Bon voyage II

You know you've been on vacation too long when your child cries out in his sleep, "No! No! Go back home!"

We were in Santa Fe at the beginning of the month, and Isaac's sleep was slightly affected. You know the kind of thing -- his nights were just a little too short, he had a hard time falling asleep one night, he woke up at 2:00 a.m. one night, and he woke up too early nearly every morning. Then we were back in California for a week, and things weren't too different from how they had been in New Mexico -- not great, but not terrible.

This week we've been to various sites in Minnesota, visiting family, and Isaac's sleep has been pretty crummy -- even more short nights, night wakings, and early mornings, plus the above-mentioned homesick nightmares, which have occurred nearly every night.

Sometimes when we're out and about, Isaac gets tired, frustrated, or nervous. In these circumstances he usually asks to "go back home," but when we told him we weren't staying at our "home" for a while, he quickly learned other useful phrases. In Santa Fe, he said, "Go back hotel." In Sugar Lake, MN, he said, "Go back condo." Now, in Minneapolis, he simply says, "Go back home." Even though he's enjoying his visit with his second cousins, I think he's tired of substitute homes.

Wait until he discovers that in a few weeks we're going on another week-long trip.