I admit, I was kind of bewildered, because I've hardly gone anywhere for months, so I wasn't sure where this was coming from. I did go to CT for a few days right after New Year's to help my parents with some things, and Kevin reminded me that I've done the AirBnb once since then, although I stayed in town and actually came back mornings and nights, so the kids still saw me every day. Still, Kavi was upset, and I felt so bad for her.
I ended up pulling out the shared calendar, and showing her my upcoming trips, and also, all the other weekends and weeks when I'll be here, which is most of them. And I showed her our upcoming family trips in May too, and after going through, week by week, she was doing much better. I think it helped her, having a better handle on exactly when I'd be gone, and seeing how little it actually was. (Miss Kavya likes to plan, and know exactly what to expect. This is the child who lays out her clothes for school the night before, every night.)
But mostly I'm mentioning this because after all that, I had a bit of a brainstorm. See, I had gotten her a Christmas present, of a little silver heart locket engraved with a 'K,' with photos of her and me inside it. And then Christmas was harried, with lots of visitors and lots of presents, and I decided to just hang on to it 'til her birthday instead, which is coming up in May. But after this whole conversation, I pulled it out and gave it to her last night instead.
Reader, she LOVED it. I am not sure I can emphasize enough how happy it made her. Kavi wore it to school today, and apparently every single girl in the class wanted to see it, and wanted to know if it opened, and if there were photos inside it, and some of her friends made her show them over and over again. And she told me again today that she LOVED it.
I was afraid lockets were a little old-fashioned and pass, but apparently, eight-year-old girls still find the whole concept totally entrancing. Which makes me think that it might be time to go hunt up a diary with a key that locks; if I'm remembering right, that was a big deal when I was about this age.
Anyway, crisis averted, bad mommy moment turned into awesome mommy moment, whew. Sheer luck -- I only did it because I happened to like some of the photos we took this summer of the two of us at my own birthday outing. This working mother thing -- it's not so easy sometimes. Parenting in general -- mostly, you just hope you're not messing up too badly!