About once a year this happens - I abandon my blog and pretty much everything else to come to Florida for a little over a week. Sometimes the trip is all about visiting and other times, like this one, there is a fair bit of business mixed in. But now, right now, I'm sitting on a screened-in porch next to the water. A lime wedge floats in my glass of brewed iced tea. There is a slight breeze, the temperature is perfect and the calm that exists before the storm is in full swing. The sky is heavy with dense clouds and I am hoping that Florida will deliver to me the thing about this land that I love the best: a thunderstorm.
Fast forward... I wrote that a few days ago. At the end of that paragraph the moment of calm reflection was interrupted as Ada woke up from a nap. That thunderstorm? Oh, it did happen. The rain fell steady as a metronome and I received a generous offer from my husband: to let me take a nap. I cracked the window so I could hear the rain a bit better, snuggled deep into the soft folds of a quilt, and slept for 3 hours on the little fold out bed that was Ada's sleeping place for the past 9 days. Glorious!
Our trip came to an end last Saturday and we braved the long flight across the country back home. Our girl is all sorts of disoriented and tired. The cats are milling about and Paka slept wrapped around my head last night. The suitcases are half unpacked and we have a plan to get the week started off without being too far behind. I'm already back at work sporting my new bangs and a Florida hang-over for which there is no cure.
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LEFT: Her best flight ever. RIGHT: Not her best performance - but also not her worst. I love Virgin. The flight attendants at least act like they like my kid and I really appreciate that. They gave her headphones, snack packs, and free Dora and Diego both ways. |
The past two weeks have induced a major shift in the way I perceive myself. Birthdays, new years and major changes can create room for some deep introspection and I value those insights. However, I'm pretty convinced that nothing can precipitate a personal sea change the way that visiting where you came from can. The massive influx of memories can be so overpowering, can't it? You can't deny the familiarity, the way the air smells, the way the light sifts through the trees, how you know exactly how to get there even though it's been years since you've driven those roads. Mmm, mmm, mmm....powerful stuff indeed.
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| Tree tops, Myakka State Park. |
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| Between the clouds somewhere over Louisiana. |
All through the trip I made blog entries in my mind but I either couldn't make it to a computer to get it all down or I actively chose to step away from the screen in favor of experience.
So here we go, buttoning up that vacation with many pictures and fewer-than-normal words.
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I love in-law family. Ada is over-the-moon for her grandparents. They watched her for us while we ventured off to take care of business (data crunching for Tim, NAVC for me including a 2 day intensive course on canine pruritus).
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| Pictures from my mother-in-law. She texted these (and more) to me while I was away at my meeting. She's so good like that - she knows I missed my heart. Oh, and in the middle there? Yeah they took her to Busch Gardens where she met Elmo. I swear it blew her tiny mind and she was still high on the experience days later. |
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| Judy, my mother-in-law has a doll house left over from the days when she used to do counseling for children. Ada thought this was the greatest. She set the dolls up in all sorts of scenarios like (upper left) Ada and grandma taking a nap, (upper right) daddy and grandpa sleeping, (lower left) all the pets hanging out, and (lower right) Ada and grandma having dinner with a menorah. There were other scenarios that Judy took pictures of and texted to me. One is grandma and grandpa on the potty. I decided against publishing that one here. |
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| Did you know that there is such a thing as sand-play therapy? There is. Judy pulled her sand box out of retirement for Ada. Ada spent at least half of the vacation on porch making sand birthday cakes for the plastic dinosaurs, which they would then gobble up enthusiastically. Of course we sand "Happy Birthday" to the brontosaurus. I wonder what insight this provides to her psyche? |
I love my old friends. Seeing someone you have known for a long time grinning and throwing their arms wide open when they see you is just magical. I got to see some of my most favorite people in all the world this trip and it filled me up. These people make me feel so strong.
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I love my new friends too. I always feel like the comparison of old and new friends kind of short-changes the new ones - like new friends can't possibly be as awesome as the old ones. That stinks because old friends used to be new friends and they are valuable regardless.
We met Carla and her daughter Delaney in Tampa. The internet is a wonderfully rich place, if you let it be. Ada and Delaney were fast friends - it's easy for toddlers. All Ada had to do was walk up to Delaney, point to her shirt and say "apple" and Boom! That was it. I've "known" Carla for years now and meeting her in person was as warm and wonderful as I could have imagined. We became fast IRL friends too :) Still, all the pictures are of the girls (no offense Carla, you're as beautiful on the outside as you are on the inside).
And because it's Florida we could leave the children's museum past five o'clock and still play in the fountain without worry that the girls would catch their death. They were soaked by the time we loaded them into our respective cars and went our separate ways.
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Isn't it funny how sometimes when you get what you want you wonder why you wanted it? What I mean is that I spend a good deal of my normal life feeling overwhelmed. It's not an infrequent occurrence for me to lament how little time I have to myself and to wish for some. Well, this trip I spent a total of 84 hours in a row, give-or-take, apart from my daughter. All I can conclude from that is that this little girl is the reason my heart beats.
My mother-in-law is generous with telling us that we're great parents. I have to tell you: I NEVER get tired of this reassurance. I spend most of my time questioning if we're doing the right thing by her. As I watch her grow and explore I feel more and more certain that our instincts are leading us in the right direction.
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| Poor AJ. She was a good sport - even when Ada had her leash wrapped around her legs and tugged her away from urinating on a perfectly good sign post. |
Holy, holy do I ever love this kid. Tim does too and it's so wonderful to see her love and trust and rely on him without question. I hope and pray that she feels like this her whole life: that she can count on her parents for anything. We would give her the world if it were ours to give.
We're home now, settling back into work and routine. Valentine's Day is just around the corner and time is speeding along. That vacation could have gone on forever and I wouldn't have been sad. Still, I'm trusting that I am exactly where I am meant to be. We're happy to back and embracing all that our normal routine means.
2 Lovies:
great photos and wonderful story telling. i'm so glad you were able to get away for a bit.
God, Monica, she is so adorable. I can't stand it. I am so glad you had a nice vacation -- and good to know Virgin has those tvs for the little ones -- though we won't be flying to both of ours aren't in car seats. :)
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