day things, about oh-by-the-way-did-you-want-to-go-to-the-gym-too, about what he wants our master bedroom to look like. In case you’re wondering, it looks like MY ROOM with chick lit and urban fantasy novels strewn about along with my odd collection of tank tops for every occasion.

There will be a lot of things we won’t be able to do or do as long. Last time R was home, the kids had an amazing school event… but the crowd made him nervous and the trip to the zoo two days prior had made the pain in his left leg much worse. Today for Mother’s Day, we drove down to Sausalito and was annoyed by marveled at the number of people on their bikes and walking the trails. I doubt R would be able to do any of that. Professional sports games are out of the question. Never mind that he has never been a sports fan but hey, beer and nachos make everything better, right? No more cheap seats on the lawn for us; R would never be able to sit on the ground. No more stadium seats either as the crowd and noise would probably make him retreat to the car.

I always wondered how certain social situations affected him. He’s fine at parties. Our house, his friends’ houses, at the house of a relative’s… it is not a problem for him.

Last Christmas he tried to mail some packages to family in Utah. The post office in December? Hello? He said he could do it himself but I offered to come along. He didn’t decline. After a few minutes in that crazy post office, he looked confused and lost. I handed him the car keys and whispered that I’d meet him in the car.

But I’m sure that I don’t help matters either. I’m pretty short so I zip in and out of crowds pretty easily. Once I have my mind set on getting a specific size box on the other side of a crowded post office, oh, mark my words, I will have it in my hands within minutes.

He met some friends at a bar a few weeks ago and he couldn’t handle it. The noise, the music, dozens of people all around that he didn’t know. He had to leave.

If I had been through what he had been through, I would have had to leave as well.

I’ve started to have brief conversations with the kids in the car about what it’ll mean to have Daddy back home. Nothing scary, nothing odd. Just little suggestions of how our schedule might change, how we’ll have to help Daddy out a bit. I hate crowds myself which is why we’re that family that shows up early to events and appointments so we get good parking, we get there early, we get in first, no crowds, and most importantly, we leave first. That won’t be a stretch.

The other day after telling the kids how we need to help Daddy when he gets home, M said, “Is that why you always tell me to go with Daddy to the store?”

Wow. I never realized that.

R gets flustered easily and forgets words. Sometimes he even curses his TBI. Sadly, sometimes I don’t sympathize. That’s something I need to definitely work on.

For A’s first communion, R baked a beautiful lemon cake from scratch per her request. He said the cake was magnificent, a fact I do not deny. He was unhappy with the frosting however, also made from scratch. He was up until midnight baking the cake and almost threw the entire cake away because according to him, the frosting ruined the cake.

“Why did you frost the cake then if the frosting was so bad? Why didn’t you just make another batch of frosting?” I asked.

He looked at me and sighed. “I don’t know. I guess I was so set on getting this cake done I couldn’t step back and NOT frost the cake.”

I know we’ll all need therapy. He needs to get back into a regular therapy session. I need to attend training on caregiving, on being the other half of a couple, and all of the stuff I need to know on patience and how not to roll your eyes when it seems like your husband is making excuses. Wow, I sound like a total bitch. Totally need therapy, I know. We’ll need it as a family as well.

It’s scary to think about how this transition will take place. I know we’ll get through it but it still terrifies me.

The Sore Loser Disappointment

Because of the wonderful folks over at Operation Care and Comfort, we have been able to see professional sports games that we would have otherwise not have been able to afford. These tickets are donated from the both the sports teams and ticket holders who generously give up their tickets.

One of the events we were able to attend was the last Sacramento Kings game of the season. My only disappointment was the poor sportsmanship from fans, young and old. It wasn’t everyone, mind you. However, if my child was yelling rude comments to the other team, no matter high up in the stadium, I would stop it immediately.

The highlight of the evening was the look on A’s face when she realized that the men behind us were spitting out sunflower seed shells on the floor right behind us! She was totally shocked! Great sports pasttime or disgusting habit? Um, I vote for the latter but eh, maybe I’m not cut out for seeing games in person.

Or maybe, shells that used to be in someone else’s mouth and are now right next to my hair are disgusting!

The First Fluxuation

May the Fourth was a special day.

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Okay, it was Star Wars Day. (May the Fourth be with you!) It was also the day that A got her first holy communion. She is a cute kid, if I say so myself, but in her beautiful white gown, wearing her gorgeous veil, and just beaming because her Daddy is home? I will never forget this day.

Neither will she.

The Marine Mammal Conservation

Happy Mother’s Day!

