PenPenWrites

Alpha daughter and her daughter have come home for a visit–a long weekend. The Grand is six–not a difficult age. We don't have to watch her like a two-year-old. We are not tied to naps or strict schedules. We can go out to dinner together and enjoy ourselves. She can come to our office and charm our co-workers. We can go to museums or the zoo and discuss what we're seeing and why it's interesting. We can read books. She can sit and read a book by herself. She can play by herself for at least an hour or two.
And yet. And yet. They left today and we are in a state of collaptive exhaustion. Why should this be? Alpha daughter is helpful–she pitches in to prepare meals and to clean up. She doesn't expect us to babysit endlessly. She is here to enjoy some free time with her daughter and some quality time with us as well.

What is it that sets off the weariness? Part of it is tension: will we manage not to offend? Will Paterfamilias, the more critical of alpha daughter's parents, be too critical–of his daughter or, worse yet, his daughter's daughter?  He does not take kindly to having his conversation interrupted and six year olds tend to, well, interrupt. And it's not easy for less-critical me. I never know when I'm going to stick my foot in it, so to speak. Say the wrong thing. And it's so easy to do. Just suggest that you can babysit if she wants to get a haircut, and you can feel the bristling begin.

But that's only part of it. There's another more neutral reason–at least I've come to think there's a more neutral reason. The exhaustion stems, in part, from the break in routine. We eat earlier when we have visitors–so there's a rush to get food prepared and on the table. No more sitting around to watch the evening news then chatting about what we might have for dinner and taking our time to prepare it. And the food they eat is different from the food we eat–they are vegetarians [no fish, no fowl, to say nothing of the beefier stuff; no cheese with rennet]. So I have to re-think meals. It's not terrible. Not impossible. But challenging. And adjustments like that add up. Are they comfortable in the beds you've prepared for them? Is the TV too loud? Are you watching something that should be turned off if the six-year-old wanders into the room–like news of war and bombings or terrible disasters or heinous crimes.

It was with some relief that we drove them to the airport. But no sooner did they walk toward security check in and wave goodbye than the tears welled up. I miss them. I wish they lived near by so that I could have a more natural to and fro with my daughter and her family.

Would that be any better? Friends whose children and grandchildren live in the same city as they do have their exhaustions as well–filling in for a weekend babysit so the parents can go away for the weekend; the last minute call in an emergency–driving to a grown child's house at 2 in the morning. We want to be there for all that. Why else are we still around? Why else do we call ourselves family? And yet, we all tell each other the tales of how tired we are when we've had some time–a visit–with our grown children.