Bittersweet

I had an amazing day with George today. But by the end of it, I found myself feeling a bit wistful....

The day started out in the desert, at my mom's. It was our last day there before heading back to Orange County, where we're staying overnight at my brother Drew's and then flying back home to the great white north.

We were considering stopping off at Disneyland's California Adventure, Disney's other theme park out here, on the way to my brother's, solely because we had free tickets to it. Which we got last week when we went to Disneyland with several members of my family (if you are CA residents, as they all are, you get a free ticket to the other theme park to be used on a separate day). A few Disneyland pics:

(Mom in front of the Matterhorn)

(George and Cousin Ryan, waiting for the Tiki Room)


(Drew, my mom, Ryan, and George on the Jungle Cruise)

Honestly, we've been to CA Adventure before and haven't been too impressed with it. But *free* tickets....

George is so sweet--even though he actually really wanted to go, at first he said he didn't. After a bit of probing, I figured out that he was just saying that because he didn't want me to tire myself out too much. He saw how exhausted I was after Disneyland last week, and he was worried about me! What a kid. Anyway... I just hated to let free tickets go to waste, so I told him we'd stop by for only a couple of hours.

As it turns out, we got such a late start leaving my mom's that we got there just about two hours before closing time, which was fine because a) there really aren't all that many rides there and b) this would ensure that I would not let myself get overly tired. And it's just as well, because when closing time rolled around I would have totally been up for staying longer, but I know that would have done me in. And with a cross-country trip tomorrow, and then band practice on Thursday, and then a gig on Friday, well, let's just say it worked out very well that I had no choice but to cut it short.

In any case, it was a marvelous couple of hours. It really was. He was such great company. We went on several rides, my favorite being Soaring over California, where you are taken on a simulated glider ride over various parts of California. A totally safe and non-bumpy thrill....

We had been to California Adventure I think twice before. Both times with free tickets. The first time was kind of a disappointment, because he was too little to go on half the rides. But I actually still have some very happy memories of that trip, especially of him playing in a couple of "play-place" type areas that they do have for younger kids. The second time was more recently, and he was big enough to go on the rides, but he was too scared for some of them. This time, he was really looking forward to going on some of the scarier rides, but the thing is, expectant mothers are barred from all of them. (At nearly 6 months I could pass for a woman with a paunch, but couldn't be less interested in a roller coaster at this point!) I told him that if he really wanted to we'd see if he could go by himself, or we'd try to find someone in line who would go with him. He was thinking that he might like to try that, but said that first he just wanted to go on rides with me, which I thought was awfully sweet (especially given how little time we had).

Turns out, that was just as well. The third ride we went on was a giant, swinging ferris wheel. The cars are on rollers, so they slide/swing back and forth quite dramatically (yet very smoothly) at certain points. This made us scream! Mostly with delight. But by the time we were coming around to the bottom, George asked if we could get off. (It was time to get off anyway.) After that, he was pretty much cured of all desire to go on the fast/scary/looping roller coasters.

(Roller coaster left and center; thrilling-enough ferris wheel to the right...)

We also had a lot of fun in the Toy Story 3-D shooting gallery. You ride around in a little cart, while wearing 3-D glasses, and you stop in front of screens with various scenes and targets on them (like you would see in a carnival shooting gallery). It keeps track of your score for you, so at the end you can compare how you did with the day's and month's high scores (we thought we did pretty well, until we saw that we had about 1/6th of the daily high scores. And about 10% of the month's high score....)

After the crazy ferris wheel George was ready for some old-fashioned playtime, and I was happy to sit down for a bit, so we went to one of the play areas. It's a gigantic (and I do mean gigantic) sort of wooden jungle gym/obstacle course. One of the earlier times when we were there I remember he got away from me and I was pretty freaked out because it was so big and there were so many people, but he's older now so I just turned him loose in there and told him to meet me back at the bench at the entrance when he was done. Funny--this time he was the one who got a little freaked out, because at a certain point he wanted to leave and couldn't find the exit, and was also afraid that I'd be worried about him! Sweet.

After that we wanted to get something for dinner, but the park was closing and the only food place that was still open was the ice cream place. I asked him if he wanted to wait and get something outside of the park, but he was starving, so I said what the heck, and we had ice cream for dinner. (It was delicious, if not-so-nutritious.)

We made one more stop on our way out, at one of the stores, where I got him some little cars, which he's been very into lately. He was so appreciative, and so non-greedy about it all--it made it really a pleasure to spend what was a pretty reasonable amount on him (some or even most of the stuff in those stores is way overpriced, but the little cars were fine).

While we were in the store, and the day was just about over, I was suddenly overcome with bittersweet emotion. It hit me that this was one of the last times *ever* that it would be just the two of us.

For perhaps even the majority of George's life it's been just the two of us. When he was very young, his father was living with us for a few years, but was not around a whole lot many/most days. After he and I split up (amicably, ftr), I was officially a single mother for several years. And even though I'm now married and have two stepchildren who spend plenty of time with us, George and I have a *lot* of time where it's just the two of us, since he's homeschooled and I work from home a lot. So we are accustomed to long stretches of time at home and about town together where it's just us. And beyond all of that daily time, because of our uniquely flexible schedules, for George's whole life he and I have taken regular trips out to California to see my family, pretty much every year.

But all of that is about to change, because soon there will be another little one in the mix. And this one will not have a parent in another home that he goes to sometimes. Of course, sometimes Bob will take Ace (did I mention that's the baby's in-utero nickname?) somewhere for a morning or an afternoon and George and I will have a little alone-time, but that will be the exception far more than the rule that it has been.

I asked George, in the store, how he felt about that and he actually said that he's excited about it. He added that he's particularly looking forward to reliving his childhood "from a different perspective". I hope he still feels that way after Ace is born. I think he will, actually.

In any case, big, big changes ahead for us.... So I'm extra glad we've had this time.