Show me the way to go home...

My brother has two children.

Little darlings they are, Ben is the oldest and is… 5? I think? Scarlett their youngest is 2. roughly.

I'm the only one of the family to live in the States, my brother (and wife and kids) live close to Nottingham, England; close to my sister and her husband, and my mother and father and their respective spouses. My grandmother also lives close by, and can often be found in the 'Lord Ted' pub dissecting a piece of fish with the touch of a skilled brain surgeon (or should that be sturgeon? Boom boom!!)

So anyway. They all live close together, I'm 3,000 miles away and visit them roughly once every two years.

Back to Ben and Scarlett. They are adorable little humans who are very well behaved and very sweet. One thing that makes them even sweeter is their delicate middle English accents. They say words properly but with an unmistakable Nottingham accent, and could easily play the parts of lovable urchins in amateur productions of Oliver Twist or something. They really are, that cute and I wish I could see them more often.

Now, I'm not saying for one moment that our child or children won't be cute. With a bit of genetic luck they'll take more after their mother than their father, and they'll hopefully be fairly well raised. They will be taught to respect everyone, to be considerate and kind, and they'll be encouraged to be successful in whatever they want to do. I will of course love them like I've never loved before, and I'll do anything that I can to ensure that they have the best lives ever.

But.

And this is a fairly big but.

They'll be American.

They'll talk with an American accent. They'll consider America their home. They'll probably call American football 'football' and my football 'soccer'. They'll celebrate Thanksgiving and be taught on Independence day that they are celebrating victory against the British. They'll call their mum 'mom'. They'll not only know what snow is but what to do with it. They'll know the words of their national anthem before they know the words to mine. They won't understand cricket and they won't care that they don't.

Maybe Ben and Scarlett would like a playmate or two?