Last Day Together

The last day we had with Asa before he left was hectic. I had spent weeks fretting about the fact that I wanted our last day to be relaxing and full of special moments together. But it just wasn't.

First, I had to visit the DEERS office on post. I don't know a single person who would think that was fun. And I sat there in tears as the DEERS guy told me that my Power of Attorney was useless.

Meanwhile, Marley and Asa were getting us breakfast to-go from Panera when Marley threw up in her car seat. So, he got our breakfast, swung by and picked me up, and then she threw up again as we were pulling in the drive way of our house.

We had to solve the Power of Attorney situation that day, and there were only so many hours in the day. So, he had to go straighten that out immediately. I carried in my sick baby and our breakfast, put her in the bathtub, and then she threw up again. Asa stripped the car seat and threw all the pieces in the washing machine (the one we had almost taken to storage the day before, but decided to put it off one more day) and then he left for the JAG office.

Marley stopped throwing up, but needed to be held the rest of the day. Fortunately, Asa got the Power of Attorney in about an hour, which is amazing! But, then he had to spend the entire day moving things to storage. His friend Gee helped him, but I couldn't help because our little girl was sick and her car seat pieces were in the washing machine. I snuggled with Marley in between packing things into boxes while Asa made trip after trip to the storage unit.

Marley started acting pretty normal, and we finally got the house to an acceptable stopping place. It wasn't everything, but it was enough for us to feel good about. I was heartbroken being without him all day. Here it was our last day, and there wasn't anything we could do about spending the whole day apart. But we had a date planned for that night, and luckily Marley seemed well enough to handle the trip to our steakhouse in Rolla. We took showers, put on some clean clothes, and headed to dinner.

We stopped on the way to dinner and took some family pictures. We found a nature background, propped the camera up on a truck tire, and tried our best to get Marley to smile. She smiled for her pictures with Asa, but by the time we got to the family pictures she was not in the mood to smile.
We ate a fabulous dinner together, and enjoyed our last evening together. A fancy steak and yummy salad always makes us happy!
On the way home, Asa called everyone to talk to them on the phone one last time. Marley fell asleep, so we sat in the driveway of our house for a while talking about how many things would change the next day and how we would feel. Then, we reluctantly woke Marley up and brought her inside. On the way in, she threw up all over everything. Her clothes, my clothes, her shoes.

We only had a few towels and no washer to wash anything, so all we could do was throw everything in a trash bag for the night. Asa had to run out and buy some medicine, and I wrapped Marley in some sweatshirts we were going to give to Goodwill. I held her in bed while she whimpered and moaned. Our poor baby was so sick.

When Asa got back with her medicine, we gave her some and then snuggled with her until she fell asleep. I had planned so much for that night, our last night of putting Marley to sleep together. We would read her books and tell her stories and sing her favorite songs until she happily went to sleep. But instead she was miserable and all we could do was hope she would go to sleep and feel better. I didn't get the pictures I wanted or the videos that we could have watched all the time.

Marley wasn't asleep until close to 11, and we had to be up at 1:30 that morning. I cried and cried before we went to sleep, thinking about the fact that this was our last night in the same house for a long long time.

I wanted this last day and night to be perfect. Instead it was stressful and busy and way too short. I wanted the three of us to snuggle all day and laugh and play. And instead were spent most of the in separate places. I am so lucky though that my husband was amazing and helped me with every single thing I needed him to.
Marley felt much better the next morning, and in some odd way I felt closer to Asa. We were a great team dealing with our stressful day, and although we never want our baby to be sick, at least we got some good cuddle time together. And I am so thankful that even though we didn't have our perfect night together, we had many other perfect nights before that one to remember and think about.