The Every Day

a fifo wife {fifo life: real life fifo: butterflies and first dates}

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The countdown is crazy. Ludicrous. The last week before he gets home from work is like the last week before you go before on holidays. I write a list of all the things I want done before he gets home its crazy ridiculous and we go mad cleaning gardening until the night before when its my turn.

I go into first date mode because that’s what it feels like the night before and that day picking him up from the airport. Its the same feeling I got on our first date I hate and love it all at the same time. Its nervous excited. You know the feeling butterflies cant sleep cant eat that sort of rubbish. I know when that feeling has gone we are in serious trouble.

So the night before the kids go to bed early and I scrub, exfoliate, colour, shape and tweeze everything to an inch of its life. I go to bed thinking about what I will wear when I pick him up this I will honestly say is determined by two factors have a I gained or lost weight or do I have anything new to wear and do I think I could “saunter” in to the airport like the 23 year old self I was when I met him full of confidence ego and charm to collect him or will I have the 34 year old three kid waddle effect and a drive by is the only option myself esteem can muster.

This month though I have literally worked my backside off and I’m happy to say that I will be “sauntering’ my way into that airport.

FIFO life/Parenting/Relationships/The Every Day

How to find the strength when you have none.

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I wrote a post yesterday how we were on a the count down until husband came home from a five week swing but how I had to ‘suck’ it up and find the strength to keep going for the last two but I should have mentioned just how I manage to ‘suck it up’ and keep going..whats next.

Yet if you find you cant find the strength no matter what and I know how that is I have been there and done that too please see a professional or seek the advice of someone you trust.

Husband and I have always have had this mantra life is a result of the decisions you make and how you react to them. As we say suck it up baby..so when Im feeling overwhelmed by our decision to live this lifestyle its usually because I have put too much pressure on myself by making bad decisions on how to run the month and also failed to listen to my body. I will usually have a melt down after a week of broken sleep its my number one problem and unlike most people I cant sleep during the day. I try try being the optimum word to meditate for few minutes a day whilst my youngest is having his day nap but failing that this is my method for coping with a potential melt down of feeling overwhelmed.

Should a ‘melt down’ have occured and after my intial sobbing and tantrum has subsided I send the kids outside and make a coffee giving myself some time out to take stock.

I ask myself whats next. Whats important to get done. Is it the washing piling up or the toys everywhere that’s the problem? Is the lawn really important or is it getting to the doctors appointment on time?

I take into consideration that I’m so lucky that my husband will be home in a few short days or weeks. I remind myself that some very courageous women aren’t so lucky there husbands aren’t coming home and my situation is nothing to there’s. I also remind myself that the job I do is hard and I’m doing a damn good job all on my own..we all do.

After I have done all that and taken a great big deep breath I will apologies to my boys and they as always say to me “its okay mummy its okay’ and you know what it really is.

The Every Day

{a fifo wife} learning to hear no I can’t and other lessons learnt.

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Husband has been away for five weeks this swing, normally, it’s just four weeks. I like four-week swings it’s not too long, but five weeks is pushing the friendships all round and this month has been horrible. This month has seen us with chest infections, ear infections, vomiting, a head cold, ingrown toenails and more recently a nearly severed finger.

It’s been absolute without a word of a lie horrible.

Its also been the one and only time I have asked the husband to come home, and I have done three pregnancies and three newborns. One bout of depression and exhaustion I tell you this because I have always managed to hold on, but this time I just couldn’t. So after spending my second afternoon at the hospital with B2 and his near severed finger. The clever duck he put it in the chain of my exercise bike and spun the peddle. Blood ensued.

It was as I woke tired again that I lost it. I was tired both physically and emotionally. Not sure what reality I was living I asked the husband if he could come home. Now whether my husband knew I could suck it up and find that second bout to go on or whether he sucked up the fear and said without hesitation “I can’t”. He gave me the reason I’m sure but in between my reeling of those words and my general sobbing I couldn’t hear him.

(I should mention the reason was he was under tow somewhere between Singapore and Australia flying was simply impossible not just now but for days)

That was two weeks ago, and now we are on the seven-day countdown.

I have since learnt two things

1. I will never ask my husband to come home again..the disappointment was just too much. It was like having the wind punched out of me my independence feeling rejected and vulnerable and I guess the same for him. It can’t be easy saying no to a sobbing woman on the phone that you know is capable but tired and your unable to do a single thing. Add to that you miss her with all your soul.

2. it reminded me without being too modest I can do anything.

xx Deb

FIFO life/Parenting/Relationships/The Every Day

{fifo wife} parenting, hide n’ seek and recharging

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I played hide and seek with the boys today, and I was ‘hidden’ for over twenty minutes. I just needed to be lost for just a bit. It’s been a tough month, everyone needs twenty minutes somewhere along the day; it helps you take stock I think.

I ‘hid’ behind the laundry door. Tough spot for a five, four and two-year-old, but it was fantastic as I listened to their banter. I took solace in the dark, recharged and I went in for the next round.

I coughed to say I’m here. I’m ready for you to find me, and I did look forward to the joy on their faces as they found me.

xx Deb

{Image with courtesy to www.simplicityinthesouth.com}

FIFO life/Parenting/Relationships/The Every Day/You

{fifo wife} on a fifo life about me : another blog you have to be joking

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Another blog?

Yes another one and, to be honest, my story is not much different to anyone else’s. I’m a wife and mother to three beautiful boys. Fairly normal with the exception that my husband is home from work every second month. We are a FIFO family or in lamens terms a fly in fly out family.

As a family, we have worked this way for six years (we do four weeks on four weeks off), as a couple almost twenty years. It’s great when it is great and crazy when it is crazy.

I love the life it gives us, but you are either made for it or not and that goes for your husband too. To not be is okay. It will either tear you apart or bring you closer together, for me it been the latter and I’m so grateful. I don’t say I’m lucky because I don’t believe in luck its hard work that’s all and I have been on that edge and it’s hard to crawl back from.

I can’t tell you now that this blog doesn’t guarantee to be pretty or paint a picture that this lifestyle is anything but hard work; nothing that’s worth anything is easy, and so in reality this blog is for all the other FIFO wives and mothers who sometimes question themselves and what they are doing..a blog of thriving, living, and relishing every moment written by someone who’s been there and doing that.

Welcome.

xDeb