How We Survive "Camp Week"

Once a year my husband takes off for 9 long days a week for Young Life camp. Now I am only speaking a a mom and wife of a husband who very rarely is gone out of town. I have absolutely no idea what it is like for all the super mama's out there who's husbands are gone frequently or even every week. I can't imagine. But for me and Eva, this has always been a hard week. Some of the more dramatic three year old lines this week were, "I don't think I can make it. Can you make it?" {spoken only minutes after Ryan had left} followed a few days later by, "Remember when I used to have a Daddy?" Oh, the sadness....

I've done this a few ways over the past 4 years. When Eva was a baby I kept her with me at home the whole week. The past 2 years we did more grandparent house hopping around. TWICE I have had to pack up my home and get us ready for the next big move during this time {let me say, that is no picnic}. I felt like this year though was our best "camp week" yet. I didn't take photos of all everything for the week, but we did do some good things. Here is how we survived:

1. Grandparents. God bless these wonderful people. This year Eva spent one night at my parent's and one night at Ryan's parents. For us, this was perfect. It left her get out to be spoiled. It gave me some snuggle one-on-one time with little man.

2. Plan some fun outings. We saw Inside Out at the movie theatre. We went to a live animal show at the Southlake Library. We went to the dentist. {Does that count as fun? Eva told me it was her favorite part of the week...} We went to the pool.

3. Plan some days at home. For my child, this is key. I have realized that Eva does SO.MUCH.BETTER. when she has some normal just hang out and do puzzles, paint pictures, and play with Barbie doll time. Overall we all sleep better. Our moods are all better. There is consistency, which is so important while Ryan is gone.

4. Meal plan. Figure out what will be the least stressful. I planned a few nights to eat out at places we like {Chick-fil-a} and I cooked only simple foods that I knew wouldn't create a dinner time battle or require much prep or clean up {tacos, macaroni}. We ate very little vegetables. We will survive.

5. Make a calendar or schedule. Eva LOVED this. I wrote out a piece of paper for each day and clipped them on a piece of yarn. We could read about all the things to look forward to and at the end of each day we took down that day's paper. It helped her be able to track time until her daddy was home.

6. Schedule friend time. Friend time for you. Friend time for your child. We saw so many wonderful friends this week! I appreciate everybody that made plans with us, I wish I had taken pictures with everybody to make a huge awesome collage, but I did not....also a big thank you to all my friends who sent check up texts to see how we were doing throughout the week! {Side Note: We live in the best neighborhood. We have lots of friends right here and that makes hanging out easier. We have tried to have this where we lived before and it just never happened. I think we know more than 15 families in our neighborhood, which is so awesome!}

7. Be thankful for technology! Face time. Texting. Phones with cameras that make it so easy to send photos and videos back and forth. This helps so much!

8. Pick up a few cheap movies or hit up Redbox so that you can be entertained with something other than watching Frozen for the millionth time.

9. Take about feelings. We did this a lot. I've realized that it helps both me and Eva to be able to communicate "I feel ____" Sometimes just verbalizing that she missed Ryan and felt sad helped curb some behavior issues. Also since we had seen Inside Out we could talk about the different emotions and help each other out. I wish there was a "Stress" character in that movie :)

10. Occasionally bride with ice cream. Or snow cones. Once in a while a little "encouragement" to make it a great day is okay and helps keep the calm for everybody.

And finally, I could not have made it through without tons and tons of prayer! I prayed on the very first day that the Lord would wake me up early enough each day to spend some time reading my Bible and in prayer before my little children woke up and He was so faithful to do this! Sometimes it can be so much easier to stay under the covers in the morning but every single day I had the alertness and the energy to wake up a bit earlier so I could start my day with Jesus. This made such a wonderful difference and helped me set the tone and my heart for the rest of the day.