Torture

OK. Give. Her. Back.
It's been 3 days. I need my baby. I'm not cool with this anymore. I know she's having a great time chasing turtle's (Tuk? Where go Tuk?), and splashing in the River with her Pawpaw and bestfrienemy. But, uh...please?
It's waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too quiet out here. There isn't anyone demanding to watch Diego on the computer even though there's a perfectly good 42" television in the next room. There's no one to remind me 467 times a day that the "boobus" is coming to bring "Bubba."
No-one asking for food then throwing a temper tantrum when I make her eat. No-one slathering herself with make-up products then washing herself off with my favorite silk shirt. No-one to put each morsel of dog food into the water bowl so it's softened enough to eat.
The worst part? No kisses, no hugs, nobody climbing into the chair behind me and tickling me on the neck. No-one sneaking into my bed in the middle of the night and forcing me to cuddle with her dirty, stinky, dirt-trodden woobie.

*Sigh*

How many more days 'till this torture is over?

Personality through portraits

I sometimes do these types of things to pass the time and laugh at how inaccurate they actually are. This one was dead on. Surprisingly, when I read through the pages at the end...I really felt like it was talking about me.
Try it out, and let me know if yours is as good a match for your personality as mine was!

Yaaaaawn

Holy...What happened?...Where am I? Who am I? Whuz goin' on here?
I just got out of bed. No, I'm not sick. No, noone has died. No, there hasn't been a catastrophic emergency that had laden me with fear and reduced to a crumbling mess of nerves and therefore I stayed in bed to wait out the bad times like an old Victorian lady...though, that might be cool.
Nope. Just slept in. Till Noon.
Let me clarify, I did get up at 6:30 as usual to wake up the older Turkey's. But, as I was pulling the box of cereal out of the pantry for their breakfast of champions, Turkey #1 says, "Mom, you never have a morning without Corrina, why don't you go back to sleep and I'll let you know before we get on the bus." (That child is friggin' amazing, I tell ya!)
It is unbelievable what a full night (and half the day)'s sleep can do for you.
The wind is blowing outside, and my chimes sound beautiful. There's a cool breeze coming in through the open windows, that smells heavenly. The dogs are chillin' out peacefully, and I haven't heard a baby cry in 24 hours.
Someone come pinch me so I'll know this is real.

Steppin' Up

My folks are in the log cabin business. My Mother & Grandfather run the sales and building side of things and my Father does the restoration. (Please excuse all the shameless link plugging...but I want you to love log homes as much as we do, and subsequently purchase one of the beauty's and help fund my children's college educations fall in love every time you pull into your drive.)
Anyway, back to my original thought...um, what the heck was my original thought? Oh yea, Log Homes and How They're Changing My Life.

My brother and I are both going to work for my parents off & on for a while. He's gone ahead out to Oklahoma with our baby daughters while I get things sorted out here. I'll be headed back to the river on Friday (if all goes as planned), and the older Turkeys will stay here with their Dad and StepMom-ish. Yes. Here. In my home. My sanctuary. The place where no one can hurt me or give me grief. And, I've invited the enemy to sleep in my bed (ew. ew. ew. ew.) and gave them the responsibility of getting my children to school. Making sure they have their homework before they leave in the morning. Brushing their teeth!!!
One of the reasons the judge gave me custody in the odd situation we were in, was because Turkey #1 almost failed Kindergarten. (Texas doesn't require K, so we were able to sneak past the system. Because it wasn't her fault.)
She was absent or tardy more than 65 days of the school year. And by tardy, we're talking 10 or 11 in the morning. I'm sorry, but no 5 year old should be responsible for getting herself up, fed, dressed, ready & off to school without an adults help.
(I was working at a law firm with very demanding hours. Lived in a crappy area. His parents have loot and live in an exclusive neighborhood with an amazing school, so the kids stayed with him during the week)
I've had custody since then, and both kids are doing fabulous in school. (I'll brag on that in another post.)
I believe, cause I can be an optimist, that they've grown up and know better. That they'll be able to wake up long enough to get done, the things that need to be done. Then go back to sleep till the Turkeys get home from school.
We're going to try it for a week. I don't know if or how it's going to work out, but I'm preparing myself by knowing that this is a hell of a lot better than hiring some random person to care for the lives of two of my favorite people.
I know that the kids will be safe and taken care of. I know that they won't be ignored, or abused. If that means I have to let them stay in my house, use my bathroom, be together *ugh* in my bed (then burn the sheets and sanitize the mattress) and all that, then so dang be it.
But let me warn you now. If that hootchie Mama so much as scratches any of my cookery, I promise, it will be all out WAR.

My Mom wants me to be there, and that's the biggest reason I want to go. After all that this year has brought, I can be so grateful that it's brought me (literally) closer to my Mom. Instead of emails talking about our lives, we're getting to live them together. I know my parents want me to move to Oklahoma. They've both all but begged for it. They want this company to thrive because the name Heritage means more than just a brand. (I know this also sounds like shameless plugging, but it is the honest to God truth) The homes, and the company that my family is involved in are meant to be passed down from generation to generation. My parents want to be retired. They would love nothing more than to see my brother and I run the restoration side of the company. My Dad would love nothing more than to spend his days with his baby Granddaughters down by the river chasing turtles, and counting fish.
But, my kids have been in so many different schools already. Leaving Sergio, the military...that was all supposed to bring a stop to things. I promised to settle them, and I can't break a promise to my children. I have to stick it out here for a while.

