Silver Linings

Having Jayce gone was really hard. I have to show gratitude for the silver lining though.

#1- Technology!!! FaceTime was awesome. Here are some moments it gave us:

Jayce helping Ben say prayer:

And Jack:

One night we both rented "Little Boy" from Redbox and watched it at the same time over FaceTime. That was fun.

Jayce also made the boys this video on one of his layovers too:

I might have watched it 20 times the day he sent it. It kills me!

Another random digital world thing was receiving these in my inbox one morning:

#2- Even at a distance the temple could bring us closer together. When Jayce was in Las Vegas we set a goal to each take one ancestor's name all the way through each temple ceremony. Jayce went several times in Vegas and I was able to go here in Utah. When he came back for a week between Vegas and San Antonio, we got to go do the sealings together in the Payson Temple. It was nice to work towards the same goal in two separate locations.

 #3- I'm lucky that Jayce remained pretty aware of the ups and downs at home and tried to do what he could from a distance to let me know he was thinking about us. Two times he arranged for a sitter to come over so that I could go out and have some "me" time for a while. He's a gem. What he was going through was no walk in the park either, so staying open and real with each other was good for both of us. We promised we would tell each other how our days really were instead of "trying to brush it off" answers. It brought us closer together.

#4- Sometimes distance really can make the heart grow fonder. I really really missed Jayce. Not just because he's a helping hand in the evening with the boys, or because he would have been helpful when our neighborhood blacked out for FOURTEEN hours (another awful night), but because I just really missed him. You really do become one the longer you have been married and I really felt like my other half was missing a lot of the time. It was hard, but also really sweet. My appreciation for Jayce deepened. 

#5- When I came out of being sick I started to become productive again. I love watching shows and things with Jayce at night when we're together, and we do designate certain nights as "productive nights" when we work on projects at the same time or read, but without Jayce home at night I just go to town to distract myself after I put the boys down.

Not that this is very productive, but I watched the new episodes of Once Upon A Time, and a couple of Downton Abbey's while I relaxed in the tub.

I made Halloween costumes, I read pffff....8 books?, I listened to podcasts while I worked on J and B's baby books, I typed up recipes for a recipe book, I spent an evening putting my old Playmobil dollhouse together to see if anything was missing, I watched a couple of chick flicks I hadn't seen in a long time, I de-cluttered and organized the bathrooms, the craft closet, and the bedroom closets. It was great. I felt relaxed, I felt accomplished, and I was distracted.

#6- We both kind of had "I can do hard things," ringing through our heads at the end. When Jayce was switching from Pediatrics to Emergency Medicine, we had to take into consideration that his chances of deployment sky rocket after residency if he's an ER doc. This was confirmed when he was out on his audition rotations and nearly everyone he talked to had been on at least 1 deployment during their four years of pay-back time after residency.

If he was deployed it would be a 6 month deployment, so we feel like we kind of made it half way to that. Don't get me wrong, we are still very much hoping that by some miracle we won't have to go through that. I'm seeking no sort of motherhood badge for making it 6 months alone without Jayce. I won't pretend that it wouldn't be kind of like Hades for us, but now we do both feel like we could do it and have the same feeling at the end, "I can do hard things." And I should add to that, "I can do hard things...in the strength of the Lord."

Living in this neighborhood during this experience has also reminded me that everyone pays their dues somewhere. I've got a neighbor whose husband is the head grower for a big name green house out here and he is gone ALL the time during the two or three busy seasons he has every year. He also has to travel a lot because they are expanding and he has a lot of setting up and training to do right now. 

Someone else's husband works in Australia, so he spends 6 months over there and 6 months here. Another neighbor's husband just started a 7-10 month construction job that's 7 hours away. When he comes home it's just for a couple of days at a time on weekends and he can't do it every weekend and they have to live with all of that back and forth for almost a year. Someone else I know has to say goodbye to their husband for a 6 month long job training as well. 

This is not exclusive to med wives, nor military wives. Not one of those women I mentioned above has either of those things in common with me. I'm not alone in this, I'm in good company actually. It's been good for me to look outside of what's happening in just our family.

 #7- This experience has brought me to my knees a lot, which has helped me to put more hope and faith in prayer. I've been humbled as I've watched my parenting crumble and had to apologize to my kids on numerous occasions. Humbled again as I've come to the Lord as I am in prayer, seeking help in overcoming my mothering downfalls.

Praying, no pleading, for the safety of the boys and for the safety of Jayce when terrible day dreams crept into my head. Pleading with the Lord about Jayce's rotations and our chances of actually matching in a military residency this year. It has been so hard and humbling, but oh so sweet. I know that Heavenly Father hears our prayers.