Imagine drowning.
Not in water, though.
Imagine one baby using your hair as leverage to stand while the other baby nurses for the 8th time in an hour and repeatedly uses their tiny talons to claw at your collarbone, meanwhile the rice is burning on the stove, your potty training toddler is screeching something about underwear, two week’s worth of laundry is piled on your mudroom floor waiting to be sorted, your to-do list is too long to fit on a sheet of notebook paper, 16 texts need answering, there’s been a whole lot of crashes coming from the play room where your preschooler and kindergartener are playing (read: trying to maim one another), and your leg is still smarting from when you tripped on the stairs after stepping on a toy dragon.
A snapshot of a single moment in your day of 1440 other minutes like this one.
Drowning in lists, drowning in dishes, drowning in life.
Anybody who breathes has moments like this, but parents of young children particularly have moments like this. Sometimes it is a single moment, sometimes it is many moments.
Sometimes, you’re a parent to five young children and your spouse is deployed for a year. And then most moments are like this.
In my previous post, I gave this advice:
Don’t internalize the struggle.
Do not shove it all inside.
You do not have to act like everything is fine all. the. time.
In a nutshell, forcing it down until you explode isn’t helpful. Imploding–also not helpful. As human beings, as mothers, and especially as military (or contractor) spouses we are often told to stop complaining because we signed up for this. And then we stay silent, we never process, and our kids and our husbands usually feel the brunt of when we can keep it together no longer. Don’t share with everybody, but share with someone.
But let’s be real: that advice is vague and open ended and sometimes we need some practical and actually actionable tips to help us keep it together. Without further ado, 16 actually helpful tips to survive a deployment of any length with any number of children:
1. Only start one good habit at a time.
It’s not attainable to start doing all the good things all at once. After my husband left, I basically (gently) tossed my kids in bed with a song, a prayer, and a hug and a kiss every night. I was too worn down from the rest of the day to do anything more.
Shortly after, I decided I needed to make our bedtime routine more routine-ish, so I added stories and PJs and bath time and tidying up their rooms. Crashed and burned is putting it nicely because I was too tired to function by bedtime. So I cut it all back out for six months and kept with the tossing them in bed routine.
Then one day, I added in a bedtime story–just one. We all loved it! It was manageable and it became a habit. Once we had it down, I added in practicing our school memory verse, and we just added one good habit at a time until we had a routine I could manage and we were all happy with.
Maybe you’re trying feed your children more nutritious food–don’t start by changing your entire menu, start small with something like cutting out food dyes or adding in raw milk. If you’re trying to be more conscious about the clothes you wear, don’t throw out everyone’s polyester wardrobes and replace them exclusively with merino wool and linen (a dream of mine, I’ll admit), just replace items with natural fabrics like cotton, wool, or linen as you need new ones. Buy them secondhand–you can find them on Mercari or at Goodwill. Trying to overhaul anything is valiant, but if it’s too much for you to stick with, it’s not going to work for your family.
Bedtime mom hack: I still don’t put my kids in PJs, I put them in clean clothes for the next day so when we’re all groggy and I have to drag them out of bed in the cold at 6:45 in the morning, they’re already dressed.
2. Feed yourself nourishing food.
If you are not well fed, you will not function optimally. Of course we all want to do this, right? But who has time? Not I, said the exhausted and overextended mother.
Here’s how I do it when I don’t have time or energy to cook: snack plates as meals. Think fat + protein + carbs. Meat and dairy are very nutritionally dense but it’s really important that they’re great quality (grass fed meat, raw dairy). There’s so much more to the topic of nourishing foods that I can’t cover here so this is only a few ideas for simple, balanced, no prep meals.
-Fats: avocado, raw/grass fed butter, raw cheese, raw milk, eggs, coconut oil, yogurt
-Protein: cottage cheese, eggs, grass fed meat. I like buying grass fed, organic sausages because they’re delicious and require no effort to cook. I also eat a lot of steaks from our half cow that we purchased from our local farmer. Quality (grass fed, grass finished, free range, no hormones or antibiotics) animal products are very nutritionally dense!
Carbs: fruit, sourdough bread, a leftover muffin, carrot sticks, applesauce, sprouted oats
3. To help manage stress, start drinking adrenal cocktails.
This needs a better name, like anti-stress juice. Our adrenals (stress regulators) are bound to be fatigued; this needs no explanation. When our adrenals are overstressed it leads to all sorts of issues including tiredness and trouble managing stress–and we need energy and the ability to manage stress well! Adrenal cocktails support your adrenal glands and are made up of three components: whole food vitamin C, potassium, and sodium.
