Coming Home to ... Juliana!
December 05, 2006 8:18 PM

I guess now is as good a time as any to break the news. We are still eagerly awaiting Thom’s homecoming. Anyone who is personally familiar with the military knows that things don’t always go as planned. He was packed, had all of his belongings loaded on the plane and had already sent me the “I’m on my way” e-mail when plans changed.

We have had a couple of dates since then, but hopefully this one is final: He is now supposed to be coming home on Friday. This is part of being a military family. We have to be able to handle what ever is thrown at us. Not everyone is cut out for this type of life—me personally, I love it.

The girls are handling it really well. I just kept Kendra updated when I found out any news. Juliana is still a little clueless about Daddy even coming home, I think. When we head for the base on Friday, then I will tell her what is going on. At this moment while I type this she is walking around with the phone up to her ear and signing “Daddy.”

Daddy is coming home just in time to really deal with the three year old attitude. She just decides that she doesn’t want to do something and I have to walk away from her. For example, just this afternoon she didn’t want to go potty. I carried her into the bathroom, fought her to take her pants off and sat her on the potty. She went, but then refused to pull her pants back up. She tried to crawl around the kitchen with them around her ankles. I picked her back up and took her right back to the bathroom. I explained to her that when she decided to pull up her pants she could come out, and I walked away. It only took her a couple of minutes to figure out that she was not winning that battle.

So from there we went to her bedroom to change into some play clothes so that she could go outside. She chose a shirt and then changed her mind. Too late, just put the shirt on and go play, was my thought. But she had a different idea. So I left her and her shirt and I went about my business of folding laundry. Finally she came out of her room fully clothed, but she continued to cry for almost 20 minutes.

Welcome Home Daddy, I am going on vacation!!!

—Tami