Danielle and I might be crazy, but later this month we’re going to take Sean to the Big Apple — New York, NY. We’ve never been, unless you count riding the subway from Grand Central Station to the airport. We also figure now would be the time when Sean is at his most portable age.

While we were planning our trip, we realized that it was going to be a little more logistically challenging than we initially thought. If it were just the two of us, we would park the car in New Haven, Connecticut, and ride the Metro-North commuter train right into the city carrying nothing more than our overnight bags. Now that we have a baby, we need to add a few things to our packing list.

The first complication was the summer heat. I can’t imagine carrying Sean all over New York City in 85° heat in the Baby Bjorn carrier. So then we thought we’d just bring our stroller, but then we remembered we’d have to take it on the subway. Trying to maneuver a jogging stroller through a subway station (many of which do not have elevators) and onto a train seemed like a truly bad idea. We needed an umbrella stroller. Sometimes I feel like we are single-handedly keeping Babies R Us profitable.

And it’s not just Babies R Us that’s feeling the Litchford love. We also ordered a travel crib from Amazon.com. Don’t even get me started on Target and Wal-Mart. It seems like every time we turn around we’re buying more baby stuff.

With the additional gear we’re bringing along, we decided to drive, which terrifies me. I have these horrible visions of getting lost in some burned-out 1980s movie version of a bad New York neighborhood.

Once we’d purchased all our travel gear we started on the itinerary. I’ve wanted to visit the MOMA — the Museum of Modern Art — for years. Danielle wants to see the Guggenheim. We want to see the Met, as well, but 3 art museums in 3 days seems like overkill. After all, we’re going to see the city, eat the good street food, and do a little lightweight shopping, too.

I just hope we’re not biting off more of the Big Apple than we can chew.

On that note, I’d appreciate any travel tips you might have, especially regarding traveling with the baby.

Happy Fourth of July!

If I had to pick my absolute favorite summer drink I would surely have a hard a time! Some top contenders might be an ice cold Coke Zero, then again maybe it’s a Cherry Limeade from Sonic. I believe Sonic has the very best ice on the planet, which adds to the pleasure of this refreshing summer treat. Or, maybe it would be a pina colada with a pineapple wedge and cherry on top! Wait, maybe it’s a glass of Sangria with lots of fresh fruit. yummm

But no, none of these are my favorite today.

Today, my absolute favorite is the Iced Caramel Macchiato from Starbucks. I decided to visit the drive thru at lunch and was surprised to see my friend Sherri at the window. She did a great job making my summer treat.

$4.10 later I was experiencing my own bit of heaven on earth.

It was SO good I determined I had to find out how to make my own. So, I Google’d “how to make an Iced Carmel Macchiato”. How hard could it be right? Well, according to the recipe I found it doesn’t seem to difficult….there is just one thing. Well a couple of things, is it requires espresso and milk foam…hmmm….I’m thinking I need to add a machine that will do all of that to my wish list. I wonder how many I’ll have to make before I break even….

What is your favorite summer drink?

This morning I almost tripped over my husband’s enormous rucksack (confession: I had to google the word “rucksack” and look at a picture to make sure it was indeed that… yes, I’m a reservist wife. ) It was sitting right in front of our closet where he’d left it last night when he came in at midnight after a five day training at Barksdale, a 10-11 hour drive from where we are in Nashville.

Five hours later, he was back up and off to work at his “real” job as a marketing director for a radio station. Today’s their first “Brown Bag” of the summer - it’s a big concert on the grounds of a local church where they bring in several different bands and it’s completely free so it’s usually very well attended. And it will be Cliff’s last. His job ends a week from today and so far, we don’t know where he’s going next.

The fear of the unknown can be the scariest thing, can’t it? I was facing this same fear last year when Cliff was in Iraq. As a reservist/NG spouse, there is no real training to prepare you for living a military life - especially when you live nowhere near a military installation and you have no connections to other military wives.

