"I go back to AIRRRRRRPORRRRRT!!!!"

I'm now two weeks into my three-week stint as a single mom. For anybody who doesn't know -meaning anybody who has not been close enough to hear the blarring music at my pity party or felt the earth-heaving sighs - Benjy has been in Africa for the last 14 days. Or "Aferkuh", as Riley says. He is there to help in the building process of a new hospital in Togo, West Africa. So far he has completed 3 kitchen installs and a few other small jobs, mostly in missionary housing and the guesthouse. He sounds tired but happy.

And we are here.

Thanks to family and friends, we haven't had too much down time to ponder our loneliness, although Annie does remember it once in a while and gets carried away to "the depths of despair."

Riley is persistent in believing that every time we go to church, daddy will be there. And every time we pull up to the house and he sees the red car parked in the driveway, he yells out "Daddy's home!" Poor kid. I really should take that car and park it down the road, out of sight. But there's only a week left. One week! And then the day will come when Riley shrieks "I go back to AIRPORT!!!" and I'll be able to scream back at him "OKAY!!!"

There's been a lot of screaming. And a lot of Curious George. Not a whole lot of cooking, though. I think I've only cooked twice. The first week we just steadily made our way through mountains of leftovers from the early Father's Day, early Birthday, and Last-Meal-Before-You-Leave feasts that I had made for Benjy. THAT was a LOT of MEAT!!! And this week we've been living off of handouts from all the kind people that have taken pity on us and invited us over to eat. I have not had to resort to mac-n-cheese once! NOT.EVEN.ONCE! {Not that mac-n-cheese isn't my secret favorite and I don't have 50 different ways to serve it.That's not the point. Focus.}

But like I said, we've stayed really busy. There was cherry-picking:

And a theme day:

A trip to the cabin:

And an over-night with the cousins, a day at grandma and grandpa Beck's, an outing to the Benzel Plantation, an evening at the magical Kert House of Fun, and a trip to Amy's Garden Farm. We fall into bed exhausted every night.

We've got some more fun things planned for this last week. Possibly even a home-cooked meal! I don't know, let's not dream too big.

Annie-Girl

So my little baby - who was actually not a little baby at all - turned 4. It's strange to even write that, as if I'm starting some fictional story. There's no way that 4 years have already gone by. I feel like I should still be waiting for her to be born.

Life changed so dramatically when she came that there's no way to bridge my life before her and life now with two kids. My life has been lived as two different people - me as not-mom and me as mom. When I answer questionaires about what my hobbies are I still write 'reading and scrapbooking'. But do you know how long it's been since I read Jane Eyre ? That's right - 4 years!

I know it's going to change as the kids get older, and I'll be able to merge the two people back together into one person. But I'm not so sure that's all that appealing, because it will mean that my kids aren't little and needy anymore. As much as I love to look at Annie's baby pictures, I also hate it! I feel like I've forgotten so much already. Like a few weeks ago when somebody was remembering how Annie used to call ice-cream "hymoon" - it was almost like remembering a dream. I had completely forgotten to think about that! And there are so many things I'm forgetting to remember.

So I better write down a few things about my 4 year old before she's 14 and isn't telling me 5 times a day that she loves me "more than everything in the world, every night and every day, for ever and ever until we go to heaven." Her exact words.

So... she got to take ballet classes this spring, thanks to Uncle Chuck and Aunt Missy, and was such a good little ballerina. At least for the first half hour of class each week. That seemed to be about her limit for taking orders from somebody else - a very new and 'edifying' experince for her.

With her new ballet bag she got for her birthday and "Crocs like Ally"

It's her cheif joy in life to have sleep-overs, and she begs every day to be able to invite somebody over or to be allowed to spend the night at somebody else's house. A couple weeks ago, when I went to pick her up after a sleep-over with Grandma Cook and a day with cousins, she absolutely wilted the second I walked in the door. It just sucked all the joy right out of her to think her fun was over. But then she got invited to spend the next 2 nights with Grandma Beck and the other set of cousins who were visitng for the week. 3 nights in a row that she was away! And it was glorious fun for her!

She just taught herself how to snap her fingers and whistle. She usually only takes one nap a week. She loves to paint and swim. Last week she learned how to pump on the swing at the cabin and now she'll go outside by herself and swing for half an hour. And she's really into making up her own Bible verses, which almost invariably end with "until we go to heaven."

So Annie, I love you with all my mom heart, every day and every night, for ever and ever, until we go to heaven! And even after that.



Me and my "little" 2 month-old baby