Funny

I just spent the morning laughing until I cried. Have you heard of Axe Cop? Here's a link. It is a comic written by a 5 year old boy. It totally made me think of some of my little nephews. The imaginations we have at our house are full of fairies and ponies and princesses and flowers. Actually, Apple is a little more wild. She is always asking about the "sword" that Uncle Jed gave us and if we are going to use it to kill bad guys. She is a little obsessed with death right now. She keeps telling me tearfully that she doesn't want to die and that she always wants to stay with me and that she never wants to be a mommy because then she couldn't be with me always. Strawberry doesn't help much: "Well, we're all gonna die!" Apple is just now coming to grips with the fact that daddy isn't coming home any time soon. She asked me the other night, "How old am I going to be when daddy comes home?" Poor little girl. She is about the same age Strawberry was when Luke went to Iraq.

Strawberry is showing some strain too. She's much more easily upset about things and really hard to calm down. Plus, I feel like I'm grounding her all the time for acting up, but I feel bad because I know why she is acting up. It's such a conundrum. I can't just let her get away for things because she's sad, but I feel like I should be more understanding and let her get her frustrations out. It's hard though because I'm easily upset and frustrated too. I need to be loving and firm, and I try to, but I lose my temper too easily. I wonder if they have parenting classes for how to deal with grieving kids. I'm sure they do. They've got all kinds of stuff here. I just can't go to it because I've got 2 kids and a baby.

Luke says they are really busy trying to get all their projects done. They've had to deal with rain and snow and supply delays and language barriers. They're doing 24 hour operations now in shifts. But Seabees thrive in adversity! :) One tough thing is that they don't have religious facilities and so he is missing having that spiritual support. They are too busy to do anything anyway, but it would be nice to at least have a prayer meeting or something. I told him he should just go to the Mosque there and learn about Islam, but I guess that would be difficult when he can't speak the language.