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Aug. 30th, 2007 09:06 amWe are going to the Z's house today! Yay! I've missed them a lot. It is going to be brutal when we move. It has been a really, really long time since I have had such a good friend living in the same town with me.
I have another headache today. Not fun AT ALL!
Brad is not actually leaving for Iraq until the beginning of April and we've discovered that we should be able to get together about every weekend between January and April, but I still need to prepare the girls for this. So I've been doing some research on things we can do to help them through this. The military puts out a fair amount of stuff, like coloring books and project ideas (like a journal, travel poster to keep track of dad, a treasure box of things that remind them of him, etc.) I also found several books on Amazon that look like they would be good.
I haven't spoken to the girls about it except once, kind of by accident, a couple of weeks ago. It upset Zoe so much, I havent' mentioned it again, trying to figure out exactly how to go about it to minimize trauma. But Zoe has obviously been thinking about it a lot. She hasn't said a word and, like I said, I haven't mentioned it to them, but last night she spent a LONG time making a bead necklace, then disappeared with Maria upstairs for a LONG time, and came back with a present for daddy to "take to Iraq". They had found a gift bag in my gift wrapping stores and decorated it themselves and put the necklace in it. Zoe made a point of showing daddy how it was "boy colors" (blue, green, and red) so he wouldn't have to feel embarrassed wearing it around his Army friends. I think Brad was having a hard time not crying. He didn't say anything for a few seconds after he opened it and the adam's apple bobbing up and down and the rapid blinking was a bit telling.
Geez, this is gonna be hard. In many ways, much harder than last time. The girls KNOW this time.
I have another headache today. Not fun AT ALL!
Brad is not actually leaving for Iraq until the beginning of April and we've discovered that we should be able to get together about every weekend between January and April, but I still need to prepare the girls for this. So I've been doing some research on things we can do to help them through this. The military puts out a fair amount of stuff, like coloring books and project ideas (like a journal, travel poster to keep track of dad, a treasure box of things that remind them of him, etc.) I also found several books on Amazon that look like they would be good.
I haven't spoken to the girls about it except once, kind of by accident, a couple of weeks ago. It upset Zoe so much, I havent' mentioned it again, trying to figure out exactly how to go about it to minimize trauma. But Zoe has obviously been thinking about it a lot. She hasn't said a word and, like I said, I haven't mentioned it to them, but last night she spent a LONG time making a bead necklace, then disappeared with Maria upstairs for a LONG time, and came back with a present for daddy to "take to Iraq". They had found a gift bag in my gift wrapping stores and decorated it themselves and put the necklace in it. Zoe made a point of showing daddy how it was "boy colors" (blue, green, and red) so he wouldn't have to feel embarrassed wearing it around his Army friends. I think Brad was having a hard time not crying. He didn't say anything for a few seconds after he opened it and the adam's apple bobbing up and down and the rapid blinking was a bit telling.
Geez, this is gonna be hard. In many ways, much harder than last time. The girls KNOW this time.
