Missing Her Daddy

I wasn't sure how Kayla would react to Joe being gone. He was gone for 6 wks before, but she was only 22 months then. We spent part of that time with my mom in Maryland and then in Denmark to visit relatives. So this is the first time where it has really just been us in the same environment without Joe.

She is definitely missing him and realizes he isn't around...especially in the evening when she's used to him coming home from work.

On Thursday night when he called us from Maine she was able to talk to him on the phone. From the time we hung up the phone until she went to bed all I heard was "daddy home?" in this sad little voice. That was pretty much all she would say and no matter what answer I gave her, what I tried to tell her, she would respond back with "daddy home?"

That evening when I shut the front door she came running down the hall after me saying, "no mommy! no door shut!" and opened it back up, then stood there looking out saying "daddy home?"

At least once a day I'll hear "daddy home?" and I'll have to tell her, "no Kayla, remember daddy went bye bye?" and she'll say "airplane, bus."

She likes looking at his picture on the computer and we recorded Joe reading a few books to her so that helps.

Yesterday when I showed her the pictures of Joe I found from when he was in Maine she was so excited "Daddy! Hi daddy!" We looked at them later and she was trying to have a conversation with him "Hi daddy, har you? (it means either how are you or where are you, but in this context I'm sure it was how are you) followed by "a doin'?" (what are you doing?) and she just sat on my lap looking at his picture, smiling, and saying hi to her daddy.

Our bedrooms face the front of the house. When you look out Kayla's window you see Joe's truck parked right in front. She was on her bed looking out the window yesterday and I heard this excited voice yell, "daddy home! daddy home!" Then I had to burst her bubble. "No baby, daddy's not home yet."

Last night she was playing on the couch with 2 mugs from her kitchen set and having tea. I heard her say "want some daddy? here daddy, for you" Then she ran to the front door with the mugs and kept saying, "daddy for you."

I tried to capture her on video, but by the time I brought the camera over there she had realized the mugs were making shadows on the door in the fading sunlight. It has been a while since I've posted a Kayla video, so here it is.

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

This morning I sat down on one end of the couch and she told me, "no mommy! daddy couch" - yes I sat down where Joe usually sits on the couch! Shame on me for sitting in his spot! She made me get up too the little stinker :)

Joe made her a little video clip and she definitely enjoyed seeing that this morning!

I just wish there was some way I could make her understand how long he'll be gone for so she doesn't have to ask every day "daddy home?" I thought about having us mark an X on the calendar every day and we'll probably do that, but I'm not really sure if she would understand that.

Besides missing her daddy I think she's doing pretty well adjusting.