It’s April school vacation week here, and Charlotte has been spending the week at my in-laws’ house in Maine. Earlier in the week I posted about our misadventure trying to go see the Battle of Lexington re-enactment, but the untold part of that story is that Charlotte was so excited to get to her grandparents that she willingly gave up going to the Patriot’s Day parade in Lexington, which is an event we usually attend, just so that she could get there that much sooner. In fact, she even packed her suitcase a whole week before she was supposed to go.
Given my own choppy relationship with my in-laws, you could have knocked me over with a feather when Charlotte and her grandmother developed such a special bond, but ultimately I am very glad that they did. Charlotte gets to have cherished memories of her grandmother and the time they have together, my mother-in-law gets to enjoy this time while she is still able to do things with her only grandchild, and Bridget and I get a week off from playing Mom and Dad. It’s a real win-win-win. This year, in fact, we’re also planning to send Charlotte to Maine for another week in August after her day camp finishes up, and we’re all looking forward to that a lot, too.
So, while the kid and the old lady have been having some bonding time, the wife and I have been enjoying our Flashback 2000 Week. 2000 was the year before Charlotte was born and the end of our 15-year era of being DINKs. We had a much longer time than many married couples do to live on our own terms and on our own schedule, and once we were settled in Boston and had good-paying jobs and such we grew to be very attached to that lifestyle. Recently, my blog-buddy Jack wrote this very thoughtful and obviously sorrowful post about how his life choices have taken him to mid-life without raising children. Jack has been going through a lot in his personal life, and I genuinely have a lot of empathy for how he’s feeling, but I can say that I went through quite a long stretch of mourning my childless adulthood and the freedom it gave us. It’s only in the last couple of years as Charlotte has started school and begun the process of being her own independent self that we’ve had a chance to have these snatches of escape back to those earlier times.
Every night this week, we’ve been able to go to restaurants that don’t use paper place mats or have kiddie menus, we’ve gotten to see movies that aren’t animated or about a toy, and haven’t had to read bedtime stories, yell at someone to brush their teeth, or watch a single minute of Disney Channel programming. I haven’t had to rush to get out the door to go to work, haven’t had to listen to my child’s incessant babble in the car, or argue about appropriate clothing for first graders. Tonight we’re going to a cheese tasting seminar, then coming home to watch a DVD that doesn’t have Barbie in it, and then going to breakfast in the morning at our favorite breakfast spot. And then the vacation is over. We’ll meet Charlotte and Bridget’s mother at our customary rendezvous spot, make the handoff, and go back to being Mom and Dad again until August.
The funny thing, though, is that even though Charlotte is not quite seven (less than a month to go now), both Bridget and I know that these times don’t last forever. As we were having dinner at a brew pub in Waltham the other night, Bridget said ” Before we know it, she won’t want to be seen with us in public”. And I knew she was right. These seven years have been such a blur, and the next seven will assuredly go by even faster. It’s April school vacation week elsewhere as well, and my friend Tony and his oldest daughter have been spending the week touring colleges that she is interested in applying to for Fall 2009. Lindsay will be 18 in November. I vividly remember going to visit Tony and his wife just a few weeks after Lindsay was born. So where did those 18 years go, and am I going to wake up one morning soon and be packing my daughter into the car for her college road trip? This morning, my blog-buddy Mig found himself reminiscing about the time he and his oldest daughter (whom he calls “Beta” online) went to Galway to buy a harp when she was just eight years old (scarcely a year older than Charlotte is now) and all the years she has gone to orchestra camp. This is their last orchestra camp together before she, too, goes off to college, and he made me cry as he wrote about having to realize some experience is “the last time” you’ll share that particular thing with your child. Of course, as children grow, they naturally leave behind elements of their younger selves, but at our stage with Charlotte, the discards have been a relief, not a twinge of remorse — no one misses changing diapers, after all.
I can’t honestly say I’m the least bit remorseful about sending my little girl off to her grandmother’s house for a week, but now I think I’m ready for her to come home so I can be Daddy again tomorrow.
