She misses her dad.

Saturday proved to be a difficult day for Mallory. She was out of sorts and pretty grumpy. As the day went on it never dawned on me that her behavior might be centered around missing Brent, until we sat down for dinner. She looked at the chair that Brent normally sits in and asked if her Daddy was coming home for another visit and if he would sit in his chair at the table (that sits empty every night). I told her that he was coming home for a visit but that it was still going to be a long time because he still has to work really hard... I also told her that he was coming home for one more visit and then he would go back to Oklahoma for a little bit and the next time we would see him he would be driving his car into the driveway and would be home for good. She was thrilled!! I sighed a big sigh of relief thinking we made it over another hurdle. Until bedtime, when she asked if her daddy was coming home tomorrow. Oh no. At that point we still had 36 days until he was coming home, how was she going to understand that concept? I decided to wait it out a few days and see if she still wondered and asked when he was coming home. Sunday morning came and when I went in to get her out of bed she asked if her daddy was home. Oh boy.

Something needed to be done to help her understand the concept of the countdown of days. She doesn't quite understand the flow of the days of the week and she certainly doesn't understand that a week is 7 whole days bundled into one. I decided to bring out the M&M's. I counted out 33 M&M's and put them into cute little cup. Each night she will eat one M&M and when they are all gone then her daddy will be home! (Let's all hope this works) Tonight is the first night and I really hope she grasps the concept. I miss him so much (and it is apparent she misses him just as much) and this long stretch is feeling exactly that, long.

33 M&M's piled into a little cup make the timeline seem very short, which is good. We can do this, we are doing it, and we will get through it.