Goodnight Moon

Last night, I had to run a quick errand a little later than normal and as always the boy was with me. Before I go any further, you should know that he has a thing for the moon...long story short, he and his Daddy were on a let's-go-outside-and-look-at-the-moon-kick before Joshua left for his deployment. So with it dark out, the boy immediately started looking for the moon. After about five minutes of searching (it was too low to be seen unfortunately) the boy announced that the moon was "too far away" and it was "sad." And then he said "the moon sad, moon cry." At first, I was impressed with his ability at two and a half to understand the linkage between sad and cry because he's not an overly emotional kid so we haven't focused much on emotions. In fact, he's pretty easy going and great about listening to the rules even if it's not a particular favorite as long as he's had the reason behind the rule explained to him. But then his train of thought continued and he said "Daddy too far away too...Daddy sad." And then he just got quiet and starred out his window. It was sweet and heartbreaking and kind of beautiful too. The boy has taken this deployment better than I had expected but moments like that remind me that it hasn't gone without notice.