Right after being away from the family for a week is a time to stop and take them in. You don’t realize how much change occurs in a week in a child’s life until you stop and get off and come back.
My 13-year old was storytelling. He was on. He was animated and wild and wound and happy. My 9-year old was snuggly and funny and happy. At the airport I watched for their car to come around the bend to the baggage claim sidewalk where I was waiting excitedly at their end of the sidewalk. Had I walked out any farther I would have been on the exit ramp. I couldn’t wait to see them. They pull up and even the car is smiling.
Skye, my husband, hops out of the car, gives me a hug and then opens the trunk to throw my suitcases in. He even brought Maggie, my dogter. She sees me and she can’t believe it. Nothing is going to keep her from me another minute. Another second! She climbs over the boys, over the suitcases and jumps into my arms.
I say, “Mommy’s home, Maggie! Mommy’s home! Mommy’s home, Maggie!” She likes to hear her name and my name in the same sentence.
She’s Christmas morning and Christmas Eve and last day of school and birth of a child excited, in my arms. She can hardly contain herself. I held her the entire ride home and pet her and pulled her into me, compressing her, hugging her all the way into her marrow and through her skull, letting her know how happy I am to see her again.
The boys are saying funny things the whole way home and I wish I had a recorder on me so I could use their comments later in a blog. They’ve changed. My husband has changed. Even though I’m the one that went away, my husband is the one who came back. He’s the Bahamian I met back in 1993. While I was away, he worked half days to be home when the boys came home from school. It was a great gig.
I want to try and find a way that he can spend the rest of his working days only working part-time. I want that Bahamian guy back for good. That mellow, taking it slow, eyes calmly set on the prize, letting the boys find their way through their routines without hurrying them along with announcements of how much time has gone by. The Bahamian guy has thrown his watch away. He’s reclined on the bed, reading a book, listening to the boys finding their way through their bedtime routine. I’m the one yelling out, wondering what step they are on, hurrying them along, alerting them if they sound distracted.
He says, “Hey, hey, that’s not how you do it.” Sprawled out on the bed, reading under poor lighting, he looks like one big bong hit, which is sort of funny because he is not a bong hit kind of guy. He is not a pipe or rolling papers kind of guy. He is a reactionary. He grew up with a stepdad that used to smoke pot every day. Skye wouldn’t touch it. Had this been my stepdad…I stop myself right there. If he were my stepdad he’d have to hide his magic bus from me. I like picturing the magic bus, the tin container in the shape of a red bus, that held his pipe and pot and rolling papers collection, sitting neatly on the kitchen table, next to the napkin holder and the poodle salt and pepper shakers.
My parenting skills are out of date. I don’t want Skye to just hand over the baton now that I’m back. I want him to walk me through this new, mellow way. I like the rhythm. I climb in bed next to him, turn on my reading light, and stop myself between paragraphs, from yelling to the boys, “What step are you on now?” Things have changed. And even though they’ve changed for the better, it’s hard sometimes to start new.
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