Camping with The Little.

This past weekend we had the rare opportunity to go camping with just one of our children.

Jonah was spending the weekend with my parents, at his request, and so that he could have the special time with them he hoped for, we took Maeryn camping.

It was the first time we had lived as just the three of us... ever.

It seemed for much of the time, I'll admit, as though there was a missing piece.  All of us had spells where we missed Jonah, thought about him, and wished he were there.

Do I think it was important to take this trip with our daughter and only our daughter?

Absolutely.

Our camping trips have always been places where we see huge growth in our children in every possible way.  It's not something to take lightly, and it's not something to miss if you can help it.

We slept in our tent through a raging thunderstorm (four raging thunderstorms, actually), rented a motorboat for an afternoon, cooked over the fire, and checked out the goose poop at the beach.  It was fun to pick out foods just for the Maeryn at the local grocery store and not have to tag team or play zone as parents.  But it was a little sad when a normally filled silence would fall, or when Maeryn divided her helping of potato chips in half and said, "This is for Jonah!" forgetting he wasn't right there.

Maeryn is blossoming into quite the special kid, in spite of missing her brother and having him as a huge piece of her life, and probably somewhat because of it.  She's a perfectionist, like her brother, and, sadly, like her mother and father, who are fighting against it with all we've got for the sake of our kids and ourselves.  She's a budding artist who paints for hour and hours and goes through sheets and sheets of paper.  She loves diving and swimming in all kinds of water.  She loves strawberries and chocolate and going to the beach and waterslides and ice cream and pretty dresses and the color pink and Dora the Explorer and Diego and Strawberry Shortcake and cupcakes and birthdays and tea parties and dinosaurs.  Some of her favorite things are lemonade, bananas, spitting, singing, splashing, roller skating, and taking walks with her mom or dad.  She hates shoes, socks, anything itchy, having her hair combed, and when people forget.