First Time away!!

During the summer I was informed by my boss that I had been picked for the company's Top Gun Leadership Training program. This was extremely exciting; Top Gun is a leadership training program the company puts together for a small group of people each year; so I felt extremely honored to be part of that group.
Going to Top Gun however, also meant that I will have to leave Cori for 5 nights and 6 days and that seemed awfully long; especially since I had never in almost 2.5 years left her for an overnight stay.
I started to stress out a month before Top Gun; just thinking about the day I will have to go will make me cry. I started to tell Cori about it so that she gets used to the idea of Mommy being away and that Daddy will be putting her down to bed (up until then I was the only one putting her to sleep, maybe a side effect of 21 months of nursing her down to sleep) for a few days, and every time she will respond "Mommy don't go on an airplane..", of course that made things more difficult.
Anyway everything turned out better than expected. Cori came to drop me off at the airport and was not even upset, she just mentioned that she will like to ride on a plane too. I was a bit upset but it was easier that what I had imagined. While I was away things worked out great. Cori did great, talked on the phone with me every morning and night and had a great time with Daddy, Nana and Granny J who came to visit. I did better than expected too. I was very busy on the training program and had little time to think about being away; but it was good to have some time just for myself. It felt nice to come back to the hotel room and have absolutely nothing to do. I missed my little one a lot and won't be able to handle more than 5 days away but it was good to realize that I could do it; that I could be away and everything and everyone would be just fine.
It was very exciting to get back and see her slightly nervous/I don't know how to act face when I got in the car. I was happy to be back and I has happy I had gone since I met some amazing people and learned a lot. It made me realize also how much more scared we are of things that turned out to be not scary at all.