Author Archives:
Month of the Military Child – Deployment Resources for Children
It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.
~Frederick Douglass
April is Month of the Military Child. Since Huzzy and I don’t have children, I put out a call for guest bloggers to help out. I originally wanted to do a guest blogger every Monday, but I had so many fantastic responses that you’ll see a guest blogger every Monday and Thursday!
My fourth guest blogger is fellow Navy wife Sailors Princess from My Life as a Navy Wife. She has been married to “hubs” and a navy wife for 5 years now and is currently going through her 2nd deployment, with their first child “D” who is 2 ½ years old.
——————–
We are finally at our half way mark of this deployment. This is D’s first deployment, and mine and hubs 2nd. Having a 2 ½ year old who 
doesn’t really understand why the ‘guy who lives with us occasionally” is gone for longer than the usually 2 to 3 weeks has been difficult but we are managing just as fine as we can. We have tried to get into a schedule, but anyone with a toddler knows how hard that can be. We’ve been keeping busy with church, friends and other activities. But that doesn’t help when we miss daddy.
Thankfully there is a program that is available called United through Reading, where service members can record DVD’s of themselves reading books to their children. The DVD’s get sent home to the families or even given to the families before they deploy so that the children can read with Daddy or Mommy. It has been so awesome for us because we have a couple of the books that daddy read and D can try to follow along. It’s nice for us because we can watch daddy
I can’t imagine how those military families who came before the wonderful invention of Skype did it, but I have so much respect and admiration for them. But we have the option of being able to Skype with daddy too when he is in port. Sometimes D will really talk, but other times he just wants to make faces at daddy because daddy makes faces at him. But for those few minutes that he gets to see daddy face to face will make his day.
We also received a kit from our Family Readiness Group that came from the USO called With You All the Way. It had a DVD, a bear that you can dress up, some post cards to send to the deployed parent, a journal for older kids to keep track of their deployment thoughts in, and a caregiver guide. D didn’t really know what to think about the bear, but it is a great kit for kids who are older than D .Also available from Military One Source or a local Family Support Center is a video by Sesame Street and Sesame Workshop called Talk, Listen, Connect that deals with issues about deployment, changes, and homecoming. It’s a great video for young kids with their favorite Sesame Street characters. 
I know that that nothing can compare to having a parent home, but there are many options out there to help children along the way and try to ease some of the deployment stress. I hope that everyone can find what works well with their children and survive and kick the butt of their deployment.
——————–
Month of the Military Child- Managing Deployments and Keeping Daddy Involved
I dream of giving birth to a child who will ask, “Mother, what was war?”
~Eve Merriam
April is Month of the Military Child. Since Huzzy and I don’t have children, I put out a call for guest bloggers to help out. I originally wanted to do a guest blogger every Monday, but I had so many fantastic responses that you’ll see a guest blogger every Monday and Thursday!
New Mommy and her family
My fifth guest blogger is New Mommy Confessions. She’s pretty new to blogging, but she’s catching on quick. While a large portion of it concerns military life, her blog also touches on “normal” family life, crafts, baking and the occasional rant.
——————–
When the Sailor and I started talking babies we knew it meant someone’s career was at an end. At the time we were both active duty, but we had already decided that a child should have at least one stable person in their life. Financially it made the most sense for the Sailor to remain in the Navy and for me to get out.
Everything worked out beautifully, and when Baby Girl turned 8 months I was honorably discharged and ready to tackle my new role as a stay-at-home-mom. By this time the Sailor was already 2 months into a 6 month cruise. This meant that for the first 2 months I was a working, first-time mommy with no family in the area. The Navy doesn’t care if your kid is sick and daycare won’t take them.
I gained a healthy respect for working moms and especially military moms in those first months. I also learned that it just wasn’t for me. I might tease the Sailor about a lot of things (like who got the higher ASVAB score…ha!) but he is constantly forced to do something that I know in my heart I would not be capable of. More often than we like, he is called upon to leave his baby girl behind to do a job far, far away.
The first time he left she was 6 months old. He missed everything. I can’t imagine how hard it must have been for him to hear all of her accomplishments through email and rare phone calls. First teeth, first word (Daddy!), crawling, climbing, first birthday…
I debated with myself what to do while he was gone. I knew that the most important thing to me was to be sure that Baby Girl knew who her Daddy was. I had his picture plastered everywhere: it was the screensaver on my phone and computer. I put up extra pictures of him around the house and invested in some “unbreakable” frames for our daughter so she had pictures of him she could play with. I had a pillow made up with his picture on it and she slept with it every night. He recorded himself reading her books, which I played so many times that I can recite “Hop on Pop” and a lot of other Dr. Suess books by heart.
