To Market, To Market, To Buy a Plum Bun...

With some great effort to create obstacles for ourselves, all three of us spent four (plus) days apart last weekend. I went to Florida to visit my parents, with the intent of having one last easy trip, sans toddlers and babies, before the next kid arrives. Q went to visit his Grandpa and Granmary. (Where he is doted on and generally indulged with tons of attention, new adventures, and so much fun that when I asked once, as we drove away, if we should go home now, he simply said, "No.") J stayed home, worked, and built a shelf in the kids' room.

Q and I arrived home within about an hour of each other on Monday. The three of us hung out in his room as he frolicked on his bed, played with scrap lumber from the shelves, and generally expressed delight in returning home.

It's a relief to be home. I have my family, my own bed, ample pajama bottoms that can accomodate my ever-spreading girth...you know the comforts you arrange for home to have. My favorite cereal, flannel sheets, cold weather...mostly things that if they were vitally important to me, my mother would have been delighted to provide. (Well, not the cold weather, or picky high maintenance items, but still.)

Watching Q bounce on his big boy bed, I began to sing a droning song I made up for him on a sleepless night last fall. J and I had left him with Grandpa and Granmary for a whole weekend alone, and the re-entry had been difficult. At about 3 am, he woke and wailed till I took him downstairs and rocked him, reciting nursery rhymes and familiar songs. Eventually I was so tired that all I could manage was a monotone: "Mommy and Daddy and Q... Mommy and Daddy and Q... Mommy and Daddy and Q..." We've sung it off and on since then, and as it has no melody, harmony, or musical ability necessary, even Q has been known to hum it to himself.

Hearing me sing it on Monday, he broke into a big smile. He didn't acknowledge it, or sing along. But it was evident that all the family puzzle pieces were back into place.

Home again, Home again, Market is Done.