Growing Family

Certainty and Substance

Tonight I went out to dinner with some mums from one of the two playgroups we attend. I sat across from a mum of one of Small Sun's classmates. She confided that after three years of "extended holiday", they are moving back to their (Australian) home town. Part of it is job related, but mostly they just know it is time to go. As their parents are getting older, they recognize that time together with family is most important to them. They'll move at the change of the year.

While I know jealousy is not an emotion to be cultivated, I did feel envious listening to her conviction. When I imagine "the future", I don't really imagine it being here in Australia. I can see us staying here for about five more years, maybe, and then moving on. 

My friend tonight had a very clear "home" to return to and the centrally important people of her life are all conveniently grouped there. 

To be perfectly honest, when I am around people who have lived in one place their whole lives and have their family all around them, I simultaneously despise and envy them. I experience a kind of explosion of emotions, wishing I was like them, and being thankful that I'm not.

The fact that I have no "home" to return to makes me heartsick. The fact that when our parents start to age and have failing health, we will confront having them on multiple continents, makes me feel anxious. 

Before we moved Down Under, we were visiting with my brother and his family. I hatched a wild scheme to keep our children knowing each other. I planned that we would all take our kids back home to my parents for the month of June. They would run in the woods, play in the streams, and spend a month dreaming and fighting their way into cousindom.

I failed to take into account the opposite seasons and the holidays that don't align. Now my parents have off and moved to Canada, renting out the house I imagined being the one rock I could tie my roots to. 

This week we had a plan to talk to my mother, sister in law and my nieces in Tanzania. My brother was to Skype in from India, where he is working at the moment, and my dad from Canada. We bought a Skype Premium day pass. We planned our day around this phone call. 

When the magic moment came, no one was on Skype. Eventually my brother got on and said he tried to get in touch with my SIL to no avail. It ends up the internet was down at their house for several days. 

Tonight I was riding home in the car by myself with the music on so loud I couldn't hear anything else. No traffic, no wind, nothing. When you have young kids in the car you never get to really blow your eardrums. I blanketed myself with sound and cried over the steering wheel.

Living abroad, when you have a family you love and miss, is hard. Not being able to get in touch or stay in contact with people you love is hard. Not having a "home" to return to is hard. Not having a continent in common with any family member is hard.

My friend tonight had conviction. She had a plan. She had timing and clarity.

Sometimes I just feel lost in the feeling that my family has been spread like a puff of dandelion fluff on the wind, and we'll never be able to regroup, or cluster back together again.  

Moving House

Three and a half years ago I had two children and was packing up my happy life, preparing to launch our family across the globe in search of sunshine. People on both the launching and landing sides thought we were both inspiring and crazy, and I suppose we were.

We arrived haggard, and travel weary, in Sydney. Our luggage did not. With my mother's help we found our rental car in the parking lot, piled our carry-ons and kids into the vehicle, and set off driving, on the wrong side of the road, to our temporary furnished apartment.

We arrived in autumn and I blanched at the eternally silver-gray palette. Gum trees (eucalyptus) are the foundation of the terrain here, and their silver blue was a stark contrast from the heavy and humid green of a southern spring rainstorm I had left behind about 30 hours before.

I now know that we were driving through some really ugly bits of Sydney. I didn't know that then. I felt nauseous from lack of sleep and stress. Stress derived from hurtling towards certain death (at least that's how it felt on the wrong side of the road), and panic from having moved across the globe to a drably colored, ugly place. What have we done?  I wondered, hoping my mother couldn't detect my dismay from the back seat.

We had been so sure of our plan to move to a beautiful, amazing place we had never visited before,.

All that comes to mind when I have our house in boxes and we are moving fifteen minutes down the road. Things are so different now.

When we finally arrived, safely, at our apartment, I abandoned husband, mother, and children. I went to my room and passed out on the bed, crying.