There are different recipes online but really it’s a very simple drink. I make mine with 1/2 100% orange juice (vitamin C), half unsweetened coconut water (potassium), and about 1/2tsp of Redmond’s real salt (sodium and vital minerals!) which does not make it salty, it only enhances the flavor. This helps me sleep better, gives me energy without a caffeine crash, and tastes great. Eat with a fat/protein snack if you’re concerned about how it affect blood sugar.
*Note: good quality salt is absolutely key here. All salt gives sodium but regular table salt has no minerals and our bodies need the minerals and electrolytes good salt provides. I recommend Redmond’s real salt; you can buy it from Amazon, many grocery stores, or their website.
4. Plan things to look forward to.
Looking forward to things, even very simple things, helps me get through the hard moments. Sure, spontaneity is great, but if you don’t plan things, there’s nothing to look forward to…
I plan:
– Something nice for every day (examples: on the day my older three are in school, I make myself a nice coffee or a raw milk hot chocolate. My evenings are exclusively sit down by myself times, no work, so I always at least have that nice thing to look forward to. Sometimes it’s a piece of cake I’m saving for nap time or a dinner I know the kids will love)
– A fun way to get out of the house once a week (examples: on Tuesday after school we go to a lovely local grocery store and get a cookie that we eat in their cafe. It costs $4, it only takes about an hour, and the kids love it. Also, cookies.)
– Something to look forward to every month (examples: My parents are coming to visit this weekend. Or we’re getting takeout from my favorite Thai place. Maybe we’re taking a mini day trip down to a nearby city.)
5. Count in larger increments.
He’s not coming home in 40 weeks, he’s coming home in 9 months. It’s not 50 days, it’s 7 weeks. It’s not 23,040 minutes, it’s 16 days. Unless somehow counting in minutes makes you feel better because it’s a smaller increment–then you enjoy that. You get the point.
6. Eat breakfast within 30 to 60 minutes of waking up.
I hate this piece of advice. Why? Of course I’d love to wake up and make myself a nice candlelit breakfast and savor it in peace, but you want to know what my mornings look like? I’ll spare you the drama; all you need to know is unless I’m up at 4am, this is impossible. But it’s very important for my hormonal health to at least get something of quality in my body.
If you’re not hungry upon waking up, this could be a sign your metabolism is shot and your body is running on stress hormones (which would be totally understandable). If this advice is as absolutely unachievable for you as it is for me, find a local herd share program and yourself some raw milk–it’s so easy to pour a glass and it’s great quality protein, fat, and carbs. Make lots of muffins (and hide from the ravenous wolves) so you can grab a quick one upon waking. Eat a handful of cashews. Just try to get something good in you; it will make a huge difference in how your body burns fuel throughout the day!
7. Teach your kids how to be bored.
It’s certainly easier to start young on this one so because when children are used to having activities planned for them around the clock, boredom is particularly hard. Really, boredom is a skill! Give them lots of unstructured play time–for my kids, this is multiple hours every day. They play outside, build forts, take a bath, color pictures, run around like hooligans. If they’re bored I’ll suggest activities and sometimes we’ll cook together or go to the park but usually I just tell them to go find something to do…and then they do!
It’s not sustainable for you alone to entertain your kids around the clock. If your kids do not know how to be bored, prepare to listen to them complain for awhile–their complaining is less than enjoyable to listen to but they’ll realize pretty quickly that finding a way to play is much more fun than whining.
8. Set a bedtime and stick to it.
My 3, 5, and 6 year olds go to bed at 7pm. 3 falls asleep immediately, 5 and 6 play upstairs quietly for an hour or so. Then I feed my twin babies and get them down about 8. I used to be flexible with this to add some “fun spontaneous” time in the evenings to watch a movie or whatever but I began to realize around 7, I stopped being a fun mom and I started becoming a you-need-to-go-to-bed-right-now-or-I-might-pull-my-hair-out mom.
Some nights they go to bed later, and often those are the nights I feel like I’m spiraling. But I can told it together until 7pm–that is my daily goal, and sticking to it helps keep me sane.
9. Set a rest time and stick to it.
My kids stop napping between the ages of 2 and 3 but we still do rest time in the afternoon for all of them. The timing changes but they usually start rest time around 2pm and get up between 4-5pm, depending on how much rest happens and how much complaining about being bored happens. The little ones nap and this is the time for the older kids to play independantly.
I don’t really mind what they’re doing as long as they’re relatively quiet and they clean up afterwards. Be warned: if you skip rest time sometimes and your kids realize skipping it is an option, they will fight you on it, so consistency is key.
10. Eat the same thing every day for one meal a day.
That’s the summary, anyway, and what I really mean is choose one meal a day where you have two or three easy, filling, nutrient dense meal options that you rotate through. I do this for breakfast and it’s only for the kids; I usually eat something else. I do not cook three meals a day. Cooking a meal takes me between 1-2 hours between prep and clean up (thanks baby led weaning twins!). I do not have up to 6 hours a day for food. This is what I do instead:
Breakfast- I have two options and they are filling, easy, nutritious, can be customized, and I make sure to always have the ingredients in. Every day my kids eat a variation of one of these two things. 1) Yogurt, applesauce, homemade granola. 2) Oatmeal.
