Wasn't Void of Sweetness

Christmas Break this year included a two week void from school for everyone including me. It was also a void from our normal trips to the grocery store, bed times, spending habits, or the sites of our only teenager.

Yesterday at the grocery store the clerk asked me personal questions about my kids, their ages, their schools and it was all curious at first until I realized I knew him from somewhere and he was trying to remember too. I either had a lot of groceries or he was slow, but through our conversation I discovered our daughters played soccer together and that he was seriously struggling with his. He seemed to be searching for familiarity, but I'm not exaggerating when I say second grade and age 3 were harder than this teenage stuff so far.

I'm also not exaggerating when I say I knew I'd miss Makayla terribly while she was gone the entire Christmas Break. So, before she left, I made her a kit of daily survival things, which included at least a family picture, our favorite sweets, and a new soccer house-key for her return after the void.
My daily survival things included sweet things too like a trip to a chocolatier place in Los Angeles with some friends. We all agreed the amount of hot chocolate we were served was perfect with its sweet chocolate taste, cayenne pepper, fresh cream, and real powdered cocoa.

But I'll have to say the sweetest part of the Christmas Break came the afternoon after we left the chocolatier shoppe when my sister kept calling me to ask if she could come visit and bring her husband, 4 daughters, and 2 dogs. They arrived Thursday night, December 30th, and stayed long enough to go with us to a New Year's Eve party at our friend's house.

I don't think they were eager to go, and my sister's only teenager was disappointed to be there without her cousin. But she never complained. Neither did my sister. Here they were on New Year's Eve bravely going along with our silly ways, playing games and not knowing anyone.

They kept me distracted and content and happy in our backyard on the new trampoline, shopping, playing board games, and keeping me up way past my bedtime. My niece followed me around the kitchen while she was here. Maybe her mom prompted her to, but maybe she feared that without Makayla I would be hurled into the void of all sweetness so she stayed with me, talking to me, asking me questions, helping me.

She stayed just in time for Makayla's return on Sunday. And although I cried a little when they all left, the sweetness stayed. In fact, she stayed in bed all day sleeping because she brought home a cold and a void of her own.