Leaving, left, gone.

The tribulations and perks of leaving your mini behind.

I want Seth to be independent. To have incredible relationships and enjoy cherished experiences with us, but also to be content spending time without his nearest and dearest. Similarly, despite absolutely adoring my little boy and bursting with excitement for all of our future shared adventures, I want to be at peace when spending time without him, and to be clear on and proud of who I am, in addition to being his Mother. Especially given that, ultimately, Seth will spend more years of his life living away from me, than with me. Seth must be the cherry on top of the cake, not the whole cake, if you will. The most indescribably irreplaceable gobsmackingly delicious magical favourite ever cherry, but not the entire cake. And, when he can speak…I’d like him to say something akin to ‘right back atcha, Mamma…’ (Though, I do promise to try my hardest to only infrequently teach him super embarrassing phrases like that…)

For me, amongst many others, a fundamental enabler of this approach, is for Seth to be successfully looked after by others. To start with, Paul and I both have incredibly supportive and bubba-loving parents; a gigantic bonus that cannot be underestimated, even if mine do live over two hours drive away and Paul’s in Sydney…! The distance does bring one positive aspect, though. *Cough persistent-silver-lining-searcher cough cough cough* To fast-track independence for us and Seth, we’ve had to expose him constantly to new faces and quickly trust others outside of our families to look after him. From 12 weeks Seth went a few times a week, an hour at a time, to the AMAZING David Lloyd creche. Then at 16 weeks he spent a few hours a day at the hotel creche on our first family holiday. And finally, the childcare app Bubble (keep your eyes peeled for my upcoming partnership with them…) has been genuinely lifechanging, specifically for adhoc evening-times.

The way I’ve tended to approach leaving Seth, is much the same as how I approach the majority of my life; commit to it, and then find a way to make it happen.  My resulting behaviour is similar to that of a distressed/confused/manic headless chicken. (And maybe this particular chicken naively thinks it is a bit special, and therefore uniquely not at risk of losing its head and so in a real (chicken) stew when it is indeed lost?!?). When Seth was just over a month old, we made a plan to go, six weeks later, to a food and wine pairing evening with two of our best friends, courtesy of the Lincoln Wine School. When said night arrived, we said goodbye to our first ever ‘official’ baby sitter, and made the very short walk to the restaurant. Late and a little anxious to begin with, I eventually relaxed and we had a terrific time. Then, before we knew it, we were feeling so confident and chilled, we made a pie in the sky plan for the four of us to go sailing in the Caribbean five months later… Without Seth. A meteoric escalation.

I loved having a stake in the ground to gear up to, to motivate top-notch preparation for leaving Seth for a long stretch. I gradually eased him into a routine that gave him some familiarity and structure anywhere. This was essentially: sleeping 12 hours at night and able to settle himself back to sleep if he woke, two big daytime naps, three chunky meals of adult food, four milk feeds a day. And, I continued to make sure Seth was regularly looked after by others, culminating in a ‘trial’ weekend at my parents.

The most challenging bit was the unstoppable mental whirring. At a rate of absolute knots. My mind tied itself up, and not in a way which improved my readiness AT ALL for a week-ish of dropping anchor. I flip flopped between every scenario. The kind that squeaks a little and flicks muck up the back of your legs with every step you take? Yes, that kind. He was 100% going to forget us and we should take him with us and rejig the nature of the trip instead. It was of course impossible for him to forget us, we should certainly still leave him behind. It was great for him to experience time without us. Uh oh, we were truly separating him all too soon. It was really special for Seth’s grandparents to have time with him, without us. We were gifting them an incredible experience. Gosh no, we were lumbering my parents with Seth and being truly demanding, unfair and not taking our parenting role seriously enough. The emotional turmoil was utterly exhausting. Then I blinked and the time had arrived. We dropped him off, we got on the plane, and the constant mind bouncing ceased. There was no going back…

Once we had left him, I was really surprised that I wasn’t sad about it. We FaceTimed him once a day around the time zone clash and that felt absolutely lovely, as well as peculiarly ample. I adore being with him every day and knew I would adore being back with him. But knowing that he was cared for, and having a wonderful time on his own little holiday, felt really great. Call me Captain Proverb, but never have the phrases ‘out of sight, out of mind’ or ‘no news is good news’ felt more appropriate and I was exploding with gratitude for my totally angelic parents, especially my mum. We snorkelled around untouched coves, showered off the back of the boat into a completely deserted ocean, caught Mahi Mahi for Ceviche starters, hiked up secluded islands across the BVI, paddled kayaks at sunset, drank rum cocktails on the beach. I was strongly remembering the ‘me’ without a baby; my opinions, motivations and aspirations unrelated to Seth, and realising I’d underestimated how overwhelmingly important that was.

Then it all went a little awry. Hurricane Fiona swerved in our direction and Beef Island, where we were docked, was completely closed off. All ports shut, all flights grounded, until further notice. We were glad that the storm hadn’t hit earlier and scuppered our whole time sailing. However, it did mean that our flight home was cancelled with no guarantee whatsoever on timings for a later one. I tried to hold it together, to accept that this was totally unpredictable and out of my control. It was minutia. But that is when the first tears came and I spiralled into a sad, grumbly mess. Scuttled into a hole like a frightened crab who had seen and heard too much and planned to hide away indefinitely. My lordy I think I developed pincers just as sharp, too…

I missed him, yes, but I knew I would survive fine on that front; it would be just a few more days. What really got me, though, was the guilt. Guilt that he would be without us even longer. Guilt that my parents were going to be ‘stuck’ looking after him for even more days. Guilt that I’d have to explain what was happening to multiple people. What had started as a nine day trip (it was actually ten, but I had kept saying nine even after I realised I’d miscounted because that is ‘just over a week’ and felt palatable…) became a twelve day one. That’s almost two weeks. With Seth only Eight. Months. Old. I went to the ridiculous extent of convincing myself that I was an awful mother and getting trapped on a faraway remote island, was karma for leaving our boy behind…I don’t think I genuinely shook this outlandish thought process until I was reunited with a baby who had absolutely remembered his parents. Bliss.

Nature nuture. We will never know the full interaction between them or which has the greatest influence on our personalities, behaviours, or interests. In Seth’s regular swimming lessons this week, every baby glanced constantly back at their parent, crying a little whilst they took their turn to demonstrate a new skill with the instructor. Seth didn’t look back at me for even a split second. Is he just naturally chilled out? Or does he act in this way because he’s had lots of practice at knowing he will be just fine without me? In addition to him being so bored of me that he cannot WAIT to get time hanging out with someone else (!), most likely, we’ve accentuated a natural preference. Maybe he will develop separation anxiety at another point. Maybe he won’t but I’ll be the one struggling to say goodbye when he goes to nursery, off on his first school trip or moves country. When Seth is older, I look forward to telling him about the adventures that he has had without us. I wonder if his reaction will be one of wonder at his early solo experiences or of dismay that we left him when he was still pretty diddy. I hope he giggles at my lapse in judgement on the ‘karma’ topic, rather than glares at me punishingly, in agreement...

P.S. Given I’ve covered it in other blog posts, I’ve not discussed breastfeeding here. But, unbeknownst to Seth, I thought I was going to be pumping every day whilst we were away, and instead the timings aligned perfectly that I could have my boobs to myself for our baby-free adventure away.

P.P.S. I am not blind to how lucky we are to be able to have a variety of parental and paid for childcare/support, and I am incredibly grateful for it.