Guilt and Couches

I woke up early this morning,  for one thing because quality sleep has become quite elusive lately, but also because I wanted to blog.  I meant to blog yesterday, but I somehow ran out of time.  Or, more accurately, I was running low on brain power.

Instead of blogging early this morning, like I intended, I bought a couch.

I've been wanting a couch for my bare living room for quite some time and this morning, while sipping hot tea in my pajamas, I bought one.  Don't you just love modern technology?  Clicking 'buy now' before you've even showered.  After much deliberation and after requesting expert design opinions from Craig, Caroline and her friend, Rachel, I took the plunge.  To make matters more interesting, I bought a couch I have never seen in person. 

Holy uncharacteristically hasty decision, Batman.
Talk about living on the edge!

At the moment, I'm happy with my purchase.  The big bummer is that the couch is on back order and won't be delivered until after March 16th.  As I told Craig, 'great, this gives me plenty of time to second guess my purchase.'

Craig, who loves to spend money more than he loves cheese (and believe me, the boy loves cheese), was appropriately thrilled. 

I, on the other hand, am, as always, cautiously optimistic.  Don't get me wrong, I love the couch, I'm just fearful of how everything will look together in my living room. 

When it arrives, I'll be sure to post pictures.

As I mentioned above, quality sleep has been rather elusive lately.  From previous experience, this tends to happen in the first few weeks after Craig departs.  It's kind of baffling, if you ask me, because I generally sleep better alone.  For reasons I've yet to determine, this most recent separation has left my sleep more out of sorts than I'd like. 

And, to top it off, on Friday and Saturday nights, Caroline is my bed mate.  It started during the last deployment; Caroline would sleep on my bedroom floor and then usually join me in my bed sometime during the night.   As much as I don't like sharing a bed with her, when she slept on the floor, she rolled all over the place and would bang into the foot board of our sleigh bed repeatedly. 

That got kind of annoying.

After Craig left, our weekend slumber party picked back up.  Unfortunately for me, this means my sleep, which is okay at best during the week, takes a nosedive on Friday and Saturday nights.  Even the pillow I place in the middle of the bed to separate us does not prevent Caroline from rolling into my territory.  Last night I was woken up by a cold toe digging into the small of my back.  And Friday night?  Ugh. Horrible sleep.  I distinctly remember waking after a restless little 30 minute snooze around 12:30 and just wishing it was morning already so I could get up.

Sigh.

But, you see, I can't say no to Caroline's request.  She really doesn't ask for much and she really loves doing this.  It's just one of those 'your dad's deployed and you really like it so I'll just suck it up' kind of things.

Guilt.  Mom guilt. 

Deployment guilt.

What's deployment guilt, you might ask?  Well, deployment guilt is something I've coined.  It's not only indulging your child a little extra because her dad is gone again,  but also, it's the act of feeling guilty for having fun while your deployed spouse is clearly not having fun.

Going out to lunch.  Spending time with friends.  Taking your kid to Florida to visit family.
It eats me up sometimes.

Since Craig is just in Texas right now and not in the sandbox, I don't feel super guilty yet.  It's coming, though.

Oh is it coming.
Am I a ray of hope and sunshine today, or what?  It's the lack of sleep, I tell you. 

Hey, maybe my new couch will be the perfect nap couch.  I can't wait to find out.