Mommy Meltdowns: Max comes for a visit!

Winter Break found us at home for the 2 weeks the kids had off from school. We racked up more time hanging in our pajamas than was probably healthy. But hey, given our fast pace, usual craziness of a schedule, it was nice to slow things down. Going back to school and work on Monday, January 4th hit us hard! I think we all could've used one more day.

One of the highlights of the break was having Max, my 10 year old cousin, come for a visit. Ian had gone to his home in Connecticut last Summer and now it was our turn to have him here. We met in Cherry Hill, NJ (the halfway point and where my Aunt and Uncle live) to do the drop-off and pick-up. From Tuesday, 12/29 to Friday, 1/1 we got the chance to show Max what life was like in the NoVa area.

There were so many things we wanted to do with Max. We whittled the list down to 3 or 4 ideas and took off for our adventures each day. I made sure there was plenty of downtime at home too. I knew the boys would want to play Xbox.

In the 2 full days we had Max with us, we did the following:

Flight Trampoline Park - this was Max's only request
Meadowlark Gardens for the Winter walk of lights -- So beautiful!
Dinner out with friends
Udvar-Hazy Museum
White House / Capital Building / Washington Monument, plus a 4 mile walking tour of: Lincoln Memorial, Jefferson Memorial, Martin Luther King Memorial, FDR Memorial, WW2 Memorial, Vietnam Wall
New Year's Eve party at my friend's house (very family friendly)

We had a wonderful visit and loved having him. The ONLY hiccup was how much he missed his family. I knew his younger sister was 'clingy', but I didn't realize Max had some issues too separating from his parents. I felt so bad for him. He never had a sleepover before in his own city, let alone in another state for multiple days. Wow! Max missed his family something fierce and would Facetime his mom throughout the day when we were periodically back at the house.

The first night was very shaky and I wasn't sure we were going to make it another 2 nights. Max figured out a way to make it work for his comfort level. He'd Facetime his father on his iPad and have Matt (father) on one pillow and him on the other. Max and Matt would talk to each other until Max would finally fell asleep -- it took about 1 hour to 1.5 hours. Inevitably, Max would wake-up in the middle of the night and he'd text his mom (Leslie) to see if she was awake too. Of course the texting is what woke her as she is normally asleep at 3:00am. Leslie did a good job of texting back and getting Max to take deep breaths and work his way back to sleep.

By the time we got to the last night Max was at our house, he managed to sleep thru the night without waking up. I felt like we had made some major ground just by making it thru the 3 nights and not making an emergency trip back to Connecticut. Each night was touch and go, but Max did it. Whew!

Fortunately none of this separation anxiety is keeping Max from returning. He already said he'd be back. Ian quickly responded that he wants to go back to Connecticut to stay with Max and his family. Looks like we have a recipe for success!