thoughts on transition...

In the past 6 months we packed and prepared to go back to the states for the second time in 2011 without Graham who was still working in India.  Graham arrived in Omaha and we all settled into mom and dad's basement.  We travelled an average of once a week during our 4 months in Omaha.  We had our fourth baby.  We packed and left to return to India and stay in an apartment in the middle of a suburb of Delhi for 3 weeks while Graham commuted into the city to find a flat.  We went up to Mussoorie to say good-byes and get our things.  We moved into an unfurnished flat in a neighborhood we know nothing about and in a city that is foreign to us.


I write this not to boast on how tough we are or how much we can handle.  As a matter of fact, during this 6 months we have had countless moments of frustration, despair, scepticism and pessimism.  We have been cranky with the kids and disconnected from our marriage.  I write these things to remind myself not to be discouraged.  To pause and give myself and Graham grace and respite from the feelings of disappointment when our life still doesn't seem put together and "settled".  As a result of this, we have had to stop and regroup and reevaluate many days and sometimes multiple times in a day.  We so often have unrealistic expectations for ourselves.


So...on Monday we took our "home-schooled" 6yo to school and will begin potty training our "potty trained" 2 year old.

...we decided last minute to send Hudson to school.  My home school books are getting dusty on the shelves and I am hoping to use them still, but for now we will send him to a good school for kindergarten and he has been waking up at the crack of dawn each morning anxious to get out of the door to the school bus.

...we will try to re-potty train our Everett.  Note to self, it it not realistic for us to try to train a 21 month old and then go back to the US for 4 months and travel around a lot and have a new baby and then move back to India and live out of suitcases and move into a new place.  He or she will probably regress and have accidents multiple times a day mostly because mommy and daddy are distracted and preoccupied which in turn leads perpetually washing out poopy pants.

So...goals of 2012 are simply to go from disorientation and disarray to a place of peace. To go from surviving and making sure that the kids are atleast fed and napped each day to  thriving inside the walls of our house and in our community.