Aching...

The ache is so strong again tonight! It's like you want to run away from it and then you want to run to it and then you don't know what to do with it when it hits you in the face all over again. The reminders are everywhere:

Kali wants to make a new toy with the old spools we have. She picks out three red spools and she and daddy devise a plan to make a new one. She nonchalantly says that the other one can be for her little sister if she has a little sister...

I play with a little girl of one of our new students today. We run around the indoor track at EMU. She pretends to pick me up to look out the window. She giggles and chatters and at one point her words remind me exactly of Kali at that age. Will I experience a toddler in our home ever again?

One of our students from Liberia had a baby this summer. The baby came early on June 11th, when he was due end of July. He's now just over two months old and is in the top 50th percentile, cute as a button and clearly thriving. I celebrate Sam's comeback from an early entrance into the world. I mourn Nora's early departure.