Anyone know of any good ones? Or maybe a book about dealing with deployment? Sure would be nice if there was a "Deployment for Dummies". I'm just looking for ideas on preparing my kids (3 & 4) for their daddy being gone for a year, among other things. Not that they really understand how long a year is, though. Anyway, links would be nice. Thanks.

most military support message boards I've been too suck, but maybe someone else has found better ones.

Let me go through my stuff I think there is a link to some family readiness things that have a good coloring book type thing for the kids.

thanks, califred.

Your age range is very different than mine, as my daughter was 1 when I deployed. I got a webcam set and we did our best to have webcam "dates" but whether or not it worked was spotty since the bandwidth was a problem. I never could get through ON a holiday so we did things like Christmas 2 days early.

We still have flat mommy (a life sized cutout of me - sortof like the ones you see in movie rental places) in the playroom. Every morning Johanna would give flat Mommy a kiss, and that helped her be okay with giving me a kiss when I returned. I'd been very worried that she'd "forget" me since she was so young when I left.

I also made a lot of little DVDs with me reading stories so she could have Mommy any time she wanted.

It was tough being gone, but I sent home pictures, took videos and mailed them home, and worked hard to keep lines of communication open. You'll probably have a bit harder time because your children are old enough to grasp a major difference in time.

My DH didn't *need* the help, but we also had Grandparents come down to visit for prolonged periods of time to help with showering of extra affection.

I really haven't been to any military specific support boards. I will say that it seemed the separation was harder on the home front. You get into such a routine while deployed that you almost zone out. But at home there are constant reminders of the parent who isn't there right now. Be very good to yourself, and make sure you get some support from folks around you so you can get breaks from solo parent duty.

Thanks, TrivialQueen. That was awesome. I love "flat mommy". I know I'm very lucky that I have family here to help. And I'm so glad he will have internet access. He is just such a great dad, and while I am, of course, worried about his safety, I'm also worried about things being different when he comes back. I plan on getting a bunch of pictures of him together and looking at them often with the kids. The group he is being deployed with is mostly from Baton Rouge (I'm 4 hours away), so there is no Family Readiness Group that i can do stuff with. Thankfully, one of my co-worker's husband is going too so she and I at least have each other, I guess.

That last sentence came out weird, but hopefully it still makes a little sense.

Raggedy,

Dh carried a mini tape recorder and would record throughout his day and send us the tapes. We would do the same and it helped to have Daddy's voice whenever we wanted it. We also did books on tape with Daddy reading ds's favorite books. I also made a small photo album of pictures of dh and dh and ds together. I taped the edges of the photo sleeves shut to protect the pics from ds and prevent him from losing them. (He was 1 1/2 and 2 1/2 for our deployments.) Ds slept with The Daddy Book every night and carried it around with him everywhere. I made the same thing for dh, it was about 4"x6" so he could easily tuck it into a bag and have it with him.
Just a few ideas that worked well for us. Good luck to you guys, stay busy and it will help the time go faster.

When did he join?

If you really can put up or at least ignore idiots try the other boards but it's hard, I will warn you. www.armywives.com is a good idiot start off point.

Great ideas, Lisa. Thank you.

Kiowa, he's been in the Natl Guard for about 10 years now. He's been overseas a couple of times to Germany, but of couse, that's nothing like this. And i will check that place out. I'm used to idiots. After all, there are plenty at Syberomoms.

I had no idea.

Yeah, but here you can call them idiots unlike other places.

True. I'll probably just read and not post, anyway.

I heard that Military One Source has boards but I've never investigated them since I'm not active duty anymore.

Even if they don't, I do know that site is really good for info...

I finally remembered a military board I was on once. When I was planning my wedding and was on "theknot.com" all the time, they had a Military Wives board. I thought it was so cool that they had a board for active duty women planning their weddings, then rapidly realized that it was for folks marrying INTO the military. So self-centered of me!

I don't recommend that board. I found it very frustrating to continually clear up the reality of military life, versus what these brides just knew to be true. I don't know where they got their information from, but it was rarely right.

www.military.com has message boards, but I don't know how much they're into family stuff. I don't know if its centered towards the members or the family more.