“How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard.”

A.A. Milne

“Pooh! Pooh! Pooh! Pooh!” sings Ray in some semblance of rhythm with the Winnie the Pooh song, and with just the right amount of “puff” sandwiching the name. She’s learned what thinking looks like: elbow resting on your hand, fingers thumping your head over and over. She now sits and thinks the same forgetful thoughts as Pooh in all his style, and has regular roll calls for Owl, Piglet, Rabbit, and Oreo (it took me forever to figure out Oreo was Eeyore).

Ray has been exposed to Winnie the Pooh before. She has some of the characters propped up in her stuffed animal hammock at home, and she even watched one of the Christmas episodes last December. But I think this month it popped in her mind because she experienced Pooh curled up on the couch with her Yaya and Poppie. The bees are a little scary. The heffalumps and woozles even scarier. Rabbit’s wild imagination leaving him terrified and alone in the misty forest?? She wouldn’t have touched that at home. But it’s no problem this month, because this month she’s wrapped in Poppie’s arms with Yaya a few feet away and a bowl of sugary Finding Dory cereal uneaten (but comfortingly close) in her lap.

So many new things have barraged Ray and Willa’s world. New animals, new people, new trees, new food, new routines, new challenges, new beds (or floors, if you’re Ray and like that sort of support at night), and both girls have faced the newness with surprising resilience. They’ve had their moments, but overall they’ve reacted to the change with more wonder and less panic. In the first week they loved going outside with Yaya so she could pull them in the Radio Flyer on safaris through the yard looking for exotic creatures like… squirrels. And chipmunks. And boring birds. First thing in the morning they perched on a window seat in the kitchen to see the “exciting” dragonflies popping from leaf to leaf.

Just before leaving PNG we started watching a few of the old Magic School Bus shows. I thought they would be too scary for Ray, but she really liked two: one about the Bog Beast Butterfly (which is just a butterfly) and one about mussels (which was random). She had never before seen a real school bus, so when she saw her first one from the back of my parent’s van, she gasped in wordless delight. Here was a true jewel. This amazing yellow bus (angels singing in her head) could take her anywhere!!! Anywhere at all!!!! It was her version of seeing a famous person in real life. I’m sure it was anticlimactic as that sort of thing tends to be, but she hasn’t failed to inform us when a Magic School Bus is in the vicinity of our personage.

All children get excited at the discovery of life, but to watch my own daughter discover my normal with the fascination of a foreigner is equal parts unsettling and delightful. Life has occasionally come too close this month, but each time loved ones were right there cushioning the blow of reality. Our second day in Delaware, we had a cookout with a loving church family. Willa sat peacefully in the grass near the church leader, enjoying the sunny day. Out of the sky fell a small rodent head, probably one of the chipmunks they’ve been so excited to see jumping around. Quickly Willa was scooped up and carried away from the disturbing sight. Just a day later as Ray was splashing around in Poppie and Grammy’s pool, she clamored out and onto a bee. Of course the bee stung her, right in the middle of her palm. They ran to her side and found the bee sticking straight out of her skin, but her own reaction was relative calm. They dealt with the issue and had the sting soaking in baking soda when Brian and I returned home from the reality of our international lives (government paperwork). Instead of finding a 3 year old falling apart at her first bee sting, we found a happy and very chatty Ray getting loved on by Grammy and Poppie.

In all of her discovering this month, Ray has figured out that Pooh is right. You never can tell with bees. Some are just not the right sort. But she’s also been reminded that there are so many Christopher Robins in her life, waiting at the bottom of the tree to support her, but also to catch her in case her ingenious plans don’t quite pan out. And that has been the happiest discovery of all.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.