3 becomes 4: Farewell for now

Yesterday we had to say goodbye to Ryan as he left for his year deployment. I know that it was probably harder on Ryan, but it wasn't easy for any of us. As far as I go, I'm not really good at goodbyes and typically don't really like to even think about them until the goodbye moment is gone. Which means, for me, I live in a wonderful disillusion that all is normal with our world and a year is no biggie. Until it's day 8 of just me, baby and puppy. The puppy just threw up a sock and Ollie has spit up on his 3rd outfit change and we are out of formula.

But even reading that very likely scenario, I still feel ok with it all. Why? Because we have had nothing but love and support from all of our friends, family and neighbors. I know help is just a phone call, scream or knock away. The tricky part for me will be making sure I use it. Another thing that might bite me in the butt with this deployment is how often I talk myself out of asking for help. So I have committed to Ryan that I will work on this and make sure I ask for help before I end up too frazzled.

So what are we going to do on this side of the deployment? We are going to get into a schedule (of sorts), make lots of fun plans with said supports, and think of Ryan an awful lot throughout all of it. We will Skype, write letters and send pictures. Ollie and I will listen to the books Ryan recorded and talk often about Daddy. I will continuously remind Piccadilly that it's Daddy's fault she thinks we need to wake up at 6 am for breakfast and that she needs to go back to sleep. And most importantly look forward to the days we get to start talking about daddy coming home.

Here are a few pictures from the recent past to show how we worked on saying goodbye.