The kids

My little baby boy is almost 10 months old.  It seems like only yesterday I was sitting at the kitchen table with my feet up because my ankles were so swollen they were disgusting.  Time sure does fly sometimes.  Just the other day he fit so well into my hands and was so teeny tiny.  Now the little munchkin is crawling all over the place and he's been pulling himself up on everything.   Yesterday he walked around the coffee table and around the couch by holding onto the furniture.  Yikes, not sure I'm ready for walking yet.  In fact, I know I'm not!

Then there's my baby girl.  She's been through so much, including the time in our lives when Hubby wasn't receiving any help from the VA.  She has had to see a lot, go through a lot.  I've tried to shield her, but I'm sure it's affected her....how could it not?   She's such a trooper though.  She's definitely got the sassy attitude....wonder where she got that?  Lol.  She's very artistic and I just can't wait to see what awesome things she continues to accomplish as she gets older.

Sometimes, all the time I worry about how all this PTSD crap is going to affect my kids.  Will they grow up thinking that this environment is normal?  I sure hope not.  I pray that they aren't going to need years of therapy and blame their mom for staying in an environment that isn't always probably the healthiest.  There's no abuse here, let me be clear.  It's just.....well......Our household is not really a happy one.  Hubs is depressed all the time.  I'm stressed out majority of the time.  How did we get here?  This is definitely NOT how I envisioned raising my kids.  I always wanted a very involved husband, and I always pictured us being very outgoing and taking our kids lots of places and having the Donna Reed type home where everything is happy happy.   Well, I'm not Donna Reed and he is definitely no whatever-Donna-Reed's-husband-was-called.

We do try though.  Even though Hubs is depressed all the time, he does try to put on a happy face for the kids.  We don't do as much outside the home as other families, but we do get out on outings like the local zoo, we take our daughter to the movies and I try to have a few playdates for her.  Even through all that though....there are days that I'm just too exhausted by the end of the day to make a great home-cooked meal for her.  My family eats more take-out and hotdogs than I'd care to admit.....but my kids are clean, fed, and they are loved.  Yes they are.

I hope they know how much we love them.  I think they do.  I hope that in the end, they grow up realizing that their dad did his best, and that he was a good dad, despite, or perhaps in spite of his fog of depression and anxiety.  I hope they grow up knowing their mom shielded them as best she could from the brunt of his irrational mood swings and anxiety-driven rages.   I think they'll grow up maybe a little older than their years, maybe with a little more weight on their shoulders than they should have had to have bared.  But.....Above all else, I hope they know that their mom and dad did their best.  That they love them, that they want the best for them, and that we would do anything for them.

I think they will.