A Not-So-Happy Milestone

One reason that I blog is to keep track of my kids' milestones. I don't have baby books for them (that's not totally true because I do have one for Big that I kept up pretty well until he was about 6 months old) and I don't have a good memory for things like that. I can remember my friends' phone numbers from elementary school but I can't remember when my kid first crawled!

Anyway, this evening marked a not-so-happy milestone for Big when he had to say goodbye to his best friend who is moving 6,000 miles away back to America. Granted, we all had to say goodbye to many people when we moved 6,000 miles away to Israel 2 years ago, but Big was littler then and didn't have the same kind of friendships that he and this friend have had over the past year since they have been here. They are just a few months apart in age and they look so similar that it is scary! They like all of the same things and they play so incredibly nicely together. This friend has slept over at our house (that would be Big's first sleepover--see that, another milestone!), knows the code to get in the front door of our building and knows where we keep the good snacks. He and Big were not in school together but would greet each other at every playdate with huge smiles and maybe even hugs. And then they would run off to do whatever they felt like doing without a care in the world.

I'm not sure how much Big understands about what "moving away" means. We talked about how his friend is "going back to America." Big understood that in the same way that he understands that we go back to America a couple of times a year and his response was "ok, so he's coming back soon." Who knows...maybe he will come back soon and maybe we'll still be here when he does. Or maybe he won't. Or maybe we won't. Either way, it's still hard when your best friend moves away whether you are 5 years old or 31 years old.