Changes on the Horizon

Sometimes I can't believe how quickly time is passing before my very eyes, but when I stop and think about the little moments, I realize why things change the way they do. My beautiful girl isn't a newborn anymore, but a running, laughing, trouble-making little toddler. And she's got a big role to fill soon too, as big sister to a little baby boy. Our son, Avery James, is due in June, and Cori is already acting out her role as big sister amazingly. She rubs my belly, and doesn't like to go to sleep at night before she can give her baby brother a big hug. It warms my heart, and I can only imagine the love (and jealousy!) she'll feel toward him when he makes his appearance.

We were told just after the New Year that Jesse would be deploying to Afghanistan in August, but he has yet to be moved to the deploying unit and we have no idea when or if he's even going. You'd think we'd be excited about his battalion's lack of timeliness in moving him, but it's hard to make any sort of plan for the future when you have no idea whether your husband will be here, there, or somewhere else for the next year. If he deploys, we originally had planned on moving back to Greenville, SC where we are from. There's not much here at Fort Polk, and since Jesse will be ETSing (getting out of the service) just a month or so after his return, it seemed silly to hold down a house in a place we wouldn't be much longer anyway. Upon further thinking, I decided that if we do move back home, it won't be until a few months after Jesse leaves. Cori will be just shy of her 2nd birthday, which means she will be fully aware that Daddy is gone. I can't imagine the kind of mental turmoil that will put a Daddy-attached toddler into, and I can only guess that moving into a brand new house in a brand new place would be even more stress on her little kid mind. While it might be easier for me to have my family around for help and moral support throughout a deployment, uprooting my two children and taking them somewhere new when they've never lived without Daddy doesn't seem like the best answer.

The best scenario would be that they decide not to deploy Jesse at all, but if it happens, we'll pull ourselves up and make the best of a not-so-great situation.