Well, the time is drawing near…we’re down to about 2–3 weeks. The original departure date was around August 1–5 but Tom has said that it might be a few days later. As far as I’m concerned, they can just as easily say it will be a few days earlier so I take every piece of news with a grain of salt.
That said, right now, the plan is for Tom to be gone about eight months. I still can’t believe I have two kids this time around. Looking back, 13 months by myself was a piece of cake compared to what I have in front of me this time (believe me, even though I’m glad it’s only eight and not 12 or 13 months…it will still feel like a LOOOONG time). Of course there is a SLIGHT chance he could be home earlier—but he’ll have no idea until after he gets there and things start moving along. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that he’ll be home by Owen’s fifth birthday (February 2) but of course (!) I don’t plan on it. There’s that grain of salt thing again. (Also, return dates as early as December have been tossed around but I have ZERO hope of those happening. I take that one with a salt shaker’s worth of salt.)
Owen still seems to be doing okay. Every once in awhile he’ll say he doesn’t want daddy to go away and that he’ll miss him. I tell him I will miss him, too—and that daddy will definitely miss us. I asked if he wanted to see on a map where daddy would be and he said yes—but didn’t really seem that interested (though I’m really thinking he just couldn’t comprehend it). We’ll keep trying. We also have a big calendar to X off each day—since you can’t really expect him to understand MONTHS of time.
I do have Tom’s actual address already and will be emailing it to family but will post it on the Afghanistan Info page (linked in the static menu bar above) once he actually arrives there. There is also a new Goodies page and a USPS Shipping page linked as well.