Bianca asked:

How was your homecoming? Were the kids beside themselves to see you? Did you bring them loads of divine goodies? I bet Jonah is already calling for you at night?

A few days before I came home, I started calling myself 'homecoming queen' on Twitter. I was all about the homecoming. I was so over America and travelling and being away from my family. All I wanted was for it to be finished and and to be home.

I arrived home to an entire bedroom makeover, a painted kitchen and a slightly re-done bathroom - all Scott's handiwork. Clean floors, organised cupboards and incense burning. It was heavenly. The children were asleep, so it was all about me and Scott.

That night, Jonah woke up as he usually does, and came through to our bed. He hesitated in the doorway, probably confused about who exactly it was in the bed next to dad. I smiled at him, he took a long look at me, threw his arm around me and fell fast asleep.

The next morning, James and Hannah woke up. I heard Hannah tell James in a theatrical whisper that "mommy's home!". They both came to the bed with big grins on their faces and hugged me. It was perfection.

The day was spent in a blur of jet lag. When the children came home from school, we unpacked my luggage. Hannah is now the proud owner of a pair of High School Musical pajamas from Macy's in Durham, NC, and a princess dress from the Disney Store in Chicago. James has a cheapie digital camera from Walgreens in Urbana, Ill. and a Bakugan T-shirt from Target in Durham, NC. Jonah has a pair of blue camo pants from somewhere in Illinois (I forget), which he's dubbed his 'cool pants' and a Ben Ten kite from Target in Durham. The list of gifts is fairly endless, but those were the bigger ones I bought.

And is Jonah calling for me at night again? Yes, oh yes. Probably by night 3 he'd made the switch back to calling for mommy. Which sucks in a way, because I'm no longer getting enough sleep, but kind of wonderful too. It's good to be called 'mommy' again. As much as I enjoyed being my own person, I also relish being the mommy.

Kinda forgot about the blog there for a while, didn't I? Ok, longer than a while. An age. I was a tad busy. And distracted. And then I came home and the normal things took hold and then I forgot to blog. Actually I didn't forget. I thought about it every day. But then the dog ate my blog.

Well, you get the point.

So I'm back. 10 weeks is a long time to be away from your family, but here's the shocker: we all lived. And I don't think anyone's worse off for it. Jonah occasionally asks me about "your America", and tells me I was on an "airyplane", but other than that, we're all still breathing and all still in possession of all our limbs.

Most shocking of all: no one forgot who I was. Which was an actual worry I went overseas with: I was terrified that Jonah, who was 2 at the time (he turned 3 last week) would just forget who the hell I was and move on. He didn't. He still loves his mommy.

The worst part: dreaming of hugging Jonah smack in the middle of the trip. In the dream, I felt his soft skin and smelled his toddler smell. And then I woke up and realised I was weeks away from going home and doing that.

The first time I cried: the night I got home. Jonah wakes up every night and calls for me. The night I got home, he woke up and called for his dad. I cried and cried, realising he had just adapted and adjusted his little life to cope without me.

The best part: My career is ROCKING now. I have an entirely new job with the same organisation, and it's something I've been working towards for 8 years. Which makes all the worry and angst and hard work totally worth it.

A 10 week trip away from the family under my belt and we all survived. Who knew?

So Scott (who I'm plugging shamelessly, because he's a brilliant writer - much better than me - go read him NOW!) has informed me that while my weather post was scintillating in the extreme, it's a tad old now.

I can take a hint, so here's an update on my innermost thoughts:

- I've decided that small town America isn't for me. Where are all the people? Where's the buzz?
- On that note: Chicago! Oh! I spent 2 days there and fell in love with the city. Now that's a place I could be. Apparently you have to be a gazillionaire to be able to live around the city centre, though, so I won't be moving any time soon. But just look at this:

Is that not breathtaking??

Sigh.

