I  had this nagging little fear when we booked our trip home, a fear that it would disrupt the happy balance that we had finally achieved with the lils in India.  It took them a long time to settle in, much longer than I thought it would at the outset, so it took Willy and me a long time to settle in. Mostly, they were homesick and resistant to so much that was new to them.

This has changed in the last two months or so, and we both feel that they are really happy.  I no longer have Woo telling me, daily, that he wants to go home, nor do I have Goose declaring that she doesn’t like this or that, or pretty much everything new that we find in India. It’s been really nice.  Then we came home for a visit.

Things have been so simple for the lils here.  They’ll see their extended family and all of their friends.  There have been long visits and extended play dates, with more to come.  We are doing all of their favourite things, because it makes us all happy.  They just picked up where they left off.  They are content to play independently, given much more freedom, and they don’t fight.  Not with each other, and not with their friends.  We are four days into the visit and they are loving it.

They are loving it, until we talk about going back ‘home’ to India.  “I don’t like India”, says Goose.  “I’ll just stay here until you move back from India”, says Woo.  It’s tough to hear.  We know they are happy in India, but they are much happier here.    I worry that we reset, and start from scratch when we return, but we’re better equipped to work through it.

I hope I am wrong about this.  Today is dentist day.  Maybe that will convince them that India is not so bad after all?!