Whistle While You Work

If you were magical and had the ability to travel through time, here is a neat trick to understand the close mother and daughter bond that Claire and Sarah share. Using your power to bend the space time continuum pick any random time over the last 94 days and travel to that time. Then take out your hourglass (as a magic time bender you undoubtedly have one of these) and turn it over. During the course of that hour observe Sarah and Claire. It would be absolutely certain that at some point while at least one grain of sand is still flowing, Claire and Sarah would be within 50 feet of each other. Yep, Sarah and Claire have never been apart for more than an hour.... Well that is until today.. Today Sarah broke that record, smashed it in fact, and spent roughly 10 consecutive hours no closer than restraining order distance. She did this not because the two of them had a big fight, but because after 18 weeks at home, Sarah returned to work today. Like good parents, rather than leaving her at home with a bottle and a couple of spare diapers, we decided it prudent to drop her off with a stranger... Okay, maybe not a complete stranger. I think we talked to her on the phone once and met with her in person for 15 minutes on a couple of different occasions. So after a total of about 36 minutes of communication, we left our first born child all alone with her. When we got to Sandy's house (she aptly calls it Sandy's daycare) we were the first to arrive as we wanted to make sure we had enough time to get to work on Sarah's first day back. After that, the whole process was a blur, but it did involve us handing the baby to the caregiver and walking out the door, leaving our wide-eyed baby staring at us, wondering what was going on. I don't think I'll ever forget that cute little face watching intently at us as we walked down the driveway. I can't imagine what she was thinking, but she didn't cry, she didn't fuss, she didn't even let out a whimper, she just watched as we slowly turned around, got in the car, and left. Sarah has been talking about how hard this might be for days, but I figured it wouldn't affect me as I've been going off to work for several months. But today was different, I somehow felt like I'd betrayed my little girl. We spent 3 months building up this trust, only to leave her at the doorstep of a stranger. What indication would she have that we'd ever return? For all she knew, she'd just been given up for adoption... (Dramatic Pause as the audience wonders if we'd ever return..... 10 hours passes, or passes magically if you have the aforementioned powers ....) But luckily for Claire, she has two loving parents and she had not been given up for adoption and at a few minutes before 6pm in the evening we showed up at the doorstep, pushing each other out of the way as we attempted to be the first to see our daughter. We had worried she'd cry and scream all day. We had worried she wouldn't eat. We had worried she would lash out at us as we arrived. But none of this happened. Our cute little angel had slept half the afternoon, taken several bottles on command, and appeared extremely happy to be in the company of some many big brothers and sisters. The first day jitters now gone, Sarah and I are really happy to have found Sandy and for all the wonderful opportunities that await Claire as she continues to grow.