Extended Break : Over

It's been a while! Seems I start that way every few months on this thing because I fall in and out of blogging. But the Break (again) is over.
I need my OUT for this deployment. I have done well with not feeling the constant need to pound out my frustrations on the keyboard but I feel it all stacking up inside.
We have made it through the first full month of Deployment and in that month, I have had numerous break downs, numerous lift ups, Bin Laden was killed, and one of our Soldiers from 3rd BDE gave his life for the War in Afghanistan.
It's very emotional to go through the day to day, but I do it. Somehow, I do it.
I am not always at my best and too many days I feel like I am failing at keeping it together but most importantly I am still trying. God Bless my babies and brother, for they put up with all my emotions and each time I snap, yell, or lose my mind on them. Yet, half the time THEY ARE WHY I do that, it still dissapoints me that I can not keep it together 100% of the time. I won't lie or try to pretend that I can handle every second of the day with a smile, because I am human and can't. My promise to myself, Mike, and them is to try harder the next day and even when I fail early in the morning, I keep trying as the day goes on. :O)

One of my snaps was just this evening. Jayce decided to take the laundry detergent and poor it all out into my drawer below the washer. We have the front loader style with the pedastal underneath and when I saw the detergent continuing to fill up my laundry room floor, I was not happy to open the drawer and see it full of blue detergent. I got quite frustrated because it seems my 2 year old can NOT leave things alone that he has been told NO to a hundred times. He is smart and he knows better but he really is a menace. I took him straight to his room and put him to bed. He wasn't happy with me for that but sometimes a Mother knows it is just better to not "deal" with the child in the moment. If I was a cartoon character at that moment I would have had my head spinning in circles with steam coming our of my ears and nose.
Everyone knew I was not in a happy place, because when I came back downstairs to clean up the mess, both Bekah and Jonathan had quietly dissapeared to their rooms. LOL They are very smart kids at times!!
Then came the joy of cleaning that up! Now if you have ever tried to clean up laundry detergent it is quite a challenge. I decided to use hand towels to scoop it out of the drawer and rinse as much as I could in the sink. Which I need to say to housing, THANK YOU for the deep sinks in the launrdy rooms. It really is one of the only things ya'll have done right in making these homes and it has become my life saver on numerous occasions.
Back to my clean up process, it took a while and then I had to clean the floor with a seperate cleaner and paper towels because of course the detergent makes the floors slippery. *sigh* I was quite lost on what would be the best option on how to handle the towels soaked in detergent that after rinsing them as much as possible, I put them in the washer!!
Take a moment....can you imagine what happened?? SMH
Think about it....
Just another second....
Did it come to you????
Yep, SUDS!! And suds in a front loader are not like suds in a top loader. It took almost 3.5 hours to do one load becuase the machine had to keep stopping to let the suds pop and then rinse again. As I write this I am actually able to finally get that load out of the dryer. My laundry room and that load of towels really do smell good. They should, they were only treated to a full on cleaning with a WHOLE bottle of detergent.

In all of that stress and what felt like errupting emotions, I was able to realize how lucky and grateful I am that Jayce was not hurt. He didn't try to drink it or get it all over himself and is upstairs sleeping peacefully.
Tomorrow might bring even more madness but as Mommy, I am ready.