Happy Birthday, Cami Girl!

Journal Entry Wednesday 2 Feb 2011
Today is my princess’ birthday. She turned seven today and unfortunately, I couldn’t celebrate it with her. She was six years old when I left on this deployment and there’s a good chance that she will be eight by the time I return. That kind of puts the whole timeline in perspective. A year plus is a really long time. I called her this morning, her time, and sang “Happy Birthday” to her. She sounded so happy to hear from me that it just melted my heart. She has had a way of doing that to me since she was born. Teresa will tell you that she has me wrapped around her tiny little finger and it is absolutely true. There is nothing I wouldn’t do to keep her happy. I think a lot of that stems from the fact that I was gone for most of the first two years of her life. Camilla Marie was born on 2 February 2004 at the Naval Hospital aboard Camp Lejeune, NC. At the time I was the Company Commander, Weapons Company, 3rd Battalion, 8th Marines. The Battalion had been on air alert since December. Air alert normally does not amount to much more than being restricted to base so that the unit can be ready to respond to world crisis within a matter of hours.
The last three months of Teresa’s pregnancy were for the most part not unlike the three previous ones. She had morning sickness pretty bad for most of it just as she had with the others. The singular difference with this one was that we found out we were having a baby girl. Teresa so wanted a girl and admittedly so did I. Not that we don’t love our three boys just as much, but it’s just that Teresa wanted someone she could dress up, take shopping, and share girl time with. Let’s face it, none of my boys would look good in a dress. Of course when Teresa found out she was pregnant back in June of 2003, she thought for sure she’d be having another boy. That’s just the way the odds were leaning. We found out via home pregnancy test right before I deployed to South Korea. Needless to say I was ecstatic and I thought maybe just maybe we would get our girl.
So as I mentioned, Cami came into our lives in early February 2004. She was a perfect little angel and she was ours. All I wanted to do was hold her and let her know how much I loved her. I looked forward to watching her discover this world she had just come into over the next few months. Unfortunately, I would not get the opportunity. Three weeks after she was born I was on a plane bound for Haiti. The night that I packed my things and left for the airfield at Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point, I gave Teresa a hug and kiss and told her I would be back in two weeks. Two weeks slowly turned into five months. By the time I saw Cami girl again she was six months old, bright eyed and babbling already. Five months after coming home from Haiti, I left for Iraq and was gone for eight more months. I guess you could say I’m still trying to make up for lost time. Happy Birthday, Princess.