"Love you, miss you, see you tomorrow..."

Sixty days.
  
That is how close we are to being a family again. My husband is currently deployed to Iraq and with ten months down, my three children and I are almost to the finish line of this deployment.

Anyone that knows me, knows I am 100% a true American. By this I mean that I am so proud of the USA, I am so proud of the Military service men, and women. So I will be the last person to complain about the position my family and I are in. With that said, there are still moments though in this direction of life that break my heart.

The first couple months after my husband left were filled with activities, school, and holidays. We made sure to stay busy all the time, that the time seemed to moving very quickly. Pictures were always being drawn, and letters were always being wrote to send to 'Dad'. It was always brought up of how long we had to go, but never really questioned by any of the children of exactly how long. My daughter is 7, so she understands the meaning of a timeline. Then there is one son who is now 4, and the youngest son is 2. So a timeline to them does not mean a whole lot. So for them to not really question how long until dad came home was understandable.

Then the question came, from my then 3 year old. "Mom, why can't dad come home tomorrow?" it is hard to hear, especially from a child so young. How do you explain how long is left to a child that does not understand how long until the end of week. Nonetheless I attempted, I proceeded to tell him how dad is working and doing his part to protect us. That with his job in the Army, they say that he has to stay for 12 months. For us it was from one Halloween, to another.

My son would smile, and let the question go for a few days. He would ask again, and again I would explain to the best of my ability. Although hearing it never stops tugging on my heart, it does get to a point that it is just normal.

Then came the moment when my son was chatting via Skype with his dad. At the end of the conversation he blurted out, "love you, miss you, see you tomorrow!" and off he went to play. Now to me it does not seem like a huge deal to just let him go, but that process of thinking seems to have mixed reactions in the military life. There are others that think we should not allow him to just assume that one day his dad will be home, when the reality of it is, he may never see his dad again.

Now, I may just see this differently because my children are so young. With all the hardships children deal with these days, worrying about one of their parents dying, just seems like a bridge to be crossed if it were to ever happen.

Another tactic I have heard is to just keep it all from the children completely. Do not tell them where there parent is, or at least the dangers of why they are there. Now I may seem to contradict myself, but I do not agree with this either. I have explained to all three of my children that their dad is in Iraq, a place where there are many people that dislike him, and dislike many people in the United States. I explain that he is protecting us from those bad people, and making sure that they do not harm any of us here.

Understandably we all have different ways of dealing with situations. I just feel as though when it comes to life or death situations, especially with younger children, lets let them continue to say "love you, miss you, see you tomorrow!"