I was talking to my daughter yesterday and what she said to me broke my heart.
Every day my daughter and I video chat, on her Kindle, once she gets home from daycare. This is 6pm for her and 2am for me. This is our way of being together every day since we can’t physically be together. We settled on meal times because that’s when she sits still for the longest period of time. My cousin props up her Kindle in front of her and we talk. I usually read her a book and then another book and then another book, until I run out. I bought books for me to read to her and I sent her a copy of the books that she likes the most so that we can read them together. We rarely read together, but occasionally, she run and get her book when I begin to read.
Anyway, back to last night. After I read her four books she looked at her grandma and said, “Mommy’s stuck in a new phone.” Then she looked at me and said, “Mommy your stuck in the game (the Kindle).” I didn’t know what to say. She then said, “Mommy, I can’t wait until your not stuck in the game anymore so you can come home.” My eyes immediately filled with tears and I turned my head away so that she wouldn’t see me cry. She didn’t seem sad when she said it, but it let’s me know that she is trying to find an answer to a question that has been bothering her for the last 7.5 months: Why is Mommy not here with me?
At the beginning of my deployment, I believed that she thought that I was with her when we spoke on messenger. I came to this conclusion because whenever I asked her where Mommy was, she would point at the Kindle and say, “Mommy is right here.”
In the past she has asked me, “Can I come to Mommy’s house to see you.” I explained to her that I was not living in a house. I told her that I was on deployment. She quickly asked, “Can I come on deployment?” “No. Mommy is living in a box.” She gave me a weird look and said yes when I asked if she wanted to see my box. I showed it to her and cracked up laughing.
On a second occasion she asked, ” Can you come to my house Mommy?” I told her that I couldn’t because I was on deployment. I’m very careful not to tell her that I’m at work. When I come home, I don’t want her to think that I will be gone for long periods when I tell her that I am going to work.
The third occasion, she was with my cousin heading to school and they made a video for me saying hi. I recorded a short video telling her that I loved her and asked my cousin to show it to her when he picked her up from daycare. After she watched it he told me that she blurted out, “I miss Mommy!” I don’t know if she cried afterwards, but he called me shortly after and she was very sad and mopey.
She has asked me when she is going to see me, when I would come back, and many variations of the same question. Every time I feel like trash because I don’t have a good answer for her. She doesn’t understand time. I’ve considered making her a calendar and having my cousin circle the day that I will be home. That will allow her to see the day that I get back, but she would have to understand how a calendar works before she would understand a randomly circled number on a piece of paper. In all fairness, I don’t actually know when I’ll be home.
Yesterday also marked another argument with my cousin who is taking care of my daughter while I am gone. He is a single man with no children, a full-time job, and a part-time coaching gig. He had a lot on his plate before he took my daughter in, now he has even more. He get’s help from his mom, my mom, his sister, and his sister-in-law sometimes, but most of the time, it’s just him. I know that he gets overwhelmed at times, but he keeps going. He doesn’t think that I appreciate everything that he does because I complain sometimes. I get it though. He flipped his entire life over and I don’t tell him that I appreciate what he’s done enough, but I always have something to point out that he is doing wrong.
Always remember to show appreciation for those who are helping you in these situations. No, they will not take care of your baby the way that you would. No they will not be perfect and good enough will never be up to your standards, but the reality is, good enough must be good enough until you get home. It sucks, but it’s a hard reality that if you can’t accept, you will not be able to sleep at night. Trust me, I have not yet accepted it, I get no sleep! Ask my co-workers.
