August 21, 2007 by Barbara.

Eventually I’ll write about what happened to us in Wheatley and on the train ride back to Ottawa but before I tackle “what I did on my summer vacation” (which seems daunting at this point despite the timeline Karin helped me with) I wanted to tell you about Reid and Ken this weekend.

Reid woke up as we pulled into the train station just before midnight on Saturday. Ken wasn’t allowed to come next to the tracks to meet us and so I guess having a wide-awake 3 year-old in the middle of the night was a good thing since she is a long, heavy deadweight when asleep. Reid didn’t complain when I popped her into her stroller and we followed the guy with the baggage cart across the tracks.

Ken came quickly out of station and met us as we got close. I got the first kiss and then he noticed that Reid was awake. He scooped her up for a kiss and a hug and she offered him a great big smile and returned both the kiss and hug enthusiastically. They so clearly missed each other that it made me a bit sad that I’d separated them for so long. There’ve been quite a few hugs over the last couple of days. And Reid spontaneously and, a propos of nothing, announced that she’d missed Ken in the middle of Sunday afternoon. Last night, I wasn’t even suitable to cut Reid’s chicken.

I love seeing Reid and Ken enjoying each other.

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August 21, 2007 by Barbara.

After supper last night, Reid was asking Ken where the mamas of our kitties were. He explained that Clio had come from the farm that Mama lived on when she was a girl and that we got Leo and Mars from a pet store. I’m not sure how he explained us taking Clio but I did hear him explaining that the pet store helped people who wanted pets find pets that needed homes. The pet store that we went to acts as an outlet for the Ottawa Humane Society. Reid was interested in this aspect of our family history and had a few questions.

Then, she asked something about her being a baby when we got the cats. Ken explained that we’d got Clio, four years later got the Mars and Leo and four years later got her. Reid started to cry and say, “I want to be first.” She was so heartbroken. Ken was taken aback. What an odd thing to cry over! How does a daddy fix birth order? With a hug, of course. It was a wailing and thrashing sort of tragedy, though. I offered to join in a family hug to no great effect. Eventually I just carried Reid to my seat and started talking about something random and distracted her.

Note to self and others, Reid is sensitive to birth order discussions.

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