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Things To Do During Deployments

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Things To Do During Deployments

I am by no means an expert in coping with deployments, but over the past eight years I have learned some tips and tricks that help me manage. To clarify, I started out my army spouse journey without kids and have now had two along the way so I can share tips for both situations.

Get a Pet

If you like animals and don’t already have a pet – get one! I got a puppy just before my husband left for his first deployment. It filled a lot of my free time and got me out on hikes, to parks, and dog-friendly restaurants throughout the deployment! I was in a new city and making adult friendships is HARD so anything that helps get you out and about is so helpful!

Gym Membership / Exercise Routine

Get a gym membership. You may not get gung-ho about working out but it is a social place that you can go to and decompress. Whether that’s just jumping on the treadmill (my go-to) or doing a full circuit workout and relaxing in the sauna after is a way to fill excess time that you would normally spend with your significant other S.O. See how I maintain this now with kids below.

DIY / Design 

House projects! I re-tiled our fireplace during our first deployment. It was a PROJECT and one that I had never done before. But, it helped me mentally and physically do something productive. I love DIYing and it is satisfying once you are done. I learned a TON during the process that I ended up getting to teach my husband at our next house when we retiled that fireplace. It was stressful but it gave me a purpose, direction, and killed a lot of time when I would get home from the office.

Work

Get a job! I worked full-time at a doctor’s office as a receptionist while I was waiting to get my MCAT results and decide if I truly wanted to pursue my MD (in the end I decided against it. I will publish a post about this later.) Whether you want to work full-time or just part-time, a job will help you establish your independence, particularly when you have a lot of free time during deployments if you don’t have kids or if all of them are in school already!. Also, and most importantly, it can help you make friends outside of the military! I love my military family, we are very close even with the attrition on my husband’s team, but having a separate group of people to interact with helps you escape the army bubble and get involved in more activities!

Explore Hobbies

Try out new things! You have so much free time, especially without kids. Try not to sit around watching Netflix with all of it. Try gardening, painting/drawing, woodworking, photography, DIY, crafting, scrapbooking…even blogging!

Standing Weekly / Monthly Get Togethers

It is arguably so much harder to find extra time when you have kids during a deployment. You literally never get a break. Even as a working-mom, I find it hard to find time to do even the little things, and activities just take that much longer because you are doing everything. Changing all of the diapers, getting everyone dressed, packing the diaper bag with diapers, wipes, bottles, snacks, drinks, toys…the list goes on. BUT, what I have done for the past couple of deployments is create a standing “pizza night” with my girlfriend whose husband is also on the same schedule as mine. So the guys deploy together and then we get together every Friday night with our kids and hang out, have a cocktail and eat pizza. We both look forward to it and it helps set us off for the weekend. 

Also, my husband is on a team of roughly twelve so we have a small group of ladies to hold get togethers. Typically, during deployments we plan to get together as a larger group with all of our kids about once a month. It helps us all feel a little sane, share information (everyone hears something different usually) and get support with anything you need! So many of the amazing women I have had the pleasure of knowing through this have been so helpful if I need a sitter for a bit, someone to vent to, plan playdates, and we all try to return the favors when we can. 

Church / Weekend Activity

Depending on the time of year the deployment is during (our deployments are only 6 months) filling weekend spaces can be difficult. I try to bring the kids to church every Sunday. That is something that gets us out of the house and is our main activity for the day (sad but true). Taking two under 2 to church by yourself is hard, but the community is typically so amazing and helpful/understanding that you feel an overwhelming sense of support. We don’t make it every week, sometimes naps just aren’t aligning with mass times and inevitably, you will be in survival mode for most of the deployment. Give yourself grace with what mentally makes you feel better. If you can make it one week but don’t make it for 5 months after that, I think that is absolutely okay. Solo parenting is HARD! You can’t always do it all, but taking some time to reflect on what you’re grateful for, maybe read a passage out of the bible, or even listening to a self-growth podcast if religion isn’t your thing! You can find some comfort in feeling like you reflected on yourself, others, your family, as well as things that you are in control of and things you are not. 

