A Brief Pause

Jason made me waffles tonight, a real treat, and I ate them along with an entire chocolate bar he brought me from Belgium.  We arrive home tonight after two weeks away, and it was a pretty good meal, considering all we had in the fridge was an empty carton of milk and some overly ripe potatoes.  It's nice to be home, even though I never like leaving Idaho when Jason is already there and not waiting for me in Virginia.

My sisters and I resolved to start acting like adults with little kids when I come to visit, rather than girls who want to go shopping with their mom (since, even though we DO want to go shopping with our mom, it is just so not as fun with seven kids running circles around us).  But sometimes when I'm home it's easy to forget about being the wife/mother/grown-up and think instead about the girl who had a round trip ticket to DC and back and somehow never used the return flight.  It still feels familiar to hear the shower turn loudly on in the morning and the sound of the cuckoo clock chiming the late night hour.  And it's strange to think that the baby next door in Shaanti's room is mine.

Henry changes a lot when we are gone for so long.  For starters, now that he is serious about his solid foods, he has put on some real weight--which is a nice change after gaining an entire ounce in the course of the previous two months (oh the stress I've been under the past few weeks!).  He is giggly and happy and practically sitting up on his own, and with his two new vampire teeth he looks hilarious and cute.  He is a good traveler...though traveling with a six-month-old is trying at the best of times.  We came home with five bags (five!), full of hand-me-downs and Christmas presents and new clothes I don't need but which go perfectly with my fall boots (there was SOME shopping with Mom, after all).  The days of traveling without checked bags are really, really over.

We're tucking into bed now, even though it feels like 8:00 to me (especially since Mom and I stayed up too late watching Downton Abbey the past two nights).  After being sick for over a month, I finally got some antibiotics and feel like a new person.  Our bags are mostly unpacked, though there are a few leftover toiletries and unwashed travel baby food containers scattered throughout the house.  I head back to work tomorrow, so we have daycare bags and work bags packed and soup ready to go in the crockpot.  Our weekend is already packed, and I wonder what it would be like to be home and not have company and not have a million obligations, even though I like company and the obligations on the calendar.  Settling in will probably take a bit.  I'll get reacquainted with my friends and work through some loneliness for my sisters and my mom and dad.  But I'm reading Harry Potter again, and celebrating the holidays early has made me extra excited for Christmas, and it's nice to be back in our little home and in our own beds. 

There is much blogging to be done--not only from our recent trip/s, but from basically the whole month of October.  It will come.  But until then, just a brief pause to say we are home and good night.