June interview with Local Mom

M.O.M. Mother of the Month

We interviewed one mom about her experiences as an Army wife and mother. These were her answers.

~Tell us a bit about yourself:

My name is Jessica, I'm 23. I was born and raised in good old Dallas, OR. I've been happily married for almost 6 years to my husband Brandon, and together we have a little girl named Kendra Lee. I'm very blessed to be a stay at home mom, so I get plenty of time with my terrible princess. My husband and I met when we just juniors in high school, and we've been together ever since. He joined the Army our senior year and has been in for just over 6 years. I'm very proud to be an Army wife and am proud to call my daughter an Army brat. We got married when I was just 17 and he was 18. I had just graduated from high school and he was fresh out of basic training. Our first year of marriage he was sent to Korea, then when he came back we were sent to Ft Hood, Texas. We were there for about a year before being stationed here at Ft Lewis, WA. Since being here we have experienced a lot of amazing, challenging life changes. We found out I was pregnant when I was 20, and had our little girl when I was 21. When she was just a few months old my husband was deployed to Iraq for 10 months. He has been home for about a year and now our daughter is two. Here we are again gearing up for round two. He is deploying again to Iraq in a few months. That's my life so far -- crazy, challenging and ever changing! Even though sometimes it's rough, I feel so fortunate to have an amazing, loving husband and a wonderful, sometimes frustrating, little girl. I get to watch her grow up every day before my eyes.

Jessica's picks for...
Movie night: Lord of the Rings
Healthy portable snacks:
CheeriosChildren's
book: No David
Rainy day activity: coloring with Color Wonder
Date night music: "Good Riddance" by Green Day

~ What's your opinion on children & Barbies:I feel that kids playing with Barbies is perfectly fine. I grew up playing with Barbies and that was my favorite thing to do. I feel that Barbies allow children to use thier imaginations and play with or without friends. I don't think Barbies are setting girls up for body image issues, but I believe other outside influences are, such as magazines that judge celebrity bodies. My daughter already has Barbies that she loves to play with.
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More about this M.O.M.

Age: 23
City & state: Ft Lewis, WA
Occupation: Homemaker
Religion: Christian
Hobbies & activities: I'm a volunteer with my husband's company, and I love to scrapbook.
Children's names & ages: Kendra Lee 2 yrs old
What do your children/child enjoy: Going to the park, watching Nick Jr, playing with her friends
Favorite part of the day: When she takes her nap, so that I can take care of the house and have some down time
City or the country: I grew up a small town as a country girl. After being so close to the city I love it, so now I'm more city.
Morning or night: Night
Bright colors or neutral tones: A little of both, depends on what they're on
Family bed or separate rooms: Separate rooms, our daughter won't sleep if she is in the same room with anyone.
Hardest moment in life: During my husband's first deployment to Iraq, our daughter was only 6 months old, and I was alone for a year trying to raise our first child.Future goals both short & long term: Short term is to just try to survive this next deployment. Long term is to move back to Oregon and start a life without the Army.

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Interview, part 2

~ Tell us about when you found out you were expecting. What were your emotions?
When I found out I was pregnant I was at home with my sister-in-law Shelly. I decided on a whim to take a pregnancy test and it came out positive. Kendra was a complete surprise. I was shocked but I was very happy and excited. I felt that I was ready. I had been married for 2 and a half years and was 20 years old. It felt like the next step.

~ How has being a mother changed you?
Becoming a mom changed me in a lot of ways. I was very immature, not very responsible, and I was pretty selfish. After having a daughter, I became the complete opposite of those things. I put my daughter first regardless of what I wanted and my world revolves around her. And in turn the things about me changed. Becoming a mom automatically makes you take a different approach at life. It's something you can't understand until you're a parent yourself, and it's very hard to explain. Being a mom has made me take on challenges with patience and right and wrong, more than I could have ever imagined. I changed a lot about myself so that I can be a good role model for Kendra. Most of the changes that happened to me were without any effort and were natural changes that I didn't notice, till others pointed them out to me. I like me as a mom more then the crazy immature girl I was before.

~ What does a typical day look like for you?
My days are pretty easy going and simple. I wake up when my husband comes home from PT (morning exercise for the Army) about 8:00 am and get Kendra up. Then we have breakfast and get dressed, those type of morning routines. Kendra will usually watch cartoons for about an hour and we will play together for awhile. My husband will come home for lunch around noon and we will eat together. He leaves at one and Kendra goes to her room for a nap. She will sleep for about an hour or two and that is when I clean up the house. After she wakes up we hang out together, going to the park if the weather allows, or are just inside together. My husband gets off work around five pm and I make dinner. After dinner I'll give her a bath and at 7pm is when she goes to bed. That's my typical day.