But the hardest decision was what to do about him. Do I tell him every little milestone? Do I hide some from him so that maybe he wouldn’t know how much he was missing? This was our first child, and he had to miss so much of it.
Daddy and daughter
In the end I told him everything. I took a picture of her every day he was gone and sent him every single one. I sent him a pillowcase with a collage of baby pictures on it. A lot of women will complain about how the ship went into “River City” a lot during that deployment, but I’m convinced the internet just needed to take frequent breaks after dealing with all my emails and pictures.
When the Sailor came home I was a wreck. Did I do everything I could? Will she remember him? He had been gone for more so long.
In the end I didn’t need to worry. As soon as Daddy showed up I was invisible! (Hey kid, remember me? Mommy?) It was all worth it. Baby Girl certainly knew her Daddy.
Now we’re going through it again. Already. By the time he gets back this time he will have been gone for more than half of her life. It’s easier and harder this time. I know what to do, and I’m getting pretty good at it. He recorded books again before he left, we spent a lot of family time together and she sleeps with her Daddy Doll. But new stuff is cropping up as well. Nothing prepares you for your child wandering the house yelling, “Daddy, where are you?” because she thinks he’s just hiding. It breaks my heart every time.
When he comes home safe this will all feel like it was just a bad dream. I look forward to that day and pray for his safety and the safety of all those men and women on board. And I hang in there. I was a sailor too, and we’re a tough breed. And now I’m a milspouse, and we’re an even tougher breed. We wait until the kids are asleep to cry. Then we dry our tears, shake it off and carry on.
——————–
The Tides Are Changing…
Continuity gives us roots; change gives us branches, letting us stretch and grow and reach new heights.
~Pauline R. Kezer
So Huzzy’s home from his patrol. He checks out of this sea-going command on May 1st and goes on leave for 30 days before reporting to shore duty on May 31st.
This is a whole new world for me. I started this blog three years ago, just days before marrying my husband. And just a few weeks before Huzzy checked out of recruiting and into sea duty.
Recruiting duty was… not really a shore duty. Sure, he was home every most nights, but if he was home by 8 p.m., I was asking him why he was home so early. Huzzy once went 13 weeks without a day off. Including Sundays. I know people do this all the time when deployed, but this was SHORE duty, where he was supposed to recover from the high optempo of the previous five years. So it really wasn’t much of a break for him.
But now? Now he’s going to be home most weekends. Depending on the division he is assigned to when he checks into the command, he may be working long hours (as long as recruiting), but he’ll have most weekends off. He should be able to actually take vacations and such without worrying about it being canceled last minute.
We are entering a different time in our marriage. One that may actually somewhat resemble the civilian world. (sorta… not really). It’s scarily exciting. I’m afraid I might not have much Navy stuff to write about (please let that be the truth!) for the next three years.
Now all we have to do is figure out my medical issues. I’m still dealing with my shoulder and my girl issues. Tons of fun.
P.S. I hope you are enjoying the Month of the Military Child series of guest bloggers. I’m so blessed to have such awesome women stand up and want to blog about such an important topic.
Month of the Military Child- Helping Children Understand
While we try to teach our children all about life,
Our children teach us what life is all about.
~Angela Schwindt
April is Month of the Military Child. Since Huzzy and I don’t have children, I put out a call for guest bloggers to help out. I originally wanted to do a guest blogger every Monday, but I had so many fantastic responses that you’ll see a guest blogger every Monday and Thursday!
My fourth guest blogger is Army wife Kate from jak{ofhearts}.
——————–
Hi, I’m Kate from jak{ofhearts}! My husband, John, and I are high school sweethearts. We’ve been married for 3 years and have 5 years of his Army career behind us. We have a 2 year old daughter, Aliyah, who had a heart transplant when she was two months old. Our lives are full of her laughter and the reminder that every moment with her is a gift.
>>>>
“Boots off.”
Those words are first. They are before hello, they are before a kiss. She knows that when Daddy’s boots come off, he is home to stay.
She couldn’t understand why Daddy was gone for so long. She didn’t know that it was just field work and that he’d be back in a few weeks. She didn’t understand why we couldn’t always talk to him, but when she opened the coat closet and saw the empty space where Daddy’s boots are supposed to be - that she understood.