The kids and I spent the day in Sausalito, just north of San Francisco. We woke up early, left early, so we could get home early.

Our first stop was Baker Beach for Mommy’s pit stop for having too much coffee. I had hoped to take pictures of Golden Gate Bridge but the fog has a mind of its own.

On our way we saw this lovely view.

The Marine Mammal Center is a hospital for sick or injured marine mammals up and down the California coast. I don’t recommend it for really little kids as obviously it isn’t a zoo; they do not keep the animals. We arrived over an hour early but a kind docent allowed us to walk around and even talked to us about the pinnipeds.

This seagull is Gertrude. Apparently she keeps all of the other birds away and “cleans up” any fish she finds.

We met one of the artists of this magnificent sculpture. A sperm whale died on one of the beaches in northern California. Doctors found hundreds of pounds of fish nets in the whale’s stomach. The whale starved to death.

She asked us to write our wishes on a piece of paper, to be added to her and her husband’s next sculpture that will be displayed in the center next month. This is what A wrote:

We attended a docent-led tour which I highly recommend on your first tour. A was excited to answer questions whenever our docent posed them to our group. Both A and L were chosen to participate during the presentation. Our docent was kind and made sure every child had a turn to participate. I wish I could remember her name but I’m sure all of their volunteers are just as awesome.

They have a special presentation every second Sunday of the month. Today was about the Hawaiian Monk Seals. We showed up so early (um, an hour) that the lead educator offered to save our seats for us. Each of the kids eventually fell asleep during the presentation. I was mildly embarassed but I didn’t care. It was a long drive (almost two hours) and we hadn’t had lunch yet. Two of the three founders of the Marine Mammal Center spoke after the presentation about the history of the hospital and their new published book about their journey that started over fifty years ago. I wanted to grab a copy of the book (and have them sign it!) but the kids were so exhausted they did not even want to go to the bookstore. My wallet did not complain.

Before heading back to Sacramento, I had to go to the beach right next to the center. Rodeo Cove was cold, of course. I was surprised that my son M complained so much when all of them LOVE going to the beach in Monterey and it’s the same weather! I think we have been spoiled by the early Sacramento summer.

Once again we tried to see the Golden Gate Bridge but the fog persisted. I’m sure the fog eventually burned away but this is all we got!

I didn’t want drive-thru food, not today on Mother’s Day. We celebrated with a late lunch at California Pizza Kitchen and scotchmellows from See’s Candies.

Happy Mother’s Day especially to women who treat other children as their own!

The Reptilian Reciprocal

Since we’re saving up for a big Disneyland trip next year, we decided to keep our plans simple while R was home and while the kids are off track. We tell ourselves that we don’t need to spend a lot if money to have a great time. We just need to spend time together, even if it means playing video games with the kids or taking the whole family to the gym pool. We have plenty of time to save up for vacations but I don’t have time to pay off credit cards! No thanks!

We packed some fruit and went to the Sacramento Zoo. My husband R have me a weird look when I packed sliced watermelon, oranges, and bananas in an old reusable green commissary bag. “Snacks,” I said. “I am not buying food there. I’m not buying water or drinks. If we get hungry, we come home for lunch.”

I’m pretty sure he sighed.

It was a beautiful day.

You’ll notice the boy is scowling in the pictures. Apparently he doesn’t want to be in pictures anymore.

To which I said, “Too bad. Smile or we’ll be here all day.”

First stop was checking out what the zoo docents had in their coolers right outside of the herpetarium.

M loved that snake!

The girls with flamingos. I don’t quite understand how they get their pink color. R said it was because of their diet and genes and other reasons that I can’t remember now.

With a very gentle alligator.

Yay for giraffes!

Before we went to the zoo, I asked R if he needed a cane or his old wheelchair. He declined, stating that he’d be okay.

But he wasn’t.

By the end of the afternoon he was much slower. His slight limp became more obvious. I don’t know why he does this.

I do know why actually.

He’s stubborn. He doesn’t want anyone to feel sorry for him. He doesn’t want to use the tools which could make his life a lot less miserable.

He’s been here for a few days and he’s different. He’s jumpier, sensitive to the dogs’ barking, the kids’ bickering. I find myself warning him when I’m going to turn on the vacuum or the blender. I find myself reminding the kids of our discussion about Daddy before his visit. No loud noises right next to Daddy, especially in the car.

But that doesn’t last for very long.

I hope and pray for a smooth transition for when R is home for good but mostly I hope and pray that he is home for good.

Home

Finally. First stop? Our fave Mexican food restaurant!

