Ay

Ay here is not Aye, Aye! Cap'n! But a much more useful and important word than a mere acknowledgement of servitude.

Ay can mean the following:

Ay (I'm listening)

Ay (Are you listening?) Exchange by mother and teenage son on train.

Ay (I'm listening and will say something that might offend you as in, Ay, I am pro-American but your foreign policies are for shit. One of my cabbie's said this to me.)

Ay (I'm listening and about to one-up you as in, Ay, there are hard ingredients to find in Scotland. Have you tried to find passionfruit syrup? You can't find that anywhere. Good thing you don't need passionfruit syrup for your son. Said by same cabbie. Needed passionfruit syrup to make a hurricane which is a drink mentioned in an Alan Jackson song, "It's five pm somewhere" so that he could serve hurricanes at his brother's funeral who died of liver cancer. But, I digress.)

Ay (You poor thing. Call me after you've caught up on your sleep and then I'll tell you where to find bedsheets.) Said to me by our one friend here.

Ay, this list will go on, but I must retrieve the wee-uns from their afternoon slumber. 

Nope

Wrong. No way. Very, very, very wrong.  It is NOT easier to manage the diet a child with a severe dairy allergy in Scotland.  2 out of 2 coffee shops in the Bearsden town center do not carry soy milk and one actually laughed when I asked. There aren't any cookies or easy cereals or snacks to buy at the four closest grocery stores that do not have dairy in them. The "free from" and "pure" food lines will be "free from" eggs, but not milk or milk, but not eggs. We can get soy milk and soy yogurt at the megamarts and that is a bit different than Seattle but not so different and such a big thing that it makes me thankful to be here and there. The sun is out, but I'm having a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.

On our quiet way home from said coffee shops and visiting the 9th grocery in four days, Bug and I rounded the corner.  He said, "And there is a surprise just for you. It will make you feel better." I couldn't figure out what the surprise was. Houses, cars, trees, sidewalks. The stuff of our neighborhood. "See that, Mama?" All I could see was an excavator. Whatever. That's a surprise for Bug."It's a big excavator just for you! Let's watch!" 

We watched a bit. They were repairing the sewer system near our house "...so that the water drains and fairies can come out and visit with the wee-uns at night...." according to the repairman. After we left Bug said, "There, it's all better now mama. Did you like that surprise? Just for you?"

I like that, thus far, Bug gets that the best surprises are not stuff and things and stuff and stuff and stuff.  I liked the excavator and the repairman surely enough. But the best surprise was that Bug saved his most precious treasure, a real live excavator, with me. 

Begin at the Beginning

The beginning is an impossible task. So, I'll begin right here, the fifth day in Scotland.  In Scotland, I feel surprisingly graceful. Yesterday, I took the train and the subway to the Great Western Road. This trip with two children involved an unwieldy and borrowed stroller, a toddler with no sense of commuters, a three year old with no sense of danger, five escalators and twelve flights of stairs. Needless to say, the mass transportation system is not child friendly, but the Scots are. I had help through all the turn stiles and on and off the subway and train unlike other cities I've traveled to, but shall remain nameless.  

There are signs and announcements on the train to "mind the gap when alighting." Imagine that! Even me, with two children, a backpack, a stroller, groceries and a stranger's help, bumping and thumping and dropping everything and every child every which way, I'm considered to be "alighting" from a train!  

There are also signs posted throughout my quiet little village on the outskirts with the picture of a Scottie dog depositing unmentionables and the words, "no fouling." I wonder if I could teach the Snack that, "No fouling! Mama forgot a diaper this trip!" How graceful we are here in Scotland.

Nomad Part Two

I've also tried on the part of living back in my hometown of Rochester, MN. I love the hills. I love visiting my family. I love my cousin Parm. He's growing up to be such a steady soul. He showed us his prize-winning beef herd on a Sunday morning. He was so patient letting Bug and the Snack ride his heifers and start up the 4440 (John Deere country and don't forget it). 

But, I can't live here either.

They're too friendly. Gasp...I know...I hear it all across the internet. I'll say it again. I, Ms. Optimist and Ms. Perky Pepperina of the Rolling Hills, find the Midwest too friggin' friendly.

Here's an example. After a night of insomnia, children up at 6:00 am, my parents in bed with the flu, my sister asleep with jetlag, I get up and lug myself to the grocery store. EVERYONE SAID HELLO. No one would let me mope and wallow and have even an ounce of self pity. I find a dose of wallowing does my soul good at least once a week. I can't deny that. But no one lets me mope in the Midwest.  Nope. Two stockers, a manager, the produce guy, three shoppers, the cashier and the bagger all said something very chipper and nice to me that morning. All of them. All within the half hour I was there. I didn't even get everything on my list because I was so distracted by all the happiness.

I'm moving to Scotland. There, they drink AND mope. I'm sure of it. 

For Who I Am

Okay, so, I'm going to be especially lenient and take you on only the mildest censored ride that goes through my head on an hourly basis....

We are now in Minnesota and we went to a family wedding in the sweetest of small towns, Fountain, Minnesota. This place is where the local butcher has a sign beckoning all to "...come on in and 'meat' your friends..." and the ice cream shop has a sign that says, "Congrats to Charlie and Pat! WoW- 60th Anniversary!" They don't have signs like that even in West Seattle's Easy Street Cafe. It's a great Cafe, don't get me wrong. It just doesn't have signs like that.

So, at the wedding I was fussing over where to sit and moving name tags and all because I wanted to corner the Bug. You'd think at first glance, I was cornering the Bug because of all his energy and because this wedding was trying to be all adult-like as all weddings are striving to be. But really I was fussing over cornering the Bug so that we could hover over his food and his exposure to other people's food due to his severe allergies. Not even a week prior we'd been to the ER for over 36 hours straight in AZ and we left without answers...just with the Bug stable. So, I had no intentions of a repeat performance at such a sweet occaision. It's no way to ring in a wedding with an ambulance....it's no way to ring in anything....

So, I was fussing and my Cousin Mark was giving me a hard time and I started to explain the allergy thing as he's only met Maddox 4 times in the last two years...and he said, "Jen, I know why you're really doing it." I said, "Oh, Mark, just love me for who I am." He said, keep in mind he's stoic as much as any of the Bug clan can be, "I do, Jen."

Then, later, my Auntie Mary and Uncle Ken let me make an announcement about Bug's allergies like Uncle Cav and Auntie Misty announced at Cousin Lark's wedding three weekends ago...and then much of the talk of the evening was about Scotland.

It's hard to go. It's hard to stay. What I realized this past month of weddings and travel and celebrations is that I am surrounded by people who don't get me, but who do love me for exactly who I am. I'd love to stay in Minnesota, but all of my family on all sides know that M and I are happiest exploring. Somehow, this entry falls short of my heart, but I know, my true family and friends know that I love to wander. They know that I am not lost. They know that I will always return.