A Night Away

After spending a nice, relaxing day at Matt's Granddaddy's, we headed outside to say good-bye to Matt's sister Amy, her husband Jacob, and stepson Brodye. Brodye is just a month younger than Julia, and they had had a fabulous time (for the most part) playing together all afternoon. As I was stepping outside to say "good-bye," Brodye came in and asked me an interesting question. "Can Julia stay at my house?"
Hmmm. Spend the night? Away from me? MY BABY?!?!?!?

In all of Julia's 3 years, 8 months, and some odd days she has spent a grand total of 6 nights away from me: 2 nights while I was in the hospital having Audrey, and 4 nights while I went to chaperone youth camp this past summer. All 6 of these nights, she was able to stay at our house with Meme and Pop and sleep in her own bed. Now, I realize that many who read this will say that this is pitiful and that I'm too overprotective of a mother, and the many who say that would be correct. However, Julia's lack of experience being away from me/home isn't completely my fault; when you live 7+ hours away from the grandparents, you can't exactly just drop the child off for a one night visit.

Back to Brodye asking if Julia could spend the night...

What else could I say? I said "yes." I had an extra backpack in which I stuffed a change of clothes, and I loaded up my firstborn into Aunt Amy's car. As they were pulling out of the driveway, Julia was ALL smiles, I was already missing her, and Audrey... well, Audrey was pitifully hollering "Juuuu-Juuuu" over and over and over again. It was one of the saddest sounds I've ever heard, and tears started building up in my eyes. It was all I could do to keep them from falling. Matt's Aunt Vickie had to turn away to wipe her eyes too. It was then that I realized that while I had spent 6 nights away from my dear Julia, Audrey had NEVER been without "Ju-Ju." I think the child was traumatized.

4 hours later, I received a phone call from Amy, you guessed it, Julia had a TON of fun.... UNTIL bedtime!!!! Matt went to meet Amy and Julia, and Julia's little exercise of independance was over. I'm glad she tried to stay overnight somewhere. Julia got take a (very) small step out from under my cover, and Audrey was able to experience a few hours of having all of Mommy AND Daddy's attention.