A Faux Only Child Syndrome

Ran away for a few days of vacation last week and I'm still trying to get back into my normal routine this week. I haven't done my laundry and there is still one suitcase that isn't unpacked--the one I loaded up with books and magazines that I intended to read and then never looked at.
And I haven't blogged this week, either. Didja' miss me?

Christa, Rob and I headed north for South Dakota. Why South Dakota? I wanted to see Mount Rushmore--have wanted to see it for years and years. It was time to make good on that "One day we'll go to . . ." dream.

After Mount Rushmore, we headed east to De Smet, South Dakota to experience Laura Ingalls Wilder Days. We're reading The Little House on the Prairie book series with Christa, just like we did with her older siblings. It was fun to see the little one-room schoolhouse that Laura attended and to visit the Ingalls homestead. Christa now has a matching bonnet and apron a la Laura too.

While Rob and Christa and I vacationed, I'd watched people watching us (like the woman who sold Christa her prairie ensemble)--and I knew what they were thinking. They were thinking Christa was our first and only child.

It happens a lot.

I told Rob I need a t-shirt with this message emblazoned across the back: Actually I have four children.

At times I feel like a fraud--I feel like I masquerade as the mom of an only, that I almost live the life of a mom with an only child, thanks to Christa's arrival 12 years after Amy was born. Rob and I have done vacations with lots of kiddos eating off the children's menu. Now we're taking vacations with one child. We've got lots more years ahead of us where it's just Rob, Christa and me.

It may take me a while to get used to the "only child" experience. And I think I may need more than one of those "Actually I have four children" t-shirts.