Before 5:00

This whole vacation I have slept later than I normally do...sometimes I am under cover until 8:00 AM which is late for me.  Perhaps it is the endless trips to the activities, back to the apartment and then on to the pool.  Perhaps it is the running after a recently turned -two-year-old that has discovered real speed on tennis shoes.  Perhaps it is the emotional ups and downs of seven people confined combined in a two-bedroom apartment.  I just know that when evening came I was more than ready to open my arms to Morpheus.

So, this morning of our departure I awaken before 5:00AM!  I know that it is my anal personality that wants to make sure everything is found, sorted and packed before the long drive back to reality.  But silly me cannot do anything noisy as everyone else is still fast asleep.

I cut a small piece of the remaining birthday cake covered in icky blue trimmed frosting and sit with my Kindle and finish "Schroeder, A Novel" which is certainly a haunting bit of work appropriate with overly sweet birthday cake.  I look around the strangely bare apartment where every board game, laptop, Thomas the Train track and wet towel has been tucked away for another year.   The only sound is that of the climate control unit...which seems to have switched between heat and air-conditioning as the weather has been all over the place.

I wait, somewhat impatiently, for the peach red sunrise to burn over the Atlantic Ocean but only see black inky darkness outside the window broken by soft landscape lighting around the paths to and from the pools. Only one other apartment light on the high rise of the far building is lit in sync with mine.  Perhaps someone else is wandering about looking for the day to start.

I must wait to make coffee so that it will be fresh for my daughter when she rises.  I had brought some of the Mexican coffee with my ground cinnamon and she has become an addict looking forward to it each morning.  We have just enough for one final pot.

I will miss this lovely stressful high energy family as we all go our different ways following spring north.  This has been a week of firsts:  the 2-year-old saying a complete sentence, the 5-year-old actually giving in for a change, and the 7-year-old completing two of the longest bicycle rides in his lifetime. It is not without some sadness that I face realistically my future of less energy and ability to keep up as they grow.  But I am realistic in knowing they will not want me at their side during that future time as well. 

Well, I have a busy spring of volunteer gardening to distract me...if it ever stops snowing up that way.