I awoke several hours later to the smell of dinner cooking. Husband had found food, and mother was preparing it. Children were settled and things were organized. Refreshed from a nap I decided to eat something and put on a brave face. It would take our container three months to arrive, so we couldn't catch the first flight home. Better make the best of it.

Three and a half years ago I had two children. They were not in school. They did not have extracurricular activities. We had a snug two bedroom bungalow and maintained a streamlined life free of extra stuff. We shipped the contents of our house and took our suitcases to my parent's for the last month. We sold our house to some friends for our asking price. The Captain finished work and we directed all our attention to THE MOVE we had so long anticipated. Our vision was clear. We were focused.

Fast forward to today. We move in nine days. I have been packing for weeks. I have spent all three weeks of school holidays packing, with four children underfoot. We have a lot of stuff. So.much.stuff. This house is much bigger than our little Nashville cottage. The rental agents have been having open inspections on Saturdays, so with the boxes stacking up in each room, we've been cleaning and putting out flowers, vacating the house with four kids and a dog.

Monday school starts back. Sprout starts a new ballet class on Saturday. I keep repeating to myself "don't pack the school uniforms, don't pack the ballet clothes, don't pack the baby gear." 

Moving with a child in school, a child in preschool, ballet class, a toddler, and a (recently sick) newborn is a completely different beast than the last move. There's the dog to transition from outside to inside, the plants in the garden to dig up and move to a new garden that hasn't yet been prepared. There are the numerous contact visits for our foster baby each week, and his many recent doctor's appointments. There is a very busy, and very full life to continue.

I am normally good at time management, and breaking a big task down into small tasks. But this move? When I try to break it down piece by piece and spread it out along a time line, my mind just starts spinning. 

The movers arrive at 8 am. I need to take the boys to a friend's house, and Sprout to ballet. I need to make sure the dog doesn't escape while the movers have all the doors open. I need to get all the car seats out to lay the seats down to move the important/fragile stuff. I need to move the dog to the new house and make sure he doesn't escape while the movers have the doors open. I need to move the fish tank. Geez, where am I going to put the fish in the new house? I still don't know. Will it still be bucketing rain on move day? What should I put in the "first night box"? Should I put the bassinet in my car or let the movers take it? Click, click, click, sssssssssssssssssssssss.

Meltdown. 

I guess if worst comes to worst, I go to my (new) room and fall asleep crying, and wake up to unpack. Because unpacking? I'm really good at that. 

Is This The One?

We have been researching the house market here for a while and now that all our visitors have gone, we've been spending our Saturdays attending open houses. Saturday we looked at a house we saw potential in, and put in a tentative offer. Now we proceed to thorough building inspections and contract scrutiny.

Today I mentioned to the Sprout that we might be buying the house.

"Which house are we buying, mommy?" she asked.

"Remember the one with the little dog?...and the cat?...and the bird?" I said.

"I don't want to buy that house. If we lived in that house, we would have to live in a big mess, and I don't like that!" she said, emphatically.

The girl is right!

Have you ever seen the show Hoarders? or How Clean is Your House? I almost hate to tell you all about it, in case we get it and you all imagine me living in some hovel, eating cold spaghetti out of a can, while sitting on a couch with 29 cats.

It was like that.

The thing is, I am no stranger to house renovations. I was raised on elbow grease and creativity. While the other people at the open house were shuddering in horror, I was stepping over trash, and seeing the potential in the victorian timber cottage with a bank of ancient, fragrant white roses across the front veranda. 

What makes those shows so shocking? Innapropriate number of pets - check. Open wine bottles at the ready on the coffee table - check. Ill-conceived hot-tub installation - check. Personal medicinal supplies left lying around - check. Baskets of laundry clean and dirty falling over onto the people trying to see the house - check. Crazy Simpson's style cat lady tenant "cleaning" during the open inspection - check. It was seriously insane, and certainly could make one of those shows.

Yet...

