I did it. I traveled back to NY. I got on a plane, wrestled with the Peanut for 4.5 hours there and 6 hours back. I drove 2.5 hours up to the farm with two exhausted children and slept in 500 square feet of house. It was insane.
And it was glorious.
As nuts as it always is to get there, and as hard as it can be to schlep my two relatively insane kids so far and with so many legs, as usual it was completely worth it. We spent ten days in the Hudson River Valley, rejoicing when it got above 60 and lamenting when it started raining, again. But our last two days were amazing, with sunshine and family and good food and lots of love and snuggles for the kids and the great-grandparents.
These are the moments that make everything worth it.
Let’s be honest, I haven’t seen this woman smile in a long time… but somehow my crazy, opinionated, shy little Peanut managed to make it happen. And where once the Big Kid was the favorite with the great-grandparents, I fear that the Peanut has usurped his position. Sorry dude, but she’s adorable right now and you’re… well you’re four.
Enough Said.
This trip was a tough experience as well because while I’m so incredibly lucky to still have grandparents alive, it’s hard to watch what happens when they are 94 and 84. My grandfather is still just as impish and crazy as he always has been, just a little bit slower and needing more rest while planting his humungous vegetable garden and working. Seriously, the guy’s a savage.
But he’s never too busy to miss a photo opp.
Or to scare the bejeezus out of me.
Boo!
The trip was awesome but leaving was bittersweet . Who knows what the next year will bring? Another year of questions marks, of potential health disasters, of the onset of what is probably dementia for my Granny and my Poppy sneaking closer every day to the century mark. I know that these moments that we share with them are so special, to be treasured and captured and remembered with a million photos and memories… because who knows how long this magical scenario, four generations reuniting every year, will last. And I hope that these trips are making lasting impressions on my kids…
I’m pretty sure they are.
