A virtual fort

Seventeen-month-old Lily Van Hecke toddles around a meeting room at the Edina Library, tightly clutching "Buddy," a life-sized puppet dressed in camouflage pajamas, delightedly showing him off to her mom, Jen, and others at a parent-child playgroup for military families. Today's theme is the five senses, though Lily is most interested in a younger baby in the group and a sing-along version of "The Itsy Bitsy Spider."

Lily's father, Eric, a member of the Army National Guard, is deployed in Iraq and has been gone since early summer. Since they don't have family members in town, Jen Van Hecke, who lives in Minneapolis, said she is excited about meeting other military moms with young children and learning how to keep Eric and Lily connected while he is away.

The playgroup is just one feature of a free program called Heroes at Home, a military partnership with the Parents As Teachers (PAT) National Center. Locally, Heroes at Home is under the auspices of Beyond the Yellow Ribbon Wellness, a program of the Minnesota National Guard and Reserve. Created by the Army in 2006, Heroes at Home is offered at nearly 40 sites nationwide. The Minnesota program was launched in September and is coordinated by PAT-certified parent educators Terri Konczak and April Olson.

"It's easy for families to feel very separated when they have a family member who is deployed or about to be deployed," Olson said. "We want to bring people together to share ideas, to connect with each other and just have fun with their kids."

Heroes at Home also offers regular health screenings, resource information about military and community services for families as well as monthly home visits. It was during one of those visits that Van Hecke discovered some tips for helping her husband and daughter connect long distance.

"Terri suggested that I send Eric one of Lily's favorite toys, so now we have a videotape of him raking plastic leaves with this little rake that she loved playing with in the fall," Van Hecke said. "She'll go up and hug the TV and say 'da-da' when she sees him."

There is another video of Eric reading a storybook to his daughter; watching it has become a nightly ritual for Lily, Van Hecke said.

Besides ideas for long-distance bonding, topics such as single parenting, discipline and adjusting to the return of a deployed parent also are addressed in the playgroups.

"The child might be facing separation anxiety and be extremely shy around the returning parent," Konczak said. "We'll talk about expectations and what it might be like for awhile as the parent and child get to know one another again."

Because there is no central base in Minnesota where military families live together in a large community, Melanie Nelson of Beyond the Yellow Ribbon said programs like Heroes At Home provide a "virtual fort" or home base where military families can connect. There are plans to expand to St. Cloud, Marshall and Duluth, where playgroups have already been scheduled.

"The entire family experiences deployment when one of its members is serving in the military," Konczak said. "This is a way for us to support their efforts and help them strengthen their families."

Julie Pfitzinger is a West St. Paul freelance writer.