Much Needed

For the first time in three and a half years, I went away on a mini-vacation - without my daughter. At seven months pregnant, I am about to lose any chance of getting a break for a while so I decided to take advantage of my husband's willingness to spend a few days alone with Twig and take a quick get-away with a friend to Palm Springs. My friend is also pregnant and the two of us have been looking forward to this for quite some time. We both have girls the same age and, as mentioned in previous posts, age three is not exactly a breeze. A break was just what we needed.

 

With our bags packed and ready to go we decided to leave right after morning preschool drop-off. I told Twig the day before that I would be going and that she would be with Daddy. I also explained that I was going with her friend's mommy and that they could play together while we were away. She took the news so well, I questioned if she even understood. The next morning when I reminded her that Daddy was going to pick her up from school, I changed the subject quickly after I said it just to soften the blow. No reaction. When I said goodbye to her in the car, there was a brief pause and then quickly she and her friend were giggling and forgot I was even there. As the car pulled away, the only tears shed were mine.

She did fantastic and was tear-free the whole time I was gone. My friend and I enjoyed our leisurely ride to the desert, stopping to browse around the outlets and never once glancing at our watch to concern ourselves with school pick-up or nap time. We arrived at our hotel, had a lovely snack at the bar, sat around chatting for a while and then ate a nice dinner. We went to bed late and tried our best to sleep in. But between two pregnant women running often to the loo and our daily ritual of early wake-ups, we managed to sleep till 8:30am - definitely a luxury. Our day was more of the same relaxation. Breakfast in the sun, poolside lounging and a nice long swim. After lunch by the pool we eventually had to think about heading back home.

When we finally got back to our husbands and girls, we were so excited to see them. After getting the biggest hug from my Twig, we sat down to enjoy dinner all together. Of course it wasn't long before the tears came. Twig was pretty exhausted from hanging with her friend and wanted to hang on me a bit to let me know. She hadn't had a nap and her loving and warm welcome wore pretty quickly. I didn't feel quite up to speed on my reaction to her as I was still very much in vacation mode. It wasn't exactly what I expected to come home to, but it was a small price to  pay for a much needed get-away.