Another day down

So today was a more "normal" day. We hung out at home until it was time for a memorial service for one of the guys who was stationed with F, who died in a car accident last week. F played softball with him, and his girl friend was very nice to the kids in the stands - we called her H's girl friend. I didn't know them that well, but felt compelled to attend. She is apparently still in a coma or at least in hospital. They are/were so young, and it is so sad.

H played in the pool for a while this afternoon, while K took a nap. It was nice to see how creative he can be when he plays alone. Aside from drinking pool water (eeewwww!) he played really well, pretending to swim, pretending to float. When K woke up, we hit the post office to send out new baby gifts to the new niece that is due to arrive tomorrow. As soon as we hit the car, H passed out, which kind of messed up my plans for an early dinner at the local chinese joint. Instead, I picked up take out so I still got my fix.

There was a family readiness group meeting tonight that caused me to miss a valuable chat time with F tonight, which made me sad. The only thing I got out of it was a confirmation that he won't be home until January because, "what's a few more weeks?" Uh, dumb @$$ commander - a few more weeks is the difference between being here for baby's first Christmas and not being here for baby's first Christmas. Other than that, nope, no big deal. Jack @$$!

They also gave us the Seasame Street deployment kit for kids. It had a pretty cute video on Elmo's dad leaving for a long time for deployment and things to do to stay in touch and so on. It was pretty cute and we had to watch it twice (it is short). I noticed during the second showing that H was chatting to himself a bit and he said "Elmo's daddy had to go away for a long time. H's daddy had to go away for a long time. Then H's Mommy has to go away for a long time." It made me sad that this movie that was supposed to be helpful led to a conversation about leaving, and that Mommy would always be here for him and that I won't be going away. Perhaps it is a good thing, because it did lead to that conversation, but it was still heartbreaking to hear that he thinks all parents go away.