The kids are soaking up every moment with Daddy. When only A wanted to go grocery shopping with Daddy, the other two stayed home with me.

This weekend is packed with DO NOTHING. It feels awesome.

Dear Boston

Dear Boston,

I’ve never seen you in person but I know you’re beautiful.

The day after the horrible tragedy I went to the gym. The first time in weeks. The following day I went again.

All this week I’ve been wearing the shirts I’ve gotten from races that I walked or run. No, shirts I have earned.

Last year I set my sights on running my first half marathon, a goal I quickly deemed a mere dream.

Life got in the way. Excuses piled higher than the laundry (albeit clean) in my room. The dream became a fantasy.

But I can’t do that, Boston.

I won’t.

You with your courageous survivors, with your brave residents who ran toward danger. You with three casualties. Three who were there to enjoy the race in your fine city.

You who will not cease this glorious tradition of the Boston Marathon.

Thank you, Boston. Thank you for reminding me that I am a runner. I run for you.

The Giants Expedition

When I was a little girl, I wanted to be a baseball umpire. Never mind that I had never played baseball before and I didn’t know why my father glued himself to the TV whenever a game was on but I thought it would be awesome to have so much power to make people happy or angry.

We never had cable. There were no networks geared just for kids, no DVR’s, VCR tape rental was just starting to get popular. Most kids were able to watch the two hours of cartoons everyday after school because their parents weren’t cheap Filipinos. I didn’t mind. We still had Saturday morning cartoons.

We’re talking real vintage stuff here, kids. Smurfs were never on the big screen. I thought the “older kid” shows were so cool back when I was Team Zack (not Team Slater) and Fergie from the Black Eyed Peas was just Stacy Ferguson.

That is, until baseball season. My little brother and I would scream in horror when our cartoons were preempted by that damn sport. Who wanted to watch a boring game anyway?

My dad did! Back then there wasn’t a TV in every room. (Now we only have a TV in our family room and a small 12″ TV upstairs for kids’ movies.) If you wanted TV time, too bad. Dad was watching the San Francisco Giants or the Oakland A’s. I started watching out of boredom and it wasn’t until much later that I appreciated their… Ahem, uniforms.

One beautiful October afternoon, my brother and I sat down with our dad to watch the 1989 World Series– the Battle of the Bay– when lo and behold, Mother Nature had other plans. She sent a major earthquake measuring 7.1 on the Richter scale. As a child growing up near major fault lines in California, I remember experiencing them so often that I could guess how strong they were on the Richter scale with great accuracy. But this one? This one was greater than anything I had ever felt in my life. It was so strong that my husband said he felt it two states away!

It wasn’t until my first year of college that I went to a real professional sports game. I remember a long bus ride with a few friends to Candlestick Park. I was in awe of this amazing park and wondered how it would have felt sitting there when that earthquake hit, the earthquake that kept us out of school for at least two days. I loved taking in the smell of ballpark fare and beer not knowing that decades later my children would beg for $9 nachos at minor league games.

When Operation Care and Comfort offered tickets to soldiers in northern California, I jumped at the chance to take my kids to their first Giants game, totally understanding if tickets had run out or unavailable to us in our unique situation.

We got tickets to Opening Week, the final game against the Colorado Rockies.

Needless to say, we had an amazing time!

On the bridge near our parking lot. I almost cried having to pay $35 for parking!

We stopped at Travis AFB to pick up lunch and snacks but mostly to save money from having to buy food and drinks in the park. Now I splurge on special occasions but no such occasion exists when it comes to a cup of ten-dollar-lemonade! A is eating octopus from the sushi bar.

The Toilet Paper Connection

Is this a mid-life crisis?

Like many of you I’ve had a million things on my mind, the bulk of which involve my husband R.

While I cannot go into detail about what we face in the next few months, he will undeniably be going through many changes in his career and health. His right thyroid will be removed next month as it is playing piggyback with a benign tumor the size of a tennis ball. His left thyroid has a cyst that doctors will be testing at the same time they take that damn thing out of his throat.

He’ll be home in two weeks on leave. R will be able to see A receive her first holy communion, an important step in our Catholic faith.

I nearly fainted at the prospect of buying her a new gown for the event. While a gorgeous new white gown is certainly not mandatory by any means, tradition and Filipino Catholic mom guilt (by my mom, not me) have prevailed.

Oh man, we had to get a veil too!

I am happy to say that I found a discount store and for the price of a dress at a popular bridal store, I was able to buy a dress, a veil, and four pairs of shoes for the kids!

