I am going to Apple Hill with my friends tomorrow. I love Apple Hill. I love my friends. It will be fun. Yet, I have a reason not to be over the moon about this: I am leaving HootOwl behind.
I know that if I wasn’t fortunate enough to stay at home with my little sweetie, if my circumstances were even the tiniest bit different, I would have had to leave her for a whole day a long time ago. But, as luck would have it, I have never had to go anyplace without my tiny girl, and I have never left her for more than two hours or so.
I was going to take her with me, but after a little heat from my parents and my husband, Hayden is staying with my mom. I know that it will be good for us both. I know that she will be fine. I suppose I will be fine too. But if all of that is true, why do I feel like my heart is going to explode?
Being a mom is a lot harder than I thought it would be. Last fall, when Owl was still on the inside, I knew that there would be sleepless nights, I knew that there would be times when I wanted to cry. I knew that it wasn’t an easy job, this mom gig – I worked with kids for 10 years in my previous life. I had no fairy-tale illusions about having a perfect kid or being super mom all the time. I knew what I was in for – but there are so many parts that I couldn’t even begin to understand.
I didn’t know that I would sometimes feel so happy to have her that I cried. I didn’t know that every little milestone would be more bittersweet than the one before. There is not anything that could prepare me for what it is like to forever feel like there is this big tender spot inside of me that never stops throbbing. To feel like my heart is walking around on the outside of my body. I knew that I loved my husband, and I felt like I could never love anyone more than I loved him. I do love my husband, but the love that filled me up the second the doctor placed that wiggly, screaming little girl on my chest, my heart floated and got so heavy I couldn’t hold it all at once. She is my world, and was my world from the second I laid eyes on her chubby little face.
Why am I so heartbroken about something so “minor” as leaving her with her grandma (who by the way loves HootOwl just as much as I do and who HootOwl is madly in love with in return) for the day while I do something fun? Because it is a reminder that time is moving so fast and she will just keep growing, and that my heart will just keep breaking over and over again as she does. i don't want to miss a single minute. I know that my heart will break many more times than this.
I also know that as time passes the breaks will feel less impossible to overcome and that when I get home tomorrow night she will be here waiting for me, tiny little angel that she is. So tomorrow, I will just push through the hurt, smile and wave bye-bye to my little girl, and go have fun with my friends. But I am not going to lie – I will be counting the seconds until I am back home and my little Owlet is back in my arms. and hopefully she won't have walked or said a full sentence or learned to drive while I was away. :)
I remember how hard it was to leave Maddie with my parents the first time. However the positive side of all this is that she gets to have a close relationship with your parents. We are so lucky to live near our parents! I grew up away from my grandparents, so little by little, it becomes easier. Now Maddie sleeps over their house once or twice a month!
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