- I was awake at 3.30 this morning. Not sure what that's about, but I'm fairly sure that with the full programme that we've been experiencing up till now, I'll be feeling like death by about 11 this morning.
- The Disney store in Chicago! Yay! I spent a good hour there wandering around and deciding what to get for the children. Hannah cashed in with a princess dress reduced from $28 to $14. LOVE bargains.
- Skype is my best friend at the moment: I get to see my family and I can honestly say that I haven't been feeling too homesick yet.

Right. Hope that's sufficient for the demanding husband.(Have you read his blog yet?!) That's about as in-depth as I can be at the moment.

This is a part of my iGoogle page - what you can't see is that I also have Chicago on the list - couldn't fit it in. Do you think I'm just a little obsessed??

From: https://sslrelay.com/www.kitsch22.co.uk/sess/utn;jsessionid=1549ab0c1ae7f31/shopdata/index.shopscript

Before I left for my trip, a friend told me I'd have an existential crisis while I was here: I'd be no one's mother, no one's wife. I'd just be me.

I've thought a lot about this and have concluded that I don't agree.

I'm still a wife and mother. Very much so. I think about my family every day. Some days I miss them, other times I just think about them. Feeling like I'm no one's mother would surely entail feeling disconnected from them and my mothering role. Which isn't true of me.

Feeling like I'm no one's mother would also imply that I believe the role of mother is dependent on the stuff I do. Tidying, hugging, making lunches - that stuff. I'm very much opposed to that point of view. It's like saying you're only a lawyer while you're in the courtroom. You're always a lawyer, but you're also a whole person - you eat and you go out and you socialise - you do things that are unrelated to your role as a lawyer.

Which brings me to my last point: I feel like her warning implies that I'm only a mother. Nope - not true. I'm Janine, the whole person, who feels passionate about a whole lot of things that aren't tied into mothering specifically.

Which is all a long way of saying that I'm having no existential crisis at all: I'm here, I'm missing my family, and I'm having a ball.

I think I'm supposed to be away for 74 days. That's how many links I made in the children's paper chains anyway. I got a bit panicky today when I realised it's only been 5 days that I've been here. Especially since I asked Scott to tell it like it is and so far, he's said that
- all three children were crying in the bath one night missing me and
- they all have their wobbly moments when they just want me.

Wonderful. Chalk it all up to my Sucky Mother of the Year Award.

I'm still having fun here. Last night, we went to a dinner to open the program formally. We met interesting people and ate Middle Eastern food.

Today, we started our formal program, which entails just over 2 weeks of classroom work and a few tours here and there. It's stimulating and invigorating being in a new country and learning about how they do things. I'm trying my best to apply what they do to our context and think of ways things could work for us.

So I'm not sitting around moping, but to be honest, I do think gasp inwardly at least once a day when I realise that I still have more than 2 months here. 2 months!  

I'm here! As in Urbana-Champaign in Illinois.

Left just before 7am on Thursday morning for Cape Town International airport, to Hannah's sobbing and Jonah's moaning. James was fine. I was so nervous about leaving them that I forgot to say goodbye to Scott! He called me back, saying, "Um, excuse me?" Eek - bad wife.

The travelling was brutal. It took 4 flights and from 9.30am on Thursday, till 3.40am (South Africa time) on Saturday to get here. Insane. I'm now an expert at getting round airports and through security checkpoints.

So far, first impressions are:
- The bookstores are COOOOOL. There are coffee shops right in the shops and they allow you to sit and drink your coffee and browse books.
- The food and drink portions are huge. I tried to get a small bottle of water yesterday, which here would be about 340ml. I couldn't get anything smaller than 591ml.
- The people seem very friendly - quite happy to chat away and help as much as they can.
- We didn't see much last night as we were driving to our apartments, because it was dark, but as far as I could see, Urbana seems very flat. Shall go exploring later - if I'm brave enough to go outside in the minus temperatures.

The family seems fine. Scott's doing an amazing job of keeping everyone in the routine. I've skyped them 4 times so far and they love it, although it might end up being a problem for Jonah - he apparently went nuts the last time I ended the call.