There are other families out there who know how to do longer trips, but we knew that the plan for Rebekah to be in Mexico for two weeks was going to be a stretch. Rebekah would be part of a three-member program evaluation team for MCC Mexico, and they would travel between Chiapas in the South, Mexico City, and Chihuahua in the north. The schedule would be full of various meetings and interviews each day, but thanks to internet/WhatsApp, we would be able to send messages and do some video calls on occasion.
Compared the last story about family apart, this one was considerably different. Even though it was much longer, the opportunity to prepare made it much more tolerable in the end. We had our planning conversations, I mapped out meals for the full time, tried to block out flexibility with work during that time, had some back-up plans for problems that might arise, and so on.
Rebekah flew out early in the morning on Saturday October 12. As the kids woke up, my first coping strategy was to keep everyone busy. We did some small house repair projects and made up our Mommy-tracker map that we would update throughout Rebekah's trip. (I realized later that the map was just as much for me as it was for the kids.)
Since we had made the effort to get the office projector over to the house, we pulled out a mattress into the living room and had a movie night before calling it a day. Other days were going to probably need to be less ambitious.
It happened to be that there were a number of days during this time that the kids didn't have school, for teacher in-service days or parent-teacher conferences. We're always glad to have Yahaira and her daughter Elizabeth around to help when school is off but work goes on. Here's a birthday celebration for Yahaira. Lia made her the crown and designated the birthday chair.
During these weeks Lia participated in NCA's "Eagles-in-training" basketball camp, which met two times a week after school. Silas and Miriam enjoyed library time while we waited until pick-up time.
Unsurprisingly, it took a while for Miriam to get used to the idea that Rebekah was out for a while. She cried the first few nights, but really mostly settled down and slept through the night well afterwards (or at least I did!)
Miriam still mostly came barreling into the office hoping Mommy might be there. But she did seem to understand that Mommy would be away for "muchos minutos."
The following Saturday went down to the school apparently to see a basketball game, which we actually had the wrong date for. The kids had fun running in the grass soccer field nevertheless and watching a pavilion construction project.
During the parent-teacher conference days, we saw some of the kids' artwork. Always fun to see NCA's art program's creative projects and what kids can do with them.
At the end of Rebekah's marathon of meetings, they got the last day to do a little sight-seeing. They climbed the pyramids at Teotihuacan and she sent us some pictures.
On Saturday October 26, we woke up, had breakfast, got dressed, grabbed our Welcome Home poster and excitedly got in the car to pick up Rebekah at the airport. We were so glad to see her again! Here's our celebration with frozen yogurt. No more plans for long separations for the foreseeable future!
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