I had a little bit of an advantage when we found out Cliff was deploying. I was in Iraq in 2003 as a writer/reporter. I actually went twice - once on the U.S. Harry S. Truman during that first week of the war, and then a second time, this time to Baghdad, in November of that year. The guys in my husband’s detachment used to tease him that I’d deployed more than he had. I had sat in Saddam’s chair at the palace used (at the time) for the CPA headquarters. I knew what it was like finding this soft baby powder sand EVERYWHERE you turned. I had felt the heat over there the only way that most can describe it - like standing in the exhaust of a C-130 or in the direct line of fire of an enormous hair dryer blowing hot air. I’d rode along on a tank patrol in a local Baghdad neighborhood and spent time on a base just south of Baghdad hearing soldiers’ stories. I had talked and visited with Iraqis, even in one of their homes, and I’d heard the stories of what it was like under Saddam and what their hopes and dreams now were since the “Americans had come.” I’d had an Iraqi woman thank me for what our military had done. “We were hoping what happened in Afghanistan would happen here,” she told me.

Facing our fears

I had an advantage as a wife when I found out that Cliff was leaving. But I still had fears. The biggest one: that he wouldn’t come back. The next biggest one: I had no idea what to expect or how this deployment was going to be. I didn’t know where I would get my information, I didn’t know how often we’d get to talk, I didn’t know what we would both be like at the end of this.

Cliff left for mobilization in January of 2007 and deployed to Iraq in March of that year. That month especially was hard because communication changed. When he was training in California, we could talk almost every day and do web cam with our son. They even played checkers online together. But of course, in Iraq, it was a different story. But we settled into the new “normal” as best we all could. Still, when the call came, I was totally caught off guard.

It was late one night and Cliff had just told me he was going to go grab a bite at one of our favorite fast-food restaurants. It was our code word we’d set up before he left to let me know if he was going out on a mission, outside the wire. He’d been at his assigned base for over a month and somehow I’d convinced myself he would never leave there. And now he was. And I wasn’t handling it very well.

Cliff asked if we wanted to pray and we did. I have to admit though, my attitude wasn’t very prayerful. I was asking God to protect my husband but my tone said “you WILL protect my husband!” When we got off the phone, I had to face reality. There was absolutely nothing I could do right then. And I had no idea what might happen. The fear of the unknown was in full force.

Hope for the Best, Prepare for the Worst

That’s when I had to face it. The unknown. And what I realized that night was what others have said before: you hope for the best and prepare for the worst. I had to look at the worst possible scenario and ask myself, what would I do? For me, I knew I would still have my faith. I would still have God. I would still have my little boy and other family to support me. And though I would be heartbroken, I knew I would still go on.

This may sound really morbid to some, but it was only after I looked at the worst possible thing happening - my worst possible fear coming true - that I could let go of my fear of the unknown.

Some of you reading this may be struggling with fearing the unknown, unsure of this deployment, your family’s security, your marriage, your husband’s safety. My suggestion? Face your fear. Are you afraid of your finances? Sit down and make a plan. Are you afraid of your husband getting wounded? Sit down and write it out if you have to, but think about what would need to happen for your family to keep going. Is your husband home but unemployed? Figure out what Plan A, Plan B and Plan C are. That’s what we’ve had to do.

I guess my point is this. We can let fear control us or we can control our fears. What are some of the fears you’re dealing with, or have worked to overcome?

Last week, I posted about the CSA Danielle and I belong to. For those of you who are curious, here’s a look at what we picked up yesterday:

Our adventures in summer eating continued this week with a trip to the strawberry fields. It amazes me that this island we live on is home to several farms and vineyards in addition to the tourist resorts in Newport and the luxury homes up and down the coast. Compared to someplace like Virginia Beach, it has resisted urban sprawl remarkably well. But I digress. We did our strawberry picking last Sunday and came home with about 4 1/2 quarts.

We thought it would be fun to use some of them to make strawberry jam, so we bought some Ball jars, a package of pectin, and a big bag of sugar (if there’s one downside to homemade jam, it’s realizing just how much sugar you’re consuming). We mashed about 3 quarts of the berries and started cooking. In the end, we had 11 half-pints of delicious-looking strawberry goodness. We processed the jars and set them out on the counter to cool till the next morning.

Unfortunately, when we eagerly checked the results of our labor, we found that the jam had not set up the way it’s supposed to. According to the cookbook, we probably didn’t boil the jam hard enough or long enough to activate the pectin. In any case, what we had was about 88 ounces of strawberry syrup.

