Our lives are upside down right now, or maybe sideways, trying to revolve around E’s crazy work schedule. He’s not at sea – it would be a poor choice to try to take his submarine out into the ocean, since half of it is still a just twinkle in the shipyard’s eye. And for that I’m thankful. But he’s Very Busy And Important at his job in a way he has never been in the past and handling everything about the kids, the house, the cars and our life is starting to wear on me. Especially because although there is an end in sight, things are going to get worse before they get better – and “better” is still going to suck.

I feel the need to insert a disclaimer every time I talk about my life as a Navy spouse to head off the eye rolling. I am 100% aware of my privilege in complaining about my life. There are billions of people across the world who are worse off than me, millions in America who would kill for a stable job and steady income and amazing, free (socialized!) healthcare, thousands of families whose loved ones are deployed to battlefields and war zones and much more dangerous conditions that an office in Connecticut and probably two dozen other spouses stationed right here on E’s boat who are dealing with problems much worse than mine. But just like someone who goes from making $100,000 a year would have a hard time adjusting to making only $25,000 a year, I’ve gone from having a husband around 50-60 hours a week to one I only see 4 or 5 hours a week. Total. And the kids see him even less. We’re adjusting.

ALSO, since I’m already on a super-tangent, I am not in any way comparing my single-parenting of my kids while E is at work to an ACTUAL single parent. It’s not even kind of close to the same thing. A paycheck magically shows up in my bank account every 2 weeks even if all I’ve done all week is take Instagram photos of my food and buying crap at Target and having random bits of my body removed for fun (yah healthcare!) so my life is pretty good.

And just like that I’ve written a whole post about why I shouldn’t even both to write this post. I would suggest to myself “Self, quit while you’re ahead!” but I don’t actually feel ahead. I feel forever behind.

I’m torn between trying to fill our days with as many things as possible and holing up in a blanket fort on the couch to watch Disney Jr all day. I don’t want to take the kids out to the zoo and the aquarium and the park and lunch only to find out E got home early and we missed our only chance to see him. If we stay home to see him there’s a huuuuuge stretch of morning when the kids are awake and bored and I start to lose my temper because I know we’re only going to get an hour with Daddy anyway. The worst was trying to split the two – we got home JUST in time to watch Daddy walk out the door. Both kids were hysterical for an hour.

In some ways, life would be easier if this was a deployment. There would be regular family support group meetings giving us updates. Our bank account would be in better shape thanks to extra pay and E not having to eat unexpectedly on the run or drive back and forth to work. I could use that cute DVD Sesame Workshop sent me to explain to the kids Daddy was gone for a while but would be back. I would feel much less guilty about planning fun family trips and vacations and outings without E. Right now I worry I’m abandoning him, being unsupportive of his job, excluding him from our family (or at least I worry HE feels that way) when, no. I’m not doing it. The NAVY is doing it.

It’s a life I enjoy, mostly. One I signed up for willingly and knowingly after growing up in a military family. But right now? It freaking sucks.

One of the best things about being three years old is that everyone is your friend. My kid runs up to another kid on the playground and says “Hey, wanna slide?” and they’re off to have adventures, even if they never see each other again after that day. Kids that age like pretty much all the same things and believe in the Truth of Childhood: Climb it if it can be climbed, always run as fast as you can, and anything can be a pirate ship. They don’t know enough about the world yet to judge or condemn or turn their noses up at kids who want to join in so everyone gets to play. It’s beautiful and pure and I wish I was three years old again on a daily basis.

Or at least that was the world Evan lived in until this week. My heart is breaking a little all over again just thinking about it.

We’ve made a habit of visiting the park in the evenings, so Mommy can get some exercise, the kids can run their wiggles out and we can all enjoy as much sunlight as possible before it starts getting dark at 5 pm. There are two playgrounds at this particular park – a bigger one meant for older kids and a tot lot meant for littles. Caroline has no preference – as long as it has a swing, she’s happy. The big playground was crowded on Wednesday, so we took a stroll around the lake to the smaller park for some low-key fun.

When we got there, the situation looked perfect. There were two little girls – probably 5 and 6 – on the playscape. Evan ran off to join them and I put Caroline in a swing for a marathon pushing session. A few minutes later Evan can running back, looking a little upset.

“That little girl said I can’t slide, Mommy!”

“It’s OK honey,” I reassured him, “You’re allowed to slide if you want to. Just be nice to your friends and use kind words and remember you’re not the boss of them, OK?”

“OK Mommy!” he said and ran back to try again with kind words and a gentle voice. My boy is really good at using his kind words and gentle voice.

