Jayne brought up yesterday after we got back home from work that she would like to take two weeks in October off to fly back east to visit her aging father, who appears to be at the early stages of either elderly depression or dementia. She’s concerned about him, and she normally flies back to visit once a year, and had been planning to skip this year to care for Allie, but had recently heard from her mother that her father wasn’t doing too well. She was in tears.

We told her of course she should take the time. She had already planned a Plan B for us in her absence. There was a lady from her church, a pastor’s mother, who cares for her own grandchildren (the pastor’s kids) regularly and loves babies and children. Jayne had approached Missy before Jayne realized she was able to nanny for us, to ask if Missy would be interested in this position. Missy couldn’t do it permanently, but did want to help us out a few days a week, which we couldn’t do as we worked daily. Anyhow, Jayne said she’d already talked to Missy and Missy was happy to come for the two weeks Jayne would be gone, and to be Jayne’s back-up for any other unforeseen situations such as ailment. Jayne proposed having Missy start visiting to aquaint her with Allie and Allie’s routine, and then having Missy here with more and frequency until she’s here daily the week of Jayne’s departure. We told her this is fine, and of course she needs to go east to visit her father because Allie will always be here and Allie will be fine, but she may regret it if she doesn’t go see her father and something happens.

And Jayne burst into tears again and said she’s so scared that Allie’s going to forget her in 2 weeks, and that she never thought she would love someone else’s child so much. Aww.