Separation Anxiety – for Mommy

One of my best girlfriends is getting married next month. To celebrate the bride, we planned a super fun bachelorette party in Austin. I was super excited for a weekend of relaxing by the pool, catching up with the girls, champagne and dancing. I should mention that I was the only attendee with a child on the trip.

It seemed like a good idea to head out on Thursday with all the other girls but just leaving my little one for the airport tugged at my heart strings. Would she understand that I’d be back, that I still loved her with all my heart? I was in good spirits by the time I arrived at the airport. The girls and I enjoyed margaritas while we waited for our flight. All was going well.

By the time we got to the house we were all starving but excited to get the weekend started. My hubby sent me a sweet pic of my daughter a little after arriving and it just melted my heart. I couldn’t help but feel guilty being so far away from her. I’m tearing up now just thinking about it. I called them on the phone and she said, “Mama” in such a sad voice and cried when we hung up. It was so sad! One of the girls was super sweet and comforted me saying that I was a good mom and this is good time for her and her daddy. I have to admit that I was excited about this time for them. My husband had taken Friday off work to watch her so he got have two and a half full days with her.  It’s rarely just the two of them. Also, it was nice to see if he was worn out at the end of the day. Ha ha! As I predicted he pulled it off with flying colors. It was so cute seeing the pictures of them at their outings and in the clothes he put her in – he even put a bow in her hair! That so tugs at my heartstrings. He is such a good daddy.

While I had an amazing time at the bachelorette party and made memories that will last a lifetime, I had a really hard time being away for so long. I literally cried when I walked in the front door. Why am I such a baby? Do any of you other mamas have a hard time leaving your kids? Does it ever get any easier?

Eight Is Enough

I once heard someone say that parenting is the only relationship in which, if you are successful, they leave you. After 8 days away from Baby Mo, I wonder if I'll ever be ready for that kind of success.

Missing your child is unlike any other ache. I wonder why more love songs are not written about this because it is just as profound as any forlorn love I've ever known.

I coped pretty well for the first five days but the last three were hard. I kept waking up in the middle of the night wishing the clock would go faster and tabbing through photo albums of Baby Mo on my iPad.

When I finally arrived home last night Baby Mo's Grammy had just put him down. He wasn't quite asleep yet so I dashed into his room. He had turned himself towards the wall and when I turned him over, a slow smile spread across his face with the realization that seemed to say, "Is it really you, Mommy?" Waterworks. Serious waterworks.

I am completely humbled by how much I love and need this little baby. Part of me was just not right without him. But I knew that I had to take this trip. My mom gave me a scolding about it before I left.

"Your dad used to try to get me to go away with him but I would always make excuses because I didn't want to be away from my kids," she said. "And look where that got us."

My parents are no longer married. The lack of getaways was probably a symptom more than a cause of their divorce but I still took the lesson.

I made an effort not to talk about Baby Mo incessantly and not to be a mopey downer. As it was, my poor husband had to tolerate me pumping 3-4 times per day (including right outside the gallery where the Mona Lisa hangs in the Louvre). Plus I was busted making a Skype call home from the bathroom of our Bordeaux hotel.

On the other hand, there were moments where I hardly remembered that I am a mother. We ate fondue in Switzerland, drank wine in France, and ate paella in Spain. It was the trip of a lifetime.

My friend Parry, one of my favorite daddy bloggers, once wrote that "the best thing a father can do for their kids is to love their mother." I believe this saying is true in vice versa. I wanted my husband to know that he is just as important to me as Baby Mo. But if I had to do it over again, I would have used our freqent flyer points to upgrade to first class, I would have bought those gel inserts for my shoes, I would not have hit the sangria so hard on the last night, and I would have booked our return two or three days earlier. We love each other. But we love being a family too.