Gut-wrenching pangs of belly ache, uncontrollable emotions with unpredicatable smatterings of tears, irrational and snappy…. sound familiar? No, I’m not talking about PMS or your behaviour when you get to the end of your favourite Netflix blowout and run out of chocolate… These are all symptoms of what I like to call the bebe blues. When I say “blues”, this isn’t the day 5, post-partum hormone hit that knocks you for 6 (more like 10). Those early baby blues are a good introduction for what lies ahead. The bebe blues I’m talking about is the feeling you get when you are apart from your bebe(s). The sadness that washes over you in continuous waves. The feeling that there is something that is just not quite right in the moment, that you’ve forgotten something enormous, something as important and huge as your underwear (metaphorically). The feeling that nothing tastes or smells or even looks quite how it should.  Something is missing. I’m not going all Mel C on you, I’m just trying to verbalise something that doesn’t feel good. It is a bit like a terrible form of torture, as if torture wasn’t terrible enough.

Tu me manques literally means you are missing from me. That’s exactly it.

I hate being away from the kids. I hate it. Anyone that knows me knows I don’t use the ‘H’ word very often. No need. But here it is necessary and appropriate. I didn’t understand these feelings before I had my own kids. I couldn’t comprehend why someone would want to go home and not go out adventuring. They will be there when you get back?! Enjoy! Go wild!! Forget everything! But now I know. Being away means missing them, missing precious moments with them. Home is where you find your family. Your tree (*stickman*). They want to cuddle you and look at you adoringly and tell you what they did on the potty.  It’s making me smile just thinking about it.

Whatever the reason for the separation from your children, and however long the break, I don’t imagine it ever gets any easier. The endless things to worry about and the “what if” scenarios; it truly is hard to turn off the parenting switch. It’s ironic really. For all the time spent wishing for just a single moment of calm, a toilet trip sans audience, a sleep that isn’t abruptly and rudely interrupted with someone declaring they have finished their “dodo”,… when you actually get that moment of peace, all you want in the world is to be back in the thick of the chaos.

Boddler and Bebette have had two parental breaks that were entered into knowingly, and one unplanned break each that we battled through back in November last year with the dreaded Bronchiolitis. I have acted blasée about both the occasions I’ve left my children, all smiles and saying of course it’ll be fine and it’ll do them good etc etc. But inside I’m melting. When the time comes to stretch the magical thread-bond that holds us together, the feelings that sweep over me are just overwhelming. The rational part of my brain (if indeed it exists) seems to close down. Anything could happen. My lungs feel like they are shrivelling up and my hearing seems to mute. I actively accepted this, I say to myself, I chose for this to happen. We needed a moment! But I’m still not convinced … I try to find a way out of the situation and back myself into a corner.

Honestly, occasionally I miss the times when it was, selfishly, just me. I was carefree. I didn’t have to miss anyone  and I could just crack on with business. Now, I’m weaker. I wouldn’t change it for the world, of course, but it’s sad, bittersweet, that it is always going to be so hard.

I realise more and more that when you first have a bebe you’re at the optimal point of your bebe attachment – 0-6ish months, you’re connected, like glue, and they are stuck with you, and often to you. Milky and delicious. From that moment forward your whole life is a very, very long and slow pulling at those magical bonds, until your little bundle is eventually ready to fly the nest and then you have to sit back and watch as they grow their wings and (abw) make you proud. What a journey! And a useful reminder that these moments in life, especially in the early days of parenting, are incredibly intense but are also ones that we will look back on in years to come; the moments we could snuggle our babes so tight, and tell them we love them and enjoy their sleepy gazes and fluffy, sweet smelling heads without complaint. The fantastical thing about missing the kids is the moment you get them back in your arms. There is nothing quite like it.