All Aboard!

Have you heard of Travelzoo? It’s an travel deal finder. Their alerts come to my email every so often and I browse through all the different travel packages. Occasionally I forward them on to Ben with messages like, “Can we please go to India? Look at the great deal attached!” or “You want to go to Paris this weekend?”. A girl can dream, right?

Yesterday one came that really caught my eye: Florida Cruises. After a little plotting, pleading, and planning we decided to book a cruise for New Years. It’s going to be our Christmas present to each other. Actually, I’ve already done all my shopping for Ben, so I guess it’s his Christmas present to me. Which he should be happy about because he dreads going to the mall.

Anyways, I was very excited about it yesterday. For months I’ve been telling Ben that I need to get away: go on a vacation, recoup on all the lost hours of sleep, have a little time to rediscover my sanity before round two of motherhood comes along, etc. This seemed like the perfect solution!

Then I went to bed.

All I could do was lay there and think about how awful it’s going to be to leave Sadie! The idea of the cruise became less and less exciting and more and more gut wrenching.

We’re going to leave her with my parents and sisters while we’re gone (three nights and four days!). My parents have a fairly good track record in the child rearing department, don’t you think? And Kimmy – Sadie LOVES Kimmy. She’s been known to even call her ‘mom’ on occasion and may have a slight preference for her over me. And then there’s Christy – very patient and playful with Sadie. She can keep her occupied for hours!

So, why am I so stressed about leaving her?

This was not the type of parent I had planned to be. I pictured myself more layed back and easy going. But, Sadie has turned me into an overbearing and cautious parent. It’s the mom she’s needed me to be and I’ve conformed. Now I’m trying to transition back to normality and help her develop a little independence. This is already proving to be a painful process for me; I just hope it will be smoother for her.

I picture her wandering through my parents house looking for us in each room. Or waking up in the morning and calling, “Daaad? Maaam?” only to be upset when we’re not there. How sad!

Hopefully it won’t be like that! Hopefully she’ll have the time of her life. Hopefully I’ll be able to relax and enjoy myself. Hopefully we’ll both be better from the experience! I hope, I hope, I hope, I hope!