Early Morning Thoughts

Safety first!
The boys and I are in the midst of our first long-ish separation from Steve since he returned from deployment last September. In the grand scheme of things, he won't be away for that long, but still, it is a first for us since returning to normal. So far, the boys are doing just fine. They are missing Daddy a lot, but luckily springtime means lots of activities with school and sports, so we don't have a lot of down time on our hands.

I woke up at 4:30 this morning to the sound of Riley "tap dancing" in the laundry room. He usually saves this for 5:15 a.m., but I am guessing he drank some extra water before bedtime last night. Either way, once I am woken up, I'm up. I know I will be feeling this around 2:00 p.m. today, and I will really want a nap that I cannot take.

As I was laying in bed, waiting for Riley to let me know that he was ready to come back in, I was thinking about the little quirks I developed while Steve was deployed, and how quickly they come back when he is away from home. I don't get frightened at night per se - - I'm not afraid to be home alone and I don't really worry about things like that. However, I just don't feel right when he isn't here, and have a hard time winding down for the evening. When Steve is home, I am usually in bed by 9:00 and asleep soon after. I think when he was in Iraq, I avoided getting into bed at night because that is when I would lay in the dark and think about awful things, miss him terribly, and then proceed to have a not-so-restful night's sleep. So I unknowingly developed a night- time routine that involved staying up way too late, to the point where I was so tired that I would fall asleep the minute I got into the prone position, thus eliminating the 'laying in bed and thinking awful thoughts' portion of my evening. It worked for me, except for the part where I was always operating on not enough sleep.

Steve and I have been married for 10 1/2 years, and I've spent roughly 3 1/2 of those years by myself, 3/4 of that time, with children. One would think that it would get easier with time, but I find that separation gets more difficult. When I say this, I am not talking about handling things on my own, without a spouse. I can do that part just fine. I am talking about the mental aspect of it. Nobody can help out with that.

A Titanic Week

This is a big week for our resident Titanic expert, for it is the centennial of the sinking of Titanic. I don't remember exactly how Camden became interested in Titanic, but his passion for it has never wavered. Over the past few years, he has amassed quite the collection of books and documentaries, and they are among his most treasured possessions. To mark the occasion, we are having a dinner on Saturday evening, using recipes from the actual ship, and food that was served on the night the great ocean liner sank.

I found the cookbook on Amazon, and it was chock-full of all kinds of details I never knew about the ship. My plan is to make a dish or two from each class menu (the first-class menu is an eleven-course meal, and I can assure you, I won't be doing that!). I think I expected to find porridge listed as the third-class dinner, when in fact, they dined quite nicely by today's standards. Camden plans to make a speech and say a special prayer, and I think it is going to be a lovely evening.

I might just be biased, but to know Camden is to love him. He is a precious boy with an imagination that knows no bounds, and that just might be my favorite character trait of his. I love being able to share in his interests, and he has so many of them, so life is certainly never boring around these parts.