Daddy’s First Trip Away
Waiting to go home and see my baby!
I had to attend a conference in Quantico, VA this past week. I wasn’t particularly looking forward to the six hour drive, but I was especially not looking forward to being gone from Owen for a week. Though I am in the military and am used to deployments, this past week marked the first time I was away from my baby boy. I kind of looked at this conference as a trial run, to see how Owen and I did apart.
Even though we were separated, I called my wife once or twice a day, usually before he or I went to bed. My wife would put me on speaker phone and I would talk to Owen to see how he would react. My wife said that Owen would stare at the phone and flail his arms around in excitement. She even sent me a few photos of Owen grabbing his feet, playing with his new stuffed animal, and sitting his in Bumbo chair.
I know there are probably some readers out there that have dealt with multiple deployments away from their children. Unfortunately for me, I am going to join the legions of husbands/fathers that will have to go through deployments away from the family. I recently decided to stay in the military; prior to this, we were going to get out and move back to California. I’m not excited about spending 7-12 months away from my family, so I’d love to get some feedback on how some of the other dads have dealt with it. I’ve seen the bears where you can record your voice so your son/daughter can hug the bear and it talks to them or I’ve known dads to go old school and record tapes for their son/daughter to watch.
How have you dealt with being separated from your children?