Self-Improvement Challenges

While I was pregnant during one of our deployments, I took full advantage of lent and set an exercise and reading challenge. I told myself I had to get on the treadmill for a minimum of 20 minutes every day (I also did a 30-day challenge with my SIL and some of her friends to do a 30-day pregnancy workout challenge) or go on a long walk outside, as well as read every day (even if it was just one page!). I ended up enjoying it so much that I have continued to set 30-day challenges or just general challenges for myself whether it is during a deployment or not.

Wat do you do to pass the time during deployments?

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Childcare Resources for Military Families

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Childcare Resources for Military Families

For those of you mamas looking for some childcare, whether it be full-time or part-time, on-call, or one-off assistance, there are a lot of options for military families to take advantage of. In my opinion, the best option is always a referral, however, when you don’t have family, and your friends are in the same military family situation as yourself, it can be hard to find referrals for sitters. 

On-Base Day Care

There are several resources for military families. On-base childcare is the main option, with part-time and full-time options available. 

The main sticking point with this is availability, capacity limits, and extremely long wait lists. My two kids have been on the waitlist for about 9 months now and they essentially told me my infant would never make it to the top of the waitlist as infant spots are much harder to come by.

My daughter received a spot but my son was 4 months behind her. Most people, including myself, cannot afford to pay for my daughter to go to daycare and have a nanny watch my son. They don’t bump your second child up on the waitlist either. They basically tell you “tough”.

His first birthday will be here before we know it and then he will be in the next category which, according to the childcare personnel, will make spots easier to come by. 

The main reasons that I have my kids on the waitlist for base childcare is that the costs are significantly lower than traditional off-base daycare options, and the hours are pretty great (6am-6pm – this may vary from base to base). 

Also, I live very close to base so convenience-wise, this is a great option, and I can also count on my husband to be able to drop the kids off when he’s home. 

If both kids ever get off the waitlist around the same time I will let you know how I feel about their childcare!

Off-Base Day Care Subsidy Program

For those that are unaware, the military has a day care subsidy program. If you are unable to get into daycare on base, they will subsidize the cost of the day care program you are paying for. 

It is called, MCCYN Fee Assistance Program and you can find out more about it here: https://public.militarychildcare.csd.disa.mil/mccu/ui/#/mccyn. I had a friend utilize this program. 

Even if you can afford childcare without the subsidy, this is still a great program you can utilize as a military family, regardless of total income. 

Fee-Assistance Pilot Program for In-Home Care

What used to only be available in a couple of states, at a few bases, is now a program that any military family can now apply for. It allows for fee-assistance to families who utilize in-home childcare options. 

There are requirements and you must apply, but this is an option I am looking into further. You have to find a licensed in-home care provider that is willing and able to meet the requirements but this is a great option for larger families or unconventional work hour schedules. 

Military One Source is a great resource you can navigate to find out tons of information on childcare options for military families.

SitterCity.com

If you are looking for childcare in any capacity, full-time, part-time, on-call, one-offs, date nights, etc, SitterCity.com is a great option to find local childcare assistance. If you are familiar with Care.com, this is essentially the exact same thing. 

The perk of SitterCity.com is that as a military family you can utilize the services for free. I have found a babysitter through SitterCity. There are pros and cons but you can vet people very easily and find the price range and experience levels that you prefer and interview individuals. 

Are there any other resources that you have found? Share below!

Twelve Things – April Edition

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Twelve Things – April Edition

  • Television: Rewatching Vampire Diaries and Modern Family

Honestly, I didn’t think I could rewatch Vampire Diaries. I had tried several times before but just thought the first episode was so cringey! Then I powered through and remembered how great it was. I only made it to season 7, but I’ll probably rewatch it again all the way through at some point.

Modern Family, now that is just a classic, feel-good sitcom. I never really watched it when it aired live, but being able to binge it is so great. I love it!

  • Reading: Inside Delta Force, Being Mortal, Thinking Fast and Slow
  • Exercising regularly to increase my patience and attitude towards my kids meltdowns

I need to exercise in order to maintain mental clarity. It is much harder said than done. I will not exercise for a couple of weeks, get in a bad mood and realize it’s because I haven’t sweat it out. I really want to get better about this. Carving out time in my day to make exercising happen. I’m full of excuses at the moment but I need to get back to it!

