A Night Away

Mia spent the night away from home for the first time Saturday night. She stayed with Leigh's mom, Jill, so we could celebrate my birthday with friends. We dropped Mia off a little after 7 p.m. Saturday. I hugged and kissed her goodbye. I cried in the car when we left.

Obviously Jill or any of our parents are wonderful caretakers. They've raised kids before. But I still worried. My biggest fear was that she would be scared of staying in a new place. What if she missed her crib? Or the smell of our house? Or us? What if she was startled and wanted one of us to comfort her and we weren't there?

I'm pretty sure she didn't even notice anything changed. Jill said she did great and didn't even have one of her colicky cries. This was clearly a much bigger deal to us than it was to Mia. Still, I don't think leaving her will get any easier the next time she stays away from home.