We recently went on our Honeymoon vacation sans lil 15 month old Wesley. It was the hardest thing to leave him. Before we left, I had no idea how I would manage and how I would be able to cope without knowing if he was being properly taken care of 'like only mom knows how'. But, you do need your time away and after we left from vacation we were so relaxed and refreshed; it was wondeful! We also noticed that the 'spark' from our relationship was renewed.

Before we left for our one week vacation, I wrote out detailed instructions on how to care for him. I actually wrote hour by hour instructions of his daily rountine (maybe a tad excessive!). I knew my mom and mother in law would look after him so I knew they would at least listen to some of my instructions. I also made a small video with my camera and took some pics of Wesley so if I missed him I could watch the video. I ended up only watching the video twice. I found it actually made me miss him more. It was nice that when we meet people we could show them the picture of our son. While we were away, we missed him but we made use of our time and I got caught up on some (lots) much needed rest. We got to do things and go places that we could not have done with him. That was nice.

We we returned home, I knew he had been well taken care off becuase he had no idea who I was! It took my 15month old about an hour before he was crawling ontop of me shouting "mamma, mamma" and then he clung to me and wouldn't let me go. For me, getting back into the rountine was difficult. I was just getting used to the 8 hour sleeps and  8 staight hours at that!

Go on vacation without you child. There will be plenty of time to take the kids on vacation when they are old enough to enjoy it and actually remember it!

Laura King

We went for a 7 day vacation without Katelyn (2.5) in January. At the airport, I was really anxious... a lot of "what if" questions. On the plane, my hubby was really supportive of my behaviour he was very patient and tried to keep my mind off Katelyn.  Once we landed and I knew I couldn't just go back home it felt really weird for about an hour and then I was fine.  We called her the second day and she was happy and fine.. her exact words were, I'm eating a banana - love you - bye and then she hung up on us :-)

It was REALLY nice to just hang out with my hubby, eat breakfast together, go for walks on the beach, etc.  We also slept a lot!  We didn't realize how tired we were until we were given the opportunity to sleep.

It was just wonderful to re-connect and spend time with each other. Denys' parents looked after Katelyn and they did a great job of having lots of activities for her so she was bored. We spoke to her five out of the seven days and every time we called she was happy. It made us feel like we could enjoy the vacation since she wasn't sad.

When we got back, she was jumping and hugging and kissing... We missed her, she missed us, and it was good for all of us.

One thing, I did not miss her as much as I thought I would, before leaving I thought I wouldn't enjoy the vacation because I would miss her too much or think about her too much.  In the end, I was soooo happy to just connect with Denys and have the couple time we both needed.  We came back a stronger more family, both of us more committed to helping each other and working together as a team.