Waiting for the sweet spot

All weekends should be four days long. Don’t you think?

Or at least one or two a month?

Let’s be honest. Two days is an entirely inadequate amount of time to settle into your weekend groove and accomplish all of those weekend warrior projects that you set your sights on all week long.

But four days? Yes, that will do it.

For this long weekend, M’s parents joined us for a visit. I may lament the 3 hour drive over 140 or so miles that lies between me and my family. But a nearly 20 hour flight over nearly 8,000 miles and several time zones? Well that’s just hard.

Since M and I have been married, we’ve seen them at least once a year. They come here, we go there, or we rendezvous roughly in the middle in London. We talk on the phone or Skype throughout the months in between.

But distance between family members is still just plan hard.

It’s hard on sons. And it’s hard on granddaughters. Baby is still in that amnesia-stage. She recognizes their names and holds onto the memories we refresh for her regularly. But when they are here in person, her stranger anxiety takes over. And we all wait the hours and days for that holy grail of moments when the anxiety subsides.

This visit, that moment came yesterday afternoon. Sitting with just her Dadda and Daddi, coloring to the soundtrack of the Olympics on TV, she finished a drawing and took it straight to them.

“This is for you to take back home with you.”

Hearts melted.

There will be a sweet spot of time. A time when her memory has formed and she recalls their visits from one year to the next, but before we lose her to the velocity of her own life, keeping her spinning about with friends, finding little time for visiting grandparents.

That spot of time will be oh so sweet for everyone.

This week, our visitors leave and we begin counting down to our vacation on one hand. This time next week, my feet will be in the sand. If I can just make it through these next few days.

Happy Monday to you.