Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch...

We're home, back in the states, back running after, tumbling around, and dancing with our toddler.  My heart did not in fact break in two out of missing Oliver.  I thought of him a lot, and distinctly felt the thousands of miles between us.  But I knew he was fine, and I was fine- more than fine- on an extraordinary trip that you only take once in many, many years. 

Oliver was more than fine, too.  His Auntie Karen, who flew in from Cincinnati to stay with him in our house, does behavioral teaching/parental coaching as part of her job.  She has a masters in child psychology.  So, naturally, we told her that we fully expected all toddler behavior issues to be eliminated by the time we returned in 10 days.

Uh...she kind of did it.  Reportedly, she heard very little of the infamous "no," he rarely refused food and when he did, a simple game of airplane or "I eat a bite, you eat a bite," resolved the issue with smiles and eager bites. Tantrums?  Nope. 

What-ever.  The fact that he ate an entire peanut butter waffle this morning was a triumph worth shouting across the land.  Pretty much everything else we have offered him has landed on the floor, shoved aside, or politely given back to us with a furrowed-brow look that says, "please, Mummy, do not offer this morsel to me again.  Place it on your plate lest I look ungrateful."  More than a few diaper changes have required two people; our changing area might as well be a wrestling ring.  And this morning, he dove onto the floor, sprawling all of his angry little limbs while he sobbed because I wouldn't let him have marshmallows for breakfast (which, truth be told, makes me sad, too).  It was when Oliver dumped a plate of pears over his shirt that Michael covered his face in his hands and moaned a muffled, "I wanna go baaaaaaaack...."

Alas, it turns out our little guy has another double ear infection.  Or maybe the same one that has never gone away in like three months.  A course of antibiotics and some ear drops later, our kiddo is returning.  Which reminds us, that even though we saw such wonders as this....

....they pale in comparison to this one.