Camp

I dropped the older girls off at sleep away camp this morning. I left home 24 hours ago with them and headed towards the heart of Amish country, Ohio, quite excited about the idea of solo travel with just those two. How long has it been since we've been alone? 19 1/2 months?

Gilli our constant companion, we don't get many moments to be alone, the three of us. So I left our little blue house with high hopes and a couple of audio books and some peanut butter crackers, looking forward to reading together, to cuddles, to special moments.

The reality of it all, though, is that I was quite grumpy. I'm in my special grumpy time of month, which lasts quite literally from 1 week, 4 days before my period starts to 1 week, 4 days after. Yeah. The math is ridiculous. I get about 4 good days of sanity per cycle.

And I just couldn't get past it. Their bickering, their rivalry, their drama...it just ate away at me most of the trip. There was no reading, no cuddling in soft, cushy hotel beds together. We just crashed out of sheer exhaustion.

This morning we woke up and decided to get along like good little ladies, and I started to get teary eyed at the thought of dropping them off at the farm, without me and their dad.

Hotel pool fun

Sleeping beauties, first day of camp.

I shed some secret, interior tears as they bounded out of the car, kissed me, and squeezed my love handles in some strange gesture of goodbye, and I turned our enormous rental car around and drove 6 1/2 hours back to Gillian.

As I drove home I listened to Jonathon Franzen's collection of short stories, reviews, and lectures (Father Away) and couldn't help but ponder my relationship to the girls. Listening to him reflect on his relationships - to his parents, to his ex, to his friends, I found myself hearing a lot of things that resonated with me strongly.

Being a Mother is some tricky, messy business. So freakishly easy at times, at times natural; and yet often just as confusingly not so.

I longed to take back my hormonally induced inability to tolerate the competitive tendencies shared by my 6 and 8 year old. I longed to cuddle in that hotel bed. I longed for Gillian and her sweet smushy skin that smells like wet, warm bread with powdered sugar sprinkled on top.

I turned off the radio, loaded up on iced caffeinated beverages, and raced toward home to relieve the babysitter and grab my beautiful girl and hold her in my arms.

I ran through the front door to a lethargic, sweaty Gill on day 5 of a fever. I scooped her up, nursed her, brought her face to mine... and watched as she threw up in my bra.

I tried to explain the non-electric aspect of Amish life (totally unsuccessfully) to the girls. "Why?
 they asked. I didn't have an answer. But they recognized that these were "non-electric" hay stacks :)