Homeward Bound

Part I:  The Flight Home

In Riley World, when it’s time to go home...it’s time to go home!  As in RIGHT. NOW!! 

From the moment he got up on our last day until the wheels hit the tarmac, whenever I glanced his way the “going home” dialogue was in full force.

R:  I AM on vacation. Am I on vacation? I need to STAY! I DO want to stay on vacation.

Me:  You do??  *of course I knew he didn’t but I throw in the occasional clarifying question*

R:  NO!  I CAN’T stay on vacation! *slight pause*  It’s not time to go home yet. Is it time to go home yet??

Me:  Yes. We’re going home t…

R:  What time? I DO need to go home.

Me:  We’ll go to the airport at 4 o’clock.

R:  What time is it? 

Me:  8 o’clock. 

R:  I DO need to stay!  I can’t go home yet. 

You get the gist, right???  Oi-vay.

My ears were nearly bleeding and my eyes were sore from having to avoid eye contact for the nearly 8 hours before we got on the plane.

Usually Riley likes to watch/play games on his iPad and can’t wait to get “puppy” out of his backpack as soon as we are seated. Not so this time. Pretty sure he was thinking ahead about getting the hell off the plane and didn’t want to worry about packing up his things so decided it was best to just keep everything packed. 

So instead he opted to look out the window. 

He just sat there and stared out the window. Into the darkness. Pitch black. Nothingness. Pining away for home.

There were a few bouts of almost tears with “I just wanna go home now. Can we go home?” which I will admit pulled at my ice cold heartstrings. Thankfully he managed to fall asleep about 2 hours in.

As soon as the wheels touched down, "Now we're back. It's good to be home again. Are we home? We're home." and at that moment, all was right once again in Riley World. 

Part II:  Home Sweet Home

I hadn’t planned on unpacking our bags that night. It had even crossed my mind to leave them in the entry hall because the thought of lugging them upstairs…

Riley thought otherwise because of course he would.

Two carry-ons and one suitcase were on the bed.

This bag weighed 47 POUNDS!!!

R had managed to wrestle the bags upstairs without so much as a bump, thump or grunt. And here I thought he didn’t have any muscle strength.

I know who’s going to be bringing in the groceries from now on.