Love and the Compost Heap

Not only did Beatrice start preschool this week, but today another "first" is upon us. She and Daddy are flying to Maryland this afternoon for the weekend for her Lolo's birthday...withOUT me! I did a quick google search to compute that B. has been with us now for 884 days. That means 883 nights, the large majority of which she has been curled into or next to me for at least some part of the night. For the next two nights however, she will be 400 miles away. I know we are both ready for this challenge! This morning she whispered into my ear at 5:45 "I love you more from (than) compost!" Talk about loving sentiments. She also told me that she will miss me while she's gone, and asked for my hand. She promptly kissed the palm and then asked for the other hand and kissed that one too, saying that one was from Daddy. They read The Kissing Hand at school the other day and all week she's been talking about putting kisses in hands so that it can be held up to the cheek when you're missing the other person. I then tried to put a kiss into her hand, but she said no, that she already put her own"miss me note" in her suitcase. She drew a picture of a hand on a notecard and put it in an envelope and sealed it, and apparently that is her strategy, completely thought of and executed on her own, if she starts to miss me, to pull it out and look at that card. She is too much. Preschool is off to a flying start and I can't even stand how much a true preschooler she has become already.