greenbaby

The other day my sister, D, was visiting. She was getting ready to leave when I realized that I should take the opportunity to throw a load of diapers in the washing machine while I had an extra set of hands. D agreed to watch Sweet Pea while I ran down to the basement, so I went down and started a load in the washer. I could not have been down in the basement for more than 5 minutes, but when I came back upstairs S.P. was beside herself. D was holding her and S.P. was screaming. It was a kind of crying I had never heard from her before. It reminded me of the way older children cry when they get really worked up and can’t catch their breath. D said, “I don’t know what happened! One minute she was fine - she was smiling at me! Then the next minute she started screaming.” We determined that in that instant between happy and upset, S.P. must have noticed that I was nowhere nearby. This happened two days after I would have returned to work had I followed my original plan.
Separation anxiety is a funny thing. On the one hand, mothers hate it because it makes it hard to do anything without the baby. On the other hand, I will admit that there is a certain satisfaction in knowing that you are the only one who can really calm your baby - that you are the only one your baby really wants. We will work on this separation anxiety. After all, eventually I would like to be able to drop S.P. off at the grandparents’ house and go to a movie with Pookie. But I am now more confident than ever that I am making the right choice in staying home and doing everything I can to make sure I am able to stay home as long as possible.