Leaving My Baby

Minh and I went to Portland last weekend. I was so anxious about leaving — not only because of what I needed to prep for Leon, but because it would be the first time we’d even leave him overnight. I printed out the “week” from a calendar and color-coded the days we’d be gone with a star on the day we’d come back; we put stickers on each day as they went by. He seemed to really understand it and enjoy adding the stickers, so as the week came I stressed a little less.

Then the morning we were leaving and carrying our bags out to the car, he panicked any time I wasn’t right next to him and ran screaming from room to room to find me. As we were putting on our shoes, he cried “No, Mommy!” He looked devastated. It was a somber drive to the airport.

But honestly, as soon as we got on the plane, I was confident he’d be fine. And he was. Halmoni sent me photos, daycare sent me photos — and in none of them was he crying or upset. In fact, it looked like he was doing a ton of fun things — hugging his friends, visiting the spa, and pushing a kiddie cart in the grocery store. 

He was so excited when we got home, he crashed on the floor before he even ran all the way over to us. I spent that afternoon unpacking, but Minh and Leon played outside and did tons of fun things together. I feel like this trip unlocked some doors for us. Maybe we should go out of town more often!