For example:
There are 14 days until Thanksgiving Leave
There are 22 days until Navy beats Army
There are 47 days until Christmas Leave
There are 152 days until Spring Break
And so on.
This was supposedly a coping mechanism to get through the year, so we wouldn't crack under the stress of deployments and other things once we hit The Fleet. But these days, deployments aren't set in stone. Even if you have orders, you know they're subject to changed based on a lot of different variables. Ever wonder why there are so many "deployed dad suprises kids" videos? Because the first time you tell your kid, "Mommy or Daddy will be home in 184 days" and it turns into "185," it's not so bad... but then it becomes "188," and then "186," and then "192." And not only are you going nuts, but your kid is falling apart.
When I was the deployed parent, I used to count paydays. The number was smaller, which I found less depressing and easier to count. This worked well for me, but the kids really don't see that. So now that I'm the one home with the kids, here's what we count:
That's right, we count down bags of dog food. In our house, one 35 pound bag of dog food lasts roughly 2 weeks, depending on how much we run the dogs. Feeding the dogs is my 12 year old's job. So each day, he scoops out two bowls closer to having his step-father back. My 2 year old can see the food going down in the container, so it works pretty well for her, too. And rather than focusing on a fixed number of days, this helps them visualize the "guesstimate" aspect that always comes with the end of deployment.
We are down to two bags of dog food left in this deployment.
Thank goodness!
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