Vacation Plans

In eight hours, I will be on vacation, and so will Frances. It's been years since I've taken two weeks off in a row, and I can't tell you how much I've been looking forward to it. I'll stay up too late on the off-chance Frances will let me sleep in the next day. I'll buy us sugary and salty treats. We'll go the farm and the park and the amusement park and see fireworks. We'll probably watch too much TV. I hope we'll finish a stuffed monster or two and maybe I'll teach her how to crochet. We'll go swimming in the apartment complex pool. And then, right in the middle of it all, Frances will go stay with her father for a week, and I'll have that second week of vacation by myself.

It wasn't supposed to work out that way. I'd signed up for a writing workshop that week, and it got cancelled. That's life.

Then Frances will come back and stay with me for a week. And then she'll go stay with her Dad for a week. And so on, right until school starts up again in September.

On the one hand, I know that time off will be good for me, if I have the sense to use it to recharge, catch up on my sleep and my reading, see Greg and my friends, and in general not be a single mother for half the summer. On the other hand, how am I supposed to recharge, catch up on my sleep and my reading, see Greg and my friends, and in general not be a single mother, when I'm paralyzed by missing Frances?

I won't need to get her ready for daycare in the morning or wash her clothes or buy her food or pack her snacks. I won't need to corral her toys every evening or sweep the day's sand imports off the floor. I can run outside every night those weeks, if I want to; I can up and leave for the store or a movie, like I could before she was born. All kinds of possibilities, assuming I'm not mired eyeball-deep in a dark funk.

The important thing is that it will be good for her. She misses her Daddy very much, and they need this extra time together. But, in advance--oww.

When I picked Frances up from daycare yesterday, she said something about growing up and not having anyone to take care of. I can't remember exactly how she put it, or why it came up.

"You might," I said. "You might decide to have babies and take care of them. Or maybe you will have pets to take care of, or a garden. Or maybe you will decide to be on your own and you won't have anyone to take care of. There are lots of options. You can decide when you're a grown up, if you want to take care of someone or not."

She thought about this. "I am going to have babies, and take care of them. And I will have a garden. And you will be there, to take care of me."

"That sounds lovely. I'd love that."

"Yes. I have three things I want to tell you, Mummy."

"Oh?"

"When I grow up, I will have babies to take care of. And I will plant a garden. And you will be there, to take care of me."

Taking care of that girl is exhausting and difficult, but I love it. The apartment feels wrong when she's not there. When there are no high-pitched impatient requests for apple juice refills or chocolate chip cookies before supper, no little outfits to put together, no socks covered with sweat and sand to pick off the floor, no families of stuffed toys to trip over by the sofa.

Saturday to Thursday, we will have our vacation. We will pack it full of fun, weather be damned.

I won't think again about the week after that until it gets here.

Posted by Andrea at June 27, 2008 8:31 AM under Single Momming

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