Meet Military Mom Kim Zook

Whenever I start feeling sorry for myself – say, when my husband’s away on a weeklong business trip during which I will have to manage dropping off and picking up 2 kids at 2 different schools, soccer, bedtime, packing lunches, work, etc. ALL BY MYSELF – I think of people like Kim Zook. Not only is Kim a talented writer (she blogs daily at Zook Book Nook), she’s also a mom and military wife who appears to handle her life with aplomb (SAT word alert!) even while her husband is deployed.

I have some questions for Kim – LOTS of questions. Here’s Part 1 of my Q&A with Kim.

Hi, Kim! Thanks for being here. Tell us a little about yourself and your family.

Thank you, Abby, for welcoming here on your blog! I’ve only been blogging for a few years, but your first blog “Diary of a New Mom,” was one of the first ones to inspire me as both a blogger and a writer.

Blogging and writing have been a tremendous aid to me during the past several years that have been marked by change and growth. I left behind my machete and rubber boots in the tropical rainforest after completing graduate school and found myself in embarking on a new path: a woman married to a man in the U.S. Navy, who happened to be stationed in Yokosuka, Japan. The challenge of going from no electricity in a lush, wet jungle to a highly-electric highrise in a fast-paced, congested city prepared me for all of the challenges I would face in the years to come.

In the last 7 years my husband and I have moved 5 times, from Japan to Virginia to British Columbia to D.C. and now San Diego! Fortunately my husband has orders from the U.S. Navy for 4 years in San Diego, so we have 3 more years here. As a military spouse who frequently moves it is difficult to find a job, especially a teaching position which is what I “used” to do. It’s been a blessing in disguise, however, as I’ve been able to stay at home with our children and focus entirely on my writing career. We currently have 2 daughters, ages 4 and 2, and we’re expecting our third daughter to be born 1 month after my husband returns from deployment!

Where is your husband deployed? Is this his first deployment? If not, about how often and for how long is he away?

My husband’s ship is based out of San Diego and has been deployed for 4 months. He has deployed several times, but this is the first time we’ve gone through a deployment with children and it is very different for both my husband and me. The first half of his deployment involved visiting various ports and meeting with people from those countries. Our daughters and I have been learning a lot about the world during this deployment.

How do you keep in touch while your husband is away?

I often think of my grandparents these days and how their only method of communication when my grandfather served in the wars was writing letters. We’re so fortunate today. My husband and I communicate almost daily via email, but occasionally we cannot get through to one another if the communication system doesn’t work. During his deployment I’ve usually been able to hear back from him within 24 hours when I’ve asked him questions such as, Which name do you like best for our third daughter? How do I get rid of a hive of bees inside our roof? Do I need to pay this property tax bill that came in the mail? and Can you think of any other way to get our daughters to sleep in past 4am?

We also get to talk about once a week on the phone, but my daughters get shy when their daddy is on the phone and often won’t want to talk with him. I remember as a child feeling shy around my dad when he came home after being gone for a week for work. Now I see it from my husband’s perspective; he misses their voices. We try to make up for it through care packages, letters, drawings, and my husband creates videos of himself reading books and mails the DVD recordings to us. It helps them to see their daddy on our TV talking to them and reading books.

How do the girls deal with their dad being away?

DaddyDolls.com

During this deployment I have spoken with many spouses with children. Like my children, some of the others are sad and confused by their father’s absence. Unfortunately, some children are impacted on a more serious level and develop depression and begin acting out of character. For this deployment we got our daughters a Hug a Hero doll that is a miniature version of their daddy in his uniform. They sleep with it every night, and I often check in on them to see one of them hugging their “Daddy Doll” to their chest in their sleep.

Before he deployed my husband created a chain link with a message written on each one for every day of the deployment. Every day my daughters and I pick out a link, I read the message to them, and then we add it to the growing chain.

Despite all of the measures my husband has taken to help our daughters, they still miss their daddy so much that they don’t sleep well, they are extremely emotional and slip into moments of sadness and uncertainty. When our 2yo gets a booboo, she insists that only Daddy can make it better. When our 4yo can’t sleep, she climbs into my bed and cuddles up with my husband’s pillow. I can only imagine that as they get older the deployments will only get harder on them.

Join us next time for Part 2 of my interview with Kim Zook, when she discusses how she copes with these challenges and her advice for other (temporarily) single moms. Happy Labor Day, everyone!