Tage and I got home from Stockholm on Saturday afternoon, to no-one’s greater relief than Tage’s own. He loved the planes, trains, and automobiles, but when we weren’t actually in the act of travel, his most oft-repeated words were, “I want to go home,” “I want to go to Daddy,” “I want to go to Lydia,” and every two-year-old’s favorite, “No!” It didn’t occur to me until we were already at Leslie’s house that the only other times he has ever traveled away from home we all four went as a family. It did seem to help him somewhat to talk to Olof and Lydia on the phone, so we spent a fair amount of time calling back and forth.

The visit itself was nice because Leslie and I haven’t gotten to spend much “quality time” together in a couple of years, but the circumstances made it a rather bittersweet affair as well. I’m looking forward to the end of May, when Lydia and I will make a purely social visit to Stockholm, and she and I and Leslie and Alex will have a chance to relax and hang out like we used to do before we moved up to Skellefteå.