A Little Vacation

If you read the comments to my blog at all, you may have noticed McMama has been running a countdown lately. It appears that she's just a little excited at the idea that in a little more than two weeks, her grandson and her daughter-in-law will be touching down at an airport near her for an extended vacation. I can't imagine why. It's only been a year since we've last seen each other. And we talk every week. And Turtle practically hasn't changed at all in the last year, except to maybe get a little taller. And develop a vocabulary consisting of actual words. In English.

The truth is, I'm probably bouncing off the walls about this trip more than she is. Clearly, I'm in need of a vacation. My last post proved that, if nothing else. Honestly, I'm just looking forward to getting away from it all. Not that I'm running away, per se, but I need the opportunity to just "be" for a while. And there is something about McMama's front porch that allows me to just "be" in a way that I can't replicate anywhere else. I find perspective up there. It's very therapeutic for a girl who's lived most of her life in Arizona to sit around on the porch in the morning, surrounded by green stuff (I think they call it "grass...?") drinking a cup of coffee and sharing a comfortable silence with a woman who knows me so well she could easily take over my life. Except for the part where she'd be married to her own son. That's a little too skeevy, even for us.

It's also nice to vacation in a place with so many built-in babysitters. Not only is McMama on hand to assist, but McPapa and Oscar's little sister are always eager to volunteer for Turtle duty, giving me more of a break from Mommying than I am likely to find in any other setting. Of course, there are some Turtle-related things for which I am still needed. Diapering, for example, seems to be one of those things that still requires my unique abilities. Oscar's little sister doesn't "do" diapers and McPapa.....well....the last time McPapa changed Turtle's diaper, he put it on backwards. I'm still at a loss to figure out how he accomplished this, but suffice it to say, it didn't inspire much confidence. Then again, if it's a diaper I don't have to change, I don't care how it gets put on, or how much duct tape it requires. I'm certainly not going to complain.

Still, I think I need to give him a lesson in Turtle Care 101, because both McMama and McPapa have been begging me to leave Turtle completely in their care for a day or so. And once Oscar flies up to meet us, a little more than a week after Turtle and I get there, they are probably going to get their chance. Because one of the other reasons I'm excited about this trip is that Oscar and I are going to take a couple of days to go somewhere, just the two of us. This will be the first time we'll have had the chance to do that since the cruise that produced little Turtle....3+ years ago. And we need the time away together.

We're still trying to decide what we want to do with ourselves and our mini-vacation. Niagra Falls isn't too far away from where we will be staying, and I still haven't been there, despite visiting Oscar's family at least once a year. We had considered Toronto, also, since we have this goal of seeing at least one major league ball game in every major league stadium. But unfortunately, the Blue Jays are away the entire week Oscar and I have available. That narrows our options by one, at least. But I'm not worried. I'm sure we'll figure something out. What we end up doing is, ultimately, less important than the fact that we will be together.

In fact, the only thing that's not exciting me about this trip is the fact that it will be a little more than two weeks spent away from Snark's Mistress. With her impending move, our time together is at a premium, so my taking a chunk out of it to go frolic with Turtle at Chez McMama seems somewhat selfish. Then again, if the vacation puts me in a better mood so that I'm not a moody bitch every time I see her, I'm sure Snark's Mistress will send me off with her blessing.

So....yeah. We may not be headed for a sandy beach in Hawaii or a cute little cafe in Paris, but this vacation to McMama's place is just the thing we need. It's just the thing I need. So if you think you squeed yourself, McMama, it's been nothing like what I've been doing lately.