Me & My sweetP

One of the disadvantages of having more than one child is that you don't get to spend as much time with the first one. And sweetP has been very accommodating of this. For the first two years of sweetE's life, sweetP was asking us to have another baby, a "thister." He has since gotten over that and learned that the attention pie would be doled out in ever smaller pieces.

So he and I were rather thrilled with the idea of spending time together. I miss him. I adore him because he is my first and my clone. I understand him. We connect. I can tell what he is thinking and know how to get through to him. I adore sweetE too, but because he is my baby and funny and cute and is totally his own person. I don't get him though. Maybe as he gets older, but now I haven't figured out what makes him tick.

So we head out an hour late. We have a backpack full of activities. A lunch bag filled with snacks. An ipod full of tunes. We have our sunglasses on. We are ready for adventure. My children are not accustomed to long car drives. We don't travel a lot. So about half way there, sweetP was ready to be there. Unfortunately, we still had almost two hours to go. But he hung in there. We raced trains (and won, there was no crossing involved), we pointed out silly stuff and we talked.

We arrived at my sisters and he pulled our suitcase to the door all by himself. I was not allowed to help until there were stairs. We all just hung out and sweetP got to play Viva Pinata on her Xbox. He has been wanting to play for the last year. We are wii people and they don't have it for wii.

He decided that he wanted to sleep in a tent in the hallway. Which meant that everytime I wanted to leave my room, I had to squeeze by the tent. And getting him up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, very challenging.

While eating a very chewy bagel for breakfast in the morning, a tooth that had been secure was suddenly loose and painful. And being my clone, he gets grouchy when he is in pain. But we headed off to the beach anyway. With firewood, hot dogs and a bucket and shovel. He blackened his hotdog and my sister graciously offered to cook hers to his specifications and to eat his. Even though he had dipped it in ash. We walked hand in hand on the beach and when we got too cold, headed back to the car.

Driving back to the house, he bonked his tooth with a water bottle and knocked that loose tooth out. He now has a lisp because he is missing three teeth on the bottom row. We spend the rest of our visit hanging out and just being with each other. My sister was also kind enough to step in with cash as the tooth fairy was fresh out. "Here she comes to save the day!"

Back at the ranch, sweetE is missing me terribly. He isn't feeling great and he is a mommy's boy, especially when sick. But he had fun with Ducky.

So Monday morning we head home, only 15 minutes behind schedule. The morning commute traffic has lessened. At the same Burger King that we stopped at on the way up, we stop for lunch again. We agree that this was a lot of fun, the trip not lunch. When asked if we should do it again, he thinks that is a great idea. But that some of the time it should be me and sweetE. Ahhhh. He shares that he wants to be home so he can play with his brother. I am ready to be home too, but I still have driving ahead of me. Within forty miles the temperature rises almost 30 degrees. By the time we hit home, the windows are down, and spring is in the air. And we still have all afternoon.

SweetE and Ducky are asleep on the couch waiting for us. It was good to get away and reset my brain. It was wonderful to share it with sweetP.

On a side note, right before we left for preschool today, sweetE says "Mommy my ear hurts." Thunk, stomach sinking. Poor kid. Back to back bugs. Inconsolable this afternoon. Tylenol and decongestant are our friends. Let's hope he is better in the morning.