We made it!

Good evening loved ones. This would be an American evening, an Australian afternoon, and entirely too late for me or Genevieve to be up. It’s almost 1am and I’ve got the little grunter in my arms. She’s eagerly reaching for her toes, drooling and excitedly reading every word I write :) It looks as if she’d like to take over, but I’m not sure how she’d recount the last week’s events. She might say, “Yummmy milk! The vibrations of this plane make me sleeepy…Ouch! My sister squeezes my hand too hard. Oooh those tree branches blowing in the wind are fun to watch! Mmmm I love blowing spit bubbles.

It has been the longest week ever, perhaps due to lack of sleep and because Friday lasted 37 hours. It’s hard to believe that one week ago the girls and I spent a long lovely day playing at the beach with Michelle and Rory picnicking in the sand, crawling like lizards on our bellies in the shallow water, and running up and down little dunes. Today we (my sister’s family and mine) spent the day inside because Jess and Kai have terrible colds. To go outside we bundled up with coats and hats to get some fresh air. After a short little frolic in the yard Jacinta wanted to go back inside, “My hands are too cold!” Just last week we were out in the mountains at Nickolas’s party saying goodbye when Jacinta and Nickolas hugged goodbye so hard they fell over and knocked their heads on the wood floor. Today we are in suburban Milwaukee playing with “baby Kai,” my sweet little one year old nephew who I have mostly seen growing up over the internet. Jess and Kai aren’t exactly hugging, but competing for toys and attention. Seeing the “grown up” Kai in the flesh is wonderful, but children can’t pretend that distance doesn’t matter. He doesn’t know us, perhaps over the next few months we can convince him of how cool we are, even though we live too far for a hug on the holidays.

So after weeks of strategic packing agony, it is finally over. Keith helped Jess and I fertilize all of the trees and we left them in his loving care. They might do even better now with his attention. We packed up the house, shut down all electrical appliances, cleaned out the toilet and tried to make things as rodent proof as we could. Matt placed moth balls all over the place and we cleaned up. Leaving the house with Keith and Mary is so comforting, we have no worries at all. We said goodbye to our close friends and drove to Sydney on Thursday morning.

We saw a few close friends in Sydney and finished off Friday morning at Genevieve’s godparents’ house. Anne Marie, Bernie, Matt, Jess and I had an informal baptismal celebration for Genevieve. We had planned to do this in the garden but it was pouring rain. It was lovely to have a service in such close company, in lieu of having a church to welcome Genevieve into the family. Matt wrote the service, including the reading of a children’s story called the Blessing Seed. Anne Marie had some holy water she had brought home from Lourdes, France. She and Bernie baptized her just as they baptized their little girl just months before, a few hours before Teresa passed away. We lit candles for both girls, Genevieve and Teresa. We sang songs and anointed her with oil all the while she looked around bright eyed and happy. Jacinta turned the pages in the story and after being very patient, had the honor of lighting two more candles and then blowing them all out. It was a very special time for all of us.

It’s important to have something deep and meaningful before subjecting oneself to airline travel. After a bit of finagling at the counter due to a canceled flight Matt found a way to get us seated together on a new flight headed to LA rather than San Francisco, followed by an extra one hour flight to San Fran, then on to Chicago.

Although poor little Jacinta was very sick, the girls were angel travelers. Even with angels flying and sleeping in your arms 29 hours of airports and airplanes is grueling. Positive events included sitting next to a nice family with children to play with on the plane and meeting a good friend in San Fran who brought us joy, food and even money! But then one hour before our next flight we realized that I had managed to lose my purse somewhere in LA including 2 drivers’ licenses, credit cards, and both pacifiers. By this time Jacinta’s eyes were dripping, her nose was dripping, she was coughing and we looked like horrible parents torturing our poor little girl. On our last flight all four of us slept soundly for a few hours and finally! We triumphantly walked out of our last airport at about 1am with Jacinta calling out in her groggy froggy sick voice, “We made it!” She joyously ran into her Uncle Ben’s arms and soon we were off to Milwaukee, in a car :)

This is Genevieve’s first time in the USA and she has come to a good season. The scent of spring is divine here. It’s so easy now to remark on the scents and sights since I have been away for a while. Lilacs, cherry blossoms, fresh cut grass, and new life are lovely smells. Lecia and Ben took us on a nice walk near Lake Michigan. We pushed both sick Jacinta and sick Kai in the strollers while Evie rode in the carrier. You know Jess is down when she wants to sit in the stroller at a park and just watch.

When Evie had her first roll on the grass, Jacinta summoned the energy to come out and play. Genevieve is very eager to lie on her belly now. We are starting to notice her complaining while lying on her back. She twists her head in such a way that she can almost turn from her back to her belly, her only obstacle being the inside arm stuck under her belly. It’s funny how quickly weather can change in the US, being 82 on Saturday and 49 on Sunday. I have been watching the wind and it has been blowing almost constantly since we arrived. On Saturday it was warm wind, but on Sunday you could feel the ice in it. This icy wind is something people in our part of Australia never experience, how terribly sad.

Staying on the sad note, looking at Jess for the past few days has made us sad. Other than her cold, she is also experiencing her first separation sadness. She has been in the same place for the most conscious part of her life. She mostly knows what to expect and who to expect it from in Macksville. She doesn’t have the words for missing her home but she lets it out in other ways. She insisted that after we drove to Sydney we’d be driving straight back to Macksville, so she could read a certain book upon return. When we got on the first plane she asked where a musical glow worm toy was. After weeks of strategic packing, the hour before we left Keith gave her this glow worm to take along in the car. I allowed it to come in the car, but no way did we have any extra room in our luggage nor would anyone on the plane enjoy a musical toy. In my mind, leaving glow worm in the trunk was a no-brainer. When I told Jacinta that it had stayed in the car, her eyes welled up with tears. In the saddest voice you can think of, she replied… “but that was from Grandma and Pop.” Matt and I tried to respond and explain how many other toys she had brought that were from Grandma and Pop, but our hearts broke seeing our big girl cry for the first time about something besides physical pain or losing a battle of wills.

It has been a few days and Jacinta is on the mend. She loves her herbal medicine and is drinking lots of water and tea. She doesn’t look near as pathetic and is smiling more. She has enough energy to play and be stubborn once again. Genevieve, Matt and I have managed to stay healthy. We are enjoying catching up with my sister and family and can’t wait to introduce Genevieve and big Jacinta to my mom and dad. We managed to rent a car without our credit card (thanks Ben and Lecia) and we’re almost through our jet lag. I’ll close with a funnier story about our poor tired big baby.

This morning I woke up at 11am and the girls were still sleeping. I decided to wake Jacinta up first. I picked her up out of bed and asked her if she would like to have some breakfast. Usually she’ll act as if she was never asleep and dive straight into conversation. Not today! She could summon no words, she just cuddled me tightly.

After a few silent moments she whined in her croaky voice, “Turn out the light!” I told her that it was the sun and that there were no lights on. As we walked from room to room towards the kitchen she had the same request, “Turn out the light!” We couldn’t turn off the daylight, so she had to wake up. It is now late, and as I can not turn off the night, I must rejoice with it in slumber.

Sweet dreams,

Shana