MOMday: When Daddy's Away

Hubby has been in Toronto since Thursday.  It is the first time he has spent time away from the girls (just him - we went away together to San Fran without them last year) and it has been a real adjustment for us all.  All I can say is thank goodness for my MIL - having an extra set of hands around has made a huge difference in his absence.

This brings up the topic of how to handle that first absence and what we did to make it easier on the girls.

First thing first - we started relating the things he would be doing, like flying in an airplane.  The girls are obsessed with airplanes so we could point out planes on our commutes the week before and tell them that daddy would be flying in a plane to go to Uncle Shelby's wedding.

Then, after dropping hubby at the airport bright and early the day he left - I pulled up a flight tracker on the internet so the girlies could watch where their daddy's plane was throughout the morning.  They liked seeing the little plane on the map move.

Hubby had both his tablet and iPhone with him and had free wifi at the hotel so we used Skype to check in.   If he had've been here in person, he would have been knocked over by them - they kept kissing the screen and laughing when they saw his face.  More than once, I had to move my MacBook further away from them because I feared for the screen!   At the wedding reception, hubby was able to skype us so the girls could see him all dressed up in his tux and see the party going on behind him.

We tried to ease the absence for the girls.  MIL and I kept them super distracted all weekend.  Yesterday - we took them shopping and let them pick out their Halloween costumes and some new clothes for winter.   They liked touching the clothes and deciding what characters should be on their shirts.   I didn't like wrangling them in the Sears bathroom for diaper changes while we waited for the change table (thank goodness for hand sanitizer and my sincerest apologies to the cleaning staff for whatever I may have missed.  Boo for bathrooms that can't accommodate a double stroller). 

That's not to say they didn't miss their daddy.  I think they might have been a bit confused at times because they would run for the door yelling "Daddy! Daddy!".  Or, when we drove home Friday night and they nattered on about how we would see Gramma and daddy when we got there...they didn't entirely get it.  But they sure got excited when I'd bring my laptop into the living room.

All in all, I think we had a successful first try at this whole "daddy goes on a trip" thing.  He doesn't travel often, but there is a possibility of business trips in the near future.  It's good to know that with a support system in place, we were able to thrive.

Now, if only the dogs had done as well without him.