Adjusting

Josh has been home just shy of two weeks now and needless to say, Life. Is. Good.  The adjusting wasn't anywhere as harrowing as I'd envisioned, but it also wasn't as easy as our previous reunions.  Oddly enough, it seems that the Army's re-integration training hurt us more than it helped.  I hoped that Josh would jump right in with Ethan, but he didn't.  He just sat back and let me keep doing everything.  I got a little confused and frustrated, and since my husband has spidey senses, I know he picked up on it.  It didn't help my mood that over the course of single parenting for just a few months, I'd begun to view Josh more as a best friend and partner and less as a lover.  I really wanted to get the lovey dovey feelings back, but it seemed as though the Mommy, nurturing portion of my brain had absorbed every ounce of lusty love for Josh.   

Anyway, on the third day that Josh was here, I was dealing with Ethan, trying to cook dinner, and get laundry out of the dryer.  I must have looked at Josh, who was sitting at the computer, with some sort of evilness because he said, "You feel like I'm intruding in your life."  What?  I assured him that wasn't the case and kept going about with my chores.  About 10 minutes later and feeling a bit frazzled, I looked at Josh and said with who knows how much frustration in my voice, "Feel free to jump in here anytime."  He took Ethan, and that was that.

Later that night, I asked him about the intruding comment.  He told me that during the reintegration training, he was told not to jump into our lives.  He was told that his family had a routine and to sit back and introduce himself very slowly into it, to not disrupt the balance.  While that might be good advice for a family with 3 school-age kids who are all involved in sports, music, or other after-school activities, that was terrible advice for our current situation.

Anyhow, after we got all that out of the air and Josh felt allowed to be a Daddy, things have been good. I got the flu, but thankfully Josh had some time away from the office to help me out and take care of Ethan.  Once I felt better, jmy mom came into town and babysat Ethan so we could go on an alone date.  It was so refreshing to put on cute clothes and dangly earrings without the risk of being spit up on or having my earlobes ripped apart by tiny hands.  I forced myself to not talk about Ethan or baby things, and we had a really great time going out to dinner and a movie.  I felt like the old us, and by the end of the night, my stomach was full of butterflies again.