I don’t want my kids wishing their time away while we wait for dad to come home. Our constant hustle and bustle and rush is impacting our ability to enjoy our time together, to just … be.ĭuring my kitchen epiphany, I realized something needed to change.

But in that moment in the kitchen, I realized: We’ve gotten too busy. My saving grace of getting through deployment has always been to stay as busy as possible. The truth is, we’ve all become so busy that it’s rare to find unscheduled time.

The days turn to weeks, weeks to months, months to years, and all of a sudden we’re longing for the times when the kids were littler, we were younger, life was “easier.” When was the last time you asked a mom with young children how she was doing? Did she tell you how much she’s enjoying each day and really relishing the time with her kids? Or did she tell you she’s tired, or my personal favorite response that I’m so guilty of using: “Busy, but good!”? Often it seems we are so focused on crossing off the day on the calendar that we forget to enjoy the day. I realized: As military families, we live our lives in countdown mode.Ĭountdown to the move, to the TDY, to when our household goods arrive, to when leave starts, when we get to see our families … the list goes on. What happened to being able to enjoy the moment? Alexa answered and I saw firsthand my son wishing the time away hoping the months on the calendar would somehow disappear. He immediately asked Alexa how many days until the day of his birthday. I went in and talked to our son and told him daddy would be home around his birthday. To be honest, I didn’t know an exact date either.

“Alexa,” he asked the Amazon Echo in the kitchen, “How many days until my daddy comes home?” Instead, what I heard next surprised, and immediately saddened, me. I slowly, carefully crept that way with the intention of surprising him. I expected to see my little guy bound into the family room, snuggle up on my lap and tell me about his “cwazy dweams,” but instead I heard his feet pitter patter to the kitchen. Birthday parties, practices, laundry, mandatory fun and multiple obligations - all the things that somehow unsuspectingly clutter our calendars on any given Saturday. I poured myself the first of what would likely be many cups of coffee, and for just a few moments, enjoyed a little silence before the chaos of the weekend would start. Custom+Military+Deployment+Countdown+Paper+Chain+by+AndreaArch,+$15.00, Ĭustom Jars, use candy, marbles, rocks, etc.It was a rare weekend morning where I was up before our two kids, ages seven and five. Here are 25 creative ways to countdown to homecoming. Hopefully, the countdowns are accurate but we know the military can LIE TO US. It gives you something to look forward to every morning knowing that you are one. Having a countdown to homecoming is fun for just the spouse or the whole family. It definitely helps to have a visual representation of when your service member is coming home. Instead of feeling sad that your deployed service member is gone, you feel excited for his return.

I love the idea of having a countdown to homecoming because it places a positive spin on things. You think it would be better after the halfway point, but IMO, it just makes you antsier. No matter if it’s a couple of weeks or a year, deployment seems like it takes FOR-EV-ER.

Military countdowns