What does one do with 88 ounces of strawberry syrup?

Here are some ideas we’ve come up with: use it to top French toast, pancakes, or Belgian waffles (obviously); use it as an ice cream topping; make strawberry shortcake; make strawberry vodka martinis (strawbertinis?); or mix it with club soda to make strawberry soda. We’ve also used it as a topping on angel food cake. Next week, we might try to make strawberry ice cream with it.

One other quick note about getting farm fresh produce: by the end of the week, our fridge is almost empty. We’re much more mindful of how we eat and of making sure we eat what we buy. In the past, when we were trying to anticipate every possible food need during the weekly commissary trip, our fridge was always full — full of food that often went bad before we could eat it. This has introduced us to a whole new way of eating.

My 20-month-old daughter clearly knows Sponge Bob Squarepants (“Bub-bob”) and can sing the song well enough that even non-family members recognize it. She is also more than familiar with “Dora” and “Diego”; I think she expects them to come over for a visit any minute now.

A few years ago, in the before-children era (B.C.), if someone told me that my children would have known TV characters at such a young age, I would have been appalled. What kind of parent lets her children watch television while she is cooking dinner, or in the car, or in the morning while getting the older ones ready for school? Clearly, this parent does. I have obviously learned that B.C. ideas don’t always go hand in hand with solutions for the children era (C.E.).

Yes, I admit without shame that I have relied on television to give me a break. Especially with deployments and my husband’s long absences — ok, military living — my children have become quite cozy with our television set both in the living room and in the car. My 4-year-old knows how to turn it on and get to the cartoon channels, which is not that simple if you know a modern satellite remote control. Hey, my parents still can’t figure it out how to work that thing when they visit.

But is it harmful for children to watch TV at a young age?

Let’s see what the experts have to say. The American Academy of Pediatrics advises that parents should limit “children’s use of TV, movies, and video and computer games to no more than one or two hours per day.” They also recommend not putting a television in a child’s bedroom or letting them watch TV while doing homework.

I’m sometimes skeptical of so-called expert advice when it comes to children, especially because some of it is unrealistic (never raise your voice, never lose your patience, be in control…come on, do you have any idea the stress moms are under, not to mention military wives?) But, I do try to limit the amount of TV the kids watch, and we’ve resisted putting one in their bedroom. Most parents set some limits like these, even if, like me, they don’t exactly meet the guidelines.
However, watching TV can be a good family activity from time to time. I ask the kids questions about the story, the characters, what’s happening, and whether or not it’s real. There is a lot more learning involved that way.

And even in those times when I just need a break, a little mindless video entertainment, as long as it’s balanced by exercise and creative play, it isn’t that big of a deal. The point is that TV is not all bad. So enjoy the cartoons and don’t stress. “Bub-bob” is not an appropriate baby-sitter, but don’t feel guilty if he occasionally buys you half an hour of relaxation.

The term “Battle Buddy” is relatively new me. I’ve heard Army wives use it and seen it on various mil-blogs that I read. In concept, it means just what you might imagine….a buddy you have been through battle with.

As I’ve written about before, my husband recently returned from a deployment to Afghanistan where he was attached to the 101st Airborne Division. The one person I heard the most about during his time over there visited our house last week. Robbie was driving cross country from California to Maine and making a stop to visit us along the way. I was excited to finally meet this person who had become like a member of our family.

The time my husband spent in Afghanistan is something we rarely talk about in any detail. Every once in awhile details of his experience will slip out and I will just sit amazed and shocked at what I am hearing. That’s when he usually says, “lets talk about something else”. I try to be a good listener and since I am curious I want to hear all about it, but then reality hits and I realize maybe I’m just not ready.

I’m writing about this because for those 24 hours that Robbie was here, they had their own “mini-summit” on my back porch in several hour increments. They smoked cigars and drank cold beverages well into the night. I’m sure more was said and unsaid than i will ever hear about his experience over there.

Just like us milspouses have our support network of friends and family who listen to us, share our worries, fears and stories, it was such a comfort to me to know he was experiencing that very thing last Sunday night.