I’m fine with talking about Daddy’s work in terms of his boots because I know that someday she’s going to ask harder questions to answer than, “where are Daddy’s boots?”. At two years old, she doesn’t understand that her Daddy is a part of something bigger, but she knows everybody wears the same clothes. She doesn’t know what sacrifice means, but she knows what it looks like. She doesn’t know that he could die. She doesn’t know her Daddy is a soldier. And all of those things, those questions and fears that make my stomach turn inside out, she will have them someday. She will eventually realize what it means when we see people without legs and missing arms at the grocery store. She will understand that the fear surrounding her Daddy’s job isn’t like the monsters in her closet, it’s reality. She will come to terms with that reality – but not today.
Today, if you were to ask her about Daddy, she would tell you that he has a nice hat and big boots, and drives trains (strykers, trains, same thing.). She would tell you that he holds her hand and that they ‘nuggle before bed every night. She would tell you that he is silly and has big socks. She would tell you that he is her world.
She cried big crocodile tears the day he had to go back to work after 2 back to back months of training in the field. We have since given her distinctions – “work” means he’s home for dinner, “mission” means he’s going to be gone for a while – but distinctions won’t prepare our little Daddy’s girl for a deployment. Nothing is going to prepare her for Daddy’s boots to be gone for months and months. I’m not going to tell her that he is fighting bad guys. I’m not going to tell her that he might not come home. But there will be no way to avoid the empty space where Daddy’s boots go.
And when the time comes that she asks so sweetly where Daddy’s boots are, I will tell her as simply as I can. ”Daddy’s boots are being brave, baby. We will see them soon.”
——————–
Month of the Military Child- Preparing Kids for Deployment
By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.
~Benjamin Franklin
April is Month of the Military Child. Since Huzzy and I don’t have children, I put out a call for guest bloggers to help out. I originally wanted to do a guest blogger every Monday, but I had so many fantastic responses that you’ll see a guest blogger every Monday and Thursday!
My third guest blogger is fellow sub wife Chelsey at the bubblehead bride.
——————–
Hi! I’m Chelsey. I am a Navy wife, new mom to the worlds sweetest little boy, and dog mom to two naughty fur-babies. I consider myself the coordinator of all that is crazy in our household, and really…sooo that entails pretty much everything! I am a bit sassy…a bit funny….and a lot sarcastic! I am so excited to be over here at Wife of a Sailor to tell you a little bit about my life as a military wife raising a military child!
Chelsey from the bubblehead bride
As a new mother I am plagued with concerns for my son. Is he eating enough? Is he developing on track? Is he suppose to be doing that?!? It’s normal for mothers to worry about their children. It’s what we do. It’s why we’re mothers. As the mother of a military child, though, I have found that my worries reach far beyond that of any regular mother.
When I married my husband (and the United States Navy) I knew what I was in for. Having survived an eight-month submarine deployment, a brief stint in the shipyard, and routine sub duty, I figured there were few surprises in store for me. Simply put, I knew how to be a Navy wife.
When our son came along, on shore tour, I realized that everything I thought I had figured out about this lifestyle was no longer important. Gone were the days of living on chocolate ice cream and red wine. Now I am responsible for feeding my little person a healthy and nutritious dinner. No longer was I going to be able to fill my abundance of free time with reading books, girls nights with fellow Navy wives, and quality time with my DVR. I could no longer just focus on getting myself through. I realized that I was now responsible for someone else. And it was important that he more than “got through”. Thus began my mission to make my son (and future children’s) lives as happy and routine as possible…with or without daddy.
With the help of Pinterest and some other “super Navy moms” that I know, I have long been preparing myself for how I am going to handle raising military children. We have books we can read, like When Dad’s At Sea by Mindy Pelton and My Dad’s a Hero by Rebecca Christiansen and Jewel Armstrong. Many moms that I know have created Daddy Dolls, which allow their children to still have daddy with them even while he is away. The web is full of endless resources for military families, and most importantly military children. Websites like www.deploymentkids.com have free patriotic printables, military puzzles and games, and ideas for deployment journals to help children get out their thoughts and feelings about deployment.
One thing we can all agree on is that this is not an easy lifestyle. All families have their unique challenges and there are days when all you can do is pray that tomorrow will be better. The one thing we can rely on, though, is that we are all one big military family, and together even the insurmountable tasks seem manageable.
They say it takes a village to raise a child and that’s exactly what we are doing in the military. Together we are raising a village of miniature heroes that can be proud of themselves, their country, and their daddy and mommy.
I am in no way affiliated with and/or receiving any perks from the mentioned websites and products. I just think they’re awesome on my own.
——————–
