a list of must's

Rules exist for practically everything.

Flush, and put the toilet seat down.

Squeeze the toothpaste from the bottom up.

Look both ways before you cross.

Don't talk when the teacher is talking (this also

happens to be one of my personal favorites).

Although I don't like the temporarily single mom role due to a deployment, I know the rules and routines fairly well.

Here are my own steadfast rules for survival:

1.) My husband is my security blanket. When he is gone, I feel incredibly unsafe. Yes, we have an alarm system. Of course, we have a wolf-looking dog that barks at strangers. Certainly, we have a small armory of guns. But without my husband beside me, I am vulnerable. Every sudden noise puts me on alert. Every unexpected knock on the door makes me freak out. Every "unknown caller" phone call makes me suspicious. My solution? Sleep with the light on. I am humble enough to proudly admit my ever-present fear of the dark, even at 31. If you drive past my house at 2 a.m., you will see my downstairs lights shining bright. It simply makes me feel better; don't calculate how many watts I'm wasting away--I sport reusable shopping bags and recycle paper, metal, and glass, so leave me be. (But if you do drive by at 2 a.m., please refrain from honking or knocking on my door. I do have an arsenal, remember?).

2.) Laundry is the bain of my existence. It is time-consuming, boring, and, as far as I'm concerned, doesn't build an ounce of character. Same with dishes. One day, long ago, I worked awfully hard to keep my house in a presentable order. But then I had a Christopher Columbus sized discovery: let housework sit, and it will wait on me. And, oddly enough, it tends to clone itself while I'm not looking. My kids, however, tend to not wait. I'd rather read a few too many bedtime stories, eat popcorn on the couch during a movie night, or help color pictures for Daddy. One day my kids will be grown and not depend solely on me, and then I will long for a messy house. (note: picture is actual, not staged)

3.) People around me cannot read my mind....although that would be a frightening skill to obtain. I had far too many Eeyore days during the 2008 deployment where I would be mad that no one was helping me...but then I was too stubborn and independent to tell my friends what help I needed. I am learning, slowly, to ask for help when I need it. So many people want to help, and know that they should, but when it comes to putting their desires into action, they do nothing. I've learned that this isn't because they don't want to or because they've forgotten about me. Rather, since they're never been in my shoes before, they don't know what I need. This is where my speaking up becomes important. (so how can you help me? pray, pray, pray. take my kiddos so that I can run errands without three tagalongs or spend some frivolous time scrapbooking or reading or shopping. call me just to chat. send me a card in the mail. help out with supper in some way. invite me and my girls to spend some fun time with you and your family. see? I'm already getting better.)

4.) Families are seldom biological. I have a small family of best friends, a large family of co-workers, and a separated yet incredibly networked Marine Corps family. While I can depend on any of these friends, my Marine Corps family will repeatedly go above and beyond the status quo to take care of one of their own. I have to surround myself with my extended families. There's a common understanding among us military wives: whatever can go wrong will go wrong during a deployment. In 2003, my car broke down. Besides having no idea where to take my car to get fixed right, I had no money to do that with. A phone call was made (thanks USMC veteran Russ Eaglin), and my car was back in my parking spot with no outstanding bill to pay. Christmas was frantically approaching in 2007, and I loathed everything holiday-related without a husband around. I needed something to smile about, as did my girls. Then came surprise free tickets to Disney on Ice, and you would have thought my girls were at Disney World itself (thanks USMC mom Julie Cotter). Marines take care of their own, and I don't know what I would do without that family.

5.) Flooding. It's proved to be a problem in Louisiana. I imagine the other type of flooding, the mental kind, is experienced by military wives other than just me. Flooding is that mental/emotional dysfunction where all the bad things that happen in your day snowball and take precedence over everything else. It results in grouchiness, crying, and an overall nasty attitude. I have found it to be a terribly hard cycle to intentionally break. There were a plethora of deployment days when flooding has kicked my butt. I could rattle off an exhausting list of all the unfortunate events that befell me, each and every hour of the day. I have to seek out and find the good around me, because when I do stop and look, I am surrounded by it. A human's brain is naturally wired to remember the negative first before the positive. That is why what I remember the most clearly about 1st grade is when my pants split down the butt during gym class, 2nd grade is when I refused to try the required three bites of the taco salad on my lunch tray and instead somewhat discreetly threw it on the cafeteria floor only to have to stay in from recess to clean it up, and 4th grade when I ran out of the classroom and didn't make it to the bathroom in time before I threw up in the hall (luckily I didn't have to clean that one up). Fortunately, I have learned enough about myself to repel this flooding sensation a lot better now. Today, for instance, I had a headache, a student broke the pair of shoes I was wearing (weird story), I forgot to buy something I really needed when I stopped at the store, and the cat relieved itself on a small pile of accruing laundry (which sort of contradicts Rule #2). On the flip side, I heard, "Mom, I love you!" many times today, my kids were well-behaved at the store, my own mom is coming to visit over the weekend, I got to talk to my husband on the phone for 10 whole minutes, and I did get some laundry done. Today will go down in my record book as a good day, because I want it to.