I Hate Leaving My Kids

July worked really well for my work schedule, in the end. Even if I hadn’t called out sick, I only would have worked 8 days total.

Five of those days, though, started last Wednesday. I didn’t get home until almost 2:00a.m. Sunday night/Monday morning, and I am still  exhausted from work.

The first three days I was gone, the kids were with my parents. Every day the kids would talk on the phone with me, excitedly telling me stories of their adventures with Grandma and PopPop. I got LOTS of “I love you, Mommy! I miss you! Be careful!” from Jed.

It was wonderful.

Then the kids went home to be with Daddy over the weekend, and suddenly the phone calls got miserable. Jed refused to speak to me on the phone at all. I could even hear him in the background telling Darrel “I don’t want to talk to Mommy! NO!”

All I can imagine is that in Jed’s mind, if he and Zac were home with Daddy, I should be home with them, too. Since I wasn’t, that was pure abandonment – and he was mad.

Yesterday, it took all the way until dinner time before Jed would hug or kiss me. He did come and sit on the couch with me in mid-afternoon, where he took a moment to tell me that he was mad at me for leaving him before hopping off the couch and getting away from my attempt at a hug.

I hate leaving my kids.

Just flat hate it.

Sigh.

At least the kids are doing well! The chicken trial “phase one” concluded yesterday: ten full days of chicken for Zac. Today begins the 3 day break, and we’ll reintroduce chicken on Friday for “phase two”.

He did so beautifully on chicken from Saturday until Tuesday, when I was home, that I was feeling very confident. Once he got to my parents house, though, I started hearing of some concerning diaper rashes.

They never reached the “blistering” stage of diaper rashes, but they did turn his heinie bright red and make him scream and fight to escape being wiped, which is almost always a really bad sign.

I was starting to get worried.

Then the kids came home, and within a day, Darrel reported that the diaper rash had started fading.

He made the observation that the diaper Zac came home in looked different than the ones we use at home. I called Mom to confirm, and she remarked that they had run out of diapers a couple of work trips ago (think sometime in June) and just bought whatever brand she found at Walmart.

Since the last few times he’s been at my parents, he’s come home with a red diaper rash, we had to conclude that the diapers she bought are intolerable to his little tushie.

What a relief! It’s not the food, it’s not an accidental ingestion, it’s just the diapers! Yay!

We’ll make sure she has safe diapers from now on.

At speech therapy last week, Zac said two full words! “Mine”, and “Up”.

He’s been saying “up”, but it was more of an “uh” sound…Thursday he added the full “P” to the word.

I’m so happy! He really hasn’t said any complete words before now! We knew he meant  words; like when he said “ba” for a ball, or “uh” for up, but they weren’t the full, actual word. This is huge!

Saturday night when the kids got home, they decided to do something new.

Zac insisted on sleeping with Jed in his toddler bed.

Jed agreed.

So Darrel put the boys to bed together, and they slept together for most of the night. They repeated the experiment on Sunday night.

Of course, by the time I walked in the door at 2:00a.m., both boys were in bed with Darrel in our bed, but still. They want to go to sleep together in their room. That’s a big deal!

So last night Darrel asked how we were going to do bedtime now that I was home. Would we still try to put the boys to sleep together in their bed, or go back to putting Zac to sleep in our bed?

Well, honestly, I do have some concerns about night weaning Zac at this point, but his diet is expanding and he’s getting older. If he’s ready and willing to begin the nights sleep in his own room, it’s probably a good thing to encourage. I know he’ll wind up in our bed before the night is over, but it’s a good start.

But the toddler bed is so tiny!

Jed flips and flops in it all night long, so surely they wake each other up being that close.

We’d like to get the boys a full size bed to sleep on together, but we just don’t have the funds for that right now. Fortunately, Darrel and I still have our old queen sized bed stuffed in the spare room. We’ve been trying to unload those mattresses to my parents, on Craigslist, or wherever we could, to no avail.

So last night before bed we dragged the bed in to the boys room and made it up.

Jed and Zac were thrilled! Jed kept running around saying “This is my favoritest bed ever! I love this bed!” and trying to help us rearrange furniture.

We’d planned on leaving his Thomas toddler bed in the room, to sort of help ease the transition to the new bed, but Jed, without prompting, suddenly informed us that “We have to put mine Thomas bed back where it came from. It goes in the library.”

Darrel and I asked him if he was sure he wanted to get rid of his Thomas bed, and he said “Yes”. So we shrugged, took the top off the bed, and hauled it into the library.

Within five minutes of the boys laying down in their new bed, Jed told me, with concern and upset etched on his face, that “I don’t like this bed. I need my Thomas bed.”

I could only tell him that it was too late in the night to be hauling beds around, and that if he really wanted it back we could move it in the morning. He didn’t like that answer, and finally Darrel had to come in and lay with him to help him fall asleep.

So we’ll see what happens. We may end up with no walking room in their room for all the beds in there, or he may wind up liking it after sleeping in it for one night.

What a big weekend for the boys!

The discovery of the diaper rash cause and the new sleeping arrangements wouldn’t have happened if not for my going to work, but I still hate leaving my kids.

How was your weekend? How did you transition your kids to “big kid beds”?