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Ah… the second day back from our vacation, and I find myself unexpectedly alone, drinking good wine, dining on wine-poached sole filet and asparagus and watching the sun set on the water.   Kenny is fast asleep (a little early), Casey is working late, Dudley is chasing the giant blue heron off our dock over and over, and I am enjoying a gourmet meal for one, which I forced myself to prepare in place of the convenient bowl of cereal that is my usual staple when I have dinner alone.

The whirlwind of activity since our return on Sunday night has been relentless.    A small picture:   Yesterday at noon, I had two noisy workmen in the house finishing the demolition of our laundry room, two non-English speaking men delivering the wrong new mattress into our bedroom, Kenny playing peek-a-boo between my legs with Dudey, who was anxiously wrapping his leash around and around my  torso in effort to alternately lick pizza sauce off of Kenny’s face and attempt to attack the bubble wrap that was floating down our staircase.   As I tried to explain to the customer service guy on the phone at Mattress Warehouse that my new mattress was too small, the five foot three delivery guy in a grungy wife beater started tickling Kenny’s chin, making  Kenny cackle with glee and Dudley lunge at  the strange man’s  throat.   The guy on the phone was ranting something about getting a tape measure to check the dimensions, the construction foreman was using a chainsaw on the last of the old ceiling, and my cell phone started ringing the cheery tune assigned to my own Mommy, who was about to embark on a mission trip to Russia.  

Just writing that made me need to get up and refill my wine glass.

Ok, so the whole past 48 hours haven’t been that hectic, but pretty close.   There is an upside: Kenny has gone back to being Mommy’s little guy, extra snuggly tonight, when we realized that Daddy wouldn’t be home in time to tuck him in.   Dudley is going through definite vacation withdrawl, though.   I am, too.   Walking back into a house that was not only not empty for the past week, but was instead home to  a remodeling project, there is an inch of dust on every visible surface, drywall  footprints all over the floor, and the entire contents of our laundry room / storage piled in  one  end  of the living room.   There are cobwebs and dead bugs in every corner (a caveat of living on the water – spiders are rampant!), drooping houseplants, laundry to be folded, suitcases to unpack and a tower of mail to get through.

But the joy of having my little guy play and cuddle with me all day has made all the Things To Do temporarily disappear.   He’s started saying, “Hi-ah!” with this gloriously huge grin on his face everytime he makes direct eye contact with anyone, even if it’s me and we have been together all afternoon.   And he’s started to really babble, convincing me that his toddler mind is just bursting with things to say.   This morning when I went  in to get him from his crib, he was sitting up, facing his two teddy bears and his stuffed sheep, who were also sitting at attention, and was apparently giving them their morning marching orders.   The words may have been incomprehensible to my ears, but his inflections and tones were as if he were delivering the State of the Union address.   And you better believe he gave me an earfull at dinnertime tonight when I wouldn’t let him dump his water glass onto the pasta.   I would have paid a small fortune to have an interpreter for that one.

So the sun has set, my dinner is eaten and Dudley has just brought me the entire contents of the bathroom trashcan, in an effort to remind me that he wants dinner, too.   And I should really take advantage of this time to dust, vacuum and start the assortment of household damage-control that needs to be done.

Good bye Vacation, hello Circus!