One Day To Go

I'm distracted, I'm fidgeting, I can't sit still, can't concentrate, I'm a roof on a hot tin cat, a July on the 4th of firework. I am - in the immortal words of Mr Frederick Mercury - like a shooting star leaping through the sky, like an atom bomb waiting to oh oh oh explode. I am, in short, excited. MY KIDS ARE HERE TOMORROW!!

Right now, they'll be packing their bags, getting ready to go to the airport. Well, that's not actually true - it's about 4 o'clock in the morning in Philadelphia as I write this. But very soon they will be. Or at least, two of them will be. My eldest, Orla, isn't coming over till the middle of August - she wanted to get a summer holiday job and save some money up to try to buy a car. So she's been waitressing in a tea shop for the last month - I hope the tips are generous. They're going to need to be.

So it's just Joe and Kitty, who are flying by themselves for the first time. They are looked after by a special  BA escort on and off the plane, but it's still a big step for them - especially Joe who is hoping to be put "in charge" of all their passports and documents for the duration of the flight. It will mean a lot to him as he rarely gets to exercise much leadership and responsibility. His big chance!

The last week or so has been difficult, with my ex-wife emailing me constantly for details of what we will be doing and where the kids will be staying and who will be looking after them, and what I must do with them while they're here, and so on. Communication between the two of us tends to get a bit fraught in the run-up to their visits. I'd say that it doesn't matter, that nothing can temper the joy of seeing my children - but that would be a lie. It does temper it a little bit. Part of me suspects that's why she does it.

However, I did make a mental vow at the start of this blog not to get into criticisms of my ex-wife. This is about me and my children, and that yawning 3,000-mile gap between us. A gap that will be getting rapidly smaller in about 12 hours time. I'm picking them up at Heathrow at some ridiculous hour of the morning. I will, as always, get stupidly emotional when I see them, and embarrass the crap out of them. But hey. That's what Transatlantic Dads are for.