I use organic yogurt, unsweetened applesauce, and I make my own granola so I can control the ingredients (takes 20 minutes and lasts a week.) Oatmeal can be gross but there are so many ways to make it; there will be a way your kids will like it. I use organic sprouted oats (super cheap at Costco!), maple syrup, salt, cinnamon and water/milk as my base and then add it banana, blueberries, hemp hearts, chia seeds, coconut etc. On Saturdays we do buttermilk pancakes as our special breakfast. This routine takes the stress out of what’s for breakfast when you were up 16 times the night before and all your kids are screaming because they’re hungry, and I always know my kids are getting something easy and nutritious at least one meal a day.
Lunch/dinner- We rotate between a cooked meal, snack type plate, and leftovers.
11. Get a speaker.
What? I’m serious. Get yourself a good speaker and play music that fills your soul while you make breakfast, while you do dishes, while you tidy up toys. Listen to music that encourages you or listen to music that breaks your heart and reminds you the beauty and pain of having real, human emotions. Feel. Dance. Listen to VeggieTales with your kids. Watch your babies bounce up and down with their hands in the air to Jesus rap. My spotify wrap said I listened to 45,000 minutes of music last year and it really did fill my soul.
12. Do less.
Hah! What useless, impractical advice. I get it, I do! Right after my husband deployed, I tried to do something fun out of the house with the kids every day, whether it was going to the grocery store for a treat, or to the park, or to Home Goods. It was fun, and it helped us cope, but over a year it is not sustainable. After a couple of months, I was exhausted. Bed times were getting pushed back because I was often doing these fun things in the evenings to make it through the challenging post-nap, pre-bedtime hours. Fun is fun until you’re burnt out because you’re too busy. PS. Your kids can get exhausted and need rest from fun activities too.
There are also ways to do less of the not-fun things. Some things we do:
-Utilize grocery store curbside pick up. Kroger offers this free with a $35 minimum and I hear you can do this with Aldi, Target, etc. too. I actually really love taking all my kids to the grocery store with me, but I rarely have two hours to do so.
-Get groceries online. I buy much of my produce through Misfits Market (they do produce, meat, dairy, and pantry) and I find Thrive market (mostly pantry items, also some meat) doesn’t have fantastic savings once you factor in membership costs, but it’s all great quality, it’s good prices, and it’s super convenient.
-I stopped folding/hanging my kids clothes. Now they each have a bin and I toss all their clothes in their bin; it takes less than 10 minutes to put away their laundry.
-I got rid of a ton of their toys. They didn’t play with them, they brought me no joy, they were essentially clutter. So much less clean up!
-I gave my kids small, manageable chores. My six year old takes out the trash and my four year old puts the new trash bag in the can. All my kids clean up their own rooms. They put their dirty dishes in the sink and help sort laundry. I get them involved in other household tasks too but I would say that is more for the sake of my children than it actually is helpful for me…
-Get a Roomba. Nobody feels good when their floors are dirty and nobody has time to vacuum daily. A robot to do it for you is the best money you’ll ever spend.
13. Make your coffee work for you.
Starting your day on caffeine and an empty stomach might give you a short burst of energy, which we all need, but it can spike your blood sugar and mess with your hormones, affecting you for the rest of the day. Save the caffeine for after you have eaten breakfast or at least put something nutritious in your belly. When you do drink coffee, you can make it so it gives you nutrition and tastes delicious. Here’s how I make my coffee:
1/2 raw milk, 1/2 coffee heated over the stove + a scoop of collagen, an egg yolk, splash of vanilla, pinch of salt, maple syrup, cinnamon. This gives me 16 grams of protein in my coffee and it’s really rich and tasty.
PS. If you’re in need of a quick burst of energy, try an orange, or an adrenal cocktail (OJ, coconut water, good quality salt), or food (which is far more sustainable energy!)
14. Don’t renovate your house.
It will suck you dry. Time, energy, money–gone! I joke, but also I don’t. I will say, it was a fabulous distraction and my older kids did awesome, but I wish I had spent more time with my babies. My husband coming home to see it for the first time–worth it! Would I do it again? I mean, is there ever a convenient time to renovate a house? So maybe do renovate your house, but think hard about this one.
15. Find a community, and if you’re struggling to do this, make the first move.
Wow, this is so much easier said than done. How many moms have you passed where you think, I’d like to be her friend, but nobody ever makes the first move? Make the first move. I’ve asked moms in line behind me at Costco to the park, I asked the preschool director at my kids school to lunch (spoiler: she’s now my best friend!), I’ve asked moms at the park for their phone numbers so we can get together later. A mom from our school stopped me in the parking lot and invited me to her house, and we totally hit it off.
