While Ben and I were in Boston over the summer, we stopped by Build-a-Bear and made both of the kids their own special bear with Ben's voice that tells each child individually that he loves and misses them. And yesterday while we were combing the mall like Mall Rats, we stopped into Hallmark and got each of the kids their own recordable storybook. Ben will record his voice reading the book so the kids can listen to Daddy reading them a bedtime story every night.
Military One Source is this amazing resource for all things military and one thing they do tremendously well is provide materials for parents to help their children cope with the stress, anxiety and sadness of deployment. Sesame Street has a video series about deploying that Military One Source provides to us as no cost. (There are no amount of words to express the gratitude for anyone [or organization] who genuinely takes a minute to think about and help children during this process.). As soon as Ben leaves, we will watch the video together. Finally we have the Daddy Doll. Albeit, kind of creepy but my kids love their daddy dolls. There is a clear piece of plastic and you are supposed to slide a face picture of your solider in there but then the doll goes from creepy to just downright weird. So we keep the smiling doll face instead. Our daddy dolls are going to go everywhere we go so, in theory, we can remember that even though daddy is far away, he is always with us.
Another organization that really goes above and beyond for kids is Kid Comfort Quilt by the YMCA. This is a national program where you turn in paperwork for each child and 9 pictures of them with their solider and in 5-6 weeks, these volunteers who donate their time, materials and talent, send you quilt (again, free of charge to the family) for the kids to wrap themselves in.
I will never cease to be touched by true generosity of a military community and all the people who just want to help.
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