When Daddy Comes Home

When Daddy Comes Home is the name of a children's book written by Kristie Algeo. She is the mother of three kids and the wife of a soldier who is currently stationed at Fort Campbell. I had the pleasure of meeting her and her youngest son, Michael, on Tuesday morning. I did a story about Kristie and the books she has written.

Kristie wrote two books, When Daddy Goes Away and When Daddy Comes Home. I never really thought about how having a parent come back into your life after being away for a year could be difficult. The books she wrote were inspired when she saw how stressed her kids were when their Daddy was deployed. Kristie said she had a strong support network with family and church but it still was hard to deal with. She knew if her family had trouble than other families would be struggling to. Kristie told me about how her son Samuel would wrestle and play with Dad inside the house but would not go outside to play with him. Finally after some digging Samuel told his parents that he was afraid the "bad guys" would see his dad out side and hurt him. The adjustments also have to be made by mom and dad. Kristie said they were at a parade when several floats went by. On this one float, the kids were crouched down behind hay bales and they popped up to throw candy into the crowd. When they did this in front of Major Don Algeo, he hit the deck and covered his head. His survival instinct kicked in as he was recently home from Afghanistan were they don't throw candy into the crowds.

Kristie could not find a publishing company who would publish the books so Kristie went back to work last year as a teacher to help cover the expense of self publishing. She says if one family is helped by the books it is all worth it.

If you know of a military family with young children and want to get them the books Kristie tells me they are the cheapest from Pleasant Word, the company that printed them. They're also available at Amazon.com and barnesandnoble.com

Kristie gave me a copy of the books and since I don't have any kids I think I will give them to the first military family or friends of a military family who leaves a comment and asks for them.