Day 153.

I am grateful to have had this wonderful time in Colorado.

We leave tomorrow morning and start the long trek home to first, Iowa, then Chicago on Thursday. I am not dreading the trip, but not exactly looking forward to it either. We are all really excited to see Jason, but wow, it'll be hard to leave.

In a way, the hard goodbye already happened. We just put the kids to bed (about 2 hours late) and it was traumatic. Especially for Dylan, who just couldn't stop crying. We ended the evening watching a clip of the dance recital Anya and Dylan put on for us yesterday. And when I turned it off, she new what it meant. It was time to go to bed, and we won't see Anya in the morning when we get up real early and get on the road before breakfast. She knew it was time to say goodbye.

I've never seen Dylan cry for something like she did tonight. She's cried harder before, but never deeper. She just kept yelling, "I want to stay here forever! I want to stay here forever!" It broke my heart, because it just plain sucks that we live so far away, and so I couldn't help but start crying over and over again myself. That, of course, made both kids extra upset, seeing both Lara and I crying over the difficult goodbye. And so both Noah and Dylan were bawling uncontrollably at bedtime.

As a mom, it's my instinct to stop my child's crying. To give them a hug, to fix their boo-boo, to alleviate any pain they are feeling. So far, that's been my role. But tonight, I feel like we turned a corner. It was the first time I couldn't fix it. As I held her in my arms as she drifted off to sleep, her breathing was still penetrated by sobs. It had been an emotional cry, and one that couldn't be cured by a hug or soothing song. All I could do was hold Dylan and let her cry. It was a life lesson for her that everything that makes her sad can't be fixed. Some things just are sad, and we have to find it within ourselves to alleviate that pain in some way. For this, it will be hopefully more webcam, writing Anya lots of letters, drawing her lots of pictures, calling her on the phone, and planning for our next visit together. But, unfortunately for us all, that's just not good enough.