Autumn is home. We picked her up this morning and treated her to breakfast at Big Boy. Man, can that child put away the sausage. As we were pulling out of the restaurant parking lot, Nathan said to her, “I think you ate about half a pig back there,” to which Autumn replied, “Yucky! I not eat pig, Daddy!” I guess she has a few things to learn about her favorite foods.
At one point during the meal she had taken a bite out of a orange and looked up at me. ”I miss you, mamma,” she said and attempted to plaster my arm with a sticky orange-filled kiss. ”I missed you too,” I said. And I meant that. While Nathan and I had a blissfully quiet 46 hours together, we found out that we’re never really alone. Whether we were playing a game on the Wii or raiding her piggy bank for a trip to the ice cream parlor (oh yes we did), Autumn was always there with us.
We had a fabulous dinner of lamb and potatoes out on the deck last night and I made the comment to Nathan that as much as we can try, we’ll never really be able to take a break from this parenting thing. I kept thinking about Autumn and if she was getting enough sleep (she wasn’t), if she liked Dirk and Lisa’s chickens (wouldn’t go near them) and if she was getting into any trouble (just a little bit). Still, the time to ourselves was much needed. We had gotten so used to living with this child and her constant tests of our boundaries and our patience that we hadn’t realized how stressed we were. As I told Dirk this morning, “We were so relaxed we were even nicer to Molly.” Poor dog.
As all good things must come to an end, it didn’t take us long to pick up right where we left off. Since Autumn did not have any afternoon naps this weekend, you can imagine what a joy she was to be around tonight. She fought me on just about everything and as a consequence went to bed without her nightly dose of “The Wiggles”, an album that has put her to bed almost every night since I bought it. It didn’t matter much, though. She was out as soon as her head hit the pillow.
Comments on this entry are closed.