There and back
It has been an exhausting weekend. Travel was made difficult by the extreme weather and I kept expecting school or Michelle's riding lesson to be cancelled. But life went about its normal course while I was in Helsingborg, aside from the flooding of a street along the harbor (which didn't affect us at all).
June was quite happy to see me, but anxious that I would be leaving again so soon. She seemed satisfied to know I would be back on Wednesday, but then she asked. "Is Mental coming back, or is he gone for good?" I don't know what is more disconcerting: that she is so aware of death, i.e. that some people don't come back, at the tender age of five, or that she doesn't trust me to tell her straight up if our dog were to die. We watched a movie together on Friday and she refused to be moved to her own bed the first time she fell asleep. "I want to stay with Mamma," she said. The second time, she was deeply asleep, but came to me as soon as she woke up in the morning. As luck would have it, I was already awake, due to Simba's insistance on waking me once an hour from 2 or 3 a.m.
Michelle was in a cranky mood on Friday and found fault with everything, while insisting she wasn't bothered much by my being away. She finally threw a tantrum and stalked off to watch a movie on her own on Friday night. It felt awful to have to leave the girls and spend all of Saturday at school, only to come home and be knackered. By Saturday night, Michelle's mood had improved, though, and she chattered away while helping me make dinner and dessert. It didn't matter to her that I wasn't up to playing games and such, she just enjoyed doing everyday things together. This morning it was I who was anxious to be leaving the girls again, while they barely looked up from their iPads to tell me goodbye.
It was confusing going from the hospital's healthy routines and stress-free environment to the mental and physical challenge of school. Sitting still all day for two days straight, trying to analyze, motivate, organize and learn within a noisy, opinionated, competitive group of people left me feeling frustrated and tired. Perhaps I'll feel more inspired and stimulated after a quiet night and a nice swim in the pool.