We walked into our house in Muscat at
2:00 am on Tuesday morning (the 27th of August). Our fourteen-hour flight from Seattle to
Dubai went amazingly well. The kids were
so good, and we all slept a fair amount (the only problem being that Lulu was
partially on my lap and somehow this resulted in my having very swollen feet
and ankles, ouch and yikes). We had a
three-and-a-half hour layover in Dubai, which was okay but a bit less amazing
than the flight had been. The airport
was fairly empty, so the kids could run around a bit, but it felt long and then
Lulu ate an unwrapped chocolate that had been sitting on a seat and in my
supremely exhausted state I convinced myself that she had surely ingested
something horrible and would shortly become very ill or die. (She did not.
And, once I remembered that she is a thumb-sucker who rode the Tube in
London regularly and has not yet come down with something horrendous, I calmed
down.) We finally boarded our last
flight and Tommy fell asleep immediately.
The flight from Dubai to Muscat is less than an hour so shortly we
disembarked in muggy Muscat. Other than
a long-ish wait for our bags, everything was perfect there and we walked out
into the arrivals lounge to loads of men making kissy noises at Lulu (this is
very normal here; also normal is the fact that she ignores them
completely). Eli was waiting for us
(yay!) and we piled into the car and drove the ten minutes home.
Our house was sparkly and Eli had bought
some flowers and it felt lovely to be home, but I still was on the verge of
tears because sometimes in our lives we make choices that are right (in all
ways) but which still make things harder for ourselves. And deciding to go to the US for ten entire
weeks is one of those choices for me.
I don’t regret for a moment spending the
summer with so many family and friends, but my gosh, it sure makes it harder to
reenter my real (or is it?) life.
Sigh. All this to say that it’s
hard to be back and that I am grateful for the sweet emails so many of you have
sent to me even though they are making me cry randomly.
Eli took the day after we got home as a
vacation day which was such a nice surprise and made me feel better. And then yesterday, we got to see Leigh and
Grace for the first time and it was so
nice. (God help me when they aren’t
back in Muscat next autumn because they have moved back to Scotland. And that right there is an example of the
‘glass is half empty’ part of me that I cannot seem to squash.)
***
The jet lag has been okay. On the first night, Tommy slept only four
hours and Lizzie slept seven (as did I).
On the second night, both kids slept from 7:30 pm to 6:00 am but I slept
only 10:00 pm to midnight (and yes, I was a wreck yesterday, if it was possible to
be more of a wreck than I already was).
Last night (I’m writing this at 5:00 am), the kids both fell asleep at
the table and then slept from 7:00 pm until nearly 4:00 am.
Friends, I am hopeful that this round of
jet lag will be better than our adjustment to pacific time back in June.
(And, here is my solemn promise to quit
complaining about my transition on this blog.
I am very nearly over myself.)
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