Daddy home?

It's no secret that my kids LOVE when Kyle is home. They watch the clock and count down the minutes until Kyle gets home from work. Sometimes they're watching out the window, looking for his car. Other times they are at the top of the playscape watching our side driveway, waiting for him to pull in. And sometimes they are in the house and hear him the second he turns the door knob. They have *daddy radar*!! On a very rare occasion (if the kids are REALLY preoccupied), Kyle is able to sneak in the house without them knowing. And if I'm REALLY lucky, he and I get to have an adult conversation before the kids attack him. But more often than not, they hear him as soon as he walks in and they race to him (all 4 of them!!) while screaming "DADDY'S HOME!!!!!" Then, of course, he gets lots and lots of hugs. Yeah.....that's not exactly the reaction I get when I come home from somewhere! :)

Well, Kyle has had some deadlines at work that have had him working some insanely crazy hours. There have been many mornings that he leaves before the kids get up and doesn't get home until they are in bed. The other night while I was making dinner, I heard Mason saying "da-da, da-da, da-da, da-da, da-da" over and over again. When I went to see what he was doing, this is what I found. He had pushed a bin of toys over to the front door and was standing on it so that he could reach the lock and the door knob. He had unlocked the door (good thing we have an extra lock at the top of the door) and was trying to turn the door knob, the whole time repeating "da-da, da-da, da-da". It was so sweet....yet also so sad. I guess, like the rest of us, he was missing his "da-da".