Chris drove her up to Youngstown on Wednesday night. "My goin' to Gamma's house, mommy! See you lay-do! My play with my dollies. Miss you," she said, as she smiled ear to ear, waving to me in her pig tails, pink bows and PJs. (It should be noted that my mother has kept all of the toys I had as a child, and those of my cousins, so she has more toys at her house than I do at mine. This is not an accident.)
Ella has woken up at my mom's house for two mornings now (amusingly, she's been sleeping in bed with both Papa and Gamma. Given that Papa is kind of a big guy, and his hands are about the size of Ella's body, it paints a funny picture in my head.) So far, she's gone swimming, to see Papa at work, to her cousin's house to see wild turkeys and chickens and their homemade backyard 'fairyland,' had ice cream, gone to Barnes and Noble and generally frollicked morning til night. And she's been there for 2 days.
I miss her, but I know there's no one earth who'd take better care for her than my mom. And I know she feels completely and utterly loved and cared for. So I don't feel quite the 'sting' I thought I'd feel, being away from her for 4 days.
As it turns out, I'm grateful to have some alone time with my Sweet Kate. It occurred to me that I had a year of alone time with Ella. Enjoying and celebrating every single discovery. Every new skill. I was so worried that the new baby would take my attention away from her....and felt so much guilt about that.
But it turns out that most of the time, Ella is still the one who we chase around the most. She can talk to us, so we end up talking and interacting with her, maybe more than Kate. Now I feel reverse guilt! Poor Kate. She usually just walks around trying to hang out with Ella and be involved with whatever 'project' she's working on. And my day is usually spent picking her up and trying to get her interested in some other activity, because Ella doesn't want anyone to touch her play-dough creation, or the way she has all her dolls lined up in a row, or eat the wooden cookies she's just taken out of the oven.
So it's been very sweet, spending a few days alone with Kate. I get her out of bed, lay with her in my bed as she drinks her entire bottle.....without Ella's usual demands that she be the one to lay closest to me. I took her downstairs for breakfast and actually got to watch her eat. Which is a really sweet experience, simple as it sounds. She still picks up food with her thumb and forefinger, and makes a 'humph!" sound with every bite, like she's catching her food.
She took her morning nap and I hurriedly got ready for the pool. I'm not brave enough to take both girls to the pool by myself yet....but loved getting to put Kate's chubby little legs into her pink striped bathing suit. Loved following her around as she walked in circles in the shallow end of the pool, went up and down the baby water slide more than 3 dozen times. Kicked her legs as I held her in the water.
And when she started to get narky, it was so, so nice to be able to focus on meeting her need at that moment. Had Ella been there, I would've immediately left the pool when Kate got whiney...knowing that Ella couldn't sit still, next to me, while I tended to Kate. She would've been walking around in the water and I'd be freaking out about potential water hazards, and poor Kate would've been screaming her head off for a bottle.
But not today. Today, I got to sit in a sunchair, toes in the water, Kate wrapped in a thin towel, eating yogurt bites one-by-one, until she single handedly ate the entire bag. It only lasted 10 minutes, but it was oddly divine. I can still see her chubby little fingers diving into the yellow yogurt bite bag, again and again.
We got home and had lunch and we both took a long, glorious nap. I fought the voice in the back of my head...the one that told me I should wash the 8 loads of laundry in my bedroom, or scrub the floor that had syrup, milk, juice and squished blueberries all over it, or organize my closet, or clean my guest room for my parents-in-law who are coming in 2 weeks. I fought the urge to check my email, to check on projects at work. And to pull the weeds that've been driving me crazy in the front yard.
I took a nap and I loved it. So there.
I fed her dinner and gave her a bath and put her in the cutest purple jumper, pigtails with purple bows and took her shopping...another thing I rarely do with both girls. She smiled, said "HIIIIII!" to every single person she passed, and "choooo, chooooooooed" as we walked through all three stores.
Then she walked around the yard as I pulled those weeds that'd been driving me crazy for a week. I put her in her jammies, gave her a bottle until she got groggy in my arms and I lay her in bed. She seemed to welcome the opportunity to sleep.
It might sound like a really mundane day but it wasn't mundane. It was a really great day. These are the kind of days that I can never get enough of. These are the days I know I'll long for, 20 years from now, when my girls are in college and not sleeping in the room next door to me. I liken these days to a vacation. The way I wake up every morning of a really, really great vacation, and am completely focused on getting everything out of each day that I possibly can, even as a small voice, in the back of my mind, is reminding me that I only have 6,5,4,3,2,then 1 day left.
Days like this, with my sweet Ella, and with my sweet Kate....they really are the best days of my life.
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