The girls and I are doing okay here on our own.  That’s what I say when anyone asks.  And it is true.  Mostly.  But a more true answer is that this is harder on the girls than I thought it would be.  I didn’t think they would like it but they are flexible and I figured with the daily Skype calls they would miss Daddy but life would go on as before.  That isn’t quite the case.  Already I am seeing some changes.

Every night after we close our Skype call, Sabrina cries and clings to me.  She says she wants Daddy to come back on the computer and talks about how much she misses him.  Some of this is her playing me but most is a genuine reaction.  Tessa doesn’t have the verbal ability to express her feelings or confusion so she has started acting out in other ways.  See the stuff animal on the table in the photo above? That is Tessa’s froggy.  He is her comfort object. Prior to the past 2 weeks, froggy lived in her bed exclusively unless she was sick or we were traveling.  She slept with him every night but the rest of the time he stayed in her bed.  Since Steve left, she wants froggy with her constantly.  I won’t let him leave the house (mostly because I’m afraid we’ll lose him) so every time we leave the house she throws a tantrum at leaving him behind.  While we are out of the house, she’ll ask about froggy in a panicky way.  I remind her he is waiting at home and she usually calms down although occasionally she’ll ask to go home to him.  This is not typical behavior for her.  She has also started throwing tantrums when I perform some of the things that are typically Steve’s duties.  When I tell her it is time to get out of the bathtub, she throws a tantrum.  When I try to put her in her PJs, she throws a tantrum.  I feel awful because I know she doesn’t understand why things changed but at the same time I can’t let her think the behavior is okay.

I try to reassure both girls that it is okay to be sad that Daddy isn’t here.  And I try to be understanding of the behaviors that are out of the ordinary but honestly it makes the job of holding things together here a little bit harder because I don’t know how to make it better. How can I ask them to understand something that I have trouble grasping?  At the suggestion of a friend, we are going to make paper chains to count down the days until Daddy is home.  Hopefully that visual reminder will be a little reassuring.

Yesterday was a long one.  Tessa was in a pissy challenging mood. I knew there was no way I would be up for baths at the end of a very long day.  So bath time came late afternoon.  And I let them play in there until they were prune-y.

After bath time, I left the girls put on their dress up princess ballerina outfits (their term).  Unfortunately, Tessa’s pissy challenging mood returned once bath time was over. But Sabrina immediately decided it was time for a ballerina show.  She asked me to turn music on and danced for 30 minutes while Tessa raged over an injustice that I won’t even try to describe.  Sabrina, who hated dance class and didn’t want to take it again, danced and paused for applause saying “Thank you! Thank you!” at the end of each song.  I’m wondering if the school wasn’t a good fit for her.  Or if she just doesn’t want any structure and prefers to do her own thing in our sun room instead of formal classes. (Conditions weren’t great for photos but I wasn’t going to stop her so that I could adjust the lighting.)