I know I'm sharing WAYYY too much info with you...

I know some posts on my blog have been ultra personal recently. My feelings for Mike, politics, friends etc. have bordered on the "too much information" line for all of us to continue feeling comfortable. But see, in just a few weeks, I'll be shipping this whole blog off to a publisher and having it printed and bound into a book for each of my girls to keep when they are all grown up. I would be remiss in NOT sharing the extra personal details of their lives. If the feelings I recorded in these posts were less than honest or less intimate somehow, they would wind up with a watered down version of their history. Because goodness knows, I will NOT remember these stories. I will remember some yes, but the day to day feelings and stories of our lives are forgotten unless we write them down. And if we sugar coat and make all words appropriate for all audiences, we lose our authenticity.

So you'll have to just excuse this post.

I've been thinking a lot about infidelity, loyalty, faithfulness lately. I have a husband living a world away at war so these thoughts cross my mind. Being a woman in the year 2008, with a former professional life, relationships with friends and a head not buried in the sand, I have known my share of people who have strayed off the faithfulness path whether in dating relationships or in marriage. Even Mike and my relationship started while I had a boyfriend who had NO IDEA I had a crush on this nerdy boy in English class. However, in my relationship and marriage to Mike, I have never been unfaithful. Not ever. Mike has not been unfaithful either. I know this because he is still alive. I know, I know, you skeptics out there will say "you can never REALLY know if your spouse has cheated". But I know. Are we bullet proof when it comes to cheating? No. Are we vulnerable to infidelity? Sure. But we work on it. We talk about it. And I could not be in this marriage with my whole heart if I thought for one second that I was wrong about Mike's faithfulness. And I'm in this with my whole heart. If I'm wrong...well then shame on me for kissing you with my eyes shut so tightly. (name that movie. "that thing you do" Liv Tyler to the lead singer of the Oneders)

IN ANY CASE, I've been thinking about this topic. I've shared my thoughts with Mike. It's been bothering me. A lot. So I did what I always do when something is bugging me. I whined to Mike for like hours about it. And he talked me off the ledge. Then I whined to Chuck. Then to Amber. Then to Heather. Then to my Mom. Then to anyone who would listen. And there was still this little thing in my heart that was less than settled. Then I got this email from my husband. The little thing in my heart just got swallowed up by a big ol dose of awwwwww shucks I love that guy. So in the spirit of sharing too much with you...and in the spirit of sharing my truth with my daughters, here is an email I got today from their Dad. It's as much for them as it was for me. Enjoy.

You need to know before it starts I sent him some pix of our girls that Amber had taken and asked him to tell me how he liked them and also asked him when did our babies become little girls?.....okay, on with the mush and gush.

Love em... I can't believe how freakin cute our kids are! I don't know when they turned into little girls.

I know it was a rhetorical question, but for me, it was the first day of preschool when the door opened and they broke from us to run into class without a wink of hesitation. I'd even remembered what you'd said about the meet-the-teacher, and I was still amazed. At that moment, eager and unafraid, as they walked thru that open door, they were walking into the next chapter of their lives.

Do I sometimes miss seeing them as babies? So tiny wrapped up in hospital swaddling blankets, Jessica eyes shut tight and Katie with those Jedi-eyes wide open, or Jessica chug-a-lugging while Katie lay in the apparatus, or Jessica lying on her jungle mat chewing the parrot's tail with Katie excitedly flapping like a bird, or Jessica and Katie cracking up at each other when I would move them up and down into each others view, or the way both would strategically roll, turn 90-degrees and roll again to get somewhere;first solid food; first teeth; Jessica doing her little rocking forward-and-backward getting ready to crawl just moments after Katie crawled to get that piece of cookie, or Jessica cautiously going one step at a time while Katie flew down the stairs on her belly like it was a sport; their first words; them taking their first steps on the same day; Jessica throwing all of her crib-items into Katie's crib trying to wake sleepy-sleepinson, or the first time a "thump" came from upstairs and we knew they knew how to get out of their cribs; jumping off the first step as they'd watched Cayden do a year before; easy dinners at restaurants, then hard dinners at restaurants; Katie's first sentence "I down go"; Jessica's first "I love you"; their first time on the grass outside, first time in the pool; first running in the sprinkler; first time down the slide with help; first time down the slide on their own; first time Jessica swam all by herself; first time Katie flirted with an older boy all by herself; birthdays and holidays; family and friends; Molly, Anna, Jessi, Whitney; Jessica's worries, Katie's seeming carelessness; fevers and coughs; bumps and bruises; projectile vomit and burning diarrhea; tears. Laughter. Wonderment. Joy. Pure, unadulterated love.Do I miss seeing them as babies? The short answer - No.

The long answer - The memories of their infancy will remain in my heart and mind forever. Those years shaped who they are but also shaped who I am. And just as I don't miss being a kid myself, or high school, or the AFA, or my mission, or college and young-married life, or those early Air Force days, or medical school or residency,... I don't miss those days of being a young(?) father. I am so enamoured with them, and with you, and with us, as we are now. I don't miss them as babies, because I have them now as little girls, and I have the promise of seeing them grow, and I will breathe-in each moment as it happens, from seeing them tomorrow on webcam as I sit in my room in Afghanistan, to the someday when I lay on the doorstep of eternity with them and their children gathered around me to say goodbye, to that day when they run to our embrace as they too cross that threshold, to seeing their,and our, posterity as the sands of the sea, as the stars in the sky.

And now do you see that I have always been, and always will be, faithful, and that I will continue to work on my faults. I love you, Amy. I love Katelyn. I love Jessica. I love brother Jesus, for he marked the path and opened the way for us to be happy here, and to be together forever as a family in the light of the glory of our Father. I will never stop loving you. I know this just as I know that I will never stop loving Kate or Jess. And though our love has gone through times of burning hot and bright, and through moments of flickering low, the flame has never gone out. Since spring of 1989, almost 20 years, there has not been a day of my life that I have not loved you. Whatever change life may bring, I will always be...

Your endless love,
Mike