Daddy Jars

It has been tough-going in these parts lately ~ especially for an 8-year-old that I know. He struggles so with his Dad not being here. Camden is a sensitive little guy, and the older he gets, he tries to hold it in, which never seems to work out for him.

Going through a deployment with children who are old enough to understand that Daddy is gone for a long period of time can be so heartbreaking at times, but I know it is nothing compared to what the boys feel on the inside.

For whatever reason, we've just come out of a particularly rough patch, where not only was Camden not wanting to talk to Steve, he wasn't wanting Steve's name mentioned. He said it made him too sad, so he was just going to try not to think about it. He worked it out in his own way though, and seems to be feeling a lot better lately.

I was trying to come up with something that would help the boys see that we were on the downswing of this deployment, and that Steve would be coming home soon. So I got some pint-sized canning jars and a big bag of M&M's. I have a general idea of when Steve will be back, so we counted out those days in M&M's. The added bonus was that we soon saw that the pint-sized jars were way too big, so we grabbed some 8-ounce jelly jars instead. I made some little labels for the jars, and now, each day, the boys take their jars off the shelf in the living room and take out an M&M, one day closer to Daddy being home again. I think the visual of it has helped them to understand that, slowly but surely, we are getting there.