A Beginning...

Perhaps its a corny way to start and then again maybe its not, nonetheless everything essentially has one and this is mine. Mine begins with finding love in the most unlikely of places; a strange, kinda geeky, well-read, soldier-want-a-be the end of my sophomore year of high school. Of course, it wasn't until two years later that I realized how I felt about him (and loads of high school drama!) and I still had to over come my ingrained fear & dislike of the Military since he was determined to join. Christopher did join the summer after we or rather I graduated from high school (he ended up getting his GED) and shipped off to Basic.

I joined in the Fall two years later (so apparently I overcame my dislike & I met a very convincing former recruiter) and while I was in training, my soldier volunteered to deploy to Iraq. I was upset, hurt and hundred other emotions when he told me on my Christmas Exodus and he was gone to Premob training before I was done with AIT. Although I have given simple, clear cut events of Christopher & my relationship, the four years leading up to this point were far from simple. We were like any couple we had our ups and downs. Sometimes more downs than ups it seemed, but we worked through it.

We actually shocked our parents when we told them we were getting married the following Saturday. He had gotten four days of leave between the end of Premob and heading over to the Big Sandbox. I think the shock stemmed from the fact that the last they had all known we hadn't been together anymore and now suddenly we were getting married. But over time I've come to realize that's kind of the life of a Soldier's wife. Things can be sudden, prone to change without much warning and sometimes more than a little nerve-wracking. So, we were married on April 15 (Tax Day as I am reminded every year) in a very simple ceremony, but we were married and that's what mattered.

He returned the following April and that's when being married really sank in. I got pregnant with our son, Aidan, that August and he was our May baby. I loved (and still do) being a Mom. Then totally by surprise (but not unwelcome at all) we found at the end of November that we were expecting again. Oh, boy! Or rather oh, girl! Then coming 6 weeks early, we (or rather, in a very atypical Military fashion, I) welcomed our daughter, Aislynn, to the world. Thus becoming An Army Momma with 2 Under 2.