when home is home
We’re back home, you know. We have been for a week, actually, but it’s been all work, long hours, and deadlines since. The re-entry was hard and for some reason so was the jetlag even though we rarely seem to get affected by it. I still have a more photos to post, but LA seems like a far away dream now.
The girls were really sad on our last day. Mia cried at the airport and Claudine declared that she was going to move to LA right away to live with my cousin (the girls are all about my cousins when they’re with them. I might as well not exist). She informed us that she was only returning to Brooklyn to pack up her things. While we were at the airport waiting to board, she kept saying “I can’t WAIT to move to LA! I’m really going to do it, you know”. And when the plane took off on the runway and we saw the coastline and the city out the window down below, she waved, blew a noisy kiss, and threw out a quick “air hug” in that little voice of hers while gesturing with her arms like she was hugging an imaginary globe. “I’ll see you soon, I really mean it”. The she turned up to me and quietly said “I really do mean it”.
Her determination to move to LA right away softened a bit as the days wore on, but not necessarily because she realized she was going to miss us so much. “You can come visit me”, she’d say without an ounce of regret in her decision. But soon it became, “I’ll move there when I’m 10″, and later it became “I’m just going to go for 3 days”. Once home, I think she realized that she’d miss her life here.
The girls talk a lot about where they’re going to live when they grow up. Mia has always wanted to live in Hawaii and that hasn’t wavered much in years. Claudine used to want to live wherever we lived, but recently she’s had a change of heart and wants to live in Hawaii too, though LA is now in the running because “everything is nicer over there”.
These girls. Already so quick to leave me.
Even thinking about my daughter wanting to move away gives me heart palpitations. Then again, she’s 4. When she’s 14 I may feel differently.
Also wanted to pass along a nomination for Versatile Blogger.
http://baileygardnerfamily.blogspot.com/2012/03/nominated.html
Aww, ol. How sweet and darling of them!
Ha! This is so adorable. You know that within 24 hours of moving to LA, she’d miss you guys to pieces. My favorite part– “everything is nicer over there”. Too funny!
Any thing for that hug and smile =) which inspires us to live for a while .
That is the sweetest story about Claudine. Made my day a little bit brighter.
Boy do they grow up too quickly. So glad you had such a fantastic time in LA. Settling back into every day life is always a bit hard.
Ronnie xo
i love that when you’re small, you can dream so big!
katie x
Love this post. Actually I enjoy all your posts. Thank you for writing.
So sweet. My daughter is 17 now and I get the collywobbles when I think of her leaving I’m really trying to believe that if I let her go freely she will come back willingly I offer up silent prayers to a God I don’t believe in that this will be true!
As a child, all I wanted was to be a grown up. To be big and make my own bedtime and eat what I wanted and just be in charge of ME! At 18, I moved to California & began an almost 15 year stint of moving around & living far from family (including England for 3.5 years.) Even now I’m a 2.5 hour drive to my dad’s & sister’s.
I’m so grateful for those experiences, but when I look at my only child, my sweet little boy, and imagine him wanting to run off into the world like that (READ: LEAVE ME!!), I feel the mom in me fighting with that young girl from days past. I know I can’t deny him that experience, should he want it, but oh, how it makes my insides ache to think about!
Perhaps that’s why kids tend to become turds as teenagers- to make separating from them a little easier- lol!
I feel that I used to say the same things when I was small. Even now I still dream about living other places. But in my age, it is so funny that I tend to become more realistic – cost of living, the population, hospitals, and so on. I wish I can go back to the growing up age except schooling. I cannot wait to see other photos you took while you were in LA.
funny. A&J love l.a. too and they say our house is old now and it’s time to pack up to move west coast.
i think i got sucked into it and spent one night looking at the houses on the site. oh the gardens they have!!!
This post make me wonder if I ever said anything like that to my parents growing up. We traveled a lot, but I have absolutely no recollection. Perhaps it’s a good thing though, indicative of how much they loved the trip! I’m so glad you guys got to go.
I read your blog everyday. This post was so eloquent and delightful. And as always, your pictures were lovely.
Thanks,
Jenna
Aw, sweetest thing ever. It also *almost* (but not really) makes me glad we can’t afford to travel with the kids (or without them, really) yet…then they don’t know what they’re missing!
That said, LA is pretty cool. (So says the Angeleno…)
sigh……that just tears at a mama’s heart a little bit! I have a feeling my little gal is going to be wanting to leave my nest sooner than I’d like too one day (she’s 3 now!). SHe has a bit of Claudine in her. But hooray for independent little girls who want to explore the world!
Ha, this post just made me laugh so. Little girls, darling and hilarious. So grown up and so little at the same time