Mother of one

Apparently Hannah has decided to be raised as a Lentz instead of a Snow. According to Mom she asked Grandpa "Do I have to go home next week?" Our telephone conversations with her have been getting shorter and shorter and further apart as her social life is way too busy right now to have time to talk to Mommy and Daddy. I can count on one hand the number of emails she has sent me.

I just hung up the phone with Mom and apparently Hannah is down at the park right now teaching a game to her new friends. Earlier in the week she had a two night sleepover - and a day at the zoo in between - with her cousins Matt and Sam. Tonight she's headed over to spend the night with Aunt Debbie and Uncle Mark before returning to Grandma and Grandpa's house in the morning to run her bottled water and soda stand at the neighborhood garage sale this weekend.

It also sounds as though she has accumulated enough new stuff over the last two weeks that it may require shipping some of her stuff home. (Okay, it's not quite that bad.....yet. She does have another week to go though.) Dad's joking pleas for us to send money are starting to take on an air of urgency to them. So much so that he's taken to including their mailing address and signing his emails "The Budget Manager". I told him the check is in the mail. Luckily he has had almost 32 years of practice at me sucking his bank account dry so really this is nothing new. He even proudly wears a shirt I got him one Fathers' Day that reads "Dad: The local branch of the money tree."

I'm happy that Hannah is having such a fantastic time and it sounds like Mom and Dad are enjoying it just as much as she is. I'm really glad that we decided to do this trip this summer and hopefully it is something she (and later Jake) can do again. This trip, however, has had some unintentional consequences that I never thought would happen. My mother...the same woman who sent my birthday presents two months early the year I moved out here so that there was zero chance I would be present-less on my birthday....just asked me "Can we just wait and celebrate your birthday when we're out there? I don't have time to get anything in the mail."

What sort of alternate universe are we living in? My mother is going to be late sending me birthday gifts and my daughter - who never wants to leave my side - has no desire to come home. Good lovin'......