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Yesterday morning my Dad and I strapped Henry and the dog into the backseat of the car and drove off to brave the wilds of the westernmost regions of the state. Not that the Berkshires are all that frightening, I just have a tendency to give in to dramatic impulses once in a while. "Once in a while" being, let's say, every ten minutes or so. Give or take nine minutes. Or so.

The point of the trip was to visit with my Grandma. I haven't seen her since last April which is completely unacceptable. My only excuse is that once Henry got past the age of one year, it became harder to travel with him overnight to places because he was a bit sensitive about whether or not we would be there when he woke up if he wasn't completely familiar with his surroundings. Now that he understands that when we say "We'll see you in a few hours," we actually will see him in a few hours it's become easier. This has been a very recent development and it's made life quite a bit easier in certain respects. Of course the flip side is when we say "You can have your chocolate bunny later" he actually remembers. Now we have to be very careful.

Anyway, he was a bit shy around my Grandma at first but then warmed right up to her after she encouraged me to go ahead and cut him piece after piece of chocolate-frosted cake, which I did because I'm afraid of her. After lunch we went into the living room where I flipped through a huge bag of family pictures, Dad and Grandma lounged on chairs, and Henry ran back and forth between the organ and piano she has. Perhaps needless to say, he was in heaven.

While Henry was napping, I got to sit down and talk with Grandma, take the dog for a walk, throw snowballs into the stream that runs through her backyard with my Dad, and generally slow down and enjoy being there. After dinner Henry didn't particularly want to leave the house that had the chocolate-frosted cake and piano in it and only after a bit of coaxing did we manage to get him out the door and into the car. Although he was too shy to give her a good-bye kiss, I'm sure the next time Henry sees her he'll remember her.