Sunday, September 22, 2002

Ahhhh the family car trip. (of course, Josh says 4 hours is not a family car trip, but to me it is). We went to Josh's folks this weekend. let me summarize the trip down for you:

"Mommy, where we are?" "New York"
"Ohhh (whining, tears welling) I thought we are going to Philadelphia!"
"We are going to Philadelphia." .....

"Mommy, where we are?"
"It's where are we"
"Yeah where we are"
"New Jersey"
"What's New Jersey"
"A state"
"What's a state?"
"Like Connecticut"
"But I don't want to go back to Connecticut!" .....

"Mommy, where we are?"
"The highway"
"Oh"

On the upside, we learned that Morgan LOVES bridges. As Josh and I looked at each other to congratulate ourselves for finally making him happy, we realized, who's watching the road?

Once there, the kids were on their most perfect behavior, obviously so that were we to ever complain about them, Joshls parents would think us crazy and the wimpiest of parents. Timothy sat quietly at the dinner table, said Amen in all the right places, and blessed the bread perfectly, in Hebrew. Morgan walked in circles. He stopped at each round to do battle with a house plant Susan made the mistake of leaving out. It was much of a battle and the plant was very glad to see us leave.

Saturday night Timothy went to shul with Susan and Jonathan. For some reason he was scared leaving us and was working hard to fight back tears as he waved from the backseat of the car "bye mommy, see you soon", trying his best to smile though his voice quivered and I could see tears welling in his eyes. "have fun Timothy, see you soon" I said, with my voice also quivering and my eyes also filling with tears.

His attempt at bravery both broke my heart and made me off the charts proud at the same time. As Susan started the car, I saw Morgan's head bob behind it in the driveway. "Holy crap" I yelled and darted for him. What kind of a parent am I? It was enough to send me over the edge and after the car was safely out of sight I stood in the driveway and cried. Of course I knew he'd have a fabulous time and be the life of the party, which was indeed the case when he got home.

He had gotten to stand at the torah with grandpa in front of the whole congregation, while grandpa read, and he loved every minute. He walked an elderly lady to her car and gave her a hug and as he walked back with grandma, he said "that was fun" and the elderly lady will be happy for days to come that he had fun giving her a hug. He stood with the other kids at the dessert table and carefully made his pick, and had white grape juice to go with it. And grandma and grandpa won't stop talking about it for months to come I'm sure, and I'm certainly glad I didn't go racing after the car and drag him out, but even now, even now, and perhaps forever, I'll remember it and cry.

So this morning it was time to come home, at which point Timothy dutifully cried and said he never wanted to leave (and then jumped in the car and asked for a movie - that kid can really work a room). Morgan just cried (mostly from lack of sleep as he had woken up at midnight and not gone back to sleep until 2:30, or rather that's when I finally went to sleep so who knows when he did, though I didn't sleep all that well with his foot in my butt and his head at my feet, but whatever). Perhaps he was going to miss the much slumped over house plan that he had made friends with, much like Lenny made friends with the bunnies. Susan took a roll of 36 pictures in under 30 minutes while Josh shoveled all our stuff into the car, and we were off.

I don't think I need to summarize our trip home - just skip to the top and read it again. except that we stopped at McDonalds on the way for pancakes and I jumped out to use the bathroom while Josh went through the drive thru and when I got back Timothy had tears streaming down his face because he thought I was leaving. So the next time we stopped (yes, 5 cups of coffee with do that for you), I took him with me and he was quite happy at that. Of course, it took me several minutes to properly wipe down the seat (how is it women can get that much pee on a seat??) and I decided to use the toilet paper cover thingy and forgot it was an auto-flusher so when I turned to get Timothy, the toilet flushed and sucked the cover thing down. oh well, I'll teach him about hygiene another time.

As we neared home, we heard something that sounded like Timothy singing coming from the back seat. Keeping our eyes directly on the road so as not to cause him to stop, we lowered the radio and had a listen. It went a little something like this:

"follow me, everything is alright. I'll be the one to tuck you in at night, and if you want to leave I can guarantee you won't find nobody else like me"

Nicely put. Of course, you donlt get the full effect without a demonstration. Very animated.

Well, Morgan is tucked into bed to finish his nap and Timothy wants a turn on the computer. I want a turn on the couch, so I think that's enough from me.