My husband received an award during his last deployment.

I was, apparently, not nearly as excited about it as I should have been because upon his return, I overhead a voicemail from his chief explaining that he hoped that my children and I would be at the presentation of the award, as it was “such a big deal.”

Granted, this voicemail was left the evening before the award ceremony.

The evening before, in which I was running around trying to scrounge together dinner, sweep up dirt tracked in by little-girl sneakers, nurse a baby, pay the water bill and answer a work phone call; totally unaware that I was expected to be at a ceremony – or that there even was such a ceremony – the next morning.

I’m pretty sure I looked at my husband when he played the voicemail and uttered a quick but emphatic, “No way, Jose.”

But the look on his face told me that wasn’t an option. He doesn’t understand “I don’t have anything to wear.” He doesn’t understand what it’s like to sit in a room full of uniforms trying to control a 2-year-old and an 11-month-old. He doesn’t understand that, in that arena, I am nothing more than a reflection of him.

My husband is the last person to play down what I do: take care of our kids, work from home, volunteer at non-profits. 

He talks it up. He knows it’s important and ranks it right up there with his job. If I showed up at the Submarine Ball in sweat pants the man would proudly take my hand and introduce me as his beloved wife, talk about the lactation counseling I do and mention that I make a mean chili.

But that’s not how the world, especially the Navy world, works.

And even though he doesn’t care, I do. Which is why I immediately dropped what I was doing, threw the baby at him, and proclaimed, “Feed them dinner!  I at least need to go shave my legs!”

I then made him sit through 47 different outfit changes that evening, followed by several panicked phone calls to friends in search of a super-thin brown belt. I then had to fish out appropriate dresses and hair-bows for my girls. On the (somewhat good) chance that they acted out, I was hoping their cute factor would help sell them.

Of course, it froze outside overnight and I had to re-plan it all on the fly the next morning, as I cursed the unpredictable late-winter and early-spring here in Georgia.

I showed up barely on time and stood looking at an auditorium full of my husband’s look-alikes, sweating despite the cold and trying to pry the all-of-a-sudden-shy toddler off my leg while holding the “Let me down, Mom!” baby ever the more tightly.

Luckily, the award presentation went off smoothly. My toddler enjoyed clapping for everyone immensely and the baby was memorized by the room full of people dressed like her father, some of whom would play peekaboo with her behind my back.  The only small snafu was the “Dada!” my second born let out while his chief was singing my husband’s praises during his award presentation.

I only had to resort to “Be quiet!” snacks and an out-and-out bribe once. In the grand scheme of things, it wasn’t too bad.

Though my shaken, gray appearance by the end of it did make it seem as if the two-hour ceremony had taken years off my life.

This was definitely not the calm, cool, collected reflection of my husband I had hoped to be.

But, at least, I’d shaved my legs.