My guy can be pretty stoic at times, but also surprisingly sensitive.

Thank God for Battle Buddies.

One of the things we look forward to every summer is the local farmers’ market. This summer we took it one step further and signed up for a local CSA, which stands for Community Supported Agriculture. Basically, we purchased a ’share’ of the produce from Simmon’s Farm, which is right here on the island. At the beginning of the season, we forked over some cash in exchange for a weekly supply of local veggies, meat, eggs, and even goat cheese. It works out to about $30 per week. For that we get a dozen free-range chicken eggs, a pound of grass-fed beef (or a whole chicken, or a surprise like the spare ribs this week), some goat cheese, and enough salad and vegetables to keep us eating healthily all week. I’d wager that buying the same stuff at the grocery store would cost more than $30.

We participated in the winter season’s CSA, but that was mostly meat and eggs. Now that it’s summer, we’ve got more veggies than we know what to do with: radishes, Swiss chard, broccoli rabe, spinach, mesclun, kale, and potted herbs that we can grow at home (we chose rosemary). Half the fun is hunting for new recipes to showcase a vegetable we haven’t tried before. We’ve found The Joy of Cooking to be indispensable as a reference on what to do with vegetables like radishes. I mean, who eats radishes anymore? Well, it turns out, if you can find them fresh and local, everyone should be eating them. The root is very tasty when eaten raw, and the greens are good when cooked with a little garlic and olive oil.

In addition to the good food, pickup days have proven to be a great time to meet people. We showed up yesterday afternoon to find a cluster of about 15 people collecting their goods or waiting to have their names checked off the list. Just about everyone had a couple of canvas bags. People traded recipes and shared news, and I felt like I’d rediscovered a community event that’s been lost in this age of supermarkets and fast food.

If you’re interested in finding a CSA in your area (and if you like good, fresh food, I highly recommend it), visit localharvest.org to find one. If you’re interested in reading more about how we get our food in general, take a look at Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma. That book is where Danielle and I first heard about the CSA concept.

My husband is a Seabee in the Navy Reserves. He’s a builder; puts up drywall, uses a hammer, particularly enjoys the nail gun and driving big machinery when he gets a chance, like he did in Iraq. But in the civilian world, he’s a marketing director. And he won’t be in another couple of weeks.

His employer is facing budget cuts, and Cliff’s job was eliminated. We’ve known since mid-April and he has been diligently sending out resumes everywhere. But we haven’t received one phone call back.

This happened a few years ago when he was in a job search. Sent out the resumes. Nothing. With the war in its second year, we wondered if it had anything to do with his reserve status that he had listed. So, we did an experiment. We took it off his resume. And sure enough, he started getting calls for job interviews….

So now we’re faced with the same dilemma again, only now it seems a little harder to do. He’s proud of being a reservist, and he’s proud of having been deployed (which is also now on his resume). We have always been told that the skills someone in the military has is highly valued by businesses and companies. But what employer wants to take the chance on a new employee who may have to leave in a couple of years, for at least a year?

Apparently not many. I did some research and found this poll that was taken last year. 52% of companies surveyed said they would not hire a citizen soldier. Not a very comforting thought particularly in this day’s economy. Maybe one reason many in the guard or reserve are choosing to go active if they decide to stay in at all.

So I’m wondering… how many of your spouses have dealt with this situation? Do you keep the reserve status on your resume, or have you been forced to take it off? What do you do?

So, I go for my amnio. Our baby has a heart defect and they had to check for lung maturity. She has some health issues coming up (but that’s for another post).

I think I am fine and not scared until we get to the hospital and then I start getting nervous. I get to the doctor’s office with my hubby. My appointment is at 730am so we get there early and guess what, hubby is completely exhausted. His eyes are so small I can barely see his pupils. Just little slits that I want to force open, but I refrain. I should also be tired but today the thought that my OB is about to stick a very long needle in my stomach makes me act like a little kid on sugar.

Only a few minutes of bouncing around in the waiting room, checking out the old magazines, which my husband points out are really awful because only have to do with babies and parents, and they call me in. Hubby is definitely going to stay in the waiting room because a) he is too tired to move and b) he doesn’t do well with needles.

