Final hours

It is our last full day in New England...Rhea is out for her third stroller ride of the morning with Grammy and Grandpa and I am again wrestling with the complicated emotions of leaving. It is rough...feeling so connected to life here while being so utterly homesick for Bert and our San Francisco family. Seeing Rhea with her grandparents is amazing...the whole world stops when she gets up in the morning, wakes from a nap, or needs anything at all. She is so comfortable with them both and seems to have blossomed under their attentive watch.

Last night after I put Rhea down for the night I went out to dinner with Nola and Charlie and then met up with the rest of the family at the boys street hockey game. It was such a fun night...reminded me of life before Rhea...footloose and fancy free with the added bonus of knowing I had a sweet little baby to come home too. It was a perfect summer evening.

In the middle of the night last night Rhea woke up and decided she was done with all that boring sleeping. She tossed and turned...stood up in bed to play with the dresser next to the bed (we pulled the mattress on the floor to try and minimize the impact of any potential crawling out of bed)...was babbling and literally rolling from the foot of the bed to the head while trying to engage with me in the dark. I changed her diaper, smoothed out the bed and then did my best impression of dead asleep...a difficult task when you have a ridiculously cute baby prying at your eyelids in hope of some love. The whole experience was a mix of frustration mingled with amusement with a touch of sheer exhaustion thrown in. I kept thinking that Rhea must be on the verge of mastering some new skill which would explain all this late night rabble rousing.

6:00 a.m. came way too quickly for this Mama but I was immediately rescued by Grammy who took Rhea downstairs so I could get a bit more sleep. Later in talking with my Mother she informed me that Rhea had officially scootched! From the footstool...to the couch...to the chair and back again with such grace and skill you would have though she did it everyday. I knew she was brewing something last night and it makes me laugh to think of her pulling herself up in the middle of the night and dozing off sitting up (she did a bunch of that too) while stubbornly hanging onto the drawer pulls.

All in all our time here has been a gift for all involved...time for my parents to really get to experience the sweetness that is Rhea Sue and a time for Rhea to bask in the love of so many people.

Leaving is always so difficult...I wish I could somehow magically close the divide between our coasts and bring us all closer.