Six days without

No, not that! Well, I suppose sort of. But yesterday marked the beginning of a nearly 144 hours without my hubby. Just dropping him off at the airport was very hard. Thankfully, we had to pick up a coworker on the way to the airport, so that diminished some of the emotions that I know both of us were feeling. We had already expressed our anxiety days before the departure. But as I hugged and kissed him goodbye, I wondered to myself, does it take a bit of absence to really appreciate your spouse?

For more than two years, I've been really spoiled by not having to get up all hours of the night with the kids. He is always the first to hear the cries and whimpers of the kids, and jumps right out of bed to cuddle and love them back to sleep. Often times he would fall asleep with them, inevitably on the couch, and I'd find them sound asleep in the mornings when I would get up to start the day. Even during those first few weeks of their lives, he was right there with diaper changes, spit up duty, catching vomit in hand and cleaning up poops in and out of the tub. I knew when we first dated 18 years ago that this man would be a great dad, but never did I imagine that he would be so phenomenally engrossed and absolutely in love with his children. Something that I truly appreciate and love him for.

This first night went about as I expected, except my patience wore thin as the time kept ticking away. Roo proved that she was still in control of her bowels and insisted that she wanted to do the doo, but did not poop a bit. After battling with her for what seemed like an eternity, she finally agreed to just go to bed and try again tomorrow. Small victory. Then it was time to put Y down. He had a full bottle at his aunt's house an hour earlier and was nice and cozy, comfy with his uncle. Then, I of course had to take both of them home so they could go to bed. He certainly didn't like not being all snuggly with his warm uncle, and made it known on the short three-minute ride home. By the time I plopped him on the ground, with his tear-stained face and wails of disdain, he had fully woken up and was ready to play again. It certainly didn't help that his sister was trying to amuse him by sitting on the toilet and not doing anything but sitting. After another half bottle and 20 minutes of rocking, he finally settled down. I think I had dozed off a couple of times in between the squeaks and rocks of the glider, but I didn't care. Both of them were finally asleep and I even had some time to get the bottles ready for daycare. The last few minutes were spent savoring delicious sugar-free jello before the Lost season finale was under way.

As I enjoyed the jello and settled down on the couch for the marathon television-viewing, I sighed that I didn't have my partner in crime with me to share in the night's crazy activities. We both get a sense of joy out of bathing our kids and tucking them into bed each night. The tag-team effort almost always makes the night a little less frantic, and to be honest, having those extra set of hands pick up where the other left off is quite magical.

I'm truly counting down the hours that he'll be home, joining in the nightly rituals that have become the D and triple B's (dinner, bed, bath and bottles). Almost sounds like a strange restaurant slash bed and bath kinda store, but the real weirdness is not having him here with me.