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ON HER OWN

So a few weeks ago, my parents approached me with the idea of gathering up the family and heading to our annual family reunion.

While the allure of gathering with family and having people remark on how I am much taller than when I was, say, six, is strong, I had to pass on this year's festivities, thanks to various factors beyond my control.

"But so many people want to meet the kids," my mom said.

"Well," I said, "you are more than welcome to take one or both with you."

Little did I know she would take us up on this offer and take my daughter on her first weekend away from us.

Now that's not to say we have never spent time from away from Allie. But we were always the ones going away, which somehow makes it seem less frightening.

When my wife and I began to discuss Allie's first jaunt, we were pretty nonchalant about it. "Eh, she'll be fine." Of course, as the day of departure approached, my wife began to grow very nervous about the prospect of her little girl heading off for a weekend. I, of course, was stoic.

"But it's a week away from her birthday!" she said. I wasn't sure what that had to do with anything, so I countered with, "It's not like they're taking her on a gambling junket." Somehow, that did not soothe her concerns.

When it came time to leave, we hauled Allie's stuff out to my parents' car and Allie hopped in, ready to roll. My wife and I stood at the car, expecting a long, dramatic, teary good-bye. What we got was, "Bye, Mom. Bye, Dad. Grandma, can I have a fruit roll-up?"

And off she went.

We decided that the best way to pass the weekend was to really enjoy the time we would have alone with Parker, our 1-year-old. Parker has always been fairly content to hang out by himself, playing with toys or flipping through a picture book. He is also usually a fairly quiet child. After about two hours, we found out why. It's not that Parker doesn't have very important things to say, so far as a 1-year-old's commentary goes. It's that when his sister is around, she handles the talking.

Parker suddenly became a babbling brook. When we would read him books, he would actively point at things and make noises. (For some reason, he thinks ducks and elephants make the same noise - "blech" - but we're working on that.) Previously, Parker would sit and watch quietly while we read books. Sure, he would offer up an occasional animal sound or something, but nothing to the level of chatter once he was ruling the roost.

But even with his accelerated conversation skills suddenly emerging, our house was strangely quiet. It was a strange experience to hear only one child making noises. For some reason, doubling the number of children brings about 11 times the work.

Bedtime was strange, too. Parker has always gone to bed right about 7 p.m. He gets tired, he puts your head on your shoulder, and he crashes. Easy as that.

Allie, on the other hand, if she were given the option, would not have ever gone to sleep. When we were sitting in a quiet house at 7:15 p.m., my wife turned to me and said, "I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do. I'm not used to free time in the evenings."

We did talk to Allie a couple of times during the trip, and mostly she was telling us about the fun things she was doing. Our conversations rarely lasted very long. It normally went like this:

ME: So are you having fun?

ALLIE: I took pictures!

ME: Well, do you miss us?

ALLIE: No. Here's Grandma.

And so it went. When they finally returned on Sunday, my dad informed us that the total number of times Allie asked about us was exactly zero.

It was nice when she got home, because our house returned to its normal chaotic level of noise and disarray. Actually, Parker seemed glad to have her back, as he seemed more in his element to sit back and let Allie take care of the talking.

But this was a big first step for all of us involved. Allie did great while away, and we managed to make it a weekend with her gone. I guess this is good practice for when she heads on next time. For her gambling junket.