Reunited!

I never officially announced it on the blog just in case of the anonymous stranger who may stumble upon this blog at random, but for the last 7 months (8, counting a month of training in February), Aaron was deployed to Afghanistan. Hence, the half a year spent in the Pacific NW with my brother and his family.He returned after several days of travel, very late on October 28th. The morning of the 29th, Madelyn woke up to find Daddy- whose DVDs she had watched and requested over and over, day in and day out, for the last several months- was sitting in her very own kitchen!
She was shy at first, but not scared. I should say that whenever Maddy encounters strangers, she usually clings to me and won't let go. But she was smart, and knew that this extra person in the kitchen was no stranger to her. Instead of coming to me, she made a meandering line towards Daddy, who sat on the floor to wait for her to feel comfortable greeting him. We joked that he was now "3D Daddy," since all she had seen of him for the last seven months were in photos or on TV (he recorded several DVDs of himself reading books to her). She showed him her balloon, and even handed it to him to share. She took a sippy of milk from him. Then she sat in his lap. After a few minutes, I asked her, "Maddy, who is that?"
She looked at Aaron's face, pointed at his chest, and said, "Da-da"
It was the sweetest thing I had ever seen. I wanted to cry and squeal with happiness all in one breath.
As you can see from the photo above, they are getting along famously. Maddy loves following him around. She runs to the door saying "Dada, dada, dada" when she hears him come home. And when she wakes up in the morning, she does roll call: "Mama...Dada...Nanen" (Nanen=Madelyn)
I had heard sad stories of men and women coming home from deployments to find their kids have forgotten them. We made sure that didn't happen to Aaron. Madelyn LOVED watching his DVDs, often looped over and over and over for nearly an hour. When the story ended, she would sign Dada, Again. I had a board book made with photos of the two of them together that she'd kiss at night before bed. Our friends Stacey and Tom gave us a Hallmark book that played his voice at the turn of each page. She never went a day without seeing or hearing him. It helped me, too, to feel as though he was still present in our every day life.
Welcome home, Daddy. We missed you incredibly. We love you always.