not quite a daddy’s girl

Emma has spent most of her life in my company alone.

For the first year of her life after I returned to work from maternity leave she stayed with my Mom while Ray & I were at work.  It was the greatest thing in the world and I am forever grateful that she got to spend that time with her Ba-chan.  She now has this amazing bond with my Mom that I’m not sure she would have had had she not spent those precious months with her.

Then the company I was working for was bought out by HP.  Since I worked in Payroll there was no reason for them to keep us.  We were offered a retention bonus on top of our severance if we stayed.  I stayed.  I had nothing else lined up.  My job experience is varied, but mostly I’m a frakking fantastic waitress.  I kick ass at waiting tables.  I’m not so much a corporate girl.  With my future job outlook not looking so great Ray and I decided that I would stay home with Emma instead of finding another job.

My last day of work was April 30th & Emma turned one on May 7th that year.  So since she was a year old I’ve been with her nearly every day of her life.  I didn’t leave her overnight anywhere until she was two years old.  Seriously.

For the most part she’s been with me every hour of every day.  When she’s sad she comes to me.  When she’s excited about something she comes to me. If she’s hurt or wants to cuddle she comes to me.  She’s mama’s baby.

In the last year Ray’s had the opportunity to work from home much more.  Recently she’s been much more affectionate with him, but given the choice she would go to me first.  There are lots of things she has in common with Ray.  She loves to hear about how things work and likes to make things or do project with Daddy.  But still, for affection she comes to me.  Ray pretty much never goes out without us except to go to work.  The rare times I’ve left the house without her (Bunco or a concert) there is generally much crying to deal with before I leave.

It’s not fun.

So this week Ray is at a conference for 4 days.  He’s not going far, just down to Burlingame, but because lots of the stuff starts early in the morning he’s staying at the hotel where the conference is taking place.  Emma and I were going to go with him and just meander around SF while he was busy doing his classes, but we thought it would probably be a long week if we did that.  We’ll probably go see him Wednesday and meet up with my sister-in-law for dinner or something, but that’s 3 days without Daddy around.

Emma did not take this news very well.

We were at my aunt & uncle’s house in San Jose for my uncle’s birthday dinner.  It’s about a half hour drive home.  She cried the entire way.

I even tried playing her favorite Glee songs, but she was having none of that.  She just couldn’t believe that we’re not going to see Daddy for the week.  I told her we would see him on Wednesday, but that’s ‘too far away’.  Usually, she takes showers and a bath is a treat so when we got home I thought a bath would be a guaranteed cheer her up sort of thing. She cried the whole time she was in the bath.

She is currently sleeping in my bed on Daddy’s side of the bed.  She truly takes it for granted that Ray is just always here when she wants him to be.  And since he rarely does go out without us when he does leave and she’s aware of it it seems to throw her whole world off balance.

So she may not be a Daddy’s girl like I was/am, but she definitely loves her Daddy.