My baby is back

I flew on Thursday morning to Melbourne. Nathan stayed at Corinne and Kalebs house on Wednesday night and I went and saw Sex and the City with Megan. I fell into bed about 10pm setting 3 different alarms all with increasing annoyingness in the absolute fear that I would sleep in. I had to be up a 4am - left home at 4.30 and had one moment of panic when the Gateway freeway came to a standstill. Thankfully it moved pretty quickly and I was at the airport by 5.20. I was boarding at 5.45. All was uneventful but I was stuck sitting next to an arrogant man with small man syndrome. Because if my size I jammed my bulk in next to the window and tried to take up as little space as possible. This wanker sat next to me and read the fucking paper with elbows out. I had my arms crossed and he was perpetually digging his elbows into my ribs while he took up both arm rests. I thought I would punish him by falling asleep which I did promptly and of course my famous chainsaw snore kicked right in. LOL I know I was snoring because I kept waking myself up with it. hehe. Next he gets out his laptop and starts working on it. Turns out the bastard works for Virgin. You'd think he'd get the deluxe economy seats instead of sitting with the plebs. Anyway it was a relief when we began our descent. I got off the plane and phoned my sister and she was just parking the car. I snuck out for a cigarette and then waited to see my lil man. We'd got our wires crossed so I was waiting in the wrong spot but after a quick phone call I headed downstairs to the baggage carousel and a the bottom of the escalators was my sister, my niece and my son! I got the biggest squeezy cuddle from Josh at which point I burst into tears which in turn reduced my sister to tears too.
We decided to drop off Josh's case at baggage check in and go find a coffee.
I thought the least I could do was shout my sister breakfast for all the help with Josh she has provided (not to mention lending me the money for airfares) so we grabbed a quick bite at Maccas and then it was time to go check back in for our flight home.
The flight was delayed by 15 minutes but was uneventful. Josh was good on the plane and at least I got cuddles instead of elbows. He loved looking out the window at the tiny houses and cars. He did get bored for a little while but kept flirting with the girl in the row opposite from us. I ended up giving him my pda and loaded up a game for him to play. He spent more time putting the stylus away in its little home, turning off the pda and closing the case, then he'd open the case and turn it on, get the stylus out and push a few buttons and close it again.
We landed 5 minutes late and collected his case. Got back to the car and loaded him in and he promptly fell asleep. We made good time and went straight to Nathan's school and picked him up early.
The look of joy on Nate's face to see his brother after not seeing each other for a whole month was just priceless. We came home and they were just all over the place. Nathan wanted to show Josh everything he could do (like riding his bike without training wheels that he'd just learnt to do in the past few weeks) Josh wanted to watch every dvd in the cupboard and then proceeded to pull all the toys out of the toybox and spread them over the living room floor.
It has taken about 2 days and they are back to fighting again.
I don't know whether my absolutel joy at having Josh home again has overridden my normal exasperation at the tantrums and fighting but I have been dealing with it all calmly and gently. Josh has gotten very selfish since being away. Which is only natural considering he has been the absolute centre of attention for his Nonna and Nonno. Only spending a little time with his cousins.
His assertiveness has become very prominent. Instead of his normal tantrums he is now being very assertive when I ask him to do something he doesn't want to do like eat his dinner or pick up his toys or put his clothes in the hamper he looks me in the eye and says "No, I don't want to" LOL Oh boy it has taken all of my strength to restrain myself. Last night he threw a tantrum after I told him off for not sharing. I put him in his room with a smack to the bottom. He was screaming at the top of his lungs and kicking his door from the inside. I told Nathan that if Josh came out not to look at him, to ignore him completely. I dished up dinner and Nathan and I sat at the table and started eating. Josh came out in stages and we completely ignored him until he came and sat at the table. He was quiet and calm, it was as if the previous 10 minutes hadn't even happened. We didn't talk about his behaviour and just talked of 'stuff'. Aside from getting up to get a drink he sat at the table and ate all his dinner.
They had a nice long bath after that and played for ages together. I think the bathroom walls got a good clean in the process but they were having fun. We all got into our PJ's and pulled out the sofa bed and all climbed in and watched Ritchie Rich together. They went to bed straight after and I didn't hear a peep from either of them after that.
Just hoping that I can keep my zen with the tantrums and hopefully he will realise that the screaming and fighting are futile.

One can only hope......
I am so glad he is home where he belongs.