Kristen Chase

With my husband deploying for two months to Afghanistan, we were stumped as to how to explain it to the kids. They've grown accustomed to his regular absence as a commercial pilot, but 60 days without him here required some explanation, even more so since he was going into a war zone. We've always taken an honest approach with the kids when it comes to telling them about his whereabouts, so we weren't looking to try to avoid anything. But discussions about planes and war are difficult for anyone, let alone a two- and five year-old.

As a former college professor and conference presenter, I'm pretty familiar with PowerPoint, so I decided that putting together a mini slide show with pictures and kid-friendly text might be an easy way to help explain the deployment. The result: Daddy's Tour of Duty. I have to admit, I'm a pretty basic PowerPoint user and I'm running on fumes since being alone with my three kids for the past few weeks, but thankfully, that doesn't matter. Loading up photos from my computer and typing in the copy took me 15 minutes.

Aside from my kids' utter fascination with the presentation which they watch several times a day, I've sent it to several family members who are curious about what he's doing over these next couple of months. I'll even be showing my daughter's kindergarten class the presentation as well. In fact, I've printed out the pages and stapled them together in a book so she can read it as part of her curriculum.

I'll continue to update the slide show as my husband sends us pictures. And I'm even going to add some sound bytes from old video recordings so that they can hear his voice while they watch. That is if I can make it through without crying. It's one thing to have a deployed spouse, but it's a whole other ballgame when that person is a parent.

I'm glad that this little presentation has helped ease my kids' minds about my husband. And quite frankly, it's eased mine as well.