« I made a wish and got the unexpected! | Main
Hugs and kisses in a cheese shaker?
By elaine | October 10, 2011
As a military speaker in the area of family readiness, the cool thing is that I get to share amazingly great simple things that families are doing to stay connected when deployments separate them. What’s my expertise? Having interviewed over 3200 military families and seen what they do firsthand. My job as both a military speaker and author is to bring you the best of all those ideas. So how do families stay connected? Check out these ideas:
1. During deployment, a toddler missed her daddy’s hugs and kisses when she was tucked into bed. So Mom took a cheese shaker jar and filled it with slips of paper with “X’s” and “O’s” on them. At bedtime she shakes the jar over her daughter and says that these are Daddy’s kisses and hugs to send her off to sleep.
2. I’ve been told of many ways to send your voice across the miles such as small recordable picture frames, alarm clocks, recordable discs in stuffed animals or in Daddy Dolls (for the deployed parent’s voice), and of course Skype where available. Sometimes only 10 seconds of voice can bridge thousands of miles.
3. Handwritten letters are becoming more and more appreciated by loved ones many miles apart. Especially now
that they are breaking down communications centers in Iraq, but troops are still there. To encourage her child to write, one mom helped her son create his own personal stationery using a publisher program. She made it a self-mailer to ease the mailing process. Her child loved using this to write his special notes.
4. Even pets get into the act. One woman writes “We gave our dog a new “comfort toy” while my husband was gone. A comfort toy could be anything that belonged to my husband like an old slipper or a shirt (with his scent on it) knotted up like a chew toy.”
When I speak at family readiness conferences or yellow ribbon events I get to share so many of these awesome ideas with my audiences! Sharing heartwarming ideas is the next reason why I think it’s great to be a military speaker. See samples of more great ideas from my books at www.ImAlreadyHome.com or click here to read more about what it’s like to be a military speaker.
Topics: Deployment Readiness, Military Speaker | No Comments »