Of course because I wanted everything to be absolutely perfect it wasn't at all.  I haven't left the island of Manhattan except for an hour in Brooklyn a few weeks ago, since mid-January.  Last week was my Spring Break from Columbia but the kids' NYC public school had a mid-Winter break a few weeks ago and another one in April.  Staring at me on my desk is a coupon from Continental for $300 that I have to use or lose before May, mocking me.  I ached to get out of the city to some place warm for a week on that free ticket but that would have meant their mom would have had to come up from Atlanta to watch them and she happened to be in Germany instead, visiting her boyfriend.  

Then my best friend since the fifth grade, Ben, invited us to Easter dinner in Hamden, CT, where I grew up and where he still lives.  Not exactly Aruba but I missed him and was desperate to get out of town.  In the morning I bought one of those enormous, lamp-sized Italian chocolate Easter eggs and the night before I had the kids lay out their one set of sort of fancy clothes.  We are not religious and they don't go to Catholic school so Chet wore a button-down shirt for perhaps the third time in his life.  I remembered to pack the camera and the egg and we were all set to go.  

Ava, however, said she was feeling weird.  

"Weird?  Weird, how?" I asked.

She couldn't really explain but I gave her some baby Tylenol anyway and off we went in the car.  Just as we approached the farthest reaches of the Bronx, just moments from  escaping  from New York City she said, "Daddy, I'm going to throw up."  Now I don't drive often and when I do I might go a bit fast and the kids often tell me it makes them want to puke.

But puke she did.   Did I mention that I had given her my camel-hair coat to wear as a blanket during the ride?  It's now hanging in the shower, most of the vomit off it but still, that smell...  

I pulled off the highway into a gas station and we cleaned up.  She was so apologetic it broke my heart. 

"I'm so sorry daddy. I feel much better now.  We can go. Really."

I called Ben and turned us around.  She spent the day dozing on the couch. Chet and I played catch in the long hallway.

She developed a rash before going to bed and after some googling and remembering that an email warning from the school  about an outbreak of Fifth's Disease   I realized that that was what she had.   

My poor baby. At nine she seems so grown sometimes.  But on days like today she needed me like she needed me when she was in diapers.