Finally, I’m home from the annual Heli Expo. For the first time in my 14 years of attending these things the thrill of it never really hit me. I blame my children, entirely. I missed them from the moment I walked out the door until I walked back in six hours short of five days later. In the past when I’ve gone away for a weekend with my hubby it was a little easier. He was there. This time was the longest I’d been from my babies and my hubby since they were born and it’s going to be a long time before I can pull that kind of stunt again.
I knew I’d miss the little creatures. Everyone talked about missing their kids. But NOTHING prepared me for this. I ached for them so bad it hurt. Everywhere I looked I saw things that Sweetness would like. The worst was seeing other little kids from Mr. Man’s age to Sweetness’s age. That almost killed me.
I’m serious. I was pathetic. I’ll have to check the phone records, but I think I talked to my hubby at least six times a day, and on the days the kids had childcare, I talked to the childcare person at least half that many times each day. When my little Sweetness said “hi mommy” on the phone to me for the first time ever as I sat on the show floor I started crying. My last night away I blew off the fancy party I was invited to because I just wanted to have some quiet time. That was good in one aspect, but it also left me with time to think and I ended up crying myself to sleep missing my little ones.
Unfortunately, Houston to Seattle flights seem to be rather popular as when it came time to leave I could have made the earlier flight, but it was over sold. As if to add insult to injury, it was starting to snow. SNOW! In Houston!! For the love of GOD and all that is holy. We ended up being 90 minutes late taking off but Continental kicked butt home and got us down to only 40 minutes late. It was 10:45 pm and I’d been up since 5 am PST.
To keep the small miracles coming, my bag was the third one off the plane and I almost ran to the taxi. The taxi driver was a lead foot and I was home in record time. I hauled my crap in the door, kissed my hubby, pet the dogs that were jumping on me, then went straight to Sweetness’s room where I climbed into her little toddler bed and wrapped myself around her, giving her tons of kisses and waking her a bit. Nothing was more heavenly than putting my face in her hair and taking a long deep breath. I could finally relax.
My next freelance gig’s meeting is in Hawaii in October. I’ve already informed Hubby that the kids are coming with. Let’s see how that goes.
