In the Absence of My Other Half: Part 4 (Missy)

It rained.

We read a LOT of Inkheart.

I tried not to be depressed when I heard about Michael seeing so many of our Maryland friends; I miss them so much!

As a pick-me-up, I tried to make a campfire, but it was far too wet.

I started crying, because I'm the girl who can make a campfire in any weather under any circumstances with just one match. 

Two hours and an entire book of matches later, still no luck.

I didn't earn my Girl Scout Gold Award in Washington State near the rainforest, alas.

I gave up and tried to get over it.

We spent the night playing "War".  You know the game.  You love the game.  All.  three.  hours of it.

And then there was ONE.

One day remaining.

I wrote it on the board but I guess I forgot to take a picture.

Michael made his way to the airport and slept there for the night (sort of).

I texted him encouragement.

On the day before he returned, we made a party.

Both kids made cards.

Maeryn and I went to the store and got some balloons.

And Maeryn made a cake.

She chose blue frosting because it's Daddy's favorite color.

The design on the cake is a dolphin. 

It was hard to go to bed the night before he came back.

Maeryn crept into my bed around midnight.

"I need to sleep, Mom.  Tomorrow is going to be a big day."

In the morning, Jonah erased the number "1" and wrote a big "0" on the white board.

I washed a last load of dishes and cleaned off the table and swept the floor.

Then we dragged Maeryn out of bed.  I packed blankets and snacks and computers and movies.  We found the Laurie Berkner Band CD.  We stopped at Burger King for breakfast and filled the gas tank at Shell.  I took a deep breath, and drove onto the giant freeway.

At the airport, the GPS had no clue what was going on.  Most roads were under construction, and the signs weren't clear.  I followed the hotel shuttles toward the runway.  I figured if I couldn't find parking, at least I could text Michael and tell him I was parked in the shuttle circle. 

Lucky for me the shuttles led me straight to the parking garage.

I found the floor for and aisle for Southwest Airlines after about fifteen minutes of aimless driving and we still had time to spare before Michael's plane was to land.  I rechecked the email he sent me about the gate.  B10.

We parked in the seats in front of the luggage return until Michael texted me that he'd arrived.  We moved to the escalator moving people from their terminal into the airport.

It took what seemed like forever before he appeared.

When he did, Jonah and Maeryn ran for it and attacked him with hugs and kisses.

It was...  wonderful.

Michael at the airport, showing the kids video he took of take off and landing.

In the Absence of My Other Half: Part 1 (Missy)

We used this magnet to follow Michael's journey across the country.

We knew it would happen eventually.

Michael told his work back in Maryland that if they needed him in the office he was willing to go back from wherever we were whenever it happened to be.

One of his bosses requested that he come back this week.

We researched the most cost-efficient methods for him to get back to Maryland and we settled on a three day journey by bus and then flying back to the Seattle airport.

He would be gone nine days total.

I admit that I was a bit panicked.

I knew no one in Seattle.  I knew no one in the state of Washington!

I would have to get out of the heart of the city after leaving him at the Greyhound station and on the crazy big highway back to the our campground.

The people at this campground were kind of mean.

There were no other kids around.

I felt overwhelmed.

And March, when this happened, is always the beginning of my seasonal depression.

I know that there are plenty of women and men who deal with the absence of their spouses on a regular basis.  Military wives whose husbands go on tours of duty and into scary situations for months - sometimes years at a time.  I know there are husbands and wives who go on business for weeks and months in foreign countries.  I know I'm one of the lucky ones.  In fact, this would be the longest we've been apart in the past eleven years.  That all by itself just made it... well... hard.

I tried not to cry at the bus station.

I made it out of the city without killing myself or anyone else.

I even figured out stopping for Maeryn to pee and got food for the kids on the way home.

When I got back, I told myself:  You cannot panic.  You cannot get depressed.  You have to be strong.

I wrote down a long list of activity ideas on our white board.

I went outside to play with the kids.

We got out some movies we hadn't watched yet and watched them.

And we made our own ways of waiting.

I kept track of how many days until Daddy came home on the white board above the list of activities and below the weekly menu.

I send Michael a picture of the number each day.

I will say this:  texting and sending pictures makes life about a zillion times easier than when I was trying to maintain long distance relationships in college.  A ZILLION times easier.

Michael sent me pictures as he passed through each state and we moved his magnet along the cloth map on the ceiling of the bus.  We texted a lot.

I sent him pictures of what I was doing with the kids.

We went on a hike and played on the swings.

When we were tired and cold we came inside and I got out some paper, taped pieces together, and we made our own board game.

First we made one all together.

The next morning, I got up and Jonah was already at the table making his own board game.  Maeryn and I soon followed suit, and we had four fun games to play together.

Once everyone was dressed, we decided to check out the Family Lodge at the campground.  It was supposedly open today.

It was pretty big!

We also took advantage of the cool wooden playground outside the lodge.  We played all sorts of modified tag games.  I made sure we stayed until everyone was completely played out.

The next day both kids wanted to go back to the lodge to make crafts.

There was a craft activity listed on the calendar for the day for $3/person.  I grabbed my wallet and backpack and we drove over to the lodge.  Unfortunately, the craft had been canceled for the day.

Both kids still wanted to make a craft.  At the lodge.

So we went back, packed a bag full of crafty stuff and then drove to the lodge again.

We spent a few hours making snowflakes (okay, failing at making snowflakes - Michael is the snowflake maker in the family) and creating cut-out puppets.

Each night, before sleeping, we called Michael and read the first book in the Heroes of Olympus series aloud over the phone.

This night, he wasn't able to participate.

I wasn't sure what to do.  I was sad not to be able to hear his voice over the phone, but trying to keep it together and figure out some other fun thing.  I asked if they wanted to go ahead and read without him but they didn't want him to miss the next part of the story.

"What should we do?"  I asked.

Jonah smiled and ran to his bed.  He'd been reading a book in secret the past two days and had gotten most of the way through the first chapter.  Now, he brought it out to me and offered it up as the "read-aloud" book for while Dad was away.

The book was called Inkheart.