Raising kids in Kenya...

It's Sunday late afternoon, Cute Child is sleeping, Hot Husband is sleeping, and we just came back from a 2.5 hour lunch at a Kenyan Chinese Restaurant. Live soft rock music (we left to a remix of Madonna being sung), tons of dirty toys and jungle gyms, trampoline, etc to entertain kiddies, free ice cream at the end of the meal... All is well. It's becoming a after church tradition.

However with the 4 families that we've gotten to know the most- 2 are leaving. 1 family, from Quebec leaves tomorrow, and I fear Hot Husband is losing his closest friend here. :( It's the great exodus, and apparently it happens every two years, or sometimes once a year here. Expat communities are revolving doors, people in, people out. New faces, fresh off the "boat", with contracts that last between 1-5 years, missionary voluntary positions with mandatory year long furloughs, etc. the 2nd family leaves for the States for a whole year long furlough next month. Cute Child sat with their daughter- he just thinks she's so much fun- in the rocks (she's 2 years older, but loves him too) and they took handfuls of rocks and poured them over each others heads. To say Cute Child needs a bath and to soak his scalp is an understatement! The weather is starting to cool down here, but the sun has been out quite a bit nevertheless. It's days like today, where it's just a bit chilly, but the sun is shining brightly that remind me of a June day in Montana. It's nice.

I feel like we are in the season of transition here, people coming and going. Plus there is this cultural thing here where as soon as kids turn 2, they put them into school. Most of the times it's half days, and between 3-5 days a week. Most of Cute Child's friends in play groups are soon going to all be going to school, leaving him with much younger children. I find this incredibly odd. It's not like any of these mothers work here! (Even if they wanted to, visas are incredibly hard to obtain) My firm conviction is that I will only have this time with him for a very few short years, I want to spend every moment I can taking advantage of it. I am so honored and blessed to be able to not have to work, to be able to spend this time with my child(ren), why would I cart him off to some school, just because it's what everyone else is doing? That being said, I am praying for some (at least 1-2) other moms in my circle who feel the same as I so that he has friends at these play groups at a similar age. And it's been an excellent reminder to spend more quality time with Cute Child, treasuring every moment- it goes so fast.

This past week was a bit blah. I like blah. That means we didn't visit hospitals, or doctors, or have to administer dose after dose of medicine. The hives are still coming to the surface, though fewer, and farther between. Today his eyes were all puffy and swollen for about an hour, and then went down. I spent a lot of time trying to get things done this past week only to hit major brick walls. Either exhaustion or just closed doors. Yesterday though we hit the jackpot and bought an entire living room ensemble, and a guest bed and mattress. Now we have so much furniture, I can't figure out where to put it all. We went from a house that echoes, to one that is overcrowded. But I can't complain! It's going to be fantastic once it's all arranged, and cleaned!

Below: 2 Pictures taken on the way back from Tobaca/Kisii: Tea fields and their harvesters... And the easiest way to carry bananas!

So much to do, so little time.

Last Saturday (over a week ago) I wrote up a to-do list that was boggling my brain it was so big. On Sunday Cute Child's rash started, and by Monday we were en route the Emergency Room at Gertrude Hawkins Childrens Hospital in Muthaiga (across town). The problem is that it was a. raining, and b. college students were rioting on the roads needed to get us there. Police rerouted us, but it took us almost 3 hours to get about 2.5km's. *sigh. Such is life. Meanwhile, our kid sat in his car seat wimpering, his hives spreading more and more.

Long story short, we're over 95% certain it was an allergy to penicillin, and one that he was almost hospitalized for. The doctor was so worried, and us too, that they had us monitoring his breathing, and getting and Epi-Pen to jam into his thigh should his breathing change, or it just stop altogether. !!! Talk about stress. By Friday Hot Husband and I just collapsed. Both of us ill. Me, from being 19 weeks pregnant, and not eating, sleeping, drinking, or stopping enough. And he, from trying to help me with Cute Child but also having a super stressful job and picking up an awful stomach virus that 2 of his coworkers have also been out of the office with. :( Unfortunately he's so bad, we may have to take him to doctor tomorrow. Argh! Cute child's hives are a ton better, they come and go as the chemicals from the penicillin surface, and the itching and extreme misery have abated. Poor kid. And I'm rested, and trying to not get too stressed about how we have 2 weeks (Hot Husband has job training in States for a week- the week before his family arrives for 3 weeks) to get furniture, and everything lined up for the big family visit.

