Boy's Night

Tonight was a good night. No. Tonight was a great night.

It began when i went to pick up the kids from their mom and found that she was babysitting 3 little girls who are some of Emily's closest friends. That was it. She wanted to stay with them and i wasn't about to crush a little 5 year old's heart in the name of adhering to a court ordered schedule, so we had a boy's night, just the two of us.

I told Ben we could go to dinner wherever he wanted, any restaurant anywhere, it didn't matter to me. So we ate at Burger King. The draw of a cheaply made Chinese toy in a brown paper sack is a powerful thing!

We ordered ice-cream sundaes to go and headed back to my place, loud rock music blasting from the car speakers again at Ben's request.

We ordered a pay-per-view movie, Superman Returns and settled back to watched the caped one battle the forces of evil once again.

For a moment during the movie, with my son's head on my chest, there was no place i'd rather have been. It was awesome.

The movies was about 2 and half hours long. It ended and all was going well as i settled Ben into bed. Then it happened...

Out of the corner of my eye i saw a lonely little stuffed bulldog sitting on the floor, next to it a crumpled pink nightgown and a few bricks of Lego. It's been great to spend an evening with Ben and we'll have a fantastic day tomorrow but there's something missing; my tenderhearted, mischievous angel with dirty wings. I miss my little girl.

In every dark cloud that's inhabited my sky in the last year, God painted two bright shining silver linings and tonight i miss one of them very much.