Getting Ready: Leaving my kids for the first time

It's Sunday night and I'm sitting at my computer researching Chicago: researching transit options on how I will get around during my three-day whirlwind trip there for The Climate Reality Project's Climate Leadership Corp Training; and figuring out what I want to see during my one morning of sightseeing before the training starts. I'm excited to be in the same room as Al Gore and more than 1,000 other people who feel as passionately as I do that climate change is the biggest threat humanity faces. I'm excited to learn how to speak more articulately about it, and how to inspire others to get involved. I'm also just excited see Chicago, a city I've never been to except for the airport back in 1998. I'm excited to reconnect with old friends, albeit briefly, who have established roots there.

I'm also a bit nervous. Nervous to navigate a new city by myself, and to be in a large conference setting where I don't really know anyone. But the biggest reason is because I will be leaving my kids for the first time ever. It will be a shock to my system, as well as theirs, to be without them for 72 hours. I'm the kind of mom who, even after a difficult day when all I want is for them to just go to sleep already, will settle down after the bedtime routine is done and scroll through the pictures I took of them that day playing and smiling. They will be fine in the good care of their dad and grandmothers. I know we will all be better off for having a little time apart. They will quickly learn that Daddy, Grandma, and Nini can do many of the things for them that I do. It will be a chance for me to remember (or prove) that they can function without me for a few days. Afterall, one of the badges of a good parent is giving/allowing your child the self-confidence to be independent. It will also feel good to be an adult functioning in the adult world, and will give me renewed energy to come back home and be Mommy.