  • Planning my hubby’s surprise 30th birthday party!

Needless to say, men are not great at keeping secrets. The party went great, (Chipotle catering was a huge hit) and everyone had a great time but I think the secret had been blown a few days before and there were some unexpected hiccups, but we did it!

  • Spring cleaning 🙂

Refreshing the house and all of those little things you don’t do weekly or monthly just feels so great. I will put together a Spring Cleaning Plan and link it here soon. This is not broken up specifically per day because I know you working mamas and stay-at-home parents can’t get it all done in one day or even one week, so I’ve just broken it up by room.

  • Pantry and fridge/freezer cleanout – making all the meals with what we currently have before doing a big grocery shop

I made a point of it, particularly while my husband was out of town for several weeks, to go through the fridge and pantry and try to make everything we had already before doing a large grocery shop. It’s so nice to reset the kitchen like this without being wasteful.

  • Spring has sprung and seed starting and garden / yard prep have begun

I try to plant most of the seeds that I can in seed trays about 6-8 weeks before the anticipated last frost. I’m new to gardening and am learning more and more every year. This year I’m focusing more on quality of specific plants ovr quantity of varieties. Although I still seem to have a lot of different plants, vegetables and flowers, I am planting more of each vegetable to hopefully produce a greater yield.

  • Preparing for my performance review at work – researching salary expectations, my performance, and outlining accomplishments.

This has been so eye opening. It can be very frustrating to not know what you should be making compared to others in your field. I met with several other women in my industry to discuss salaries and benefits to see where I fell and now I think I have a much clearer vision as to what I should be making. Now I have more confidence to go into my performance review and make requests.

Further, I have been motivated to go back through my accomplishments over the past three years I have been with this company. Business Development / Marketing can be difficult to accurately track performance if your company does not have a system already in place. Mine does not have a system so I have had to use the resources accessible to try and determine my performance. This hasn’t been easy and I don’t know the accuracy of the numbers I am pulling but this will be a great talking point during my performance review to discuss measurable goals and overall performance. There are several instagram accounts I follow that discuss women in the workplace, finances, and empowering people to get their worth. Here are two I particularly like: @shewolfeofwallstreet and @financesreimagined.

  • Outlining my personal and professional goals: writing everything out on paper and then creating a tracker using Google Docs/Sheets to put it down so I don’t lose it.

This is an evolutionary process and I am still working on figuring all of this out. I have considered a bullet journal to put my constant stream of ideas down into but just haven’t gotten there yet. There is an ease and simplicity to Google Docs to be able to access it from anywhere. Anyway, this is something I have been trying to focus on more and more recently. Discovering what my end-of-life goals are and trying to build a life that will get me there, keeping in mind my motivations, desires, etc. I will share an example of mine once I have this outlined a little more clearly in case you want to do the same!

  • Working on self-improvement goals. Both my husband and I are trying to map out some side-hustles, professional goals / desires, dream future, and what to look forward to over the next few months/years. 

Setting goals for yourself, and doing that with your partner, keeps you both on the same page as you grow (I think). Oftentimes I hear people saying “we just grew apart, I was so young when we got together I didn’t know what I really wanted”. I think keeping these lines of communication open and striving to grow individually and together is so huge when trying to find fulfillment. I know that I don’t want to be the same person I was at 18 when we met. But I also know that I want to be with this man forever, and I know there will be hard times, but maintaining that communication and those expectations helps us both to strive for greater and find fulfillment in ourselves. I also think that doing this together makes sure the other person doesn’t feel left behind when things start to change. You end up being in everything together. A team. And I love that.

  • Starting this blog! Pulling together post ideas, pictures, getting comfortable in front of the camera and behind it. 

Thank you for being here and reading this! I am learning so much through just these past couple of weeks! From building the site and learning WordPress, to writing posts and creating a list of topics, narrowing my focus a bit (can you tell I want to just talk about everything in here?!). This is truly a creative outlet for me. I had this dream of creating a portfolio of pictures of myself and my family that we can all look back on as we get older and this blog, instagram, pinterest, etc is such a great way to capture that. If you have requests for content, please share below or message me on insta!

