Leaving on a jet plane...

We dropped Chris off at the airport this morning. Such a sweet send off...the girls behaved beautifully and we were able to share lots of hugs and kisses. Today has been filled with tears and laughter from me ... often at the same time. I'm so excited for Chris and all that he'll experience on this trip. But I miss him like crazy already. They are leaving the Atlanta airport, heading to Moscow, in about 45 mins and I probably won't get to speak with him again until he's back in the states a week from Monday. My heart aches because he is my best friend, we normally talk multiple times per day on the phone, and I don't really know how to do life without him anymore. BUT I don't want to be all melodramatic. We have a dear family friend who is facing the rest of her life without her husband. I know I'm only getting a small glimpse of the grief she is experiencing, and most likely my husband will return to me. I hope that the sadness I feel makes me better able to pray for her.



Hannah is handling this in stride so far. I wonder if she'll realize in a day or a few days that she misses him. When we got to walmart this morning, after dropping him off, she made us laugh by calling out "Daddy, where are you?" and acting like she was playing hide and seek for him.

Madeline was laughing at me earlier. When I sat down to eat lunch with the girls, the tears were flowing from my eyes. She said "why are you crying mommy" and I said "because I miss your daddy". Her response was "I miss him too, but look at me, do you see me crying?" Cracked me up!!



When I took Madeline to bed for nap time, we read a book called "The Way I Feel".

Once we read the sad page, her tears started flowing and then, of course, mine started up again. We both cried together for a while and she told me that she misses him. When we were trying to think of a song to sing together for nap time, I suggested "I'll fly away" (a song we've sung to Madeline since she was an infant). And we started giggling about how Daddy is flying away. We changed the words to include references to russia instead of Heaven. I also suggested "leaving on a jet plane" and it turns out that he sang that to her last night at bed time so she taught me the new words ... I'm leaving on a jet plane, I know when I'll be back again. I love that man!