Ben & Lilly

Ben and Lilly,

I miss you.  It breaks my heart that in your years of innocence (well, close to innocence, anyway) that I will miss a single second, let alone half a year.  To see you smile, even from the other side of the planet on a little computer screen, melts my heart.

You are close.  Like your older siblings, you have more in common than you realize.  Ben, you are definitely a boy--happier to play with robots and transformers than with dolls.  Lilly, you are most definitely a girl, who would rather try on all of the dresses in her closet than do anything else.  Yet you are so alike--and find common ground between the two of you.

Lilly, you finally decided on the day after I left to put the diapers away and never looked back.  It breaks my heart now, knowing that after all four of you I have changed my last diaper.

I miss you so much.  You are both growing up so fast.

Love,

Daddy

Disneyland

Sarah, Sammy, and Ben—

What an amazing week. I could never, in a million years, have imagined how much fun I had this week with you and your Mom. But you know what? The reason we had so much fun didn’t have a whole lot to do with Disneyland. We had fun because we got to spend four days together, with no outside distractions. For four days all of us were completely happy.

When I held you, Sarah and Sammy, at the end of our trip it dawned on me how quickly you were growing up, and how soon I won’t be able to hold you like that anymore. Although I was happier than I’ve been in a long time, it broke my heart.

It was a moment I’ll never forget.

Daddy

I Miss You

Ben,

I'm sorry we've been away from you for so long. The rest of the family has been so busy in your first year with other activities that you're just too young to take part in. I'm hoping that the move to Alabama will alleviate that--but in the meantime we say goodbye to you almost every day, and I'm limited to seeing you on weekends and evenings, and if you manage to wake up in the early morning hours.

On that note--wake up early again. I have treasured those dark mornings when it's just you and me watching TV at 5 am. Sometimes I feel like it's the only time I have with you alone and I love it, even though it means getting 2 hours less of sleep.

You're getting so big so fast. With Sarah she was it--and got every second of attention she wanted. Even with your brother it was pretty evenly split, so I feel like we got to watch intently as his little body grew. But we've been so busy that we haven't been able to watch you grow as much as I wish we could.

I love you,

Daddy