Hot Child in the City

We have one more week with Alison before she flies off on another trip without us. She's going back to Camp Flatrock with her friend Helen.

When we left her at Jaime's last weekend, she waved us off without a bit of care. I knew the extraction would be difficult, so I jumped at a chance to bring Jenna with me when I picked her up. That may have been the only thing to get her unbarricaded from an upstairs bedroom.

Her time "in the country" as she calls it, was one of the best weeks of her life, she claims. Horseback riding, midnight blockbuster movies, the pool, the trampoline, the lake, even the theatre was all just magnificent. One day they made these super cool tie-dyed shirts. Ali loves hers so much she won't wear it to camp tomorrow because she doesn't want to get it dirty.

She loves the cousins, Jaime and Lee, and she's ready to either have them here or her back there just as soon as it can happen. I just hope they let her come back.

At the last party of the week, Alison was pulled into a conversation with a girl who was a year ahead of me in high school and who is grandmother to the birthday boy. Apparently my little drama queen kept going on and on about how much she loved the country -- it was so quiet and pretty and just so peaceful.

"Where in the world does she live?" Jamie was asked.

While there are few spots in Indianapolis that could be mistaken for the fabled concrete jungle, Jaime explained that while we do live in the geographic middle of the city, we have a yard, trees and even have a park nearby. I think Ali had them thinking she lives in the ghetto and is sung to sleep by the sounds of gunfire and police sirens. Oy!

We hadn't yet gotten out of Jaime's driveway when Alison whispered loudly and somewhat shamefully to her BFF, "My family listens to country music."

Jenna nodded, rolled her eyes and pointed to her iPod, which she'd plugged in when WFMS started playing about an hour into our drive. We'd had quite the discussion before then.

Suffice it to say that their 10 isn't the same 10 as mine was. Um, Amer, you might want to call me. I swear I didn't reveal anything new. Or much of anything new. Or. Uh. Well. Yeah, maybe you'd better call me, Amer.

When I finally got Alison home from her Saturday sleepover (she has quite the social life) she walked in, looked around and said, "I missed my house."

She then sequestered herself for a few hours in her bedroom where she unpacked, spoke to her fish and energized up the laptop. She later found Pink Bunny,. the first stuffed animal in her collection, and snuggled up with her beanbag and family room television

It's been good to have us all home. I'm soaking it up while I can.