I go in and I am even more scared, so I ask to use the bathroom twice in about a minute– the doctor is not in the room yet. Finally, I lay down on the little uncomfortable bed and the technician starts doing the ultrasound to see where she can find a good pocket of liquid. She is nice and we get to see the baby’s hairy head (the highlight of my day), we chat about this and that, my upcoming 5^th c-section the fact that I have four girls and one little boy (I explain that he is adopted and of course she asks why did we adopt the boy etc.) I am caught up in the conversation and almost forget that I am scared when my doctor walks in with THE AMNIO KIT. I immediately request a wet-cloth for my forehead because I am so hot and nervous. Then I ask for another towel, but a dry one, to put over my eyes so that I don’t have to look.

The Doctor starts disinfecting my belly with that dark red liquid that looks like dry blood, and than without foreplay puts the anesthetic in. Crap it hurts. But after it’s in, is not so bad. Then the doctor sticks the actual Amnio needle in my belly (of course I don’t look) and after about a minute or two we are done. At this point I am sweating over the towel but I am hanging in there because I am practicing my deep breathing and trying to ‘be present with my discomfort’ despite the towels over my face.

Now I have to go to a room where they will monitor me to check on the baby. They go get my husband and he is passed out in the waiting room, mouth open, bubble on the side – I had to see it. The nurse wakes him, he is totally disoriented, and we move to the monitoring room where he goes back to sleep while I am hooked up to these monitors now feeling sick and about to vomit. When I wake him up by yelling and telling him to focus on me he farts and starts laughing hysterically.

I guess it was pretty funny. I laughed too, but I still had him go get me some water with ice and crackers, which I break into crumbs and throw at him. Now that was funny and he was really annoyed that he had to clean the chair where he was sitting.

Summer is upon us and with shorts season now in full swing (at least here in the 90-degree Nashville weather we’re having), I have made a horrible discovery.

My thighs are talking to each other.

No, they’re not saying “hey good lookin’!” or “Wow, you’re so toned!”

It’s more like “Excuse me.”

“Pardon me.”

“Ooops, sorry about that!”

What has happened here?! This time last year it was a much different story. My husband was in Iraq and I was at the gym. Every day. Rain or shine. It was my stress reliever of choice. When he left for training in California and then on to Iraq, my goal was to use this deployment to lose weight. And I did - all 20 pounds I wanted to lose. I bought a sexy little black dress from Victoria Secret’s online, hung it up where I could see it every day and by the time my husband got back, I was ready to wear it with pride!

Now, 10 months later, since he’s been home, those 20 pounds I was so happy to get rid of? Well, they’ve had the audacity to come back. It was so much less noticeable when I was wearing jeans…

It wasn’t supposed to be this way. I still remember the conversation my husband and I had when he was wrapping up his last few days in the sandbox and I was getting the homecoming banners together. He had been lifting weights and running on the treadmill in their makeshift gym; I’d been working out with a personal trainer and was feeling really good.

“We’re not going to eat junk food like we did before.”

“Home cooked meals every night, that’s right.”

“And exercise, you know, I’ve worked out just about every day here in Iraq. I need to get my gym membership renewed.”

“So have I, yes, we need to keep that up after you get back.”

“And not so much tv, I hardly watch it here anyway.”

“Yeah, let’s go for walks in the evening instead.”

“Oh yeah, definitely.”

Yeah, right!

What is it about deployments and resolutions? They work (usually) during the actual deployments, but not always so well after the deployment is over. It’s a little harder to say “I’m going to lose 20 pounds before the next deployment.”

So, as I try to figure out a new goal to once again lose these pesky 20 pounds, I’d love to hear from you on what kind of deployment resolutions you’ve made. Did you meet your goals? Was it harder to keep up after the deployment ended? I can’t wait to read your answers!

Meanwhile, I think I’ll be sticking to jeans… and getting back to the gym. - Sara

P.S. - LOVED the Army Wives season premiere last night! Cried of course, but was so glad to see it back on. My husband and son aren’t so thrilled though. The Next Food Network Star is on at the same time, so I’m tivo’ing that in one room and watching Army Wives in another… they’re not used to that. I barely ever get to hold the remote! LOL!