…WITOUT SOPHIE!
<gasp>
It is strange but I admit that I am 50% excited about leaving my daughter for almost a week, flying to California with my hubby, and getting some majorly overdue time with friends and each other. The other 50% feels this big knot in my belly about being away from my baby for that long. Its the first time that we will be away from her at the same time and the longest either of us will have ever been apart from her. He has been away from Sophie weekends that I have visited my family without him…and I have been away from her for up to two days on annual business trips. Thats it.
Luckily, Sophie is really really really talkative right now. Her vocabulary has been expanding by the day. I read today that a toddler learns a new word every ninety minutes. I have learned with Sophie that if I can say it, she can repeat it, and remember it. She also is learning to talk on the phone and does so regularly to her grandparents. She had a nice conversation with my mom yesterday on the way home and my mom got the gist very quickly and understood what this “baby” was telling her: that she was in the car with mama, that she wanted to see dada at home, and that she got timeout at school that day for climbing. All the important highlights of her day. 
This obsession with the phone could not have come at a better time – because in a month those short conversations are going to be a lifeline for my husband and I while we enjoy our time away. Those little conversations will be our “fixes” in between the spurts of fun we plan to have in San Francisco and Napa.
What goes without saying is that while my husband and I are apprehensive and slightly concerned about how we will do without her (we realize that she will be perfectly fine) my family is waiting impatiently for their first long stay with Sophie – without her mom and dad around. She will be with my mom all day at my mom’s in home daycare, she will see my dad every evening, and I have even given my sister the heads up that she can take Sophie on an excursion on the Fridays she has off while Sophie is there.
I guess it also goes without saying that my Sophie is one loved and wanted little girl.
