Free at last (we'll see)...

Piper has been suffering terribly from separation anxiety lately. It began at Christmas but has only gotten worse. What with going home at Christmas, traveling to New Zealand afterwards, Piper has been in lots of different places with lots of different people. Add to that Rick's injured ankle which has kept him home a lot, Piper hasn't had much time apart from us and isn't ready to let us go too far. Rick even has to comfort her when I step out to take out the trash. Don't even get me started on getting her to take naps and going to bed. This has made going to church extra exhausting too as Piper refuses to go to nursery despite loving the nursery leader and her daughter.

So, since I am in charge of organizing a luncheon for the missionary zone conference next week, to which I can't really bring Piper, we decided to get some help. We got a new babysitter this week. She's very nice and seems to like Piper a lot. To ease Piper into having me leave her, we had an hour-long playtime together with Kara yesterday. She stayed for about an hour and in that time I was even able to take out the trash without Piper wigging out.

Tonight was a bigger test. Rick and I left Piper with Kara for about two hours so we could go out to dinner on a date. Houston, we have separation! Piper cried for a little after we left but she was playing happily when we came home. This bodes well for future outings.

Stay tuned for Monday's outcome. This will be the biggest test of all since I will be gone during what should be Piper's naptime.