Both Limp and Feral (for Jill)

Six months.  It's been about that long since we moved from just-outside DC to suburban Boston.  The kids transplanted quickly, and Greg's happy to be back in the land of the losing Red Sox--he missed their glory days entirely, so it feels like the Boston of his youth.  The cat, on the other hand, barricaded herself in a closet and required narcotics to move.  With no pharmaceutical intervention, I've handled things slightly less gracefully. 

This past weekend, we ventured back to our old stomping grounds for the first time since moving.  Good-bye, stale snow!  Hello, early daffodils blooming on Rock Creek Parkway. We drove by the old house.  I cried.  (A lot.)  We celebrated many birthdays with our dearest friends (conveniently, many of us were born within a week of each other in February), I savored a girls' lunch with my besties at my beloved Leopold's, we met up with our old playgroup and the mommies who got me through the early years, and the girls enjoyed an 11-hour play date with Buzzy's most-missed pal from preschool while we hung with her wonderful parents.  We squeezed in nearly a half year of our old life into one long weekend, and it was fabulous. 

Greg had to stay in DC for work, so I was thankful that the girls were quiet on the evening flight home.  They were exhausted and as introspective as five- and three-year-olds can be.  I was emotionally and, after schlepping the luggage and children without Greg, physically drained.

We landed at Logan and waited at the world's slowest baggage claim.  When the conveyor belt finally lurched into action, Rosie tried to elbow her way through the business travelers' knees to retrieve our oversized suitcase herself.  I returned her to the stroller and resumed my lookout.  An ear-shattering screech reverberated through the terminal.  It didn't immediately register that it was a sound that might pertain to me--maybe they were transporting a crate of feral cats and something stepped on their collective tails?--but, no.  The sound emanated from a little girl in a ratty Areil costume, flailing on the dirty tiles, screaming "I WANT TO DO IT."  The crate of feral cats was my youngest daughter.  I tried to pick her up, but she went limp while continuing to scream.  The business travelers backed away, giving me free access to the conveyor belt.  I wrestled the suitcase off, somehow pried Rosie off the floor, put her now-writhing body into the stroller and wheeled her, screaming, through the airport as the crowds continued to part.  They parted all the way to the taxi cab stand, and we found ourselves first in line.  Suckers.

Rosie and Buzzy fell asleep before we'd exited the Ted Williams tunnel.  Eventually, I saw the rental house lights glowing.  We'd forgotten to turn them off.  Six months, two blizzards, countless fruitless house searches, one trip back to DC, still no spatulas, and an excruciatingly long cab ride later, I felt like I was finally home.