After spending only a day or two here in between trips over the past month, we're finally unpacked and ready to get settled in and back in the swing of things here in Beijing. Bella went to school today and knew exactly where to find all her usual favorite places on the walk home: the smoothie place, the fresh juice place, the organic store where we buy vegetables. I'm not sure whether to be psyched or a little bit sad that even at such a young age, Bella has such a fluid concept of "home": she naturally seems to think that our apartment here is just as much "home" as our villa in Bohol. Her mantra there, every time we'd walk by the 4 buildings on the beachfront side: "Is THIS one our home? Is THIS one our home??? Nooooo, you gotta go PAST the POOLEN!" (That's 'the pool' in Swedish; her Swedish-English-Tagalog patois a topic for another post altogether.)
My uncle's house in London, where we spent 2 weeks before Christmas, was "home," but so was the hotel in Paris where we only slept 2 nights. My parents' house in Virginia, where we probably spend a total of 3 months a year, is "home" to Bella, and so is our little storage-shed-turned-pied-a-terre "snickarboa" at Mik's parents' summer place in the Aland islands in Finland. For a two year old, maybe the idea of "home" is just much simpler than grownups make it: for the foreseeable future, it's where my mama is (and where I can see my pappa at least via webcam), and where I can fall asleep, wrapped around my giraffey.
My uncle's house in London, where we spent 2 weeks before Christmas, was "home," but so was the hotel in Paris where we only slept 2 nights. My parents' house in Virginia, where we probably spend a total of 3 months a year, is "home" to Bella, and so is our little storage-shed-turned-pied-a-terre "snickarboa" at Mik's parents' summer place in the Aland islands in Finland. For a two year old, maybe the idea of "home" is just much simpler than grownups make it: for the foreseeable future, it's where my mama is (and where I can see my pappa at least via webcam), and where I can fall asleep, wrapped around my giraffey.
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