Home.
It's the sound of my children softly breathing (or snoring) in their beds.
It's the ease of knowing what channel on cable is HBO or SyFy. And knowing NickJr. is there in a clutch.
It's about being able to work on my computer without worrying about keeping my son and my sister awake.
I'm home again today, after a few days with my older son, my sister, my mother and her husband in Washington, D.C. My son had gone on one road trip before, to Montreal, with both mommy and daddy, but he was only 2 and doesn't remember it. So this was a voyage of firsts.
First grown-up hotel bed. First cab ride. First subway trip.
"I wish we lived in Washington, D.C.," Rafael sort of whined on the trip back up this morning. Not because seeing the White House, the Lincoln Memorial, the World War II Memorial and the National Air & Space Museum were so incredibly exciting. It was the trip. Four hours in a car, with mommy driving - and that meant she couldn't focus her full entertainment abilities on her first-born son.
He said the same thing on the way down. If we lived in D.C., he reasoned, we wouldn't have to make this huge, long trip in the car.
The trip had lots of excitement that was lost on Rafael. We sat mere feet away from Nancy Pelosi as she addressed a reception my mother was invited to — U.S. Rep. Patrick Kennedy, too, along with several other luminaries.
He did enjoy, however, a performance by three siblings from somewhere in the Midwest (maybe a Plains state? Completely escapes me at the moment) who played a toe-tapping mixture of bluegrass, classical, country and gospel on violin, cello and something that looked like an electric lute/guitar but sounded like a banjo.
Having a few days mostly away from the computer was somewhat relaxing too. It was real quality time - mother and son hanging out, in gorgeous weather.
But it was good to come back to New Jersey. After an excited hello to Mommy, Markus rushed right over to Rafael and piled on top of him to give him a hug and welcome him back.That is home.
_______________________About the author: Amy Vernon is a mom, writer, editor, strategist and bacon queen. She writes for many sites and spends too much time on the computer. You can find her on Twitter at @AmyVernon.