Original hardwoods - check. Twelve foot ceilings - check. Two original fireplaces - check. Master bedroom with french doors opening onto a courtyard - check. Large kitchen with quadruple the storage and counter space to what we have now - check.

Unless this house has significant electrical, plumbing, or foundation issues, it is an opportunity just waiting for someone brave enough to tackle the mess that's in it. Who knows what the inspection will turn up. If it has big issues, we won't touch it, but if the major problem is the cat-lady craziness, we just might. After all, my friend had an interesting perspective on the mess. "All that clutter actually protects the hardwoods." We shall see, we shall see.

My Kids Are...

Dutch

American (and African American)

Australian 

Raising kids this way is so fun and also challenging. I used to be so obsessed with working towards my children being able to "pass" in each of the cultural environments they are tied to. At this point it has just gotten to0 messy, and complicated, and they are so wonderfully complex that I've just thrown up my hands and shifted to enjoying who they are and this amazing life we're living.

Recently a university student studying child development spent a term observing Small Sun. At the conclusion of her observation she gave me a copy of her final report and the following (paraphrased for length) observation was included.

A Trip Overseas

Small Sun, Sarah* and Emmy* were at the pirate area in the back of the yard..."We need a map", Small Sun told the girls. He grabbed a clipboard with some paper and started drawing a map of where they were going to go, marking the stop offs with an X. When Sarah asked Small Sun what the X's were for, he replied "this one's a gas station, this one's a busy road, and this one is Australia." Small Sun then noticed that there were street maps in the area. He pointed to a spot on the map and said "look, the Opera House."

I then asked Small Sun where they were heading. "Australia" he replied...I was surprised and thought I would ask where they were now if they were going to Australia. Small Sun had a quick think and said "Russia." I asked the children if they thought that we could drive all the way from Russia to Australia by car. This made them think...

Small Sun turned to Sarah with a pleased look on his face and said "I think we need to put wings on this car." Sarah looked a little puzzled and asked "why?" 

"Cause we have to go overseas" Small Sun said simply.

It was finally time to make the trip to Australia...Small Sun was looking at the maps when he turned to us and said "when we get to Perth we go overseas, then we go to Melbourne and go on the busy road." The actual trip from Russia to Australia itself wasn't a very long one. They had a few bumps along the way but they finally landed in Australia safe and sound with the flying car in one piece.

What the student took away from her observation as interesting and important, was the childrens' imagination, sharing of knowledge and ideas, cooperation, communication and building skills, as well as Small Sun's interest in the maps.  I took something else away from reading her notes.

Small Sun is five. He understands that we live in Sydney, a city in the country of Australia. Also that we are from America which takes one whole day of flying to reach. Also that Pappa is from Holland which is a country in Europe, and is across the water from England, where his friend M lives. He can recognize pictures of New York city, where his Auntie lives, and he can differentiate between the American city where he was born, and the American city where his first family now lives. He knows about Bangladesh because his cousins were going to move there, and also about Tanzania because that is where they'll actually be. He knows you can't walk from Russia to Australia, yo, because there's a whole lotta water in between!

The Captain recently went to Holland with Sproutje (sprout-ya - little sprout), and now whenever anyone is travelling she asks "are you going to Kuala Lumpur?" because in the last two trips to Holland, we've stopped through. How many three year olds have Kuala Lumpur in their vocabulary?

My kids know that we speak two languages, but that mommy doesn't like to read books in Dutch and if you want to read a long book in Dutch, ask Pappa. They translate The Captain's speaking to their friends if he forgets to switch to english. 

They're swiftly taking on an Aussie-English vocabulary and I had to translate things for Small Sun when we were in the States in June. Now we have an American staying with us and I am having to translate between her and them when things are unclear. 

They know how to Skype and about time zones. They know email gets there fast but post mail takes some time. 

I can't sort and stack and compartmentalize these children into neat little categories, checking off the boxes to make sure each column of identity is full. This is a different kind of life and we are just rolling with it!