  • Listening to my body. We feel that there are a lot of unknowns right now and sometimes I think I feel anxious about it. How can I remedy this discomfort? Exercise? Talking it out? A glass of wine? Take a bath?

Everybody handles stress differently. To my military spouses out there, we have so many unknowns sometimes. When is the next deployment? How long is it? How long is it really going to be? Can my spouse come to this summer wedding with me? Are we going to be moving within the next 6 months, 1 year? So so many unknowns and sometimes the stress of that really gets me down and finding the best way to relieve that discomfort can vary. Sometimes it’s getting together with other military spouses and venting about the frustrations (we all have them!), or it’s putting the kids to bed and enjoying a glass of wine in the tub or with my favorite TV show. Other times, if my husband is home, it’s tackling a house project! Totally varies!!

I want to thank you so much for being here. This is my monthly brain dump that encompasses all of the feels. Please share some of your favorite things from the month (whether it’s April like this post or December!).

Why I Decided to Go Back to the Office

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My Personal Story

I wanted to dedicate a post to why I chose to go back to work instead of being a full-time stay-at-home mom. I know this can be a controversial topic with mommy shaming on both sides. I am not here to do that, I am simply going to speak to my journey and decision that overall has been both difficult and stressful but in the end, what has been best for me. 

When I had my daughter it was during COVID and I was working part-time from home. Roughly 20 hours per week, give or take, and that overall was going pretty well. My husband was home for the longest he had ever been without a deployment or TDY (temporary duty station, essentially when they have to leave for an extended period of time for training or a new course). It was glorious. Once my husband deployed right around my daughters 6 month mark, I started taking on some more responsibilities at work that required increased hours. Still doable from home and watching her at the same time. However, once she got a little older, and honestly a little more demanding of my time and attention, managing conference calls and deadlines became a little more difficult. I was at a crossroads. Do I give my notice and just focus on parenting, or do I hire a nanny to help me manage?

I hired a part time nanny, a college student from one of the local universities. My schedule was rather flexible so I had her come anywhere from 0-18 hours per week and I could run errands, take conference calls, workout, go into the office if needed, and it was working really well. But with the added time, attention, and demand at work, my workload increased yet again. My nanny wasn’t able to give me full days to the extent that I needed them in order to travel up to Denver to meet with clients and get some of my business development duties accomplished. My boss was accommodating and didn’t demand anything from me, but my sense of responsibility to my clients (and many now friends) was looming over me. I wanted to be able to give more to my company and clients. I was also pregnant with my son at this point and knew I was going to want to take some maternity leave. But with two, I knew I couldn’t continue to give what I was giving to my job if I didn’t receive more help. 

I started searching for full-time nannies and discussed coming back to the office full time with management and they were more than happy to have me come back. They also accommodate me needing to work from home on Fridays. It really is an amazing company and group that I get to work for and with. 

Ultimately, the reason I decided that it was best for me to go back to work full-time instead of either being a full-time stay-at-home mom, or a full-time mom working from home, was my inability to feel like I could give 100% of myself to my kids all day and all night. When my husband is gone (sometimes 9-10 months out of a given year) there is absolutely no break for you when you are a stay-at-home mom. There is nobody to take over bedtime duties while you shower or clean up after dinner peacefully. There is nobody to watch the kids while you run to the grocery store or go meetup with a girlfriend for lunch or happy hour. I did not have the mental capacity to maintain this level of effort day in and day out for months at a time. I give mom’s who do that with military and traveling spouses the utmost respect because I feel it takes a very special, gifted person to do that. 

All-in-all, after paying my nanny, I really don’t bring much home in the name of a paycheck, but the mental break from parenting, the feeling of accomplishment and pride in an honest days work, and the adult interactions I engage in give me the reset and purpose that allows me to give more of myself to my kids when I am with them. Deployments become less of a survival mode and I can get myself into a healthier routine. If you are thinking about returning to work or just simply feeling overwhelmed by motherhood/parenthood, think about your mental health and what you need to feel refreshed. You are not alone, and your outlet may bring you so much joy and lead you to new adventures!

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