Home (for now)

I often wonder if the boys will get confused that I call so many places "home". Since we are constantly traveling, we are constantly going to a different home. So when Charles wakes up in the car and asks, "Where we are we?" (in his adorable three year old way), and I respond, "We're home!"; what is he thinking? He never really reacts, so I assume home means something different to him than it did to me growing up.

When I was little (and even now), home was the brown house with three big steps leading up to it. It is the place we always went back to. We never moved. We never left for longer than a two week vacation.

To Charles and Thomas, home is where we are staying for the moment - whether for three days or six months. Sometimes it's their grandparent's house, often it's a hotel, and once in a while it's a cabin in the woods (yay, Cardinal Village!). I've taken to clarifying, lest the boys wonder: "We're home! at Grammy's!" or "We're home! At the Bali hotel!" I try to use words they will understand. For a while (our longest stint yet), we rented a condo by the beach. We called that our "beach house", so that when we traveled Charles could refer back to it.

All in all, even though we are nomads most of the time, it seems that the boys are fine with it. They don't get upset when I say "we're home!" and ask, "Well, where is that, Mom? WHICH home?" They just know that when they're "home" they're with Mom and Dad and they'll be taken care of. I think I worry because I know what it means to me. I get a little homesick. I have read some articles that say this much change isn't good for little ones. But, guess what? It's great. The boys are happy. They are right on target compared with other kids their age. There are some things they do better and some things they do worse than their peers. It's all good. They exceed at making new friends and finding exciting new things/places. They aren't shy.

So here's to our new "home", for four entire months! We are staying in the same place we were last time, the Sanur Paradise Plaza Suites.