Leavin' on a Jet Plane....

This week Brad was out of town for work training.  He left Sunday night and got home very late last night.    I did not have a very great week without him here.  Aden was getting over an ear infection, Carson was sick with a double ear infection, and I was stressing out that I might be pregnant.  (I'm not!!!)
With Brad's old job he traveled all the time.  We were married in May of 2005 and by June of that year he was gone most weeks up until Carson was born 2 years later.  One year I counted up the number of weeks he was home and it was only 8 or 9, or something like that.  It was rough on newlyweds to only be together on Saturdays and Sundays but we did our best to make it work.  After we had Carson, Brad still had to travel some but not nearly as often.  He missed 3 of Carson's surgeries/procedures because of being out of town but we made it!
Now, working at Michelin, Brad will have to travel a few times out of the year to South Carolina for training.  This was the first week he had to that.  This is the first time Carson has been old enough to really understand that Brad was going to be gone and not coming back for awhile.  It really set in around bedtime on the first night that Daddy was actually gone.  Brad always does the bedtime routine with Carson, and since Carson is such a creature of habit, he completely fell apart when I told him it was time to get ready for bed.  He was hysterical, and I am not being overly dramatic, he was inconsolable, absolutely hysterical.  It took me forever to calm him down but the second night was even worse.  I will not share the gross, crazy details, but I will say that I had to call in reinforcement! (Thanks family!!) By Tuesday night things were better, I found things to do to distract Carson and we had a system sort of worked out by the middle of the week.  Thankfully, Aden is a laid back, easy going kid so that made things not quite so bad.  And Carson and I started feeling better and getting used to Daddy being gone.
Brad's flight was not coming in until late Friday night but I let Carson stay up past his bedtime so that he could see his daddy.  When he heard the door open, he flew off the couch to see Brad.  He wanted him to play and was a little bit wired.  This morning, Carson did not want me to fix his breakfast, only Daddy.  He is such a Daddy's boy, Brad is his hero and he wants to do everything with him.
Well, after a week of feeling sorry for myself, being grumpy, and not feeling well, I remembered how easy I have it compared to so many other people I know.  Yes, this was a bad week for me, compared to all my other weeks, but it was only a week.   6 days without my husband, not month after month after month.
Brad's cousin, Courtney is married to man in the military and they have only been married for about a year and half.  He has already served overseas once since they've been married and he is about to leave again and will be gone for a very long time.  I CANNOT imagine telling my husband goodbye and being gone from him for that long.  Courtney, as are most military spouses, is an amazing, strong woman. She and I were talking at Christmas about how annoying it is to her when women complain about their husbands being gone for a couple of days or try to tell her they know how she feels.  There is no way I can even begin to understand how she feels, and yet here I was all week long moping and complaining about what a bad week I was having.  After realizing how blessed I am, I prayed for Corey and Courtney and the hard year this is going to be for them.  I thanked God for Brad and for my children and that this was only one week of bad.  It also reminded me to pray for the single moms I know who have to do it all by themselves, all the time.  I think that it is so easy to look inward, only at your own situation and dwell on the bad; but only when you look outside of yourself can you really put things in perspective and see how blessed you really are.
Yes, this was a bad week.  Yes, I was sick and so were my kids.  Yes, I missed Brad. But in reality, I knew the week would end and Brad would come home.  I knew that we would all get well and feel better.  I knew next week would probably be a better week.  So next time Brad flies off to South Carolina, I will hopefully remember that "this too shall pass" and not feel sorry for myself like I have this week.  Or maybe he should just take me with him! :)