A normal day of kindergarten quickly turned into the surprise of a lifetime for a young Mississippi girl who had been away from her mother for six months. 

Private 1st Class Elizabeth Ritz returned home from deployment in Kuwait and decided to give a military surprise to her daughter Sadie with a creative reveal.

She dressed as the school mascot, a bobcat, and showed up to her daughter’s class.

“Sadie, can you go see who the Bobcat is?” a teacher asks before they revealed who was underneath.

A video shows Sadie lift the mask and give her mother a hug. 

Ritz said her mother helped set up the reveal with the help of a teacher. 

“I wasn’t sure if I really wanted to do it,” Ritz said. “I wasn’t sure because I wanted to see them right away. I was already crying and I was trying to keep my breathing stable and not cry, because I had all these little kids and I was trying to be happy. It was definitely emotional.”

Ritz also has a 2-year-old son named Caleb. 

“It’s kind of rough watching your life go on without you in it,” said Elizabeth. “Basically watching your kids grow up on a camera screen.”

Family members tell WDAM they’re proud of their soldier.

“She’s really tight as far as a mother goes,” said her father, Floyd Ritz. “To juggle service to the country and then have to balance the children in the process was one of the toughest things she’s ever done.”

This was Ritz’s first deployment since joining the military two years ago.

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