On the drive home from school today in the hot, rusty, multicolored car, my daughter and I played with two of her dolls: a mother and a child. I was the mom. She was the little girl. Play like this often includes processing real-life situations. Today wasn’t different.

Her doll told the mom doll they could walk or ride their bikes to school in the morning instead of driving: School wasn’t too far away. (Her school in Yangon is too far to walk to, but her new school in the USA won’t be.) The mom and child dolls rode their bikes to school.

After the mommy doll picked up the little girl doll from school, they rode their bikes to the park. Later, they planted potted flowers in the backyard. Afterwards, the child doll stored gardening gloves in the garage, placed dirty clothes in the laundry basket, put on a bathrobe and slippers, took a bath, and then watched a bit Netflix.

Sound like a normal afternoon?

We don’t have a garage in Myanmar. Or a bathtub. Or Netflix. In the United States, we had a backyard. A garage. A laundry room. A bathtub. And Netflix. My daughter was role playing what a typical day might look like for us when we move home. It was just like days we often shared before we moved to Yangon.

After we finished playing with dolls, my daughter asked with a wide smile on her face, “Mom,when we move home, can we have parties at our house just like we used to? Remember when K, N, E, K, L, P, and R would come over? We’d dance in the kitchen, play in my bedroom, watch movies, and make cookies. Can we do that again, please?”

Returning her wide smile, my heart filled with beautiful, warm memories, I answered, “Of course. Yes. We will have parties with our friends again.”

The dolls reminded us both today: There are good things about going home.