daddy's bye-bye

last week seb flew to Germany for 4 weeks of training, and since he was working literally up to the last minute before his flight, the job went to me to get him packed and ready to go. i did as much as i could during caleb's sleeping hours, but there are inevitably last minute details, and caleb insisted on lending a hand:

or is he trying to hitch a ride?

so we thought we had it all taken care of - clothes? check. toiletries? check. carry-on? check. baby? check. from dress socks to plane snacks, we had all the details covered. right?

well, apparently, not so much. we had forgotten one. very. BIG. detail. we brought everything he wanted to have on his trip, but when he tried to check in, we realized we had left behind the only thing he absolutely had to have to fly to Germany.

his passport.

it was laying on my nightstand, where it had been since we received it. neither one of us had even thought about it until that moment.

thankfully, seb had a long layover in st. louis and though he missed that first flight, he was able to catch one a couple hours later without it affecting the rest of his itinerary. and he got to have a little extra time with caleb out of the deal.

caleb has missed daddy though, has been asking for him (through sign) and insisting on looking for him in the mornings (he always thinks daddy's hiding in the bathroom.) i tell him, daddy's at work, daddy's bye-bye.

but today i heard from the kitchen 'EEEEEEEEEEEEE! EEEEEEEEEEEE! EEEEEEEEEEEEE!' i went to see what all the fuss was about - and he had discovered the picture of the three of us i had just put into the photo-ornament on our tree just half an hour before. he was signing daddy, then pointing emphatically, signing daddy, and looking at me in a way that made me smile and broke my heart at the same time.

i said, that's right, caleb, that's daddy.

then caleb said, 'DAAAAEEEEEEE!'

we miss you, daaaeeeeee. we really do.