Sunday, January 11, 2009

Bittersweet homecoming

What a wonderous week of vacation! The fact that our opportunity to unwind and spend a full week straight together as a family was in such an amazing setting was just gravy. There were so many joys of taking Aidan with us that I'm sure I won't be able to remember them all.

My friend Suzie recently wrote an entry (that should've been written by me) about Marriage vs. Motherhood, and I agree that there finally becomes a time when you believe that you can be mobile again (and are tempted by diving in once again). We are nearing or in that time now. Aidan was an angel (most of the time), making friends wherever we went, and a joy to behold.

During this week, he got to do three things that were amazing to him: ride on planes and see other real planes up close, ride a choo-choo (the resort had a trolley), and ride two "neys." He's still talking about all of those things, which for him consists mostly of saying the words, "airplane," "ney" and "choo-choo." He did many things that were amazing to us as well. He went in the span of one week from being afraid to get in the water to letting me stand on the edge of the pool and toss him into the air for his dad to catch him in the pool. He went from shrieking about the slides to climbing up himself and sliding again and again, from sobbing around the lazy river to insisting that he be held off the edge of the float so that he could kick while we went, and giggling about going through the waterfalls we encountered. He picked up a couple of new phrases, and his pronunciation improved. We sat around the kitchen table an colored. There were glimpses of him that looked like a five-year-old, though I'm not sure yet how I feel about that.

It was a wonderful escape, and I'm not at all happy about having to be back in the "real" world. I'm doing my best, however, to take the best of it with me - the lack of stress and ability to enjoy a moment. Using that lack of stress to accomplish things I've been avoiding or putting off, and to realize that the stress isn't really worth the effort it takes/causes. Oh, and family dinners. We started a new tradition of eating together at the table (on weekends at least), using our dining room table tonight like a real dining room table instead of a collector of odds.

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