Great ways to find community:
– Go to the park, especially a local park because the other families there are probably your neighbors
– Join a community group at church
– Go to the YMCA and join a class. You will get to know the people you work out with every week.
– Find local Facebook groups for military spouses, moms who want to have play dates, etc.
– Be bold enough to start the conversation–kids are the best conversation starter because they’re instant small talk, instant connection, and you don’t seem like a creep when you have kids with you. Try: Hi, I love your daughter’s bow! How old is she? We should meet at the park sometime–my kids (and I) love to make new friends!
These ladies, friends from church, our small group, our neighbors, family close by–what a beautiful
example of the community God designed us to crave. I promise you that the lonely mom at the playground wants to start a conversation just as much as you do, so be bold and start the conversation. Community is absolutely essential always, and especially when you are dealing with a deployment and young children.
16. Get a basket with a lid for your kids’ crap.
There is no better way to say it. Kids love to take their stuff, move it, and forget about it. Sometimes they’re actually playing with the items, sometimes they literally just pick it up and dump it somewhere else. Why? If only I knew. What I do know is this–you will go crazy trying to pick up after them. If you don’t care then it’s a nonissue, but for me physical clutter leads to mental clutter. I need to have my house in order!
Here’s what you can do instead: Get a big basket with a lid. When your kids dump and forget it, toss it in the basket. When the basket is full (or before) tell your kids to go through it and put their stuff away, and if they haven’t done it in, say, two days, anything still in the bin gets donated. If they don’t care enough to put it away, you don’t need to keep it. The method starts working about the age of 3.
A final tip:
Do what works for you.
Don’t take my advice if you read it and think there’s no way you could make it work. I’ve read plenty of great advice from other moms that I’d never personally implement.
All kids are different. All moms are different. All families are different.
But I understand what it feels like to look into a seemingly endless deployment, drowning before he’s even left, and wonder how on earth you’re going to even survive, let alone thrive.
Give it a couple of weeks.
Those weeks drag on into what feels like lifetimes when you’re plodding through, trying desperately to stay afloat, and then suddenly, one day, you realize your toes can skim the bottom, your feet can rest on solid ground. You’ll find a routine that works, you’ll find friends who you can share your heart with, and you’ll realize that you’re doing it.
You’ll spend Tuesday mornings on your knees, drinking Indian tea with your best friends and snuggling babies. You’ll feel the love of God tangibly wrap around you as you take the trash out alone on a freezing Sunday night. You’ll experience firsts with the bakery staff at the local grocery store instead of with your husband–like laughing, watching your twins taste their first cookies–and it will be okay because these strangers who have become your friends are special parts of your life too. You will watch your babies grow before your very eyes, your toddler will sprout into a little boy, your daughter’s talents will flourish, your six year old will amaze you with wisdom you didn’t know a child could possess.
You’ll hardly be able to see your computer screen as you type through tears of immense gratitude for this journey.
My husband is coming home in four days.
Just thinking about it, my heart might explode–explode with gratitude, with excitement, with so many big emotions from such a big year. How can I be so grateful for twelve months of pain and stress and drowning and absolutely chaos? I have grown, I have changed, and God used this year to show me how loved I am. How loved my kids are. How essential it is to have best friends, a community who knows us, a school where my children are nurtured, and a husband who has sacrificed tirelessly so that we can have this beautiful life.
How beautiful it is to feel these things.
How beautiful it is to know how strong you can be, how strong you are.
Thank you, Jesus, for this deployment.
Thank you that you are bringing him home.
We did it!
(Now to prepare for the next adventure, coming soon…!)
(PS. I knowww what you are thinking and it is definitely not another baby.)
*A note on food choices, since I talk a whole lot about nutrition: we get everything we can from local farmers. We live in Ohio where we can purchase a grass fed + organic half cow that is cheaper, pound by pound, than the conventional beef we see at grocery stores. We don’t eat conventional meat or any conventional dairy products–they can be adequate nutrition but I would by no means say they are nutritionally dense. These products can be hard to find and honestly, getting most of them from a grocery store is just too expensive unless you’re rolling in dough, which we all are–right? Hah! Local farmers are the key. Google can help point you towards a local farm where you can get pasture raised meat, and realmilk.com can help you find raw dairy near you. Some of these farmers will also sell local fruits and vegetables or be able to point you towards someone who does. Look up CSAs (community supported agriculture) near you. Local is almost always better for you and your wallet, not to mention you are supporting small farmers! When you and your kids are fed well, you will sleep better, have more energy, get sick less, generally feel better–all things you so desperately need during such a draining period of your life!
You can do this. You can absolutely do this.