Musings and Regrets

I don't think I mentioned it, but my mom and Kevin came up to visit this past Wednesday and stayed with us until this morning. While it's always a little sad to see family leave, this morning it hit harder than normal. When Lucas was younger, he liked it when new people were around, but he didn't really make the distinction that they were visiting and that they would eventually be leaving. However, now that he is nearly three, he's beginning to understand it more clearly.

In the days leading up to their visit, Lucas would ask every morning whether Grammy and Grampy were here yet. When we brought my mom along to pick him up from daycare on Wednesday, he had an ear-to-ear smile plastered on his face as he ran over for a huge hug. And then this morning, when we told him they were leaving, he kept repeating that "the planes are all gone!" I guess that was his way of telling them to stay.

As I thought about it on the ride home from the airport, I realized just how much I hate living so far from any family, whether its mine or Marilu's. Lucas has such a great time whenever someone visits and when they are gone, it's just the three of us. Yeah, there are his daycare friends and kids around the neighborhood, but I can't help but feel he is missing out on experiences that children with local grandparents, aunts, uncles, etc, get on a regular basis.

Part of my feelings are selfish--who doesn't want easy access to a babysitter?--but it goes beyond that. I watched how overjoyed he was to play with his Grammy and Grampy the past 5 days, and I just feel bad that these interactions are so few and far between.

Knowing that there is no easy solution due to the international situation of our living status doesn't help. Even if everyone wanted to live in one place, it's almost impossible from a logistical standpoint. So basically, the situation just plain sucks.

Enough feeling sorry for myself. In positive news, I conditionally sold my first house this past Friday so I'm actually bringing money into the home again. Let's hope that is followed by a torrent of additional business.

I know I said I was going to post a follow-up to the Winterlude pictures--and I am--but for now, I wanted to post some pictures from this past week. Thanks for the visit, Grammy and Grampy!

For weeks, Lucas has been anticipating the Spider-Man scooter than my mom and Kevin were bringing up for him. So much, in fact, that we were able to bribe a lot of good behavior out of him. "If you don't do X, you won't get your scooter!" Wednesday was the big day, and we put it together not long after he got home from daycare. I believe he rode it up and down the driveway once and then moved on to something else. Go figure. However, they also brought the outfit you see in this photo--which is actually Spider-Man pajamas--and he would wear almost nothing else this weekend. Except for when we had to go outside on cold days, he wore the PJs nearly 24/7. So at least one Spider-Man themed present was a massive hit, just not the one we expected.


Here's a better shot of the PJs.


Amazingly, we finally got him to cooperate on this photo with my mom and Kevin.


Neither Lucas nor Kevin were looking at the camera in this one, but I really like the way their looking at each other turned out.


And finally, one with Lucas and the moms for Mother's Day. Thanks for coming up, Grammy and Grampy!