~ How do you handle the pressures of day to day life with the absence of your husband when he's in Iraq?
I handle the pressures of life with Brandon gone by prioritizing everything. My daughter comes first and then everything else. I just do my best to suck it up and move forward with life the best I can. I try to remember that he is missing us more than we miss him, 'cause I'm lucky enough to have our daughter with me when all he has is pictures to hold onto. Kendra is a daddy's girl and when he first leaves, she is a wreck! Sometimes it gets so frustrating that I will put her in her room and just walk away to get my thoughts together. As far as bills and things like, that I just do what I need to take care of it. It's hard to explain -- it's like you know what needs to be done and you just do it because there's no other option. I have to say, though, that my best and favorite stress reliever is putting Kendra in daycare and going to get a pedicure. :) ~ How do you guys explain it to your daughter?The first time he left she was too young to comprehend any of it. My biggest worry then was making sure she remembered who he is. So we made her a build-a-bear that he recorded a message on. We called it her "daddy bear" and I played it every night before she went to bed. I constantly was showing pictures of her daddy to her. Luckily she remembered him. He will be going back soon and this time she is two, so I'm not completely sure how we are going to explain it. We can't exactly tell her daddy is going to war, because she can't understand that at all. At her age I'm thankful that she doesn't. For the most part when Brandon is gone for a long period of time we tell her "Daddy is at work." She seems to understand that much. My main goal with this deployment is to tell her all the time that daddy misses her, and wants to be with her, but he has to work. I truly believe that someday she will understand. She will feel the same amount of respect as I do, if not more, for her dad and the sacrifices he's had to make. She may not understand it, but I'll do my absolute best to tell her how much he loves her. It's definitely going to be a challenge, but we will hang in there, and I'm sure that when he gets home they'll have the same bond they have now.

~ Has having a husband who is faced daily with possible danger made you stronger?
I'm not sure stronger is the right word. I know my husband's deployment made me more vocal against people who don't support my husband. Protesting is fine but there are times when people cross the line. An example is a week after my husband left there was a protest outside the Army base. I was leaving to go somewhere and a lady knocked on my window when I was sitting at the stoplight. I rolled it down just a bit to see what she wanted. She proceeded to ask me how it felt to be married to a baby killer. I was completely mortified that someone would think that of my daughter's father and the man I love. But more so that someone would think it's OK to approach me with such animosity for what my husband does. Brandon has had to deal with a lot of stuff from Iraq. I'd rather have him take the life of someone who is trying to keep him from coming back home to our daughter than have him not come home! When he is gone I live in constant fear for him. If I hear anything about someone getting injured, I instantly freak out even if he is nowhere near where my husband is stationed. I won't even watch the news or read the newspaper when he is deployed, because the reality of his situation is too hard to think about. His deployments have definitely made me more independent. Having to rely only on myself to handle everything, raising our daughter, and even the daily things such as having to carry in all groceries by yourself, or changing light bulbs. The little things most wives take for granted are the things that are the hardest to do when he is away. So I'm more independent, more responsible, and more vocal. I don't think I'm any stronger than before the deployments, the strength for most army wives, including me, is a front. We wear a fake smile and pretend that we don't worry, but the truth is that there isn't a minute that passes where we don't say a quiet prayer for our husband's safety.

~ What is it like when your husband is home?
When he is home, it's just like any other family. When he first gets back things are weird, trying to get back into the routine of being a wife again. I go from being alone and handling everything to having the extra support. When he is gone I don't do much wifely stuff such as big dinners and things like that. With just our daughter and me, it feels pointless to do that. It's hard at first to let him help with Kendra 'cause it's all me when he's gone. So at first it's a little bit awkward and weird, but after awhile things go pretty smoothly and we are back to normal life. Our old routine fits more comfortably and we are back to where we were before he left.

~ What is the biggest misconception you think people have about families in the military?
There are two that come to mind. One misconception is about how the wives behave when the husbands are deployed -- that we cheat and go to bars all the time. That is the farthest thing from the truth. The Army wives I know are very dedicated to their husbands. We won't go anywhere without our cell phones, just in case they are able to call us. I would never go anywhere that I didn't get cell phone reception in case he was able to call. When we go to bed we turn the volumes all the way up on our computers and are signed into our messengers 24/7 just in case our husbands are able to get on there and message us. I only heard from my husband about once every other week, that's if I was lucky. The biggest misconception is that Army wives are cheaters and don't care about our husbands, we just spend all their money! Not all of us are. The second is about how the war affects family life. A lot of people think that when the soldiers come home, they have serious mental issues with what they saw, and they take it out on their family. I'm not going to lie, I've seen it. But it's more rare than people think. When my husband came home, his biggest challenge was the time change! That's it! No nightmares, no abuse or neglect. He was the same as when he left. If anything, the war made it so that he appreciates having my daughter and me around more. I don't want the world to think that my husband has problems from the war, because he doesn't.