Insane Military Wife

In my experience, there are two general types of wives in the military.  There are the ones who do EVERYTHING and the ones who stay home. 

There is nothing wrong with either one of those types, and both have their issues. 

The wife who does everything is involved in everything she can possibly be involved in by her choice.  (yes, I said her...most spouses are women, so forgive me if any men read this.  Sorry!)  If she a church goer, then she's in the church, the choir, the nursery, doing a Bible study and helping organize meals for the sick.  If she's all about her kids then she does PTA, fund raisers, team sports, volunteers at the Youth Center, and probably runs a tutoring group out of her home. 

The wife who stays home tends to cook, clean, organize, read, write, craft, ect.  As long as she can stay home and do it, it's done.  Some tend to do a zillion freezer meals.  Others are the authors of those tricky Pinterest crafts (I hate you, by the way).  Still others have probably read every book in the library, so they get bored and write their own.  Then there are those who have the magazine style house (I hate you too). 

Can you see where I'm going with this?  Can you see the eventual overload that comes with both of these types? 

Military wives are a special breed.  They have to have an awesome coping mechanism or they go crazy.  Unfortunately, our coping mechanism can make us crazy. 

I'm one of those insane military wives, and I'm the kind that does it all...or at least tries.  When my children were in school, I ran the Airman's Attic (a military Goodwill...kind of), was on the board for PTA, was part of my Bible study group and organized music for the once a week meetings, did all that annoying fundraiser stuff, organized dances, helped my husband with work issues that popped up, kept a pretty clean house, cooked meals for people who had just had a baby, took a friend of mine to all his doc appointments, took his daughter to a good chunk of her appointments too.  Oh, and helped with homework, kept my kids from killing each other, let my husband vent about people that caused him problems and still found time to have coffee with my friends and occasionally drag them out to, like, the zoo or something. 

Oh my goodness.  I'm tired just writing that. 

Now that I homeschool...I homeschool.  Yeah, ha ha.  So, I teach my kids...something...everyday.  We go on field trips, and I drag my homebody friends with us, I still help my husband with his people problems and venting, still keep a decent house, still cook, but I don't do the PTA thing anymore.  Now I just go from extra activity, to the grocery store, and back again. 

It's summer time now and my friends probably hate me.  Namely because I hate my own house.  I can't stay home.  I have to go, do, see something - even if it's just the swimming pool for the fifth time that week.  We take public transportation to museums and explore the open air markets.  Not for a school assignment or searching for something in particular, but just...because.  I've heard more than once from my friends get complaints from their kids because "Miss April takes her kids to the...(fill in the blank.  Why can't you take me??"  Yeah, I'm not good for the kids who have parents that are homebodies.  Sorry friends.

Every now and then, it all catches up with me and I just can't do any more.  There's a time when I wake up one morning and I don't have the energy to get out of my pj's.  I think my kids actually look forward to these day when they can watch all the TV they want and play unlimited video games.  After all, those days don't come often. 

I can't speak for the wives who stay home.  I do know, that every now and then, they go a little crazy too.  That's usually when they come hang out with me.  Ha ha! 

So, yup, military wives are just a little insane.  I'm not sure what that says about our husbands!