All by myself

I'm not a TV watcher. I don't turn on the TV "just because." But one of the benefits of being home is that I can watch TV if I want - it doesn't get backlogged in the TiVo like it used to. So last week - or the week before (of course I don't remember) - I found myself in the basement at 4:00 with a hungry baby. And 4:00 means Oprah.

The episode was on military families and really brought the heavyweights: Tom Brokaw, Ben Bradlee and Michelle Obama. Each highlighted a different military family that inspired them. The entire show was intended to demonstrate the sacrifices and quiet commitment these families make to serve our country, often without much understanding or support from those of us who are removed from the process. 

I've been closer to military families than most. Chad's brother spent several years in the Army and his family lived at Fort Bragg. He was deployed for over a year and his wife, Becca, stayed home with their baby daughter (who is now much older than I care to admit). So I kind of thought of myself as being relatively in tune to the struggles and sacrifices that these families make. I know about the missed holidays and birthdays, the pit in your stomach when they leave, the heartbreak when they lose people they know, and the unpredictability and frustrations of deployments and leaves.

Thanks for the show, Oprah, but, well, I get it.

Or so I thought.

I found myself unintentionally thinking about these military families a lot when Chad went off to Atlantic City for a guys' weekend. He left for work on Friday morning and for 60-some hours it was just me and Jackson. (Granted, I had no less than five people email me asking if I wanted to get together for lunch or coffee or a walk, etc., but for the most part it was just the two of us.) And I gained such an incredible appreciation for what it would be like if I was taking care of a child, especially a newborn, and my husband was gone all the time.

I would lose my mind.

It's not the days that would be bad. Jackson and I already spend every day, all day, together. And most of the time I actually enjoy it. But when you've done the eat/play/sleep rotation four or five times, it's nice to have something or, more specifically, someone else to look forward to. In my case, there's someone coming home every night with whom I can have a real conversation and eat an actual dinner. There's someone to warm me up when I crawl back into bed around 3 a.m. after Jackson eats, who doesn't even complain about my perpetually cold feet. And there's someone who actually seems interested in my banter about the intricate, though often boring, details of each day.

I'm sure women of deployed soldiers have a support system. But "support" or not, when 5 p.m. rolls around and you're not waiting for anyone to walk in the door, that's going to make for some long nights.

After my weekend alone, I've got a totally new appreciation for families of deployed soldiers, especially those with little babies. I have no idea how they do it. I really don't think I could.