 

Sarah

Right now we're enjoying school holidays before starting the fourth and final term of the year. This will be Small Sun's last term of preschool. After summer holidays (and Christmas!), he will start kindergarten and The Sprout will go to (a new) preschool three days a week. I might not know myself! Times are a changin'!

I can see the end of the year out in front of me. It is a little wobbly, like heat rising off the tarmac distorts the lines on the road, but I can see it there, finite, limited.

I'm planning a lazy summer. The last summer they're all here together before Small Sun becomes a school boy. We'll fill up the kiddy pool, do the slip 'n slide, and eat popsicles every day. We'll go to the beach and get permanent tan lines. We'll listen to the cicadas hum in the trees and eat boxes of peaches, mangoes, and cherries. We'll go barefoot all summer long, except when the ground is too hot to stand on. We'll love and laugh and fight and play.

I can see it all, out in front of me.

But when the year started I heard God say "big changes" and "a right hand turn you can't anticipate" and "build up your courage, you'll need bravery this year."

I'm standing looking at the end of the year, and looking at those words I wrote down from the Lord, and scratching my head a little. No, make that, scratching my head A LOT. 

Imagine a rope bridge across a rushing river. Actually it is just two ropes for the feet, and two for the hands. When you try to cross it there is nothing to hold the two sides together so you end up in some kind of crazy splits before you crash into the water. That's how I feel right now.

We've heard two distinct and clear things that we are supposed to be doing with our lives. But those two things don't seem to be connected. We're supposed to be diligent with both, holding onto both, making place in our hearts and heaven for both, engaging both. But both things don't seem to go together. I'm losing my balance trying to be two places at once. Inside I'm doing some crazy gymnastics trying to hold both those lines. You might not see it on the outside, but inside I am stretched so thin!

I keep trying to find a way to make the two come together and what I keep hearing in my head is "don't pull a Sarah". You know Abraham and Sarah in the Bible? Well God gave them a promise. God told them that He was going to give them a son and make their offspring like the stars of the heavens. Problem was, that was pretty much impossible because Sarah had already gone through "the change" and I guess once you change over, you can't change back. 

So Sarah took that promise from God and did some gymnastics of her own to make it work. She got Hagar, her servant, and Abraham to shack up to make God's promise happen for her. She took God's promise, and when she didn't see how it could happen, because it didn't line up with her circumstances, she manipulated the circumstances to produce a result that looked like God's promise, but wasn't God's promise at all. 

"Don't pull a Sarah." "Don't be a Sarah." It is the word of caution that is living in my heart these days.

Because, like Sarah, God has spoken to my heart that I am the mother of many children. But my current circumstances aren't backing it up. I am living in a place where I'm holding on to the promises of God, and being faithful with where He has placed me, even though the two cannot currently co-exist in my understanding.

As itchy as I feel, as frustrated as I am, as much as my heart is fighting for Belief, I will. not. move. until I see the cloud moving, and I will. not. be Sarah, God help me. 

When I Grow Up

I figured it out!!! I know what I want to do when I grow up! 

For the last five years I've had my head down and have been working hard caring for very young children. Three very. young. children. 

I have other interests, really, I do! I just have not had very much energy left over at the end of the day to dream or plan or... You want honesty? I fall asleep on the couch at the end of the night, watching James Bond movies. Like sleeping on an airplane with no neck pillow, my head falls forward, back, and to the side until I realize I MUST get to bed! 

Living as an expat with no family ready to help watch my kids on a regular basis, there is the hurtle of childcare between me and pursuing any interests. And those interests have to be really riveting to warrant 15$ an hour of committed childcare. 

Earlier this month The Captain and I celebrated our 10 year anniversary (yeah! go us! another celebration for another post!). We sat drinking chai lattes, swinging our legs over the wall we were sitting on, gazing out over the Hunter Valley winter vineyards, and talking about the future. We talked about my interests and how I don't see any clear thing I want to DO with them. We agreed to keep thinking on it together, and to ask for me to have clarity on what I should be doing when the kids magically go off to school. 

