We’ve also learned that we share differing interpretations of a week’s Vacation From Parenting. Meanwhile, Alex and I have been left behind to attend to our assigned daily grinds and realize how totally dull this place is in the morning without a toddler buzzing from room to room at the crack of dawn, pulling on our earlobes to announce, “I’m awake! Wake UP!” and serenading us with ABCs on his guitar. He’s spending a week at the mountain retreat of Camp Grandparents, where he’s forced to endure petting zoos, baby pools, wide expanses of fresh air, nonstop adoration, and, no doubt, all of the ice cream he can talk them into. But this is the first time - with barely a “Sayonara!” as he ran out the door or a single “Wish you were here!” postcard from the road - that Jacob has headed out for lazier climes without us. We return well-rested and smiling, sandy grit in the bottom of our suitcases, traces of whatever had vexed us before we left deliciously eviscerated from memory, and almost giddy with excitement to start scraping spaghetti from the underside of the high chair again. Over the last 2 3/4 years, we’ve occasionally been blessed with the chance to go away for a few days sans bébé.
