The "D" Word

Deployment.

Yuck, I hate that word.  No seriously, I hate it.  It's a word that strikes fear and dread in the heart of every military spouse.  Well, every military spouse I know, at least :)  But it comes with the territory, I guess.  And so, as hard as it is, I have to gear up & accept it.  Embrace it...no.  But, accept it...I guess I can do that.  Which brings me to the planning part.  Honestly, it's the part I like the most if there's such a thing.  I like looking at the calendar and planning out things to fill our days while C is away.  I've never gone through a deployment with kids before.  Some people say it's easier because the time goes by so much faster (they never mention that it's because the work you do seems doubled!). Some people say it's harder because you have these sweet littles who continuously ask where their daddy is.  I think it's the same whether you have kids or not.  Deployments. Just. Stink.

My quest lately has been to find things that will make this one coming up a little bit easier on E.  It will be her first, and I want to start out on the right foot.  I want to be intentional, to have a plan, to have some answers for the questions that I know are coming.  C & I recently took at little mini-vacation and left the kiddo's with their grandparents for 2 nights.  When we got back, we quickly realized that Elli has major separation anxiety.  To my utter dismay her new favorite words are, "don't leave me".  Add big blue eyes, and little blonde ringlet curls to that and well, it's hard not to just throw in the towel!  Ha!  But seriously, it's made me very anxious about the time that her daddy will be away.  To be completely honest, it breaks my heart.  

But, the best way to tackle that (in my opinion) is to plan!  Chris is taking her to make a Build-a-Bear that will have his voice recorded in it, we're going to get her a Daddy Doll (which I've heard is all the rage!), we'll be video taping her reading some bedtime stories so that they can still "read" together at night and we're doing the recordable books as well.  We'll be heading back to Texas for a big portion of the time that he's away, or we'd do a count-down chain...I think it'd be kinda hard to travel with it.  Do you guys have any other suggestions?  I'd love to hear about some things that you've done with your kids, or that you've heard have worked with other kids!  I've been scouring the internet in my search of all things deployment related, but I'd really like to consider some tried & true things that worked for "real people/kids" :)

We're still a ways away from C leaving, and we're cherishing every single moment with him until the time comes for him to go.  I guess that's another "good" thing about deployments...it teaches you that there is really no time to take things for granted.  If only I could remember that the next time I get frustrated that his clothes didn't quite make it into the laundry basket...again!