Hello! We are starting to gear up for the big "D" and that means - lots of paperwork and crafting! If it were just Chris and I, this would be a breeze. However, we have a toddler to factor in, and soon, a newborn. I want to be sure to make this process as easy as possible on Conner. Lucas will be too small to remember any of it. I've talked to a few people who have been through it already and read a bunch of ideas on how to make deployment "fun", aka less depressing, on Conner. Despite the popular "Momma's boy" theory, he is ALL about his daddy. Maybe that has a little something to do with the fact that daddy has had to be away for good chunks of time throughout his almost 3 years of life. Either way, I'm going to make this deployment fly by for him as best I can by keeping him busy and sticking to our routine.
First thing I knew I wanted to accomplish was a countdown. I thought about just making myself a chalkboard countdown that said "Daddy Comes Home In XX Days", but come on. Conner is almost 3. He can count to 15 and that is that. Anything above that would mean a whole lot of nothing to him. He needs a visual way of seeing how far we've come and how much longer there is to go. I found the perfect DIY project for our visual countdown. It was simple, fairly inexpensive, and it's hands-on for the kiddo!
Aren't they cute? I got everything I needed for it from Wal*Mart. Two little vases, a small thing of ribbon, letter stickers, and some flat marbles. Everything was in the crafting section. I ended up getting two bags of the decorative marbles because I wanted to do the red, white and blue. One was a bag of different blues and one was a bag of red, pink and clear. I already threw the bags away or I would be able to tell you the exact names. You can change this project up so much to fit your family, though. Maybe your kiddos favorite color is green. They have those! Anyway, the most time consuming part of it all was to count out approximately 9 months worth if marbles. That's about 270, for those of you who are wondering.
So now that we have our little jars completed, we just wait for the 'see you later' to come. Every night before bed, Conner gets to take one marble from the 'Days to Go' jar and add it to the 'Days Completed' jar. He'll be able to watch the jar fill up while the other one empties and know that he is that much closer to daddy being home again! I have these set up on my little bookshelf in the living room right now. We'll be getting a picture of Chris and putting it in between these two jars so he can say goodnight to daddy every night as well. I can't wait to share all of our other projects with you! Stay tuned.
To give credit where it is due, I originally saw another version of this countdown for weight loss over here and then changed it for deployment. :)
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