All is right with the world again. My wife and son are back in the Queen’s country, and I for one am relieved.
My dad picked them up from the airport yesterday morning, since I had to work and he only lives half an hour from Heathrow. Our normal return-from-America recovery schedule includes a pretty serious nap, so it made sense for them to go back to his first and sleep, and then I’d pick them up after lunch.
When I got to my parents’ house around 3pm, they were just coming out of their jet lag-induced comas. It took Adlai about 2.4 seconds to go from groggy to fully energised, showing me all his new books and a shiny green tractor his American grandparents had bought for him. Faith, on the other hand, is still walking around a bit zombie-like 18 hours later.
We didn’t make it back to our own house until about 7pm last night, and Adlai needed to get to bed, so we let him have a quick spin on his Scuttlebug before putting him down for the night…except he wasn’t convinced it was nighttime. I can’t blame him. His American body clock was pretty sure it was about 3 in the afternoon. After a spoonful of Calpol, two nappy changes, three trips to his room to retrieve his tractor from the floor (he’s taken to sleeping with it), it finally went quiet in there – just in time for Faith and I to collapse, too.
So, we haven’t really got to spend much time just hanging out like normal, but one thing’s for certain: this house might’ve been cleaner while they were gone, but I’ll take them over clean any day.
