The First Trip

I'm sitting in my hotel room in Germany.
It's been most of a week. 5 days since I saw my daughter in person. 5 days since I held her to rock her to sleep. 5 days since she sat on my lap while I read her a book. 5 days since I have walked around without a velcro baby attached to me. 5 days since I held her up to the sink to wash her hands and kissed her head before bed. 5 days since I brushed her teeth while she was busy playing in the water in the bathroom sink. 5 days since I gave her all my hugs and more.

I am aching with that feeling that I need to get home. I managed to postpone the first work trip for nearly a year after I got home, and I was thankful that I could keep it to less than a week, but now I'm aching to get home.

I have pictures of her spread around my hotel room. Pictures of Madeline. Pictures of Jeremy. Pictures of Jeremy and Madeline. Pictures of Madeline and I. A few pictures of the 3 of us as a family.

The airport departure was so hard. SO hard. I cried. I cried getting out of the car in the parking garage. I cried as we walked to the security line. I cried when I had to go through the security line and leave Maddie and Jeremy behind. Since then I didn't cry. Since then I got caught up in the whirlwind of the trip. Being Busy, being in meetings, going to dinner, skyping with them in the middle of the night. Checking my phone for the time and calculating what time it was to try and figure out what they might be doing at any given moment.

But now, it's Wednesday night. I have 1 more full day and I fly home at the crack of dawn on Friday. I'd be on a flight tomorrow morning if I could, becuase I'm just ready. Please let it be Friday already, I miss my sweet girl and seeing her laugh. I want to know but I hate to hear that she keeps saying "mama? Mama?" the way she also says "Baba? baba?" when Jeremy is out of town. Confused, not sure where or when we'll be back. I want to get home to my sweet girl and reassure her that I'm here, and that Mama always comes home.