Trips aren't for toddlers

Otter loves being in new places. Otter loves going to new places--even in the car--provided you can get there within two hours.

After two hours, he gets cranky in the car.

I know this because we just returned from a one-week jaunt Mama-and-toddler to visit my family. You may have guessed that this trip requires more than two hours of car time. far far more. Many hours more. We played Dan Zanes music over and over, sang the star (twinkle twinkle) song, sang the "if you're happy and you know it" song, hummed, gave him crackers, gave him water, gave him cookies, stopped to allow him to walk around a bit... still, after two , maximum three, hours he's just not a happy child in the car.

Once there, it was wonderful and exhausting--for both me and Otter. Otter had a lovely time running in circles around my parents' downstairs (living room to kitchen to dining room to living room, then repeat), a much bigger and more open space than we have at home.

Otter also had lots of fun playing with his rapidly approaching 4-year old cousin. Formerly-Emperor now-Prime-Minister K (he now has a baby sister whose arrival, I believe, has changed his family from an empire to a parliamentary democracy) would pull the toy elephant around the room while Otter chased him--sort of. Otter would make small digressions in his following of K and the elephant to spin in circles with joy.

He had fun with his grandparents too, and his aunt and uncle, and at Barnes and Noble's train table, where he became atypically shy and quiet watching a somewhat older toddler assert that "no, baby!" those trains were hers, all hers.

He had fun doing almost everything but napping--and watching me hold his new baby girl cousin. More on that later this week.

We're all glad to be home, especially as we stopped to pick up G on the way home from his annual Hearts weekend. Otter was beyond thrilled to see his dad, and we were all happy to get back to our own messy house (we're working on it, and it's getting less cluttered, really), and our own warm well-made (thanks to G) family bed.

Our grey and white cat was also thrilled to see Otter, and this morning when he woke up he got fits of giggles just watching her sit in the room.

It is this type of Otter joy than leads both G and me to concur with Otter when he says (his latest and most amazing word) that he's "habby." He will spin and turn and dance and run, saying "habby habby habby habby" and trying to make the sign for HAPPY.

Sometime having a kid is hard and complicated and exhausting. But sometimes--sometimes at the same time that it's hard, sometimes on its own--it just makes you "habby," right down to your spinning dancing toes.