Forgive me for writing this without much forethought (okay, any forethought). I thought I'd just kill two birds with one stone - do some processing and voila! a blog post. My previous post should be explanation enough to why the blog is mostly quiet these days!
When we first got married, The Captain and I lived in Holland for six months while he finished his Bachelor's degree. Then we lived in Nashville for eight years before coming here. A pat answer we give to people inquiring about our motivation to move here is "we lived in Holland, then the States, and thought we could get one more country in before we settle down with the kids in school." Since we moved here, my focus has been on the two year marker, which is how long we said we would stay here before deciding to go anywhere else. Suddenly, with the end of this year in sight, a different marker has popped up on my horizon and my world is a bit quaky. (Do you like that? Quaky?)
Small Sun starting school! The school year begins here in February. We have the option to send Small Sun THIS February, or wait a year. We are opting to wait. My calendar is all booked out until after Christmas, when suddenly, it will only be a year until my baby goes to SCHOOL! Ahhhhhhhhhhhh! Who ever said he could grow this fast?
Having school on the horizon is kind of a big deal for me, beyond the obvious "my baby is growing up" reason. I had imagined that by the "school years" we would have it all figured out, where we'll be and all that. The time up until school was adventure play time, and then we were supposed to have it all together! While I believe kids are resilient and can thrive despite huge moves, I think it would be irresponsible to move the kids more than is absolutely necessary. Small Sun is four and Sprout is nearly three. Small Sun has preschool and they both have close friends and a whole life here that they are very much involved in. When we moved here Small Sun was nearly three and Sprout was only a year an a half. While they missed their friends for awhile, and took a while to adjust here, I think a move NOW would REALLY affect them much more than the last one did. Even a move from one house to another would be a big deal.
With school approaching I feel a greater need to make some decisions about our future. However, suddenly I'm not wondering about the merits of Australia vs. Holland vs. The States, I'm wondering about Gladesville vs. Ryde or the Inner West vs. other areas of Sydney. Once Small Sun starts school, I don't want to have him changing schools. He is already going to be meeting a whole new peer group at kindergarten since he is going to preschool outside of our school district. And with all this thought about school starting I'm feeling so very established here.
Moving on to the church part of this post, our church has several main campuses as well as extension services all over the greater Sydney area. We go to an extension service and once in awhile we attend Sunday evening services at the main campus. I went up by myself tonight, while The Captain carried the home load. If our extension service is diverse, the main campus is even more so. I love being there. Tonight I was watching a boy of about 14 years old worshiping down in the front. He looked a lot like Small Sun, with similar coloring and hair texture. His style was little bit punk and he just looked so happy with his friends (a diverse group themselves).
When we were living in Nashville, I couldn't really visualize our future there. In our environment I couldn't see families that looked like ours; I couldn't see a place for us on either side of the color line. Tonight, sitting in church, I could see ten years into our future, where Small Sun could be happy in his skin, in his group, and in his church. I could see in the shades of brown skin around me that there is not one way to be black here. There are Africans in traditional dress, kids with hip hop style, skaters, and clean cut kids. There are braids and afros and locs and in between textures of hair. Skin tones range from very fair to ebony. And I'm only talking about the people of African heritage, not even about all the other ethnicities and cultures represented. It just feels like there's room here; room for young black people to take their time trying on so many different expressions on their way to finding who they are. I'm not saying that back in Nashville there was just one way to be black, but I didn't see many black kids exploring alternative style like skate and punk looks. I just love that room to explore.
So as my eyes start to focus on the next marker out ahead of me, I am seeing a real future for us here. I am trying to relax and trust that if being here is what is best for our family, that God will help us work out the issues of adopting and being far from family. I'm just trying to hold it all loosely and be present in my life. I want to have an eye towards the future, but not gaze at it so intently that I miss what's right in front of me now.
Speaking of now, my smallest baby is twelve weeks old and outgrew his bassinet. His legs hang off my lap when he's nursing and tonight he's lying in the crib, stretched out like a starfish in the newly expansive space. My little Australian son, who is currently without Dutch or U.S. citizenship. What a family we have, and what a life we're living.
P.S. It's the dead of winter here and today is was 28 (82) degrees. Yea baby!
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