Stretching the Cord

They say that it is only an illusion when the baby's umbilical cord is cut at birth. It appears to be severed, but in actuality it remains intact, stretching a little further between mother and baby. At first, especially with a nursing baby, the cord maybe only stretches as far as to the next room and only for a few minutes. After a while maybe it stretches across town for a couple of hours. Of course, the distance and duration of stretching the cord differs for every mommy and baby.

For Owen and me, each step of stretching the cord took quite a while. He was 2 and a half before we spent a night away from each other (I came home from the hospital 6 hours after giving birth to Quincy in order to be here to put Owen to bed). Well, last week we stretched our cord all the way from Corvallis to Boulder!

I had the rare opportunity to attend a training on teaching literacy in Spanish hosted by my professional hero Kathy Escamilla at the University of Colorado in Boulder. Since Owen is now a full-fare passenger on the airlines, we decided that he would stay home with Brady while my mom accompanied me (at her expense--thank you mom!!!) to Boulder to be Quincy's caretaker during conference hours.

As I prepared for the trip, it felt strange to only be packing for myself and one kid. I felt sad at the idea of leaving Owen so far behind. The day before I left I told him that the next day would be the day that I would go to Colorado. The following dialog ensued:
Me: Owen, tomorrow is the day that I go to Colorado. You will stay here and do lots of fun things, and I'll see you Friday morning.
Owen: But I want to go with you!
Me: I know, sweetie. I wish I could take you, but we don't have enough money this time.
Owen: (with a very earnest look on his face) But I have money! (He has two different piggy banks that he has been putting coins in for the past two years)

It melted my heart, and I started to get cold feet about leaving. However, I did in fact go on the trip, and Owen did stay home with daddy (and help from Grandpa Stan and Grandma Linda).

What I experienced over the next few days was great. Of course I missed Owen and was so excited to get home to see him. However, I did not pine away for him. In fact, it was very freeing to be away from him, knowing he was in excellent hands having all kinds of fun, while enjoying my conference, some time with colleagues away from work, and some "only child" parenting of Quincy. Getting back was wonderful, and (thanks to 2 snow days canceling school) we have spent 4 wonderful days playing, reading, cooking, and really just hanging out at home.

I can only imagine what it will feel like when Quincy's and my cord is ready to stretch that far. Actually, I'm not ready to even really imagine that one yet.