(Spicers Vineyard - Hunter Valley)

Last week I was talking to my fabulous, dear friend from High School. While I've been barefoot in the kitchen, she's gotten a Masters at Johns Hopkins and is awaiting security clearance to get her Diplomat Status and fly around the world like superhero, solving the world's (or at least South East Asia) problems. I'm pretty sure she has a cape in her closet. Ahem. No comparisons in productivity going on here. None at all. 

She's really great for me because while I'm so literally tied to children in this season that I can't see the future, she sees me as a person with a history and a future and helps to call that out in me. She was asking what I saw down the line when the kids are in school (which is when I always said I would do "something else"). As I described to her the passions that are really consistent and keep my interest I stumbled upon it - I described to her that elusive thing that I want to do!

(Small Sun making sand kites) 

Are you ready? Or are you bored and stopped reading about three paragraphs ago? I know, I'm long winded. 

I want to work for a landscape design firm to create gardens for families that incorporate sustainable design principles as well as provide invigorating and imaginative areas for children to play outdoors and explore the natural world. 

(Finch learning to kick a ball in the backyard) 

So basically the gardens would be useful and enjoyable for the whole family and would incorporate several parts. First of all, they would include an edible component. There would be a veggie garden of some sort and the supporting players to veggie gardening which can include compost methods, chickens, and worm farms. 

Next, the child-specific aspects of the design would encourage imaginative play, adventures, and fantasy as well as fine and gross motor skills. Sand and water play areas are vitally important, as are play structures like tree houses or playhouses. There is no end of exciting ways to incorporate these features into a garden, regardless of size or budget. 

(Sprout trying to write her name at the beach) 

I am completely enamored with Bunny Guinness and her book Creating a Family Garden: Magical Outdoor Spaces for All Ages. 

I think Sydney is a perfect environment to introduce this kind of gardening. For one thing, it is a very popular city for people to raise their children, and Sydneysiders are really into backyard veggie patches and chickens. (Have I ever told you about Rent a Chook?) 

I am so passionate about the kind of childhood we provide for our children and I think "magic" is such an important thing. I grew up out in the country, and home schooled, so I have heaps of memories of building forts, making dams in the creek, having picnics in the pasture, climbing trees, and going on adventures. Children are just oriented towards imagination and fantasy and I think they can sometimes quickly lose that wonder if we don't shelter it. Especially in a career-oriented big city short on space and free time.  A magical backyard garden that provides space for adults to relax and entertain, provides sustenance for the table, and nurtures the creativity and wonder of children is something I'm ready to work for, for myself and others.

(Small Sun and Sprout feeding a duck that wandered into our neighbor's yard from a nearby reserve) 

Now that I've got the dream sorted, I just need to work on getting there. My degree gives me credentials on the child development side of the resume, but my experience in horticulture and design is only at a hobby level, and underdeveloped as I'm still learning an entirely new part of the world with different growing conditions, pests, and flora and fauna. I now have about two years until Finch is at preschool and I'm left twirling my thumbs. My green thumbs, that is. First up is a three week class taught through a community college. Hopefully the instructors can point me in the right direction for study after that. 

What a relief to know what I want to do when I grow up!

What about you? Is anyone else working on a post-young children dream?

At the Point of Goodbye

June 22, 2010 Nashville Airport

All the goodbyes take their toll

And stretch the fabric of my soul,

     'till threads extend to breaking

     and seams tear at tender points

     I cry.

Leaving one means joining another

I comfort that it is not forever

     but at the point of goodbye

     when we wave from the terminal

     my heart leaves my body, and goes with you.

Mother. Father. Sister. Brother. Nieces.

Sons. Daughter, Husband. Pieces

     of me here

     Pieces of me there

     Thus, the tear.

