Picking up and moving house every few years. Caring for children on your own because family and friends live at the other end of the country. Eating macaroni and cheese from a box with only toddlers for dinnertime conversation. Always the one to get up for a crying baby in the middle of the night. And, worst of all, left to worry about whether your husband will return from a long deployment or whether he'll be deployed at all.

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Marrying into the military has its challenges -- especially with U.S. troops at war in Iraq and Afghanistan, and on humanitarian missions all over the world. For these times, and for the wives and children left behind, a play group can be a godsend.

Tiffany Mingo, 27, started such a group, Military Mamaz, on the Web site meetup.com, hoping to gather Camp Pendleton moms who wanted to meet others who "really understand what military life is like."

She started it in October 2005, and in just over two years the group has taken off, with more than 80 members and activities and events planned for almost every day. There are structured playtimes for children in different age groups, "deployed daddy" dinners, girls' nights out and family events. And while the base offers family services and support programs, this is the only play group of this size, organized by the mothers themselves, for themselves.

To help her organize it all, Mingo has four or five volunteer assistants who host some of the "mommy and me" type play groups in their homes, make phone calls or post messages on the Web site's boards.

With four small children to care for at home and a husband who was just deployed to Iraq last week, she still finds time to drive her children -- Abby, 8, Anna, 6, Gage, 5, and Gavin, 8 months -- to the park for a play date or two.

"Going to the park is a treat for them," she said late Monday afternoon at the Stuart Mesa Park on base. "The kids like to play with the other kids their own age, and I think it has helped Gage with his speech development."

But she says she goes to the play groups for herself as much for the children. "I was getting too homebound, and I was noticing I was getting depressed," she said.

Mingo, 27, and her husband, Marine Sgt. Demian Mingo, 29, lost a week-old baby in summer of 2004 from sudden infant death syndrome, which put the family into a tailspin. She said she was thankful Demian wasn't away at the time. During their seven years of marriage, this is his third deployment and his second time to Iraq.

Mingo said that for her, the hardest times of her husband's deployments are weekends. "Normally he would be home on the weekends and I would get a break," she said. "So we try to have family day events like pool parties, pony rides, picnics and potlucks. We have so much here to do. And there are free movies on Sunday at the base. We try to have moms' nights out too, but it's hard for most people to find babysitters."

Hard on the kids, too

Deployment is hard on the children, too. Abby Mingo, a third-grader at Mary Faith Pendleton Elementary School, has trouble sleeping when her father is away. "I get scared and I wake up early, but Mom lets me use the computer and watch TV," she said. And sister Anna explains her feelings this way: "We cry in our brains but not on the outside."

'Civilians don't get it'

Mingo, who grew up in El Cajon, started the Camp Pendleton playgroup because, she said, "Civilians just don't get it."

She said that when she moved on base, she went to an Oceanside play group for stay-at-home moms, and though they were very welcoming and some were even retired military people, she said, she wanted to be with only military moms, women who knew first-hand what it was like to have a husband in the Marines.

Mingo and her husband met online. From Florida originally, Demian was an Air Force brat and, Tiffany said, was determined not to join the military. "He said he hated it because his father was moving the family all the time," she said. But here they are, stationed at Camp Pendleton.

It is a similar story for playgroup member Melody Abshear, 27, whose father was a Navy fighter pilot. Growing up, she and her family moved all the time. "I went to 13 schools in 12 years," she said. "Moving was hard, but meeting new people was fun. It got harder when I got older and I would get into a sport and then leave, but I was the baby of the family and l liked making new friends. I think it was really hard on my sister, though, because she was shy."

She still can't believe she married a Marine. "I swore I'd never be in the military, but my heart didn't listen," she said.

Abshear met her husband, Dave, 30, in Washington, D.C., when he was stationed at the Pentagon and she was finishing college and working as a bartender. She said she carded her future husband and discovered they had both grown up in the same small town, Oak Harbor, in Washington state.

Today, he is a general's aide at Camp Pendleton and the couple have two children, Chase, 2, and Levi, 5 1/2 months. Melody Abshear's family is scattered across the country from Texas to Ohio and can't help her with child care. "I could use a nap," she said bluntly.

Abshear said she also enjoys going to the play group sessions and meeting new people.

"There are some days when all I have been doing is baby talk, and when Dave comes home, I ask him to hand me the yellow banana and I have to laugh and say 'Sorry,'" she said. "It has definitely not been easy. It's hard to get a break because I don't really know anyone to trust to watch the kids."

'It's not forever'

Affordable, safe child care is often an issue for new mothers. Jennifer Woodworth, 27, another Military Mama, is hunting for a part-time job and will begin looking for child care on base for her children, Evan, 2, and Ashley, 2 1/2 months, when she lands a position. "The child development center has a long wait, but they do have people do day care in their homes on base."

Growing up in Vancouver, B.C., Woodworth said she never dreamed she would marry someone in the military. "I didn't know anything about it until I moved to San Diego" in 1998, she said. "There are pluses and minuses. They don't make their own schedule and it's not a 40-hour week, it can be a 60-hour week. You never know. And you can't plan stuff because their work is always changing. They have to work hard too, and it's tough, but we know that it's not forever. He'll (her husband Corey, 27) be able to retire at 38 and Evan will only be 13."

Woodworth says she's one of the lucky ones, because she has family in town. "It's been good for us," she said of military life. "You have all your health care taken care of and a guaranteed paycheck, especially these days when you never know if you might be laid off."

Corey Woodworth, a helicopter pilot who works nights, recently re-enlisted for four years. Jennifer said she doesn't have to worry about his being sent to Iraq. "He's safe right now. He could stay right here for the rest of his career if he wanted."

That is not the case for the husband of Maria Lee, 29, a Military Mama who is deployed in Iraq, leaving her alone with their children, Marcus, 7, Leah, 5, and Camille, 2. They moved to Camp Pendleton last July from Okinawa, Japan, where she and her husband, Devon, 32, met.

A Navy corpsman for five years herself, Lee said her Navy experience has helped her understand her husband's situation.

She said she enjoys the playgroup and being part of the base where they live. "We chose to live here because the housing is more affordable and I feel more comfortable and secure when my husband is away.

"It's also good, especially for the kids," she said. "They can relate with the other kids and say, 'My daddy is in Iraq, too.' It is much easier because not many civilians can understand what the kids go through."

Contact staff writer Ruth Marvin Webster at (760) 740-3527 or rwebster@nctimes. com. Comment at nctimes. com.

"You are meeting other people in the same situation as you and they understand," said Woodworth. "Family is still good but you still need to meet other moms and have your kids play with other kids their age. "

Info:

To contact Military Mamaz, visit http://mff.meetup.com/106/.