We decided to try an experiment. We went to visit the family in the US. And then we left the girl with her grandparents. She's been there almost two weeks and she comes back tomorrow.
A bit of background. Life's gotten quite busy here. A planned visit to the States was to end with us coming back at the start of half-term. A magical period where not only schools are out, but so is nursery (because why would you need extra childcare then?). So zero free time has turned into negative free time.
When we mentioned this to L's mother she asked Why don't you just leave her with us for a while? You can change her flight home and I'll come back with her.
Which we though Ha ha ha. That's silly — Wait.... why not? Hey, what do you think about staying in the States with you grandparents for a week?
Yeah!
And that was that. Actually not quite. We were quite hesitant. But with her excited about it, we could at least take it seriously. I know we'd always expected for her to spend a summer or other break with her cousins or grandparents, but at 3½... we'd not expected to get the chance so soon. So to make sure we were doing the right thing, we did a number of tests.
Test One: The Sleepover.
The girl had never spent the night away from us. She'd recently gotten to sleep for a sitter, so we knew it was possible. But we'd never tried. So, with her assent, she spent a night a friends house. It worked. She had dinner and went to bed and eventually got to sleep and woke up without freaking out. Score.
Test Two: The Flight.
After staying with the grandparents she has to get back home. Which means a 7 hour flight. Her grandmother was going to fly alone with her, and the girl had to be trusted to behave for the duration. In other words, not run up and down the aisle into first class like last time.
Not an issue, if her flight over is any basis. she spent the entire time engrossed in the entertainment system. Hours of Doctor McStuffins and various other children's shows. She had to be bribed to leave the seat and go to the loo. So this would not likely be a problem.
Test Three: The day with the grandparents
She's a lovely lass, but can be a handful if you're not expecting it. So we had to be sure the grandparents knew what they were getting into. On the first full day we were in the States, we got up early and left the girl with her grandparents while we spent the entire day shopping and seeing friends, with the plan of returning after she was asleep in bed. We had a lovely time. She had a lovely time. She was actually asleep when we got home.
With all those tests passed, we still had one final challenge
Test Four: The airline tickets
We had to change the girl's ticket to a new flight, and get her grandmother on the same flight, and get them linked so they could fly together. And agree on a day with the grandparents. Not trivial but also not a big deal. Except to save like £100 per person we went through one of those cheap ticket resellers. Over email, resellers told me they can make the change. Good. But then they say on the phone only the airline can do it since it involves the grandparent's ticket. The airline, on the other hand, says only the resellers can do it since we bought the ticket through them. Back and forth few times til we learned the grandparent had to buy the ticket less than 24 hours before the child ticket was changed. During the back and forth we had to cancel the grandmother's ticket just so we'd have another 24 hours to resolve it. Finally, after a bit of escalation, a manager at the resellers says Look, only the airline can do it. If you don't believe me, call them. Then call me back on a three-way-call and I'll talk to them with you and we'll sort it out together.
So I gave the airline another call. After being on hold for 30 min. I got through and they, as chipper as can be, said, Of course we can help you with that... huh, there's a funny grinding noise on the line. Is that teeth?
I do understand why they initially denied it. Even with things going smoothly it took another 45 minutes of changing flights, changing times, moving seats, breaking up bookings, regrouping bookings, and so on and so forth. Until finally, everything was in order. The seats were booked and all was set in stone for the girl to stay.
As we stayed there we all became more and more comfortable with her staying without us. At one point when she was sleeping in another room, she got up in the middle of the night and walked to the room sister-in-law was sleeping in, and crawled into bed in between her and her infant daughter, and went back to sleep. In the morning when we spoke to the girl she said I thought you went back to London.
Given how blasé she was about it, we figured she'd be just fine.
Our flight back by ourselves is where it started to hit us. First time in ages going through security without the child and her accoutrements. It was pretty easy. And on the plane L and I had a row of 3 by ourselves. It was too uncomfortable to sleep, but I had the luxury to find out, which was nice in itself. And when we landed we could go through the e-passport queues, so that took no time at all getting out, getting baggage and getting home.
It's been weird not having her around the house. Part of it is reverting to how life was before, when L & I were just a couple. So weird in that it's completely not weird at all. Though I do like being able to make the food I like to eat without worrying about spices or avoiding certain foods. La la la, let's just put a quarter cup of chilli peppers in here. Oh crushed chillies, I missed you. Let's be friends again. For a little while.
Another part of of the weird is recovering from the exhaustion of the past 3.5 years. So far I've twice slept in 12 hour chunks. I once went to bed at 7am and still got some sleep afterwards.
And there's the part where we can finally do the things that we've been putting off, like moving heavy furniture. I've been able to clean and hoover the house, and use caustic chemicals without putting them away immediately. I've done two years worth of shredding. We've 5 full recycling bags with just shredded paper and boxes we no longer need.
L on the other hand is taking the opportunity to let her attention drift. I suppose not having a child around lets you just sit and vegetate. That plus a phone with games and internet means you're not there when you're there. I found earlier that in order to keep her attention for the full duration of a conversation, I had to phone her despite being in the next room.
We've been getting reports from the grandparents about how she's doing. The first week seemed fine, though it looks like she's starting to wear down and tire of all the uncertainty and how different everything is. We've been doing Skype calls every 2 or 3 days, It's been lovely seeing her. Especially when say says I miss you dad.
She's so much more rational on the calls than when she's with us talking to her grandparents.
Anyways, she's back tomorrow. We'll just have to see how she comes with this change and all the rest that's in store in the next month.
