When You Feel Like Complaining. . .

Today was not a great day in the world of single motherhood. The kids were obnoxious all morning, running late, cooking pepperoni for breakfast, ignoring their screaming mother, and losing their school work. By the time I got them to school I was frazzled. I came home to work out and clean at the same time (don't laugh, I run around the house and do sqats to pick the junk up off the floor--so far it has been effective at keeping the weight off and keeping the house clean). I went into the closet underneath the stairs to pick up some garbage. When I leaned over I didn't notice that I had moved underneath the sloped part of the ceiling, so when I swung my body upward with great force, I about knocked myself out. It hurt so badly that I could taste the pain. Suddenly all of the crappiness of the day and a overwhelming feeling of loathing toward the Army came over me. I, of course, couldn't allow my heart rate to drop so I continued jumping up and down while I cried a little pity party for myself. I kept saying to myself, "This deal sucks. I don't want to do it anymore." Well, today I learned: when you feel like complaining. . . don't--because something will happen to remind you there could be much worse things to complain about.

Brian called on Skype shortly after my workout sob session and told me about his day. The story he told broke my heart in ways I can not explain. Earlier that evening, they had flown high up into the mountains to a village where a 14 year old girl was septic from infection. Apparently, a week earlier her family had taken her into a barn and performed a crude C-section on her, with no anesthetic, then attempted to suture her back up. There is no baby and Brian said that by the looks of her she was probably not far along at all. Undoubtedly, this young girl was raped, then her family tried to hide her "shame" by performing their own abortion. The girl was near to death when her family brought her to the US troops nearby. The medics there opened her wounds back up and cleaned her out, then called in the medevac flight to take her to the hospital at Bagram. Brian helped keep her stable and ready for surgery upon landing. She's now in the hospital and he's hoping to go visit her with the chaplain on Sunday.

How grateful I am for my husband and his willingness to go to Afghanistan. I don't know if I agree with all of the reasons or tactics behind this war, but I do know that the US has blessed many people's lives--and saved many people's lives--in that region of the world. I have no more of a right to a happy life than does that sweet 14 year old girl. I have to keep reminding myself that I really can't complain. I'm very lucky to have the rights and the safety that I enjoy and it's really a small sacrifice for my husband to go over and help those people for a year.

Brian started his own blog, which I will link on the side of this one. He has had many interesting experiences and gets to take some great photos from the helicopters. I may end up writing his blog for him and he'll post the pictures (sort of like how I wrote his Master's thesis for him), but I think it is important for him (or me) to document his adventures.

As an update, the snow is crazy here in Utah. I have a rear wheel drive van and a Hyundai Sonata. My van cannot drive in the snow, so I have to take the kids to school in shifts on snowy days. That's always lots of fun. The kids have gotten to go sledding a couple times with our good friends and they love it. My friend Mitch gave Gwynyth a pair of skis to try and with in minutes it looked like she'd been skiing her whole life. We all watched in awe. Within a few runs down the hill she learned to cut back and forth and ditch the snowplow method. She's already better than I am! Too bad skiing is a rich man's sport!

Another Sophia Story: The other day one of the kids called out, "Mom, Sophie's trying to jump out the window." I rolled my eyes, not particularly surprised at the news. I answered, "Sophie, knock it off. Shut the window and don't do that again." Her response did surprise me. She came in to look at me and said, "Oh, Mom, I never opened the window, I was trying to jump through the glass." What??? Seriously???