Home Leave (part 1)

We left a smoggy, humid, pollution-choked Beijing on the last day of June. It was sticky inside and out. Taxi drivers voluntarily rolled up the windows and blasted the A/C. That's how summer-like it already was in the capital.

I didn't really have the longing for China I thought I might feel when we left the Middle Kingdom for the balance of the summer. We've never done this before-- left the week after school got out and booked return tickets for the week school goes back into session. The uniforms will never even get put away. (Which I find a little disturbing.)

QD too was feeling sticky and steamy. The foggy mist had been traded out for the grimy humidity. There was no longer a coolness in the undertone of the breeze. The beaches began to smell like low tide. I was okay with going. But sad to be going as a group of four instead of five. I miss Mr Johnson.

The girlies outdid themselves (again) on the plane. They were easy. They impressed the flight attendants, and made what could have been a nightmare (me, alone with three kids, between three airports) an absolute breeze. Except that we weren't entirely alone. The plane was full to capacity, and four of the other passengers were good friends of ours who are moving home to Vancouver.

We've slowly been adjusting to Mountain Standard Time. It's hard to know if its jet-lag, or just falling into a lazy summer schedule, but we are routinely waking somewhere after 10 each morning. The girls are relaxed and comfortable. They scoot (we schlepped three scooters with us from Asia), they play, they snack, they read (we've made two trips to the local library, and E. has completed 11 books!), they swim, they chill in the hammock and play hard, trying out all the local playgrounds. There is time with Grandma and Grandpa and Great-Grandma Lilly Lew too (who is just a few minutes away... a five minute scooter ride... and there are cookies in the cupboard.) We've had a picnic birthday party for my mom. We've spent time Auntie Beth and "Auntie" Neill (what Bei Bei mistakenly calls my brother-in-law). MGJ even got to spend the weekend in Edmonton, where she shopped, and ate on the trendy/alternative White Ave, and caught the late show of the latest Twilight movie. We've had brunch with my Uncle & Auntie here, and dinner in the city with my Aunties there.

It's midnight and time to hit "publish post". It's time to go retrieve a sleeping Bei Bei from E.'s bed, where she is no doubt stealing the covers and hogging the bed from her sister who generously allowed her to cuddle there. There are lots of things the girls are noticing in North America: The blue skies, the green lawns, single family homes and homes with basements (none of which are part of our residential experience in China.) Bei Bei is scared of the basement (or what my niece, who lives in Florida, where homes are predominately on poured slabs, called "the creepy place under the house"). Of course the finished basement here isn't creepy, its just unfamiliar, and Bei Bei who is intimidated by so little doesn't do the basement solo.