It's overwhelming. I need couches, and a bed and mattress for the guest room. I need to do up lists and write website stuff for Cute Child's birthday presents, and what we'd like for the new baby. Meanwhile we have one week till we find out the gender of this new one. I can't even imagine what it will be like to have 2 kids. There has been so much drama with our health in the last month that it just seems impossible. It isn't, I know. Deeeeeep breath!!! Whew!

If running errands here were easy, it would be different. But they're not. Everything in Africa takes longer. Sometimes it's just impossible. Sometimes it randomly works. Sometimes, something you've done 10 times, just won't work that particular day you try. Going to the bank is my least favorite thing, yet it's something I'm going to have to do several times in the next couple weeks- and I am not looking forward to the hours and hours in line and filling out forms I don't even understand that await me. I'll survive, and it's really not all that awful.

Meanwhile, we've joined the prayer team at church, are starting to see ideas of the future, and have really had some awesome opportunities open up in training different Kenyan pastors here- first off shadowing the Vineyard pastor here and learning from him. He's a really great guy, wise, and very experienced- he grew up in DRC and the Middle East. We like his style- his approach to the gospel and to Africans is refreshing and very Christlike. No big names or titles, no yelling in tongues, no Westernized worship or ways, no prosperity doctrines. Simple beliefs in a loving Father, who heals, saves, restores, delivers, and speaks. We like.

We are thinking of getting a house cat. I know! Me. The dog lover, is considering a house cat. I can't believe it's come to this. But the rats, they won't leave us alone, and one got in the house the other day- fairly certain it's gone now- and it was just too much to bear. We need a mouser, a guard. It has to be trained, short haired, good with children, and excellent at killing rats, large insects, and anything else that threatens our family. In the meantime, we talked to our neighbors and can borrow their cat for the day if needed.

Some things have begun to shift for the finances. For one, the company decided to pay for the new babies labor/delivery and all the items leading up to that. A huge huge HUGE blessing. The day after the announcement we handed them several hundred USD worth of receipts! YAY! This means that if other things continue to come through as promised, we can go home for Christmas. Without them covering the baby, it would have taken a complete miracle for us to financially be able to afford a new set of roundtrip tickets for all of us come next January. For those of you praying- thank you so much! Keep it up we need more of this!

In the meantime, I have two questions.
1. What gender do you think the baby is?
2. What "blog name" should I give it? ____= Cute Child... what should this one be?

Expat Blues...

Not sure if I'm feeling down because of hormones, or because it's just another part of adjusting to living in another country, so far from family and friends.

Hot Husband and I are continuing to be stretched in the area of finances, and just praying that everything works out in the end. This puts a level of uncertainty in our lives- and particular things like making our apartment into more of a home. I'd like to paint, get some pictures framed, hang things on the walls, and buy more seating for the living room.

Yesterday was Mother's Day. Our church did nothing and had no honoring for the Mother's. It is a holiday in Kenya, but I didn't realize it wasn't till end of June, and English Mother's Day was April 3rd. Simply put, I had an expectation and it wasn't met. Then when it wasn't met, I just felt that much more homesick, thinking of our church(es) in the States and all the wonderful things they do for mothers. Adding insult to injury, I'd had a dream in the morning that had capitalized on my feelings of not fitting in recently, and when I was at church not anyone that I've known for months initiated conversation- normally no big deal, but after the dream, and already feeling lonely... a yucky feeling! Everyone left, and Hot Husband and I just decided to go home and be together with Cute Child instead of going out. As I said, it felt lonely. Back home, and growing up, families get together and go out to a fantastic brunch buffet, or to someone's home for a beautiful meal. Everyone is surrounded by family and/or friends, and loads of love.

