I'm waiting.

It might as well be the first night of summer here.

The June gloom finally lifted today and we spent the day drenched in sunshine, sipping lemonade and playing with friends.

Tonight it's quiet. The air is cooler but the concrete surrounding us soaked up enough heat today that I can still feel the warmth radiating through our open windows.

All three children are slumbering and I'm putting off prep work for the homemade donuts I've promised them we'll take to tomorrow's Independence Day parade.

Instead, I've chosen to let myself be consumed with the act of waiting.

I forgot what it feels like to wait. I'm usually too busy to wait around for anything. People are usually waiting for me -- for more juice, story-telling, shoe-tying.

But tonight I'm doing the waiting. I'm waiting for him.

Like a silly 21-year-old, I'm sipping Italian wine, listening to the Pearl Jam song we danced to at our wedding and letting my heart yearn for the next 14 hours to pass quickly so I can be near him again.

During the past three weeks, he's been flying airplanes in Africa.

I've been at home, loving our three children and keeping them too busy to think about how much they miss him every day.

He's been dining on mixed grill and sleeping in a hotel.

I've been getting up to make the same pot of oatmeal-for-three every morning and playing footsie at night in our bed with 30 of the most ticklish toes ever created.

He's been working hard. So have I.

His plane lands tomorrow mid-morning. I won't get to be the first to hug him, but I don't mind.

After making his way through the assembly line of pint-sized monsters, he always saves the best, longest, hardest squeezes for me.

And I have nine years worth of reunions to give me the spine-tingling reminder that those at-long-last embraces are always worth waiting for.