What happens while the parents are in Vegas...

Spending time with the grandparents this week has me thinking all sorts of things...like how being a grandparent makes you see extremely aggravating situations and toddlers in a very different, and amusing, light, and how they have a way of finding just about everything about grandchildren endearing. Did you ever notice that one person's grandparenting styles diverge wildly and recklessly from their parenting styles? How about the fact that, though they seem to be completely and utterly exhausted after your rambunctious toddler goes to bed, they maintain an almost manic level of energy and enthusiasm up until that moment?

But most of all it's got me thinking about Vegas.

Go ahead, call me selfish. In April, J and I are going to Las Vegas to celebrate his graduation from medical school. We did it when he turned 25, and again when he got his PhD, as well as a couple of times in between just for good measure, so we might as well continue the trend. Like all of the other times, we're going without the kid. The difference is, we didn't have the kid the other times. What I'm saying, as succinctly as always, is that THIS IS THE FIRST TIME WE'RE GOING AWAY AND LEAVING OUR DAUGHTER BEHIND. She's 2 years old and a week, and I have yet to spend a night away from her. J is always taking off to one place or another - interviews, overnight call, 4-day bachelor parties in New Orleans...the usual stuff - but I've been home-bound or, more accurately, baby-bound since sometime in mid-May 2008 when she became a sparkle in my eye. I've been getting by quite successfully on a large mountain of denial, but the mountain is crumbling. I'm starting to ask questions. And I don't have any answers. I don't know how she'll react. I don't know if my parents will be able to keep up with her. I don't know if the guilt and fear will overtake me somewhere over Nebraska...I don't even know if we'll be flying over Nebraska. But I think that's the best way to do it. Just go. She'll survive. Her grandparents will survive. Jeff and I will survive. And it won't likely be so traumatizing as to require years of therapy later in life. But maybe I'll put aside some of my winnings into a "therapy fund", just in case.