From These Parts

When I was fourteen my family moved to St. Petersburg, Russia. Growing up, I'd lived in a number of houses and moved from Michigan to Tennessee when I was six. Because we did school at home, the many transitions weren't disruptive, they were more like adventures. Moving to Russia, at fourteen years old, was huge.

I really credit that life experience as being the doorway to where my life is today. When we left the States, I was in junior high school, attending group tutorial classes with other home-educated students, two days a week. I was drifting, reaching farther and farther to find what I could call "me". Like most adolescents, I felt myself to be firmly at the center of the universe. Moving to a post-communist country kind of messes with the me-centered paradigm.

I hated the time in Russia. I didn't have any friends in St. Petersburg. I was angry at my parents for uprooting me. I stayed in my room for the better portion of the year we were there, lying on my bedroom floor, listening to U2 and crying over how much my parents didn't understand me. Wah, wah, wah.

And yet, to this day, some of my most vibrant memories come from that year.

A day-long picnic by a lake, in the middle of the woods, somewhere in the countryside within a train's reach of the city. Walking, singing, with a group of friends from our congregation, through the black-barked evergreens with the dark green needles blocking out the sun overhead, except for piercing shafts of light that left pools of gold on the forest floor. The yellow sand of the dunes surrounding the lake. Russians swimming in speedos and bras and panties. Young boys in their white underwear, splashing through the silver water. A picnic of hard boiled eggs, cold salads, Fanta, and dark bread, held in glass and metal containers, the picnic supplies that were pre-disposable plastics.

Living in Russia meant that I had to recognize the world, and my relation to it. My spot at the center came un-stuck. It meant I traveled extensively, with my parents, and without, by the time I was sixteen. St. Petersburg at that time, was not "Western". I experienced life with lack, poverty, struggle, and a blurring of the lines between life and death. It shaped my future.

When I came back to the U.S. after that year, I couldn't relate to my old friends, and they couldn't relate to me. This huge, raw, crazy life-experience stood between us. I ended up in another school tutorial program and put my head down and worked. Once, in a composition class, we were supposed to write a short story, and provide illustrations. After struggling with the assignment for a week, the night before it was due, I stayed up late making a cardboard book full of my father and brother's photographs, about my time in Russia: how I met God, fell in love with a boy, and came unglued there. When it was my turn to present, I found my heaving soul on those pages, out of place with the comics, and lighthearted concoctions around me. My classmates probably thought they knew me. In the silence that surrounded the conclusion of my reading, I think everyone realized that they didn't.

Here I am in Australia. I am an American girl, but I'm not. I feel like a decoupage project: you can't peel away one set of layers without tearing off another. 

In anticipating a trip back to Nashville, back to "home", I'm thinking about these things. After two years here, this is my normal. The way my life is ordered here is...right. I wonder if I'll feel the way I felt before: on home soil, visibly blending in, but feeling like an alien.

My son can't remember America. He has no concept of the hugeness of the country. He wants to visit characters from American t.v. shows he's seen. He wants it to snow in June. I try to explain to him what America is. But as he says, he is a "Sydney boy" and he knows "100 things about Sydney.

I am not from here, but this is my home. Most of the time it fits like a glove, and sometimes I am betrayed. I feel wholly part of the group here, until friends return from trips to the U.S. and complain about the food, the fatness, the traffic, the excess. Then suddenly I feel small and cornered as if I am being attacked. The things I find offensive in my own country follow me here in the form of others' criticisms.

At other times my heart wells with pride and I plant my feet wide in defense of my home-land.

We are Dutch. We are American. We are Australian. We are Russian ballet school and cold showers in June. We are kindergarten in Germany with stern teachers. We are births with fireworks in the deep South, we are so many things all tangled up in this yarn ball: family. life.

Between fog and distinction

Remember The Cloud? Well I think it just wiggled. It hasn't started moving yet, but something's afoot.

