First, we were to get to Dulles around 8:00 PM.
This would put us home around 10 or 10:30 PM. Not so bad. Now the Jet Blue flight doesn’t leave the gate until 8:30 PM. We get in after 10 PM. By the time I collect my wife’s luggage and we drive home, it will be after midnight. I suppose it could be worse.
With the unpredictable weather patterns currently, there could be further delays.
I made the mistake of flying through Newark one time, coming home from Boston. That ½ hour layover kept getting pushed back. By the time I had driven home from Dulles, the sun was coming up over the Blue Ridge mountains. The original schedule was for us to be in Dulles by 8:00 PM.
Yet the time it takes to drive from the C’ville area to Boston is 12 to 14 hours.
And that is really without stops, which never happens. At minimum, there are gas and potty breaks. Years ago, we drove to Boston but broke the trip up into two days. We went as far as NJ and stayed with my oldest son and his wife. The following day we drove the second half of the trip. All of this was before anyone of my children had children. Now there are three grandchildren to think about.
I have therapy tomorrow at 10 AM in Charlottesville.
My plan was to be home by 10 PM so I would have a full night’s sleep before my session. It looks like that is not going to happen. Of course, getting a full night’s sleep hasn’t happened in years. It really became a bother in the months leading up to my going into 5 East.
And a full night’s rest has eluded me ever since.
I hear my granddaughter (4 months old) waking up and she will need my undivided attention. As the surrogate care giver, I will make sure she has a dry diaper, and then see if she wants a bottle. From there she may like some tummy time, or back time looking at the stuff on the arms of the play mat.
She is old enough to have her “shows.”
She is partial to dancing ladybugs on the TV, but also watches dancing vegetables. Her attention span is minutes, but it gives me time to clean up the wet diaper, get her bottle into the used bottle area, and make sure I can find her “packie,” or as adults call it, a pacifier. My granddaughter’s older brother coined the phrase, and now it is in common use in their household.
I miss my grandkids already, and I haven’t even said goodbye.
My granddaughter is down for the count and is taking a nap. Her brother is at pre-school, and won’t be home ‘til a few minutes after 4PM. We will get to hang out together for a couple of hours. He has been riding to the airport to drop us off and I believe he will be doing that this evening.
I am already looking at my next trip and will be purchasing airline tickets soon.
But before that, the adventure will be to see my 1-year-old granddaughter in NJ. In my opinion, spending equal time in both places is important. And while I no longer worry about my grandchildren remembering who I am, it’s still important to me that they know who “grandpa is.”
