On any given day at my house, you might find stacks of school uniform outfits, laid out on a dresser in a row; piles of bagged, cut carrots in the fridge; sticky notes covering the coffee pot, or a grocery bag on my front door, containing an extra leotard and tights, accompanied by a quick text regarding its whereabouts.
This is what a two-career house looks like. And as more and more military spouses join the workforce this is what the homefront is beginning to look like.
Since my husband is not currently deployed or gone for training, after his work day is done, he often plays Mr. Mom while I work.
Our daughter chooses from the outfits for herself and he packs the carrots in her lunch.
The grocery bag on the door? That’s for days when even the best laid plans go awry. Long duty hours for him and long night shifts for me means sometimes, we forget things. The extra dance clothes hanging on the door for our daughter are there to remedy that situation fast.
As a nurse, my hours at the hospital are long, but I’ve been blessed to find a reliable college-age babysitter/friend who can pick up my daughter after school, help her change and drive her to dance when my husband and I are both at work. And, during deployments and several week-long trainings when I become “quasi single parent,” this sitter has been a God send.
However, this well-oiled machine didn’t always exist.
After years of wanting to go back to school to earn a second degree, I officially began classes in preparation for nursing school during my husband’s first deployment. Our daughter was two-years-old. I had many good friends who helped me during that transitional time of not only attending classes, but also carving out study time.
I also came to rely on two great resources the Army provides: FCC homes (Family Child Care) and the CDC (Child and Family Development Center). During deployments, both of these entities offer discounted hourly childcare rates and my daughter was not only in good hands, but she was spending time with other children while I was in class. The best part was that all of the times could be scheduled well in advance and I knew I wouldn’t have to worry about where she would go on the morning of my latest big anatomy test.
Once my husband returned, he was a great help, but even he couldn’t always predict his schedule, so the friends and the Army resources came to my rescue again. Once our daughter started school, things became a bit easier, but that’s when the babysitter hunt began, since we don’t live close enough to base to use the Army services after school.
Our sitter, who is the daughter of a dear soldier friend, helped me through countless weeks of my husband’s out of town trainings, courses and another deployment so that I could finish school, while knowing our daughter was safe and happy.
These days, our sitter still helps out. She does pickups on days that I work, she wrangles our daughter’s hair into a bun and untangles her ballet tights so she can get them on and into first position by 5:30 p.m. I also have a friend who I can drop off my daughter with at 0530 so I can get to work and she can ride to school with their family, if my husband is away. Since her husband is a soldier too, my friend not only understands, but allows me to reciprocate whenever I can. Some days I leave the school with my own daughter and her two, as well.
Besides our fabulous sitter and amazing friends, I find that being organized and planning ahead is the key to the madness of having a military dad and a working mom. I wash and fold like a maniac on my day off. I spend more time on Pinterest and in food magazines than I like to admit, but I’m constantly planning out menus for our family.
My husband is an excellent cook and he provides me with many a delicious meal when I return home after a long shift, but I always keep meals in the freezer and use my crockpot at least weekly for those days when we both arrive home tired and hungry.
And when it’s just “us girls,” our freezer meals are just the right size for the two of us to defrost and eat in front of a movie while we wait for Skype time with Daddy.
Somehow, amidst the craziness of work and school, exercise is another way I survive. With all the planning, washing and driving, I find time for myself by running. Even when my daughter was a baby, I strapped her into the jog stroller, leashed up our dog and hit the sidewalks in our neighborhood. Now, I run either when she’s at school or early in the mornings on the weekends when my husband is home. Running is not just a way to stay active for me, it’s a sanctuary I can go to when my mind just needs to work things through.
Multi-tasking is a way of life for any working family. My cooking usually incorporates homework time with my daughter. Sometimes exercise is done together as a family. Folding and prepping those clothes for the week is often done during family movie time. I’m happy with the way it’s all come together for now.
But soon, our babysitter will graduate from college, another deployment is on the horizon, and I’ll have to “change the oil in our machine.” I’ll never forget how much my friends were there for me in the beginning though, and still are today.
When I think of this crazy Army lifestyle, it reminds me of a line from the old song by the Beatles, “I get by with a little help from my friends…” And, you know? I wouldn’t have it any other way.
