Good times......

Drew is in Minnesota on business. 

Brant is in Florida on fun.

Will is in Vermont doing who knows what, without a lot of supervision BUT with his own debit card. 

That leaves me and Jay to hold down the fort here at the house.  We are almost never home alone together---and certainly not for days at a stretch---so we are making the most of it.

• One morning we slept in and stayed in our pjs, playing UNO until noon....then ate lunch out at Jimmy John's.   
  
• One morning we got up early to eat breakfast at Waffle House (and marveled how much time we had to play UNO afterwards because we hadn't slept in).
  
• Today we started with a game of UNO, had a bagel at Panera,  followed by a trip to Dick's for new batting gloves, a hair cut, some mom errands and then, wrapped up the afternoon with an early dinner at Carrabba's.

I definitely saw the pattern emerging early in the week.   With Brant and Will gone, Babe wanted to exert his authority by playing what HE wanted to play and choosing HIS favorite places to eat out.    So, I let him.  Heck, it's hard being the baby of the family.  Trust me.

The result has been surprising.  Who knew Jay could be so talkative?  We've had some great, uninterrupted conversations.   Just me and him.   Freckle to freckle.   Seeing Jay across the table, or across the UNO pile,  is almost like looking back in time at me.....in oh....1977.

Nothing, however---- nothing--- Jay and I have done this week, has been more fun than playing old school wiffle ball in the driveway.   In a nod to a simpler time when we'd wile away the early afternoon hours waiting for the big boys to get off the school bus, we pulled out the orange plastic bat and put out the rubber bases.     

Back in the day, we batted off a tee....Jay was 4 or 5.   I'd  get a hit and jog slowly to first base so Babe could make the play.   Sometimes I'd throw in a little indignant arguing when he called me out, just for realistic effect.   When he batted, I'd bobble my catches as he raced around the bases.   We'd laugh and laugh.  Jay loved it and I loved playing it with him---it was our game.

Nowadays,  Jay gives me extra pitches, bats left-handed "to be fair" and......he's the one taking his time going after the ball.   I'm jogging more slowly for real these days.   And I'm not just feigning indignant arguments anymore.   But still, we laugh and laugh.

Though he wouldn't admit it to me,  Jay, an emerging gentleman, let me win our first wiffle ball game.  He oooohed at the "bombs" I was hitting.  He acted impressed with my batting stance.  He coached me to be patient and wait on the ball.    When I pitched, he told me I had a good splitter......even though I didn't mean to throw a splitter.   

When I won, I danced and celebrated and I gloated to the rest of the boys, texting the monumental news: 

MOM BEATS BABE 6--0 in DRIVEWAY WIFFLE ROUT    

Jay let me enjoy the glory and then later, as we said good night, he gave me a squeeze and said,  "You're the one that got me started loving baseball, Mom."  

Wow.   Thanks, Babe.   

Put another W in my win column.