Though I am a seasoned Army wife that has been by my husband's side through 8 deployments, this upcoming one was a bit different for us... it was our first one with having children. In the past, I became a workaholic and survived on take out food and getting lost with my work but not this time. This time was different in many ways.
One of my husband's homecomings from before we had children
I started searching online to start preparing for a deployment with kids and found all sorts of amazing ideas. My favorite had to be pre-recording videos of my husband reading stories and saying "good morning" and "good night" messages to our children. I kinda wish I had him do one for me for some encouragement... maybe next time. Both my kid's LOVED watching their father read to them and wish them good night, especially when we would go days without hearing from him.
Another great idea was a Deployment Wall. I have never heard of this before and was so excited to have a visual reminder of my husband and when he was coming home. My kid's loved moving the number cards on the countdown and seeing if Daddy left them a card in the mailbox.
Here is a breakdown of our deployment wall and where I got everything:
-Clocks to show our time and Daddy's
-Patriotic Felt Garland
-Iron Wall Basket and is full of wonderful books I HIGHLY recommend for children going though a deployment.
It was a very long deployment and I pray we don't have to go through another one any time soon. We would do special activities to celebrate being a week closer to Daddy coming home, ice cream before dinner was always a favorite. Having a routine always helped. I got very involved with my local gym, church and also our FRG.
If you are going through a deployment, what has helped you and your children?
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