I Hate California

thirty one

While we were on the plane heading to Melbourne, Sage has been keeping her distance from me. She has been glued to Joe and would whine when he would have to leave her side, even for a minute. I tried my best to comfort her and hold her for just a second, but she refused. Joe gave me a look that she would be okay and that this all would pass, but this shouldn't even be happening in the first place. I know that all kids go through this 'jealousy' phase, but what Sage was doing was different. Sage wasn't upset with this baby, she was upset with me.

"Babe, can you go sit with Mommy while I go take a quick shower?", Joe asks standing up from his seat. Sage quickly shakes her head from the other side of the plane. Joe sighs, going over to her and whispers something to her which reacts in her throwing her headphones off and crossing her arms.

"Joe, it's fine, don't force her" I tell him, not wanting her to end up in tears. Sage gives me a quick look before focusing all her attention back on her iPad.

When Joe heads to the back of the plane, closing the bathroom door, I watched as Sage's eyes followed his every move. She looked different, she looked tired and just fully upset. She didn't want to play with her boardgames anymore, to the level where we didn't pack any of her toys, but the iPad.

It was apparently dinner time because they set out all of our custom dinner orders. I opened up Sage's plate, putting her food onto her plate that we packed. I rummaged through the little cooler we had and took out a box of organic apple juice and poked the straw through.

"Sage baby, here's your dinner", I say as I set her food in front of her. She looks up at me and then looks at her plate.

I sighed, sitting down in the seat on the other side of the table in front of her. "Do you want me to feed you? So you can keep watching?", I asked.

She shook her head, not taking her eyes away from the screen. I was getting fed up with her attitude at this point. "Sage, you need to eat. Do I need to take your iPad away?", I ask her. She shakes her head in frustration and closes her iPad and basically tosses it down in the seat next to her.

"Hey, we don't need to throw things" I say sternly. She pouts and picks up her fork, stabbing a piece of chicken.

"Bleh, I don't want this" She says as she tosses her fork back down.

I close my eyes, rubbing my forehead. "Sage, this is what you wanted, this is your favorite meal. Can you please just take a couple of bites and you can be finished", I plead. I was already tired and I'm supposed to be resting right now, but I can't because I'm trying to be civil with my daughter.

"But I don't want to eat, I'll wait for Daddy" She states with her arms still crossed.

"Why do you have to wait for Daddy? Mommy's right here" I tell her. She continues to shake her head, so I stand up and head back to my seat on the other side of the plane.

Joe eventually exits the bathroom, freshly showered and seats down beside me. "Your daughter's acting up", I tell him. He gives me a weird look and I point to Sage who has been glaring at me for the past couple minutes.

"Sage, your foods already cold" Joe tells her.

"I wanted you to feed me" She says which has me shocked, I could've fed her and we would've been done along time ago.

"Sage, Mommy's been trying to help you out. What's up with you?" Joe questions. Joe crosses his legs sitting across from her.

"Nothing is wrong" Sage mumbles. I watch as Joe leans in closer to her and her facial expressions change. I leaned back in my seat and rubbed my eyes. I wanted to sleep so badly, but I still needed to give Sage a shower and put her to bed. Joe insisted that he would do it, but she was my daughter and I didn't want him to do everything even if I was here.

"Come on, let's shower" I tell her, motioning for her to get up. She sighs and gets down from her seat, running in front of me and heads into the bathroom.

I close the door behind us and help her take off her clothes. Her hand has been healing well, but it stays bandaged incase something happens accidentally, because she's still a kid.

As I took off my clothes, I could feel her staring at me and I stuck my tongue out her, causing her to turn her head around with her arms crossed.

"Okay, in you go" I say as I get her in the shower first and then me behind her. The shower in the plane wasn't too big, but big enough for both of us to fit in here comfortably. I started by washing her hair first and ran my fingers through her hair that was getting longer by the minute.

"You're bored huh? This is what happens when you didn't want to pack any toys" I tell her, rinsing the soap off.

She doesn't respond to me, so I turn her around as I kneeled down to her level. She eyes were turning red and her lips were trembling. I quickly rubbed over her eyes with the water, afraid that I got soap in her eyes and I turned the water off.

"Hey, what's wrong?" I ask her, concerned. She shakes her head and starts to let out little sobs and I immediately engulfed her into a hug, rubbing her back.

"Hey, it's okay, I'm here" I comfort her. She has been going through so many emotions and I couldn't help but feel like this was all my fault.

"I'm sorry" She cries into my shoulder. I shake my head and pick her up, turning the shower back on so we could rinse.

I swayed us back and forth as I waited for her cries to stop. "I've been a bad girl and Daddy said I've been making you very sad" she whispers. She doesn't move as her body just goes limp and her head lays on my shoulder.

"Mommy is sad, but it's because I love you so much. I just want to hold you and give you kisses, but I can't do that if you keep ignoring me" I explain to her.

When we finished showering, I dry us both off and get us both into our pajamas. I combed her wet blonde hair and helped her brush her teeth. When we exited the bathroom, the lights were already dimmed. Sage was still in my arms and I didn't have any intentions for her to get out of them.

"Hey you two" Joe smiles, looking up from his laptop when he sees us. I give him a smile and start preparing the bed.

I continued to bounce Sage in my arms as it was most likely close or past her bedtime in California. After a couple minutes, I looked down and saw her fully passed out. I smiled and gave her a soft kiss on her button nose. I carefully placed her in the bed and I got in next to her, holding her close to me.

I then felt movement on top of me and when I opened my eyes, Sage was laying on top of my chest. I looked over to the other side and saw Joe asleep. Although she felt a little heavy, I didn't want to move her. I didn't know how long she'd wanna be this close to me for. I slowly sat up, holding her to my body and looked at the screens, we would be landing in a couple hours. I ran my fingers down her back and felt her shiver against me. For a second there I forgot that I was pregnant.

"Nooo" Sage whined in my arms as I tried to move her next to me. I held her in my arms again and she snuggled as close as she could. I smiled at her little perfect face and kissed her cheeks.

"I looooove you, I love you, I love you" I whispered into her ears, making her smile in her sleep. Moments like these, I was going to cherish for the rest of my life.

-

When I woke up, Sage wasn't beside me anymore and looked over to see her and Joe in the other bed watching cartoons on his laptop. My heart tightened, she was in my arms one minute, out the next.

"Look, Mommy's awake" Joe points to me and Sage looks over at me, giving me a soft smile then looks back at the screen. Great.

Joe and I start to prepare for landing and I started to pack up all of Sage's belongings and Joe helped with organizing everything in it's place again.

"Sagey, come sit on my lap, we're landing babe" I call her over and she slowly walks over to me and climbs into my lap. I wrapped my arms around her and pointed out the window looking over Australia. I was excited that she could be here with me, she's never been so we actually had many activities planned out for her.

"Come on girly, in the car" Joe says carrying her down the stairs of the jet. I follow behind them and we all quickly get into the car, finally heading to the hotel.