The Latest Surprise

      Parenting is nothing if not surprising. As I parent of young children, I would hold out my hand to take the chewed gum without “ew” even crossing my mind. I would say things like, “Please stop drawing on your toenails with permanent marker.” I would put baby Lucas in his carseat on top of the running dryer for naps, because that’s how he slept best. My favorite moment of parental surprise comes from a friend, who, talking to her preschool daughter, found herself saying, “Put on your underwear before you sit on the dog.” I should not be surprised that parenting keeps coming up with surprises. I do have to say, though, that it surprises me very much to be writing the words, “Right now, I have three children on three different continents.” 

       I remember a point, early in my marriage, when I decided that Eric and I were the kind of solid, un adventurous folk who would probably never even take the family to Disneyland. Instead, we’ve sent our daughter to Uganda, which according to the Center for Tropical Medicine at the University of Geneva Hospital, is an incubator for malaria, typhoid fever, bacterial diarrhea, plague (of all things), schistosomiasis (I don’t actually know what that is), and rabies. We have left our 16-year-old son alone, not only in the house, the town, or even the country, but without immediate family anywhere on the european continent. And we’ve sent out youngest by himself on an airplane to Cincinnati (okay, Cincinnati is pretty tame, but alone on an airplane for the first time is a little scary, parentally, even if, of all of our children, the youngest is the one I would vote most likely to be able to navigate an airport). Meanwhile, Eric and I are dueling laptops in a hotel room in Hunt Valley, MD, whiling away the long hours between our jet-lagged 4:30 a.m. wakeup and our 9:30 meeting with the relocation expert. The great thing about jet lag is that we have already been on a long walk, eaten a leisurely breakfast, answered emails, shaved, and showered. The downside is that by dinnertime, we’ll be zombies -- but no silver lining is cloudless.

        Flashback two months to May, the kickoff for the events that culminated in this summertime family sprawl. We were with relatives at the Maison Cailler in Broc, waiting for our tour of the chocolate factory, having spent a lovely morning at the Gruyères Castle. Eric’s cell phone rang, which is not that unusual, seeing as it was a Friday and he had taken the day off. He talked for what seemed an unusually long time. When I asked him what was up, I received the ominous reply, “Big news. I’ll tell you later.” It was providential that were were at Cailler, because there is nothing like free all-you-can-eat chocolate to distract a person from troubling thoughts. Of course, the big news turned out to be that the Aliens were no longer to be strangers in a foreign land. We were going home. Sort of. Actually, we were going to Baltimore, Maryland, home of P&G’s cosmetics business. Drew’s first reaction was that he hadn’t thought that Eric’s job could get any more girly than face cream. But now Dad’s learning all about eyelash curling, eye liner tones, and the difference between lipstick and lip gloss. 

        So for the past two months, Maryland has figured large in my thoughts. Before that, I can say that my mind had rarely touched on the state. I knew that the capitol was Annapolis, because Lucas (having entirely missed US history in our move) memorized  the states and capitols last year. I also remembered that the TV show Homicide, which Eric and I used to watch occasionally, was set in Baltimore. So a move to Maryland doesn’t really feel like a move home, any more than it might feel like moving home for someone originally from Marseilles to move to Geneva. Okay, they speak the same language, but . . . . 

So the adventure continues. Will the reentry into American culture be smooth or fraught with turbulence? Will the Aliens find a house that they like as well as their Geneva home? Where will the Alien children go to school? Will any churches have members speaking with cool accents and wearing traditional garb? Will I have lost the ability to drive? Is Chipotle really as good as we remember? Stay tuned.