Saturday, May 16, 2009

Half a family

I've mentioned before that Mr Accident and I have jobs that require significant amounts of travel, often at short notice. We knew this when we met, when we married, and when we had little Princess, but now it has become a very immediate concern.

Mr Accident will be leaving in a month for a very long time. He will be away for his birthday, my birthday, Christmas, new years and our baby's first birthday. He will leave when baby is just learning to giggle, occasionally accidentally rolls over and has just discovered she has toes and thinks they are funny. He will come home when she is walking and on solid food.

C'mon Daddy, could you leave this?

I am trying to think of ways to keep Daddy in her mind while he's away. I am planning to take a decent photo and blow it up to life size and keep it where she can see it. Also, I was thinking about keeping a shirt of his so she will remember his scent. I am a little worried that after a while she will think Daddy smells like dust! As a last ditch attempt, if I can convince him, hopefully Mr Accident will acquiesce to will reading some books to her on a video. I think this will be the most effective but it will take some smooth talking on my behalf. He knows those tapes would be dangerous in the wrong hands!

She loves her Daddy, and I know how precious that is. I will be working very hard to keep that.


2 comments:

  1. i wish you good luck! in last november my baby was just 3 weeks old when my husband had to go away for 6 months. when he came back my older boy, 2 years old, remembered him right away, but the baby, then almost 6 months old, started crying when daddy approached him :( (he DID smell like dust!). but it didn't take long at all for them to be familiar with each other again. i hope you don't need to worry too much and that you have family and/or friends around to support when you have to cope on your own.

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  2. Good luck with the prolonged separation. Lots of families on the military base here in Japan face these kinds of separations, and it's never easy.

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