But I forgot the magic age of insta-friendships doesn’t last that long and by kindergarten little girls don’t always want to play with little boys, especially if they already have a girl friend to play with. Despite his best efforts, Evan was rebuked again and told he wasn’t allowed to play. “Go away, boy!” I heard from across the playground, and my heart sank knowing what I was going to hear next. My sweet little ginger, his offer of friendship crushes like a leaf under a pink Dora shoe, burst into tears and ran into my arms.

As I reassured him it wasn’t his fault – he was still a good boy, a nice friend, he had done everything right but sometimes people don’t want to play with us – I got a lump in my own throat. Oh how I know that feeling! I am overflowing with empathy when it comes to rejection and being left out and worrying that everyone is hanging out doing fun stuff without telling you. Even as I was telling Evan it was OK to cry but he shouldn’t let those mean girls affect his self worth – in the most toddler-friendly words I could think of – I realized I have never, ever been able to take my own advice.

Right now I can fake it, because my words to him are more powerful than my emotional reaction or my words to myself when I don’t think he’s listening. But the gravity of helping to shape my children’s entire emotional life if overwhelming. I miss the days when the only kid-related problems were whether or not they were sleeping through the night or if I was a bad mother for not cutting their grapes in half. I’ll take the baby stage back in a second rather than deal with the drama and heartbreak of my children’s friendships and unfriendships and fake friendships. I can’t even deal with my own friendships without chewing my nails into little stubs of worry and self-doubt. What if they don’t want to play with me?

So for now I just hug my boy and tell him he’s kind and good and beautiful and I adore him. I dry his tears and help him climb the jungle gym and cheer for his upsidedown sliding antics so he has the confidence to keep being himself. And I hope and pray he always feels that way, whether he’s 3 or 33.

Dear Suzanne,

Hey. Hi There. How are you? Your hair looks nice like that. And you’ve definitely lost weight so don’t get discouraged, but also don’t forget to eat dessert sometimes because you’re kind of awful when you don’t get dessert.

In case you’re already wondering what this is about, it’s not the letter version of repeating affirmations to yourself in the mirror every morning (because I know you never remember to do that – it makes you feel silly). This is a letter to remind you of how awesome your life is on the days when you can’t do anything besides throw some crackers at the kids and hide in the bathroom until your husband comes home.

Today, Evan woke you up by climbing into bed and giving you hugs. Then he played on the iPad while you dozed and checked email and put off starting the day as long as possible.

That right there – the first 20 minutes of your whole day – should be more than enough to make you realize how lucky you are. Your son is healthy. He slept in his own room last night. He is able to climb. He is able to hug you. You have a bed. You have a room that is a pleasant temperature. You have an iPad. You have an iPhone. Your daughter slept in her own room. She is healthy. She is always excited to see you, even if you make her wait while you get dressed. You do not have to rush out the door for work. You can wake up at 7 am, and at 7:15 decide today is a beach day or a zoo day or a baking day or a library day or a stay-at-home day. Billions – literally, BILLIONS – wish they had a life like that.

Every single day for you is like a weekend for most people. You can shop or get coffee or work out or lie around doing nothing. Your bank account has money in it you did not have to earn but you get to spend. THINK ABOUT THAT. Yes, you are working in a zillion different ways at all hours of the day and night and yes your work as a wife and mother is important but in this country, at this time, that work is worth zero actual dollars. Too bad Target doesn’t accept blood, sweat, tears or poop. You have plenty of those.

Your biggest problem this week is that you double-booked your plans for Tuesday – you promised one friend you would meet her at the Seaport and another that you would be her event photographer at a party for your kids and all your kids’ friends. Oh noes! Your life is SO HARD, but only if by hard you mean “really really freaking awesome.”

Parenting a child is a challenge, and some days it’s a really challenging challenge and some days it feels like a challenge that will never ever end but always remember: IT WILL. Be glad the bad days end but remember the good ones do too. Today will end, tomorrow will end, your children’s youth will end. It will end and you will wonder why you didn’t enjoy more of it.

So go ahead, have a bad day. Feel sorry for your plight as an over-worked, over-stressed, under-appreciated mom. Count the minutes until you can pour a glass of wine or collapse into bed. Everyone’s allowed to have bad days. But when you wake up tomorrow with a snuggly ginger playing Angry Birds and a day of nothing but fun ahead of you, stop feeling bad and start appreciating how great your life is.

Love,

Past Suzanne

p.s. Don’t forget to eat the strawberry freezer jam. You tend to forget stuff you put in the downstairs fridge. Speaking of which, it’s probably time to throw out the egg nog.

31 days of Instagram photos – apologies to those of you who have already seen all of these, but I think it’s fun to put them together as a set. The trend seem to be bathtime, garden, repeat.

It’s been a really picture heavy week on the blog. Let’s keep going.

I take a lot of crooked pictures.