Special Trip

As I alluded in my previous post, Annabelle recently took a very special trip and it was all Daddy's idea!  Chris had a conference in Florida and, after researching flight options, realized that it made as much sense to fly into Tampa as to any other airport.  Well guess where we go when we fly into Tampa - Grammy and Papa's house!  So Chris proposed that he take with him a tiny tag-along, whom he would leave with Grammy for a few days while he went to his conference.  Brilliant!

My little girl was SO excited.  Honestly, it was the first time I saw her show so much excitement in her own right, for her own thing, rather than just mimicking her big brother.  She spent a few days counting down till her trip, listing the things that we would do before she would go, who was and who was not going with her.  She was mildly confused about who would be there when I told her that she'd be sleeping in Aunt Becky's bed, but I think we got that all straightened out.  And then the morning of she was literally bouncy and giggly.  I dressed her as girlie as possible for her plane ride, packed some lunches for her and her escort, and sent them on their way.

I am told she had a lovely time!  Baked cookies, had lunch with Aunt Judy, had her nails painted, etc.  I'm pretty sure she loved all of the special attention!

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Sam and I managed to have a very special time ourselves.  And I must say, I am over the moon proud of my boy for how well he handled the fact that he was not going to Grammy's.  He asked once why he wasn't going, and after a brief explanation, never complained or whined even once.  I told him we'd do a few things ourselves, and he was actually excited, too.

So the two of us enjoyed a dinner date, followed by his first ever baseball practice, on Tuesday night.  A bike ride to Starbucks to do his homework, just like the grown ups do, on Wednesday.  Some park time on Thursday, and then I spent most of the day at his school on Friday (Friday Readers, I brought him Wendy's for lunch, and then the party!).  Lots of one on one conversations, lots of "big kid" behavior. 

But my sometimes-sweet children DID miss each other!  As he stepped off the bus on Tuesday, at a time when Annabelle still would have been napping on a normal day, Sam declared that he missed his sister.  And the exhausted boy leaped off the couch and jumped into jammies at the suggestion of Facetiming with her.  It was a happy reunion on Friday afternoon!

You know, people were rather confused when I told them that my 2-year-old was on vacation.  A few of them asked what I was going to do with "all my free time."  They seemed to be forgetting that I still had a kid I was responsible and really only gained about 6 hours of "kid-free" time the entire time she was gone.  But a few were spot on with their responses, "Oh it must be so nice to have that time with Sam!"  And they were right.