| Deployed moms stay in touch with home |
| By 2nd Light Infantry Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Inf. Div. Public Affairs Multi-National Division–Baghdad |
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FORWARD OPERATING BASE LOYALTY, Iraq, May 11, 2007 — U.S. Army Spc. Latoya Roberts will be spending this Mother’s Day away from her 1-year-old son, but she’s doing everything she can to shorten the distance.
“I have pictures of him everywhere, and I talk to him on the Webcam every weekend,” she said. “He gets so excited; he points at the camera and blows kisses.” Roberts, a human resources specialist from Anniston, Ala., who serves with Headquarters and Headquarters Company (HHC), 2nd Infantry Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division, had to leave 21-month-old X’Zavier in October. “It’s hard,” she concedes. “It’s terrible.” But the weekly Webcam contact keeps her fresh in X’Zavier’s mind and gives her the impetus to drive on. Last Mother’s Day, she went out to dinner with her then 9-month-old son. This time, they will be brought together on the holiday by the Webcam. It’s certainly not the same, but just seeing and hearing him will help, she said. Before deploying, she explained it as best she could to a 1-year-old. “I said, ‘I’m going to be gone, but I love you, and I wouldn’t leave if I didn’t have to,’” Roberts recalled. She had spent time with nieces and nephews before becoming a mother, so she had some idea what parenthood would bring. “Every child is different,” Roberts said. “To have your own is just trial and error, especially with the first one.” While she waits to be reunited with X’Zavier, Roberts is content with photos and memories. “I would pick him up from daycare and he would smile and run toward me,” she said. “It’s quite a feeling just knowing you have that person’s life in your hands and you’re responsible for him.” The hardest part of being away from her son is “just his smile and his laughing, and being able to see him grow up.” He seems to coping relatively well with his mother gone. “He’s still a happy-go-lucky kid,” Roberts said. X’Zavier is staying with his father in Georgia during the deployment, and Roberts said he has developed some hobbies. “He watches |
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| lots of cartoons or anything with real vivid colors,” she said. “And he likes to dance.” Like Roberts, Staff Sgt. Constance Woods clearly remembers her last Mother’s Day. She received handmade cards from her children and also enjoyed breakfast in bed. This year, she will have to settle for a telephone chat with Phillip Jr., 8, and Brianna, 5. But both Woods and her children are making the best of it. “It’ll be hard to be away from them and not be there,” said Woods, an automations noncommissioned officer for HHC, 2nd IBCT. “But they seem OK when I talk with them on the phone. They’re happy to hear from me and are always in a rush to tell me exactly what they’ve done since the last time I talked to them. And they tell me to buy them something to bring home to them.” As she prepared to deploy, Woods tried making it easier for her children by breaking the deployment in half. “I just told them I had to go on a deployment for six or seven months because I knew I was coming back on leave at the end of March,” she said. Her son, Woods added, “kind of understands” that the unit has been extended, although “my daughter doesn’t really get the idea yet.” But however long they’re apart, they will be staying in touch. “I call at least once a week,” Woods said. Also, when she shoots her daily instant message to her husband, “I tell him to tell them I love them and miss them.” Brianna will start school in the fall and missing this, as well as not being able to help Phillip with his homework, is the toughest part of being away, she said. “And both have grown about four inches since I’ve been gone,” Woods said. With Mom away, her children stay busy riding bicycles, watching movies, and playing sports. “They’re as happy as two young kids can be (under the circumstances),” she said. “They get quiet sometimes, which is not normal for them.” Woods said motherhood is “everything I thought it would be and more.” While she’s sad to be away from her children on Mother’s Day, she’s keeping a positive attitude. “I’ll make it through it,” she said. “I’ll live to see next Mother’s Day.” |
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