Andrea's Adventures in Binkyland

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We had it made. Sasha was going to bed nicely, sleeping clean through to nearly 7am, every single night. No more 4am night nursing. No more Ferber. And then the inevitable happened: I finally had to take a business trip.

I found out on a Wednesday that I'd have to go to Colorado Springs the next Tuesday. It would've been Monday, but I put my foot down and said no for once. Still, three business days' notice for travel is... upsetting, at best. But that's another blog entry entirely.

We did our best to warn Sasha ahead of time. "Mommy is going to go away for a while, but daddy will take good care of you. And mommy will come back soon!" We even told her that I'd be gone before she woke up the morning I left (6am flight, I got my cab at 4:15). Only fair, we figured, to let her know what to expect.

The night before I left, she seemed to understand, and seemed OK, until I put her to bed. Then she remembered: Mommy wouldn't be there in the morning. She totally flipped out. Her logic, and sound it was, seemed to be that mommy couldn't possibly go anyplace if mommy stayed in her room. After over a half hour, I gave up at placating her and simply let her cry. Heartbreaking, but not a lot else to do. She fell asleep before too long, and that was that.

The trip itself was the typical comedy of errors that every site install is. Nothing too harrowing. I met a lot of nice people, and I got to admire the mountains for a bit. It really is beautiful out there. The mountains are sudden, like somebody just dropped them in the middle of a plain and forgot to clean them up again; and everything is so far apart. The sky yawns over everything, much bigger than it is back on the East Coast.

After a shaky start, Sasha did admirably without me for three days. She asked about me, but was OK with daddy's explanations; at daycare, she was prone to crying more easily than usual, and wanted to snuggle Roro more, but considering the circumstances, she was a real trooper. I met the two of them at the airport, and she was absolutely thrilled! Mommy home, yay! And since it was a bit past her bedtime, she fell asleep in the car on the way home. This gave me some small hope that three days was a good lead-in to total weaning. A short-lived hope.

Friday morning, we went right back into the swing of things as though nothing had happened. Sasha was a little extra giddy, because I was home, I think; but it was a wonderful relief to know that everything had gone so well in my absence.

Friday night, the other shoe dropped. Sasha went to bed, pretty much on schedule. And then, at around 11pm, she woke up. She hadn't done that in months. A fluke, I thought; she must still be off-kilter from missing me. I went in and gave her some snuggles, and with some difficulty, got her to bed again.

Saturday night, she was up by 10:30, and simply would not let me out of her sight again. She wanted to sleep in our room, with us. After much cajoling, she would agree to sleep in her crib, but only as long as I was standing there patting her tushy. Three times, she woke up again and started crying all over within a minute of my creeping away. After two hours of this, we let her come in and sleep with us ("but no snack," I warned her; I really want the night-weaning to stick).

And so here I am, Sunday night, waiting for the witching hour. It's pretty obvious to me that Sasha is petrified that mommy is going to run off again in the middle of the night, and she's doing her level best to keep me here. I feel pretty awful. And oh, do I miss those days when Sasha went to bed at 8 and slept for a solid 11 hours. It was only a week ago.

My kitchen is: Well, it's a little on the messy side. But I do have some good news to report! We're going on four or five weeks since we let go of the cleaners, and if anything, the house is staying cleaner than it used to. I didn't have time early last week to finish my weeklies, and then Matt and the baby were home alone, so things naturally moved a little to the messy side. But it only took me about an hour on Friday to get everything presentable again. Not spotless squeaky-clean, mind you, but I wouldn't fall all over myself apologizing to anyone who stopped by, either. (I love you, FlyLady!)

Posted by andrea at February 22, 2004 09:46 PM