Mondays Suck

So here we are. Another Monday morning. The start of another week on my own. It is around 5:45 AM and Alex just left a few minutes ago to drive down to Virginia for the week. I am almost finished my first cup of coffee and just may finish a pot by the time 8:00 rolls around. I have been up since about 3:45, when Sam woke up to eat. Around 4, just as I was starting to fall asleep, Georgia came in, very upset that Daddy needed to check on her before he left. She was crying, afraid that Alex would forget to say goodbye to her. Trying to preserve his sleep, I went to lie down with her in her room for a bit. But we have been back and forth for a while. She is still not back asleep, and if she doesn't drift off soon, we will have a very unpleasant day, to put it mildly.

However, as much as I would love to be annoyed at the fact that my daughter has stolen 2 precious hours of sleep from me, I just can't hold onto it. I saw this morning just how much this new living situation is affecting her. She broke my heart this morning, and her daddy's too, I am sure. Alex told her last night that he would come check on her at 4:30. She happened to wake up around 4:10 AM, and came into our room crying, very afraid that daddy had left without seeing her. I had gotten her calmed down, told her daddy would be in when he woke up, when she came back in at 4:29. She rubbed Alex's face, and said, "Look, it's almost 4:30. Daddy needs to come check on me." Off he went to cuddle for a few minutes before getting himself ready. Once he was in the shower, I started to drift off, but Georgia kept crying off and on, so I gave up on sleep a little after 5.

All this is sad, but the worst part came a little later. I walked past her room to Alex's office to ask him something. I glanced at her when I went by and thought she was asleep. But a few minutes later we heard sobbing. When I went in she was hysterical, terrified that Alex had left. She wanted to go to Virginia with him. She wanted daddy to be able to check on her every day. She missed him. It went on until Alex came in one last time, and I promised to stay with her for a while. I welled up with tears, and couldn't hold it in. My baby was hurting, and I knew how she felt. It is hard enough for me to say goodbye to Alex every week.....I still tear up. And I think that is a good thing, because it means that I am still sad about him not being here during the week. I get used to falling asleep and eating dinner by myself, to not having him here during the many wake-ups throughout the night. But I still miss him. And I still think this situation sucks. I guess we think kids are more resilient than we are, and this is true in many ways. But it doesn't mean they aren't affected. I know Noah is feeling the absence of his daddy. Every night he asks for him, and asks me to "Go get daddy in your car and bring him home to give me cuddles, please?" But Georgia has seemed to deal with it better, until this morning. It really hit me, just how much my little girl misses her daddy. And it hurt, way down in my gut, it hurt me to see her in such pain.

We go to Florida next weekend, for a week-long family vacation. I am hoping that it will help things to have a lot of family time together. But I also worry that it will be that much harder when Alex has to go back to work the following week. I guess we will face that when the time comes. Right now I just have to focus on getting all of us through the next 4 days.

On a parting note, Georgia has not fallen back asleep. She and I will be facing the day as a sleep-deprived, emotionally unstable mother-daughter team. I am going to do my best today to hold on to every shred of patience that I have inside me. Hopefully, we can both catch a nap later.

Mondays really suck.