Today’s blog
Lynn Murphy Mark
Nuclear energy
My New Jersey family got home Monday morning from almost three weeks in Africa. I have a picture of the boys standing by a small version of Lady Liberty, looking very happy and not one iota tired. Apparently their 16 hour flight was conducive to sleep. These are the boys who fall asleep in the car with regularity, so I can picture them in a big airplane seat getting tired of the iPad or the movie. As I said, they look completely rested in the photo. There was no picture of parents, so I don’t know what they looked like, but Jackie did say they got some sleep on the plane. She said they were gone just long enough to feel like they had gotten away, and just long enough to be glad to head home.
We are going to New Jersey at the end of this month, to celebrate Cameron’s 6th birthday. He looks older than that to me, with his tall, lanky self, but the calendar confirms 6 years have passed since I witnessed his birth. That was an experience of a life time, to be invited into the delivery suite, to help Jackie get through the night with bad back cramps, then to be a helper as she gave birth to a 10 lb. +, very long baby. I have pictures of me holding him with an absolute expression of bliss. There’s something really special about holding your child’s child. I held him while his father placed calls to Nigeria, to announce the occasion. In Nigeria it is the custom to give a baby a name that reflects some feeling about the birth. Cameron’s middle name is Babangida – Master of the House. Not to exclude Xander – his middle name, Balarebe, means Gift From God. Both are true.
While they were flying over the Atlantic Ocean to get home I stayed worried, thinking about the metal tube rocketing over the deep, carrying precious cargo. So when the picture of the boys standing on land arrived I was mightily relieved. I figured the time difference and the wearing out of vacation adrenaline would mean a good night’s sleep, if they even made it to night time to close their eyes. They were going to stay up as long as they could to try and keep some control over jet lag and a 6 hour time difference.
Yesterday I was driving to church for a meeting and I had some drive time so I called Jackie just to hear her voice and maybe get a “Hi” from the boys. I had seen a Facebook post that morning that cracked me up, so I wanted to hear about it from her. It turns out we were both driving, but my mission was very different from hers. I was going to my meeting and she was on a quest to keep the boys awake until a time that resembled bed time. Here’s why.
On Monday night they went to bed as late as they could manage, presumably while the sun was still up. Sleepy time lasted about 6 hours until that witching hour of 3:30 AM arrived and the boys were ready to get up and get at it. What followed was a non-stop series of antics. From 3:30 to 4:30 they built a couch fort. From 4:30 to 5:30 Alexa and the boys had a dance party. Then for a while they caught up on the World Cup happenings, and by 7:30 they were riding bikes in the basement. That prompted Jackie and Momoh to decide to keep the boys awake at all costs throughout the day yesterday, in hopes of planning a reasonable bed time.
When I talked to Jackie around 2 PM her time, she and the boys had been running errands and she was taking them to the community center to shoot baskets. She was keeping an eye on them to make sure they didn’t fall asleep and spoil the “keep them awake as long as possible” plan. At one point she spied Xander getting heavy-eyed and called on him to get excited about going to the community center. I managed to get a tired, “Hi” from the boys and I let Jackie go so she could be on sleep patrol while driving.
While I loved getting pictures of their exotic voyage, I am grateful they are back within flying distance of St. Louis and anxious to hear the boys’ stories about their very cool trip.