Not Exactly the Extended Vacation I Would Have Requested

My grandmother died at 2:30 this morning. I'm glad I was able to be with her when she died.

Bump and Lumpyhead will leave for DC tomorrow as originally planned. Lula and I will stay for the funeral, which is Thursday, and return to DC on Friday.

We weighed lots of factors in coming to this decision, including cost, convenience, and feasibility. For example, we immediately ruled out the option of Bump returning to DC with both kids tomorrow while I stayed here, based on Lula's behavior on the flight out. (I'm super-psyched that I'm getting the naughty one.)

If we thought Bump's presence would be helpful over the next few days, he would stay -- even though he's pretty sick of being here. (There's not much to do here. And by "not much" I mean "absolutely nothing.") But he is likely to spend his time simply wrangling Lumpyhead and Lula, and he would rather be in DC - where the living room is child-proofed and Lumpyhead’s sleep environment is constant - if his sole directive is caring for his own children.

We considered keeping our original itinerary plus a new round-trip flight, meaning I would fly back with Bump and the tormentors tomorrow, leave them in DC and return to Minnesota for the funeral. But that was actually more expensive than all four of us staying in Minnesota until Friday, and it meant a lot more air travel for me, so, no.

But now Bump is separating our things into two piles - go and stay - and I am second-guessing our decision. I realize I've never been away from Lumpyhead for longer than a day or two, and I miss him already. I'm worried about being solely responsible for even one of my children without Bump as a backup. I'm dreading five more days in this tiny town, where I spent my entire childhood plotting my escape.