Preparing for Reintegration

You read that right! Andre is coming home. A lot has happened in the past few weeks and it has been a roller coaster of emotions, but I am happy to report that my hubby is currently in quarantine on U.S. soil!!! This is standard procedure for Service Members coming back from overseas right now. He is passing all of his daily health tests and we are literally days away from hugging him. The plan is to surprise the kids at my parents’ house which is where they will be when I pick up Andre from the airport. There are many reasons why I/we feel it’s not a great idea to take them to the airport, so I will be going solo to pick him up without the kids knowing what I am up to. We are so looking forward to seeing the looks on the kids’ faces when they see their Daddy in person for the first time in a year. Pure bliss – and I’m guessing a *few* happy tears.

Reintegration can be a bit of a bugger. However, reintegration in the middle of a pandemic might actually be a little easier than if it were during “normal” life. Our state has slowly started to open up which means all the hustle and bustle that would have been going on pre-COVID-19 is still pretty much on hold. Everyone has been embracing the pause and now it’s our turn, as a family, to embrace it together. Our family unit gets to come back to life right along with the state, slowly and steadily. I do still think we might see some sleep regression in both kids and perhaps some potty-training regression with Joel, but I think that it will be nice for schedules to be mostly empty and no pressure of making it to this or canceling that. And for as brutally slow as Andre’s quarantine time has felt, it will prove to be a blessing in disguise since he will be all acclimated to the time change and rested up from his travels back to the U.S. He has told me he is ready to jump back in with both feet which is great because I need a two-week nap!

I am over the moon excited that this is my last blog post for this deployment! My next update will be all about our family being reunited. I have so many plans for the BIG DAY and I promise to share if any of them actually happen….because…..typically, with the military, nothing ever goes as planned. But believe me when I say I have backup plans for the backup plans. Thank you for riding out this deployment with us, for loving us, for praying for us, and for rooting for us. IT’S ALMOST HOMECOMING DAY!!!