Something missing

Ah, I remember now: it's the baby, my son, little man, sweetie poppet pumpkin pie.

He is staying with daddy. I haven't seen him for two days now. At first I do actually look forward to a bit of time to myself. Cue guilty feelings; mothers aren't supposed to need time to themselves. So I've had my dinner out with friends, my good long walk with another friend, my couple of mornings of not being woken at 6am, the ability to go out after 7pm on an urgent trip to Bargain Booze. Now there is really something missing.

This isn't how I had expected things to be. I had expected that time to myself would be a lie-in at the weekend while little man and daddy played downstairs or had a trip out by themselves for a couple of hours. Or an evening out with friends and coming back to a home where my son is asleep while my husband has an evening in to himself. Being able to go to a tai chi class that overlaps with little man's bedtime.

Instead it is all or nothing. I am with little man, just the two of us and I can't do anything where a baby can't come or that happens after his bedtime. Or little man is with daddy and I miss him intensely. I miss his smile and his giggle and his tickling the back of my neck when he's in the sling. I miss him saying moo at my cow teapot and the cute way he signs chicken. I miss him trying to put my slippers on and his breathy little 'oh' when he sees something exciting. I even miss the mess and the clinginess and the million and one little frustrations.

I will see him in the morning, with his daddy, before I go to work again in the afternoon. And then I will miss him some more until daddy brings him home the following day. I wonder what little man makes of it all. Is he so young that he knows no different? Or is there something missing for him when he doesn't see his mother?