Trying to pack for a deployment that had no definate length was difficult. We could only take our military bags which consisted of 2 duffel bags and one ruck sack! With all the military gear we were REQUIRED to pack, there was very little room for anything else.

After spending a lot of time in the field, we had learned how to pack things tightly, buT THIS was a true test of our abilities! What to take? what NOT to take? What was really important and what was necessary? The females were told to pack up to 18 months worth of feminine hygine products because there was NOWHERE to purchase those items once we got into Iraq! Just how many tampons DO I use in a year? ( ....add three, carry the five........)

I had arranged for my kids to go back to their dads' after comming to spend Thanksgiving break with me, and had decided Kayla would live with my ex-inlaws while I was deployed. It meant she would be living just a few doors down from her brother and sister and I felt she really needed family at this time. Kayla wanted to spend Christmas with her brother and sister, and we were so busy with the upcomming deployment we talked and decided she would go with Courtney and Hunter when they went back after Thanksgiving. That was a very hard decision to make. I WANTED to be selfish, and keep her there with me! Even at 10, Kayla was learning how the military life operated and she reminded me how I was rarely home anyway lately, so she'd rather just go 'start this mess' and begin her time living with her Nana and Papa. She was right, I WAS working from dark til dark every single day, and that was no kind of Christmas break. Also we might have to leave at a moments notice, so I sent all three of my babies to Oklahoma that week. It was bittersweet because they were excited to be together, Happy that it was Christmas break and sad that I was about to go off to war.

I spent several nights missing my babies, wishing they were there with me again, wondering if the last time I kissed them goodbye were to be the last kisses we'd share. I would call them, and cheerfully talk and laugh, then hang up and cry and ask God if I was doing the right thing. Those were tough times for me as a mom. I know it was hard on Kayla also. She had to start a new school in the middle of the year and was probably the only kid who had a parent who was deploying! I don't know if this made it easier or harder on her, but through it all she was SUCH a strong young lady! I think she had it the hardest of all of us. Courtney and Hunter lived with their dad so life for them didn't change much like it did for Kayla. They had all been prepared for my eventual deployment while we were together at Thanksgiving. I answered all their questions as best I could (Do you have a knife in your boot? Will you kill people? Are their big bugs in Iraq? Will you bring me a suprise?) And I reassured them mama would be just fine. They got to meet a lot of the people I worked with, and THAT seemed to make them feel better, knowing these people would be there to help protect me if I needed it. I had to ask myself if I was about to break my first promise to them. Would I come home to them alive and well? I didn't want them to worry and watch the news, thinking I was in harms way. I didn't want them to cry and feel scared. I wanted to PROTECT them from the horrors of war. That is my job as a mom! But I would be so far away! I had to trust that the famiy I'd left them with could help them deal with whatever came up. As I prepared to leave them, my heart broke at teh thought of never seeing my babies again. I spent a lot of time praying that the promise I had made to them would not be broken.