Ugh. I hate being conflicted. It would be so easy to just go to my parents. Let my Mom take care of me for a while. Take a break. Enjoy the peace and quiet. Rake in the dough, and stash most of it away...

Sorry for the off topic, random, back & forth post tonight. My brain is on overload....

Till Death (or drugs) Do Us Part...

Today was harder than most. Today, I miss my husband. Before Iraq. Before all the pain, drinking, fights and drama. I miss being able to cuddle up with him and feel like the world was going to be all right.
No matter what happens, for a while; I loved him. He was my knight in shining armor...in fatigues. He made me feel like the most beautiful, fabulously important person on Earth. We only got married after he begged me to give life with him a chance. His persistence only made me love him more.
I honestly believe, had he never been to Iraq, our marriage would still be intact. He wouldn't feel the need to punish himself for doing things he inherently felt were wrong. He wouldn't drink to drown out the voices telling him that he made a mistake.

Sergio was injured playing football on a "morale day." After his tour of duty was over, he had surgery and was unable to re-deploy with his company. The soldiers he'd trained would be facing some of the toughest provinces of Iraq without him. They would be led by someone else.
He failed them.
In their tenure during the deployment of 2006, the Infantrymen of Bravo Co. 1/68 captured (or killed) more insurgents than any other deployed group at the time. My husband was proud of the job he was doing for our country. More than that, he was proud to be a soldier. Truly. He was groomed as a solder, raised as soldier, he was always supposed to be a solder.

I thought things were going to be ok when he came home. He would stare at Corrina in awe of his little person and ask me, "Do you think she's happy here?" "Do you think she knows how much I love her?"
He was so gentle with her, so curious about all her little movements. He wanted to see her crawl, and walk. He couldn't wait for the day that he could take his little playmate outside and have fun.
But, somewhere between there and here he got lost. He found out that his knee would require not just one, or two, but three different surgery's. He developed infections, and was in quite a bit of pain. Through that, he became addicted to Percocet. He was being prescribed 50 pills and they were being refilled every week. Sometimes more. For months after the pain should have been gone, he kept popping those pills. When his doctor refused to prescribe more, he stole them from our neighbor. Or, bought them from friends who'd had similar surgery's but didn't require the pain pills for them.
In November, I lost a baby. After I came home from the dnc, I left my purse and bag of prescription medicine on the dining room table and went straight to bed. Several hours later, I woke up for dinner to a beautiful bouquet of flowers and 5 of my Vicadin gone from the bottle.
Even knowing the emotional and physical pain I was in, my husband stole the medicine the doctor prescribed to me.
His addiction petered out once he realized that people were talking. Still, to this day as far as I'm aware, if he sees a pain pill he starts complaining that his knee hurts.
How very 'Army Wives' of us, 'eh?

I don't know the exact moment where I realized that my husband had an addiction. I know that his Mother warned me that he had the personality to become addicted. To alcohol, drugs, pills...whatever. She did warn me. But, when I called her for help; she brushed me off. Told me that I needed to take my children to church. That God was punishing me through Sergio for not being the wife I took vows to be. She warned me that if I didn't start going to church every Saturday, (they're Church of God, they believe the Sabbath falls on Saturday and not Sunday) that my marriage would continue to deteriorate until there was nothing left to save.
When I asked her why she couldn't talk to her son about his problem she told me that it was between her son & God, and she wouldn't intervene.
Instead, she bought him a plane ticket to go 'home' to PA for the holidays. Just him. He left the kids and I alone for 30 days over the Christmas season. His family doesn't celebrate Christmas as a holiday Per Se. I was once told that having a Christmas tree in my home was blaspheme and that I was teaching my children to disobey God. So, even though he'd previously promised me that he wouldn't be a "Grinch," and he would celebrate the holidays as a time for family, food and fun...he left. He spent over a grand on liquor, & beer and fun money in the month that he was there, while the kids and I scrimped just to get by.

I truly believe that he uses pills and booze as a way to forget Iraq. To numb the pain of the friends he lost, and the lives he took. Before Iraq, Sergio was full of life. Happy all the time. After a while, he was only happy when he was on something. Part of me thinks that he killed our marriage as a way to punish himself for whatever he did. He's told me so little about the things that happened. And, he tells them in a way that make you feel excited at the progress being made over there. He speaks proudly, animated and even boastful at times. But, I saw him when no-one else did. I saw the times that he drank alone and watched video's of troops being bombed in Iraq on youtube. I listened while he railed and ranted about the people being killed because they weren't being vigilant enough. And, I held his head in my lap the very few times he let himself cry over his mixed up and despondent emotions.

It's been 5 months since he last saw his daughter. 5 months since he heard her voice, or smelled her hair. He's cut her out of his life because I left. In so many ways, I feel that I failed him. Us.
But, I had to get my children out of a volatile environment. Things weren't getting better. Counseling didn't help. Being military certainly didn't help. I wish I could have helped him. I wish I would have done more, or tried harder. But, even now, I don't see any options that I missed.I feel like I'm the only person who sees what has happened to the real Sergio, but he won't let anyone else close enough for the truth. He stays jolly and happy until he's alone and can brood in silence. His family believes that God will sort it out. The minister that married us believes that his Mother knows best. His Commanders believe that he passed all the reintigration testing and therefore the matter should be closed.

I am a wife who lost her husband to Iraq. He didn't die, but he's just as lost as if he did.
I miss him. And, I will always love him. I wish he knew that.

P.S.
This is probably the one and only post I'll ever write where I outline the X in a decent light. The things he does angers me so much that I rarely have moments to reflect on the true reason for our demise.