There are moments when no matter how well I've adjusted, and how many people I've gotten to know, I feel lonely. This isn't just living overseas, though being out of your home country is much more of a stark contrast, but it also can and has happened in the States. Just being away from family and the familiar. We have moved 6 times in 6 years of marriage. I'm sure that this something to do with it. I have personally moved almost 15 times in the last 13 years. It's funny, though I'm wining about it right now, I know deep down, that I wouldn't have it another way- especially when I look back and reassess the moves and why they happened. Ivan and Isabel Allum prophesied once that some people have seasons of their lives where they go through doors, but my life was going to be- for the most part- a sort of encampment on one of those type of circular doors that just rotates around and around, with constant coming and going. If the last 13 years are any indication of that, I'd say they were spot on!

The last few days I've been wondering if there is something wrong with me. Why do I feel this way? Why don't I fit in more with others? Am I that different then others, or is it my own pride or imagination that is making me feel like such an odd duck? Lol. I know, I know, this sounds so dramatic. And I know, I am a citizen of heaven, not created to be like everyone else, or even to fit in with everyone else... I'm created to be more and more like Him... which is most definitely not like everyone else!

Also, there's been more odd things going on in our apartment complex. I had to laugh the other night. I woke up at about 4am, to a loud argument going on in the parking lot beneath our bedroom window. Two men from one of the companies here that rents out apartments for their employees to stay in while they are here on assignment- had brought home two prostitutes, who were most decidedly not liking each other. They were screaming and carrying on, while the men were just trying to get them upstairs and into the apartments. *sigh. While this is happening, there were the 3 Kenyan children washing their parents large and brand new 50,000+USD LandRover by hand in the backdrop. It's odd, these kids wash the car in the middle of the night, and I've not once seen the parents. They work continually. Why they don't pay a gardener/askari 100sh (a bit over a dollar) to wash the car like the rest of us is totally beyond me. I just do not understand it. This apartment complex is a very odd mixture of single men and their prostitutes, and families with their children. Also last week, another guy brought home a prostitute, fell asleep and then woke up to his passport, laptop, and everything being stolen from the woman. He then screamed at the night watchmen for allowing her out. How were they to know that his guest was stealing from him? All this to say, it doesn't make me feel all that safe, and I know it does affect my sleep when all this is going on.

All this to say, my blues have caused me to take a step back and evaluate the things in my life that are amazing blessings. To spend time with Him and worship, raising myself out of these blues. He for certain is not blue! We love it here, for all the crazy neighbors, awful traffic, and prolonged financial breakthrough. There are flowers blooming everywhere, the weather is hardly what one could call cold, the rain is a beautiful downpour, the birds sing songs I have never heard, and there is a wonderful community of moms for play groups that keeps Cute Child constantly playing outside. I have been married 6 years to an amazing man, who has never let me down, and loves me deeply. He works hard, and loves Father and Cute Child so much. He is an amazing dad and helps me out in ways that many other dads don't do. I have Doris who cleans my house, and has helped me with Cute Child through the last 3 months of sickness- always being cheerful and loving. I have family back in the States who sends us packages of mac n cheese, tons of tv shows, and lets us borrow their parenting dvds. I have in laws who are visiting and bringing all we need for baby #2's arrival. We have a great new car, that when we leave will provide us with a good nest egg for buying another car wherever we go. I have a son who is bright, loving, sweet, charming, and full of laughter who brings joy into every day of my life. I didn't have to go through a year of fertility medicine to get pregnant with this upcoming child. The grocery store carries Honey Bunches of Oats and Blueberry Morning Post the last 5 months, so my bit of cereal breakfast bliss has been sustainable! Though we don't know what will happen in the future, if I rehash our past, our last 6 years, I can honestly say that He's never left us hanging, He's never led us wrong, and that the future will only be brighter and better. I am a deeply blessed woman for all the friends that live all around the world. For their love, support, prayers, and compassion. For their encouragement, little notes, and just them believing in me, in us. I am truly rich.