We did it. We survived the weekend. We survived being away. And I didn’t even cry… Really… A lot… Too much. Except I did.

Lydia was away from us for 20 hours (but who counted). Meaning she was not attached to me or within arms reach. Meaning that’s never happened before for more than an hour or two, once or twice. Meaning she was super far away… From us, not from home. Lydie only traveled across the street to Gigi and Bipi’s (Ryan’s parents for anyone who doesn’t speak Hess-ese).

The anticipation was the difficult part. That’s when the tears came. I didn’t want to put her down for 24 hours in advance. I pulled my typical I’m-freaking-out-on-the-inside routine where I get quiet, unnecessarily sedentary, snappy-ish and forlorn-looking. Blogging is such an exercise in self awareness. Lydie and I cuddled a lot and we took some extra pictures and tried to prepare ourselves. She did great. I did meh.

Really, though, you have to rip off the bandaid at some point. Inevitably, leaving my precious little bundle of precious had to happen for the first time and at least we had a celebratory reason to do it! Family wedding, yup. Dressing up, drinking, and dancing with my favorite people, yup. Best distraction ever, yup. I wasn’t going to work (yet) or a funeral (again) or doing something annoying or difficult or sad…  We were celebrating love with people we love! Win win winning.  Overall, our first childless excursion was a rousing success.

Lydie was such a good girl and slept for over half of those hours. Gigi and Bipi sent pictures and are very obviously baby care champs. Nothing about this was surprising.

The surprising part was how difficult it was to say goodbye to my first real stash of pumped and frozen gold. And then even more devastating was pumping and dumping my beer-laced gold down the drain at the wedding. Probably not worth the drinking. Definitely not worth the hangover. Absolutely more upsetting than I thought.

Time to go stash away in preparation for next weekend’s wedding celebration (!!!) and another being-away-from-Lydia challenge. Tis’ the season.