Summertime and the Living is Child Free

Babies eating breakfast at Grandma and Grandpa's house.

Three weeks of Child-Free Living has begun. We flew out on Friday morning, getting up at 2 a.m. The kids surprised me by staying awake the entire hour it took to drive to the airport in Hartford, as well as on the first plane ride. The second plane ride was shorter - about 45 minutes - but for the passengers it may as well lasted FOREVER. Daughter was sleepy and the whole darn plane knew it. This year she was old enough to have her own seat and she had to stay in it while the seat belt sign was lit up.

It STAYED lit up the whole time.

It's a smaller propeller plane and you feel the turbulence more, so it was justified but Daughter did not care. "Please! I'm sleepy! Hold me! Get this (the seatbelt) off me! Please, mommy!" Not fun to listen to. She kicked and karate chopped me - yes, that's the best way to describe her movements. She screamed at the top of her lungs. Son had already fallen asleep. The guy in front of me moved up two rows. The woman diagonal from me looked over but I couldn't tell if she was just wondering what I was going to do or had sympathy or what. Whatever. I tend to ignore the rest of the world in those moments because children will be children know matter who is around. If people don't know that, too bad.

Daughter kept at it. The girl knocked the seat loose. If there had been a water landing, we would have been ready to go. She started all this before taking off so I put her on my lap to sleep and she immediately snuggled in and quieted down. Then the stewardess in front broke the peace and told me she'd have to be in the seat. I laughed at her and said, "If you insist. It's YOUR ears." Thus commenced the drama. The stewardess from the rear emerged from nowhere to ask if she could get her anything.
"No. She's just tired."
"Some juice?" she asked me.
What are you? Deaf? Childless?
"Noooo, she simply wants to sleep. She does not want to sit in the seatbelt. There is nothing you can do. Thank you."

I thought it was interesting that Daughter could sit on my lap last year as a 1-year-old. Mind you, it's not like she was in the seatbelt with me. I simply held her. But this year, I couldn't do the same? I didn't bother to ask why. Too busy getting karate chopped and whispering sweet nothings in her ear.

All in all, it was a good trip. I bought rolling bookbags for them as carry ons and they happily wheeled them all over the airports and all over the house when we got to my parents' place. I'm sure they are still wheeling them now.

I do love Southern Georgia. So quiet and my parents are surrounded by cotton fields (was corn fields when I was growing up) and more quiet. I can hear myself think there and I just feel at home. It always conjures up thoughts of my grandparents and my summers there, which were always good times. I hope my children feel the same one day.

But now I am "home" with hubby - he was the first person to give me that familiar feeling. We slept blissfully and soundly through the night last night. Yes, slept. He's sick from all the air conditioning and heat mixing in his nasal passages, and I was too tired to even look at him. I've got so much stuff to work on but it's not stressing me out because I know I can go home and work as late as I want, undisturbed.

August 28th Husband goes back to get them. They come home on the 29th and school starts for Son on the 30th. (Yeah, it's close, but it's better than figuring out what to do with Son for a few days.) He's looking forward to 1st grade. I'm looking forward to Daughter going to preschool and officially moving out of babyhood.

Life is good. And quiet. I miss them.