Life After Military

I was in the Army Reserves and was deployed in 2003. I got back home in 2004. I did not adjust well. I thought that I was fine that I was doing what I was supposed to, but I no longer knew how to interact with the people that I loved the most. I was only 18 years old when I left. I came back just before my 20th birthday a little more confused than when I had left. The friendships that had meant so much to me had been severed. The people that I had grown to depend on were nowhere to be found. The life to which I had become accustomed no longer existed. I didn't know how to function. My little sister had just turned 18 and my little brother was 11. I still feel terrible about the way that I treated them. I wasn't cold or cruel, just indifferent. I think that's worse. I love them both so much. I had another little half-sister that was 12 and a little half-brother that was almost 8 and I had no idea of how I was supposed to talk to them. I didn't hear from them as often when I was in Iraq. I knew my family had been through a lot and adjusted without me there and I didn't know where I fit in to all of it.

In the months following I ran away to Texas with a boy that seemed like a swell idea at the time. He turned out to be a loser, HUGE SURPRISE! So I went back home to Georgia. And then I decided to be a Nanny! Yay. And then in February I went to drill and there she was...my bfff. Haha. She had been threatened, if she didn't show she would be put into IRR! Scary stuff. So she made her appearance. I got word that she was there and booked it to see her. It was exciting. Then about a month later she called me up, "Want to go to Kuwait with me? It'll be fun." I had been back in the US for about 7 months and the minute she said those words a weight was lifted. I could go back to a life that I was accustomed to. I said that I'd love to and the following week we had been hired by a U.S. Contractor.

Diaper Rash

I have two daughters, three years and six months. A battle most all babies face at some point; diaper rash! I have tried everything out there with my eldest daughter. She was allergic to something in all of the popular diaper creams. I finally discovered zinc oxide. Okay, I know this doesn't sound like some major discovery because it's in a lot of the more popular diaper ointments and such, but it was a HUGE find for us. We went to our local drug store and talked to the pharmacist and he said to try to use plain zinc oxide. We got a tube for a fraction of what the other creams cost and within the day her rash was clearing up! This was a LARGE victory in the rash department and a small weight lifted off of our wallets!