by: Emma Aguirre
I’m headed out to California tomorrow morning with my daughter, leaving my husband behind. He has to work and it’s my mom’s Spring Break out there. She has been wonderful about visiting Texas every month or so since my daughter was born, so it really is our turn to visit. Not to mention she is dying to show her off!
I spent the afternoon packing. As a side note, I’ve found that a big laptop purse holds everything my daughter and I need for the flight, it’s the perfect size! It doubles as a diaper bag and purse for me! I’m not totally convinced that I have everything in there that I might need (baby Tylenol? I’m thinking for her ears…just in case…). Since I’m traveling alone with my daughter in the BabyBjorn, I want to minimize anything else I need to carry. Thankfully my mom has loaded up on gear in California – she works in an elementary school and has borrowed everything we need, and of course, has bought plenty of new outfits so all I’m taking is a few onesies and a warm jacket just in case it’s a bit chilly. I’m trying to remember that we’re not going to the moon and if we need to run to the store, then so be it. One of the perks of staying at my parent’s home, besides the fact that it’s my parents, is that we’re also able to do laundry. I think I might have under packed for the first time in my life. I only packed two pairs of shoes and my running shoes…unheard of!
But as I was packing us up, I found myself sobbing. I thought my hormones had settled down, but not so. My husband has traveled for work many times before and sure, I was sad, but I’ve never really cried about it. I’m almost 29 years old for peat’s sake! It was HIS routine that was disrupted after all, not ours. Today, something was different and I am so used to our new, little family in our home that leaving it makes me really sad. I’ve become quite the homebody. As happy as I am to be visiting my parents and as much as I love California, my roots are deeper than they’ve ever been in Houston. I was married here, my child was born here. I thought maybe it was to do with flying-alone-with-an-infant-nerves, but I really don’t think that’s even it. I’m not the first person to fly with an infant and I won’t be the last. I just love my life here and everything that my daughter has brought to it…I will miss my two crazy dogs bouncing on the bed in the morning and my sweet husband more than anything. You would think I was leaving for a month. It’s really only a week!
I can’t really remember what our life was like before I was pregnant and my daughter arrived. We were like any other young, newlywed couple and I still feel like we are in many ways. We make time for ourselves, we laugh a lot and we appreciate each other probably more than ever. We have a wonderful life and our daughter just makes it that much sweeter. This trip is making me realize, maybe for one of the first times since she came along how lucky I really am, how loved I am, and how happy I am, to be mom.
