When Mommy's Away...

While Allen has had to travel a lot for work, I've somehow managed to go eight years without one business trip. As such, I haven't been away from the kids very much (Owen's had a total of 8 nights away from me; Nora's had three). My lack of professional development finally caught up to me and the government decided to send me to Aurora, CO for five days (and four nights) for Benefits Advisers training (it's still a little unclear, given I'm not a B.A., why the powers that be decided that should be the course that ended my travel-free reign, but as the training was intended for 10 days and I only had to go for four, I'm not arguing with them).

I'm not sure if it was harder on Allen or me. Allen, fortunately, had Grandpa Fawcett to help with drop-off, pick-up, dinner (Nora was particularly nervous about dinner but was pleasantly surprised after Daddy and Grandpa successfully fed everyone the first night and proclaimed, "We don't need Mommy after all.") and bedtime which eased a lot of the parenting burden, though he was still pretty exhausted each night. I had to go days without hugs or kisses, had only glimpses of the kids as the wifi connection at the hotel kept going out, limiting our facetime sessions though it did allow me to fully witness Nora dropping a chair on her toe which resulted in a lot of tears, some blood and no hugs from Mommy.

Despite the remnants of a tropical storm, I managed to make it home Friday night only a little late, with a wonderful greeting and a week's worth of hugs (plus some new furniture and blinds that Allen had installed in my absence). Hopefully this will tide me over when I go to Michigan for a college reunion the end of this month...