Reunion

After six months, half of those working - half of those waiting on work, my husband is returning from Hawaii tonight. We're both a little anxious. Anxious about resuming dual parenting, packing an often long-distance relationship into a sardine can-sized house again, work prospects, family dynamics and a long list of other greater and lesser worries.

Our only child together, Maggie, is a Daddy's girl. She worships him and his sun rises and sets over her little face. I'm all for it, as a father-deprived Daddy's girl myself, I love watching them together. The way her starfish hand disappears in his powerful and calloused grip, the way his eyes soften when she buries her face in his shoulder, his overwhelmed chuckle when she's talking a mile-a-minute about her newest interests, the way he tries to be tough to get her to listen and all she has to do is crack a grin and say something silly for him to lose the toughguy act in milliseconds and switch to gentle cajoling. I live vicariously through these moments. I become the sentimental observer of their galaxy of shared moments.

It will also be a much-needed relief to have her jump from her temporary housing in my hind-pocket back into his - I don't mind being second favorite. I have 3 other loving children who orbit me like the moons of Pluto, even in their often irreverent and oh-so-cool teen years. Tonight, though, my emotions will be bittersweet, watching Daddy and Maggie's reunion.