I’m home from Kate’s, and instead of sleeping in a room with Raj I will be conked out all alone in my quiet space tonight. While I was still in D.C./Arlington I wanted to write a little collage-y post about my last week with their family, but I was running out of steam. I haven’t really built up steam at this point, quite the opposite, but I do want to have blog closure on this, and I need a little time to wind down this evening, so…

We had the 4th of July, when I stayed home with Raj who had gone to bed, but I saw the fireworks at the Capitol anyway, out our window. Only blocked a little, by a big building across the way. We had glorious thunderstorms, which were also fun to watch, with horizontal rain and dramatic electrical and sound displays — but one of them caused flash floods nearby, which I’m sure the people getting rescued didn’t feel glorious about.

We did lots of baby-rocking and smooching, cooking and eating. Later I will try to post some recipes of what I cooked. All the cooking required shopping, so we made a fun trip to Costco to make use of me having a card. It was a happy-family sort of outing such as I don’t think I’ve ever had at Costco 🙂 . Six of us including two boys under two and the nanny Kareena — and the adults were all jolly.

On the way I told Tom that he should sing a going-to-Costco song, because he is often singing through the days. He considered this idea for only a few seconds before it came to him that the tune should be something by John Philip Sousa, and he made us all laugh with his lyrics to a rousing number that fit our mood well. Walking through the store Rigo slept peacefully in a front pack, but Raj in the cart started to get a little antsy as our explorations were prolonged. I distracted him by means of the cut flower display which he really did admire, and some Pringle samples.

Fitting all those groceries into the not-huge SUV with all of us was a challenge; I protected the tomatoes on my lap. Getting so many boxes and bags, plus two babies, out of the car and into the elevator, then out of the elevator on our floor, was a creative logistical work; the elevator was determined to close on us, and some of our company were very scrappy in the skirmish.

Today I woke at 6:00, Eastern Time. Lately Raj had been waking me up with more babbling than crying. After a while he was ready to get up, and I started him on his morning routine of dressing, playing, breakfast, before the nanny came on duty and while his parents were catching up from nighttime with a newborn. Sometimes lying in bed with me was a changed aspect of the routine. I started this paragraph the past continuous tense and had to change it… 😦 I hope Raj will continue, though, to wake up a little later than he had been doing before I arrived.

Actual flight time from east to west was barely over five hours, but by the time I got to my house this evening I’d been traveling twelve hours. I walked around my gardens front and back, and everything looks so healthy and good! I drank my Ten Ren “Relaxing Tea,” and may God bless it to be so.