Shopping, church and a decision.

So the past few days I’ve been doing better than I was last week.  Thank God.  Saturday I went to Ikea with 2 friends, but I drove separately so we’d have room to bring stuff back in our cars.  (One of the girls was getting furniture.)  On the way to Ikea, Abbie was extra pissy and screaming and we got stuck in traffic and I couldn’t get the lid unscrewed from her milk thermos to save my life and I reached the end of my rope completely.  Had a complete meltdown.  It was not good.  But I guess when you reach the end of your rope, there’s only one way to go…. up.

So shopping with my friends was fun, but it just brought into reality that Abbie is now a toddler, who wants to walk everywhere, and has her own agenda, and if I don’t follow it, everyone within 3 city blocks hears about it.  It was more work than anything, just trying to keep her happy, and keep track of her.  Needless to say, I didn’t do much shopping.  I kinda miss the old days in that regard.

Sunday I went to church and sat with a bunch of wives who are also husband-less at the moment.  I saw that a few of them were worse off than I am (as in, not handling this any better than I am) and that made me feel better, oddly enough.  I guess I thought that I was the only one here not dealing with separations at all, and quite a few of the wives said things like “This is only the beginning”, which is exactly how I feel also.

Mark and I decided that I’m going to go home and stay with my parents while he is deployed.  Mark will feel better knowing that I’m not sitting in Italy trying to deal with Abbie by myself for months on end and on top of it all, worrying about him being in a warzone, so I’m going home.  I think that’s helped me deal with this a little better, but at the same time, going to live with your parents, when you’re used to having your own house and doing things your own way and just being on your own can be very challenging and will definitely be a HUGE adjustment for both Abbie and me.  And all the logistics of living somewhere else for 6ish months gives me a headache just thinking about it…  I’m going to have to figure out how to get home and how to travel with all of my and Abbie’s junk (for SIX months) plus Abbie, by myself because there will be an international layover.  I don’t know what I’m going to do with the dogs yet since it could be as much as 300E PER DOG one way to take them home, and I’m not willing to spend that much to get them home, but I don’t know what to do with them if I don’t take them home.  I need to figure out what I’ll do for a car if I’m going to be home for 6 months.  I need to figure out where I can take Abbie for her 2 year well baby visit.  It’s just a lot to worry about and we all know I’m an expert worrier.  Luckily we have some time to sort through the details.

That’s the update for now.  Hope you’re all having a good week.