And awaaaaay we go!

Well, this is my first time writing a Blog, so let's see how it goes. Right now my husband is on the HMCS Winnipeg (www.navy.dnd.ca/winnipeg/), gone for 6 1/2 months (give or take) over to Asia (we think). I want to have an online diary for him to check out, and for me to eventually show the kids when they're older about the time we spent without Daddy.

Sailor's been gone since the 5th of Feb. We just dropped the girls off at preschool and daycare like any other day. Then he walked me to my building and after a quick kiss, he was gone. I refused to go and watch the boat leave. There was no way I would have been able to handle it if I had.

The first week was a trial by fire. The last time he had gone, our oldest was 6 months old. Now she's 4 and her sister's 2. I was on Mat Leave last time. This time I'm back to work full time. First time around, I had my dad to lean on. This time, Dad's passed away and I need to find a different type of support.

Within the first 7 days, the youngest contracted Fifth's Disease (face slap) and then a stomach bug that lasted 4 days. The oldest was rude and, well... acting her age!

And then something happened around day 7 or 8. The youngest started getting better (now it's just a cold), and the oldest started being more and more helpful. She still misses her Daddy (and tells me every day, "I wish Daddy was home"), but she's more accepting that it's just the three of us for a while.

I guess I could say a few words about the girls, eh? Not using real names here. The oldest is Ray. She's four and just delightful. She is in preschool and has a blast there. They also do daycare too. The youngest is Greta. She's two and the polar opposite of her sister, although she's delightful too. She's in a home daycare 35 minutes south of the preschool.

Ray goes to dance class on Saturday mornings, although getting her to dance for the whole 45 minutes is proving to be a chore. The question of the day is, "Will she dance for the Performance in May?" Who knows? She's four.

Tonight we got a call from Daddy from his cell phone. Hurray! I'm not looking forward to THOSE phone charges though. It was worth it to hear him again. He sounded so tired. A Norwalk-type virus ran through the ship last week and so he's still recovering from that.

Greta was amazed that Daddy's voice came from the phone. Ray asked for red sandals. Greta softly said, "Daddy!" a few times, and once she said, "I wub ooo". Ray tried to show her Daddy her new Snow White dress-up shoes she got today.

We're going to try video tomorrow. Messenger keeps crashing our systems (mostly mine, p.o.s. it is). We may end up with Skype if all else fails.

Tomorrow night I'm going to a continuation of a grief course I attended in the fall of last year to help me through the loss of my father. It'll be a year at the end of this month, and I think I'm going to need to sort this out with some help. I found a sitter - hurray! - and if she works out, she might get a regular gig out of it as the group meets the second Tuesday of the month. Yes, I know it's not the second Tuesday tomorrow - we had snow last time so it was postponed.

Ok. That's enough for a start. BTW, did I mention - I'm not known for my brevity! Cheers.