Going Green

Today, my daughter is taking off for a week long vacation in Paris and Rome, and I'm turning all shades of green with envy. Sure I want her to have a good time, but damn it, I want to go too.

I've been to both cities, and would jump at the chance to revisit either one. Right now, I'd jump at the chance to go anywhere. (And making the trek to Evanston tomorrow to see my therapist does not count.) Although Rome is the one city out of all the places I've been to that I love the most, my fondest memories are of my week last year in Florence. It's the people, not the places, that make for the best experiences, and last year I took my two younger children with me to visit their sister, who was "studying" abroad. No spouse to put a damper on my adventure; just a rare and cherished week of unencumbered and unplanned time with my three offspring.

Sometimes I think it didn't matter that we were in a place far, far away, that the trip would have been equally special had we gone to, say, Des Moines. Sightseeing was only a part of our agenda, although we certainly did a lot of wandering. I suppose window shopping in the malls of Iowa and biking through the flat cornfields probably wouldn't hold a candle to browsing on the Ponte Vecchio and cycling through Tuscany with a few breaks for pasta, wine, and gelato, but the conversations we had and the time we spent together would have been priceless anywhere.

This year, for the first time since I became a mother, I am scheduled to be alone for our school's spring break. As much as it kills me, I have to let my younger daughter's father take a turn with her, and they are off to London for a week. I am a big baby, though, when it comes to spending spring break with my children, so I will be heading to New York and D.C. to pester my older two. They act like they don't mind (a visit from mom is probably not high on their bucket lists) and I am just going to accept their welcoming words at face value.

I'm working hard on the envy issue; green isn't really my color. My kids are being good sports about my neediness, and I'm going to pay it forward and give my own mom some good quality attention when I head out east. Who knows? Maybe I'll even get some TLC in return!