The Waiting Game

Today my husband and I celebrated our 4th wedding anniversary on different ends of the planet. As one might suspect, this was not an easy thing to do.

On my end, it took a lot of racking my brain trying to figure out exactly what kind of lovey-dovey gift to give a man in a combat zone who:
A) doesn't have room in which to keep anything
B)has already started shipping most of the stuff he was keeping in his space back to the U.S. (woo!) and
C) goes along with the traditional anniversary themes. (This year's theme: fruit and flowers---so yes, I was pretty much doomed.)

But I came up with what I thought was a pretty ingenious idea. I filled a care package full of fruit-flavored cigars, peach salsa and corn chips, fruity gum, and a promise of a new grill on which to enjoy deliciously-charred fare to be paired with Blue Moons and orange wedges.

I shipped everything off weeks early, and waited to see if everything made it to its destination in tact and on time. (Some helpful advice: avoid shipping corn chips into a war zone if you can. Not sure if it is that obvious to everyone else but me. I try, y'all.
Everything else was a hit, though, and actually made it there a couple weeks early.

My gift from him arrived early, too. But for whatever reason, (read: to drive me crazy) my husband told me that I had to wait to open my gift until our actual anniversary.
And so I did...

Those two big boxes sat in my closet taunting me for about a week, and this morning when I woke up, I felt like a kid on Christmas morning!
I ran to open the first of the two boxes...and just as I began to see something beneath the packing material...
I heard my son's voice call out to me from the monitor--meaning the next several hours belonged to the beck and call of my two sweet preschoolers.

I finally got to open the presents this afternoon while my son was napping. (My husband follows the traditional themes too, by the way. One of the many ways I know that he's a keeper ;) ) If I'm being totally honest, I have to say that I loved the gift and his thoughtfulness, but I was a little bit sad once everything had been taken out of the box.
Looking at the stash of packaging and the pile of presents, I realized that for all intents and purposes, our anniversary celebration was over--and in effect, so was our anniversary.


So much of this Army lifestyle involves playing the "waiting game."

Waiting for him to come home for supper (which he usually misses and has to reheat in the microwave.)
Waiting for time in service raises and promotions.
Waiting to hear orders on where the Army is sending us next.
Waiting on training schedules/field assignments/deployment dates.
Waiting for his phone calls from overseas.
Waiting to celebrate birthdays, holidays, anniversaries, and other special occasions he missed at a later date.
Waiting to see if the doctors will induce your labor so your husband can see his son being born. (True story.)
Waiting to start your own career.
Waiting and waiting and waiting some more for the call detailing his return flight home...

But the boxes were worth waiting for, and so is he.