Oh you've gotta love the last few days of deployment.  Time slows down and at the same time the laundry list of things you thought would be done before your spouse returns mocks you from the kitchen counter.  I have become neurotic about hand sanitizer and avoiding germy places like the YMCA or mall play area (just keep telling me that the kids and I can avoid illness until he gets home, mmmkay?).  Sleep is harder to come by as 30 year old women are reduced to giddy restless 5 year olds on Christmas eve.  The long and short of it:  homecoming is pretty awesome.  Even the anticipation is amazing.

I have a lot of friends whose husbands are returning this week with the USS Bush's strike group and air wing.  My Facebook page is a flutter with excitement and big plans for seeing their spouses for the first time since May.  Women who have been married for decades with butterflies in their stomach (mentioning excitement about sharing the toothpaste or a carton of milk).  People comparing this week to the anticipation they had before their wedding day.  We are all so excited to get back to our "new normal".  To have our partners home, for our kids to have their dads back, and to just immerse ourselves in holiday family time.

Even though I am one of the women who is losing sleep and trying to do countless things before "the day", I have been humbled by the excitement I see in others.  The military isn't an easy lifestyle.  And sometimes I really really (REALLY!) struggle to find the silver lining.  But this week I am seeing one of the illustrations of why the military can be good for a marriage.  You will never see this kind of excitement about husbands coming home from business trips or long weekends away.  I'll even go out on a limb and say that most normal "civilian" marriages probably don't even think about how lucky they are to have each other all the time.  They do what is natural - they take each other for granted - and that "butterflies" feeling fades as the years tick by.  In a way, these long stretches of time away from one another are a good way to recharge batteries and remind us of what is truly important.

More than anything, I cannot wait to see my daughter's face.  She is going to flip out.  It is going to reduce me to tears and I know it is just going to be unbelievable for her to see him and feel him and smell him for the first time in oh so long.  She is a total daddy's girl and I have wondered what has been going through her little two year old brain these past seven months.  But I know that very soon she will just be overcome with JOY in the purest sense.  It is going to be unbelievable.  I.can't.wait.