It is hard to believe that it’s been almost a month since we touched down in Boston, exhausted and exhilarated, happy to be home. It’s been a whirlwind that has only this week started to subside, allowing occasional glimpses of what the “new normal” might be.

It is a funny thing to experience culture shock in reverse. I remember it vaguely from my childhood. The rest of my family is muddling through for the first time: the slightly disoriented feeling that comes with being able to read every single sign you encounter, the tidal wave of “overwhelmed” that comes with walking through the shiny sliding glass doors to find oneself in the world of unlimited choices that is Wal-mart (or any other mega store), the low level irritation that replaces the relative peace of having ignored every conversation around you, now that you can understand all of the background noise. This is just a sampling. We’ve spent all year calculating time differences, discussing what Grandparents or friends in the states were doing at various points of our days; this hasn’t stopped, we’re just calculating in reverse now: “It’s Caed’s birthday (in Germany!) I wonder if she’s had her cake yet?!” When I awake at dawn on Friday mornings in Massachusetts it occurs to me that I’d be just returning with a bag full of thirty cent artichokes from the souq in Hammam-Sousse. I wonder how my friend Monya, who ran our little bread store is doing.

All things being equal, we’re coping pretty well. Hannah is completely non-plussed by the lack of (or rather the exorbitant cost of) decent cheese. As a result, we’ve learned to make our own fresh mozzarella (easier than you might think, and far better than any of the “fresh” stuff on the market here) and fromage blanc (almost as fabulous as that to be had at the fresh market Wednesday mornings in Marseille.) The boys are feeling very continental by adding seltzer water to their fruit juices for lunch… just like our German home schooling friends do. As for Tony and I, well, we’re spending too much money on wines from the Rhine Valley and the Adriatic Coast and not feeling the least bit guilty about it. Life seems to be morphing into a blend of cultures and continents, including “Tunisian chicken” on the dinner table, Ezra’s persistent use of “nien!” instead of “no,” I guess in his mind I’m less likely to kill him for telling me “NO” if he does it in a foreign language, and a healthy sprinkling of good old American chocolate chips on top of it all. Life is good.

Judah Benjamin

The main excitement of this month has been the arrival of a very sweet baby boy. He began his entrance on April 12th and completed his arrival on April 16th at 6:30 in the morning. I had the great privilege of helping with his delivery. His name: Judah Benjamin… 8lbs, 2 oz. He was worth every minute of the week we spent at the hospital trying to coax him toward the outside. The exhaustion from his marathon birth week was at least as bad as the jet lag… and I wasn’t even the one doing the hard work!! Two weeks later, Mom and baby are doing great and big sister Bethany is settling into her new life as “second Mommy.” I’m so thankful that Dianne waited until after we got home to hatch; I wouldn’t have missed it for the world!

So, here we sit, with over a month still left on the bay. Mornings are, once again, filled with schooling, new books and plenty of review for kids who spent the last year world schooling instead of book learnin’. Afternoons are punctuated with clam digging and sandcastles on the beach for the kids, which provides an hour of reading for Mom, and trips to the fantastic local Arts Center for lessons in creating Ukrainian Easter eggs among other things. We are enjoying every day. That being said, we are still in transition, and even for the most nomadic among us those transitions rarely come easily. For those of you who have the mistaken idea that our lives have fallen out of some idealistic 1950’s magazine in which all children are perpetually clean and obedient and cheerful, here’s a snapshot from this very moment: Hannah: sitting on the top step of the spiral staircase with hands folded and mouth shut: working on her attitude and her desire to promote peace instead of incite nonsense. Gabriel: sitting at the kitchen table two floors below, writing the following sentence fifty times: “I Gabriel will do what I already know to be right and when I do not I will admit my sin and not try to blame it on my brothers.” The infraction(s): over the past two days, being found climbing on the OUTSIDE of the second story deck railing, chopping carrots into confetti that he was meant to be bagging as carrot sticks and putting into the fridge and sticking a maxi pad to the toilet lid so that it wouldn’t crash down and make a loud noise… but subsequently swearing it was not he who had applied the pad for a use other than its intended, but rather Ezra, who had done so… in spite of overwhelming evidence against him. Elisha: alternately playing listlessly by himself and begging for food… his peers are all incarcerated. Ezra: laying on his bed howling, “Help me Daddy!” (who is at work and unable to help, even if he was willing, which I assure you he would not be). He’s stranded there until dinner by his own choosing, having decided that kicking at Elisha and then “steam rolling” Hannah while she was trying to sit quietly seemed like good options, in spite of the fact that he’d been given a clear ultimatum: cross that line one more time and you’ll sit until dinner. It amazes me that he can actually be SURPRISED when I send him to sit. There is definite disconnect in the six year old brain.

Where am I? You ask. Sitting on my bed, basking in the natural light streaming through the window, hoping that the extra vitamin D production and lamaze breathing will help me to have patience and energy to get through the next three hours and fifteen minutes until the bedtime rotations begin.