That holiday feeling

Yey! I'm back from holiday. I spent a week away in San Francisco with my husband while our daughter spent her own holiday down in the Westcountry with her grandparents, aunties and cousins. I feel revived and refreshed. It was a bit daunting preparing for the trip and wondering if Abigail would be OK but it all worked out really well and I'd really recommend it if you can! I've realised how important the break is for all of us and will try to make sure we get away at least once a year, doesn't really matter where as it's the time off that's so good.

Before the holiday, we were getting a bit overloaded - like most people I know at the moment we were balancing on a thin line: B was working a second job on top of his normal one to save, ironically, in part for the holiday, and so I was looking after Abigail what felt like all day, everyday, as well as boosting a tired, overworked husband (I don't know how well I did but we were both trying, as was the Coca Cola Company). In day jobs you can get to the end of the day, 5pm or 8pm, whatever, and then that's it, it's finished, but with parenting the job is 24 hours... you know the rest I won't go on. Having a family is and I suspect always will be, the most wonderful experience but a challenging one too and the holiday was definitely overdue. The chance to have a holiday just to ourselves was beyond precious.

Oh yes, and I'm 15 weeks pregnant (o-eee!) so the last 3 months have also been heavily dosed with zombie-tiredness like I've never seen before, (was it worse than last time or have I just forgotten?), which affected my oomph alot. Time out from the forever active toddler world gave a well-needed rest to my mind and ever-changing body. (Not to mention that B had flown out a week before for work so I'd been flying solo the week before too).

Preparing Abigail for her trip was no mean feat - we'd put a lot of time into planning what things she'd need, even written an essay on her home routine in order to keep things as familiar and prevent any feelings of unsettledness as possible. It was unknown territory for us all.

After dropping Abigail off at with her grandparents, and driving to Heathrow the holiday really started. Just hanging out at the airport, treating myself to a delicious breakfast and hot coffee in a sophisticated-looking restaurant as I waited for the gate to be called was heaven. I even started reading a book, a classic too (thought I'd take on a challenge). I was apprehensive about what it'd be like spending a week alone with B after 27 months of us only having time away alone for a wedding one weekend - would we run out of things to talk about? I needn't have been though. It was just great. Really relaxed. We had brunch. Just spent time together exploring the area and having fun. We thought about Abigail alot, talked about her to other people, but it was fine, it wasn't painful, we were mostly just very proud and probably boring others.

One day, we went into a peace cafe in Haight & Ashbury and got chatting to one of the staff there who has two older children in their twenties and told her what we were doing on holiday, that we had a little girl and were expecting another. A few days later we bumped into her on Haight Street and caught up again. At the end of our conversation she said "your marriage will thank you". It was our last day and we agreed. It had been a wonderful week.

When we picked up Abigail, it was like a film sequence. We saw her across the car park and she saw us. We could hear her giggling and saying "Mummy, Daddy" as she started running towards us and us towards her. She was explosively happy and clearly had had a great holiday herself enjoying time with her geographically-distant family. I'm certain that they all enjoyed the time with her too - longer than the snapshot weekends we usually were able to make a few times a year. She definitely had grown and learnt more words, she seemed more confident too - a bit older - perhaps it was from hanging out with her slightly older cousins. In just one week we had all had a wonderful time.

I will definitely feel less nervous about her going away again and think time away together for all Mums and Dads once a year is so important, it should probably be prescribed!