But money is just one of the things I’ve been stressing over. The dog’s bills have gone to four figures and thankfully have been able to pay for most if if in full. (Hey, that’s money too!)

I can’t help but feel total anxiety over yet more life changes and granted, these are wonderful changes, but they are stressful nonetheless. I really have a lot of respect and admiration for fellow military spouses and their families who keep it together. I cannot imagine a world where I actually live with my husband, where my kids get to see and hug and kiss their father every single day.

Will we seek therapy? I hope so! It would be unrealistic to expect an easy transition. In some ways I feel like I’m being demoted, from the sole decision maker and primary caretaker to an actual partnership with someone I’ve been married to for almost thirteen years but really have lived under same roof for less than half of that time.

And it is in this partnership that I have anxiety. I suspect I will fail on more than on occasion.

The transition to married-single-motherhood is fast, change quickly or you’ll drown. There is no learning curve, no time to whine, no one to quite confide in anyone as everyone around you is in the same boat.

So you adjust, you adapt, you change, you survive.

Now in the coming months I can do this with my husband but do I want to?

Don’t get it twisted. I’m not saying I don’t want him around nor am I saying I don’t want to be married anymore. Oh, hell no!

I’m just saying this next transition as he retires, as he moves back home with roommates he’s barely lived with will be stressful, which I’m sorry to say will mostly be on him. I just hope that the kids and I can help make this as easy as possible.

I know the kids are very excited. They love him to pieces and my existence sort of disappears when he is around. I don’t mind. Better that than being angry with him for his frequent absence in their lives.

I worry that they’ll take advantage of Daddy who is torn between wanting to do everything for his children yet not wanting to them to become too dependent on him.

Case in point: the toilet paper incident. L was about four years old when R came home for recovery. I came home from a sub job to hear L in the bathroom while R sat on the couch watching TV.

“Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaddy!” she called. “I need tooooooooooooiiiiiiiiiiiilet paper!” R started to get up.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“She needs toilet paper,” he said.

I leaned over on the couch to peek in the bathroom. “She’s got a full roll.”

He said, “Yeah, but she needs me to hand it to her.”

I laughed and laughed to which he replied, “Aw man! I got played!”

And there you have it. My regular-life crisis.

The Winterfell Cohabitation

I don’t watch a lot of TV on purpose. The kids and I will watch our fave show The Big Bang Theory if it isn’t inappropriate. I miss Lost.

I’m a little behind on awesome BBC shows like Doctor Who and Misfits. I’m sorry to say that I haven’t even started watching Downton Abbey.

But really, I don’t have time to watch because two jobs and kids will do that to your schedule.

R loves shows like The Walking Dead and Dexter but I just haven’t gotten into them. Plus I’d rather watch whole seasons at a time. I started recording HBO’s Game of Thrones for him as he is without TV in Virginia. “You should watch the show,” he said. “I think you’d like it.”

For two years I said no and yet still recorded the shows for him. The show looked historical (um, why yes, I majored in history), epic, boring.

Then my mother took the kids to the Monterey bag for four days to visit family and go to the beach.

I actually had time to myself! I missed those kids even before they left but I knew it would be good for all of us, particularly since I’ve started to “check out” in terms of… Well, I don’t know. “Giving up” would be a huge exaggeration. Perhaps “increasingly lazy” would be a better fit. [More about that later.]

I thought I would use my free time to go out with friends and hang out with people I hadn’t seen in a while.

Nope. Didn’t do that. Didn’t do that at all.

I parked my ass on the couch and watched two seasons of that damn show. It. Was. Awesome. But don’t worry, no spoilers here.

I called my husband after his brother and sister-in-law went home. They visited him from out of state on his birthday weekend.

Him: “You liked it?”

Me: “Oh my God! You were so right! It’s such a great show!”

Him: “Cool! I can’t wait to see the second season when I get home in a couple of weeks!”

Me: “Huh? You haven’t seen the second season?”

Him: “No, I didn’t want to be too far ahead of you.”

Me: [silence] “Oh. Well, I saw it and it was awesome!”

How sad. Clearly I have no self-control.

I must have some self-control as I stopped watching GoT long enough to run a 5K on Saturday. I didn’t run it as I have not trained since my last race. (See? I haven’t lost my motivation. I just can’t find it right now and with R coming home, it’s really hard for me to focus on anything! Anything at all!)

Instead I walked the 5K with a friend and talked the entire time. It was really nice to catch up with a dear friend with whom I have seen in months! And I got a medal for participating. Woo hoo!

My friend and I made plans to enter more races, even if we aren’t actually running. No matter to me. One day we will.