Something about vacations makes me slide back to that place of being the child again.

Where suddenly i'm not the "closer to 40 than 30" mother to seven children and doing just fine, but i'm a child who knows nothing.

I sleep until i have to get up. Someone else is making my little guys breakfast as they wake up, and it's cheerios, or nutella on toast, or something else exotic and wonderful.

Someone else plans (for a change!) what we'll do, and when. Someone else has thought about what my children (and i!) would enjoy, and has prepared picnic lunches, park passes, hot springs entrance fees, and someone makes it happen, if only i get my littles wiped up a bit and into Big Blue.

My job is to get up (eventually), get myself dressed, change diapers and nurse my little one, and intercede on behalf of naptime... But someone else is making meals (or buying them as i sit at the table and dig in), and i hear my mom's voice ask again, "where are you going?" and "when will you be back?" and as i kayak away from the shore, my brown arms around a wiry little nine year old, a chorus of voices chime in to remind me to "be careful!" and not venture out too deep.

It's sweet to go back to being a child, to enjoy my parents and my inlaws through my children's eyes. To be grateful and enjoy the warmth, the sun, and the sweetness of sharing the ones i love best with each other.