My sister and her husband are in lovely, sunny Southern California for a wedding this weekend so my mom is watching their kids. We went to join them for dinner tonight and tomorrow, Mr. T is spending the night at my mom's house with my little niece and my nephew is coming to spend the night at our house with Miss E. Tonight though, we all hung out together and while my parents were out getting pizza and I was making a salad, Miss E entertained the kids by reading to them all. She is such a good reader! She also is having a much better week than last week which is making me feel a little more comfortable about leaving.
I was starting to feel super-guilty about it. About leaving the kids, about leaving Peter. I mean, 2 weeks is a LONG time. But then the other night I was having a glass of wine with some friends and I told them about it and one of them said "but your mom isn't going to be able to backpack forever". And it kind of struck me. She's right. I am leaving my kids to help my mom fulfill a lifelong (or at least since I was a kid) dream of backpacking in Europe. The kids are not the only loved ones in my life that are important to me. Time is marching on. My mom is in her late 60's. It's incredible that she can do this now. If I can do a 73 mile backpacking trip in my late 60's I will consider things a success. But we don't know what the future brings. So yes, it will be a hard 2 weeks on the kids but they will adjust. Peter will adjust and so will I. In the big scheme of things, a trip to Spain for 2 weeks with my mom and my sister (and my Dad -kind of) will be worth it.
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