Remember The Captain's desires for this next season? Well something big happened on that front this week. It's not really blog-able, which is why I'm being vague and blogging around the issue.

The thing about transition is, even if you know you can't anticipate what will happen next, you try. I have a whole list of next-season scenarios that I'd be ready to embrace. I have a number of locations I'd be interested in moving to. But, just like we thought it would, this opportunity has come totally from left field.

I'm not a sports person, and I don't know which sport "left field" comes from, but in my mind's eye I just see myself standing, oblivious, on a sport field (soccer? football? baseball?) when WHAM, I get hit in the head with the ball. That's about how left field is feeling for me right now. The whole star-halo around the comic book character image comes to mind.

This opportunity could be great, but it is not what I had imagined. This opportunity could be amazing for The Captain, but present major roadblocks to what I want next for our family. 

I'm not really sure what happens next in terms of us working out whether or not this change might be right for us. At the moment I am so homesick that I'm having trouble being objective. I've really been missing Nashville for awhile, and really missing my family.

I'm just trying to get quiet inside so I can hear whatever I need to hear next. I'll keep you posted, as best I can.

Eyes on the Cloud

When the Israelites were in the wilderness they followed a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. God gave them physical things to focus on, to guide them.

I'm not in the wilderness, but I've got my own set of guide points that God has given me right now, that I am focusing on, and trying to guide myself by.

With the change of the year I have heard several very specific things from the Father:

- This year will be full of the miraculous in our family's life

- Our path will take a complete right angle to our current trajectory

- Whatever the "next step" is, it will be absolutely, undeniably clear and it will obviously be the VERY BEST THING for each of us, and,

- Sometimes God prunes our very best branch, or the fruit-bearing part of our tree, where we find our identity,  because He wants to replace it with something even bigger and stronger.

On that last note, we watched UP! with our kids last week. There is a scene where the old man begins throwing everything out of his house, even he and his wife's chairs that they had spend a lifetime sitting together in, in order to gain lift to get to the place he needed to go. We were just watching along with the kids and suddenly I sucked in my breath. It was like a gut-punch from the Holy Spirit. Does that ever happen to you? It happens to me when the Spirit is saying "hey! focus!".

The man threw out all his possessions! Useful things! Precious things! Good things! Things for his future! He threw it all out and instantly lifted to a new place.

The Captain and I still have the agreement not to make any decisions until April, and honestly, I love it here in Sydney, and am so happy here.

At the same time, I feel like I am on the surface of a deep wave that is starting to rock me and I'm not sure where I will be hurled by the gathering force.

I started out with a heart for orphans and children in need. We adopted Small Sun. I became hugely focused on adoption ethics, the need for reform, unnecessary placements, better services for first parents, and critically examining current adoption practices. Useful things. Good things. Things for the future. But in it, I lost my connection with my heart for children. A lot of fear developed about what could go wrong, ethically, in attachment, and for all parties.

That was a good experience to go through. I need to be aware of all that, but now my focus is changing again. My heart is being absolutely broken for children in need, right now. I mean, it is really messing me up. I've been watching the situation in Haiti for awhile now, and beyond that, becoming more and more aware of the plight of children all over the earth. God is shifting my focus. Another one of those "hey! pay attention!" shifts.

My desire to adopt is through the roof. I think about it all.the.time.

At the same time, The Captain is feeling drawn to make a significant change of focus/direction/application of skills in his career. He doesn't really know how to make the shift, as we need the income provided by the kind of work he does now, but he needs the change. I'm his best friend and I know he needs the change as well. He needs his life to be spent on something that he feels is valuable.

So April is still a couple months away. We have travel plans/holidays/visitors booked for the next eight months, and we just signed another year lease on our house. At the same time, we've got our eyes on the cloud and while we don't know where it will go, all the signs that we are getting from God are that a big change is developing ahead of us and we might not even be able to anticipate it. Kind of scary. A year for miracles.