Feelings about The Move

When we ask our kids, "How are you feeling about the move?" their most common response these days is an exasperated, "Stop ASKING me that!"

We might be asking too often.

It's all part of trying to keep our finger on the heartbeat of this transition. While our kids don't necessarily like to produce a response to this question when we ask, there are plenty of other times when they volunteer the information. It comes in random comments like Megan saying, "Mom, this is the first move I've done where I'm going to be sad." (the others she either doesn't remember or we were moving to places where we already had lots of close friends and weren't leaving any behind), or Ethan telling me, "In the morning when I wake up, I'm excited to move to America, but in the afternoon when I play with my friends, I'm sad."

So how is mama feeling about the move? (it's ok - I'm not tired of the question yet!)

Most days I'm ready. It feels like the right timing for us to go. We've been doing a lot of "last time to this place" trips around town and while I thought I'd be sad, instead I'm just filled with happy memories of them. It's a sense of "we came for such a time as this" but that time is done and it's time for new memories in new places.

I'm finding great satisfaction in sorting through and purging our stuff. I like knowing that we are stripping down to what we really need and use, and are able to bless others by giving them the rest. I'm thrilled that it only costs a little more to have people pack for us so I don't have to spend my last two weeks doing that.

I'm excited for things like family, libraries, Minnesota in the fall, water from the tap, letting the dog run in the yard, our future home, shopping in English (no more wasting time trying to read labels in another language!).

I'm a little fearful about leaving the role of expatriate. It's one I've had for 13 years and through several moves it's stayed with me. I'm afraid people in the U.S. will think I'm "home" and all is well, and not be able to understand the reverse culture shock that is inevitable. 

And I'm sad to leave. I hate that I will have to say goodbye to my friends here because they are great friends who love me well. I could try to placate myself with the knowledge that we can stay in touch so easily by many means, but the truth is that they have part of my heart. I am deeply blessed which makes it devastating to leave them.

So that's a whole salad bar of emotions for you. Feel free to ask me in another week or two - there will probably be even more.

Just don't ask the kids. :)

Survival Skills

Our kids have been sharing a bed here in Thailand, which is a recipe for character building for all. Last night Ethan woke up to find that Megan had taken all the covers. He tried to pull some of them back and asked her to give them up. In response, she put her foot on his body to push him away while simultaneously choking him (all in a sleeping state).

I guess it's good to know that our daughter has instinctive survival skills.

Reconciliation

It's a little hard to pray for dinner when one of your child is sobbing, but that's what I had to do tonight. Her tears were a cumulative out pour of the tension between her and her brother that has been growing these past few days. And so, in addition to praying for our food, I prayed for their hearts.

Shortly after, Ethan took the dog outside and Megan started to tell me how she feels she's treated by Ethan. Not normally one to describe her emotions or the state of her heart, she articulated them in a way that broke my heart. He's just been getting a little too tough and disrespectful of her lately. In short, she wasn't feeling treasured by him.

When Ethan came back, I asked him to just listen while she repeated what she'd told me. It took her awhile to get it out, but he listened patiently. Then I gave him an opportunity not to defend himself but to share any feelings he has had about how Megan treats him. He did so, and then sweetly apologized for how he'd been treating her.

After dinner the two of them started chasing each other around the house, squealing and laughing. At one point Megan exclaimed, "I love my brother!"

I'm humbled and in awe of God's work in them and what He can do when two hearts are honest and vulnerable with each other. Yay for reconciliation!

Project 365 - Day 6 and 7

Day 6

 My friend Martha is an inspiration to me when it comes to homeschooling. She always has amazingly creative ideas and does them! On Friday she invited all the kids outside to do an activity together to give them an idea of the size of the planets. Here I caught Megan and her friends determining, "If this globe is the size of earth, which planet is the size of a softball? Of a 6th grade boy?" and so on.

Day 7

Scout and I usually take a late night walk (and by late night I mean about 7 or 8 pm - we go to bed early in our house!). I'm glad I brought my camera last night because I got several fun shots of the food vendors near the subway.

IKEA to the Rescue

The above picture doesn't even capture Ethan's room at its worst. Most of the time it looks like a Lego store exploded and you can't see an inch of that Lego table. And although 95% of his toys are Legos, there are the errant Nerf guns and bullets, Bakugans, Plants and Zombies cards, and various other small items that have wandered in and started squatting without a good place to live as well.

IKEA to the rescue. We've tried to leave IKEA behind, but it calls us back with the promise of inexpensive storage solutions with funny names. Thankfully, Ethan actually enjoys assembling IKEA furniture, so we bought the toy unit under his bed and a long box that's peeking in the left of the picture - the first to hold the Legos, the latter to hold everything else.

I wonder how long it will look like this?

Psalm 16

Last week, Ethan asked me why God made us come back to China only to have his best friend leave so soon. I didn't answer the question then, but this morning as I walked around our complex, I heard a song based on Psalm 16 and thought it was time to take a stab at a response (the song is by Jason Gray-formerly Gay but changed his name for obvious reasons-and if you are unfamiliar with his music you're missing out).

Here is the part I shared with them:
"Keep me safe, O God,
for in you I take refuge.

I said to the LORD, "You are my Lord;
apart from you I have no good thing."

LORD, you have assigned me my portion and my cup;
you have made my lot secure.

The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places;
surely I have a delightful inheritance.

Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices;
my body also will rest secure"

We talked about what it means to have an assignment, to have a portion that is measured out just for you. We talked about the boundaries around a property and how they keep us safe and show us where we are supposed to be. And we talked about how all these things are from the hands of a good God who loves us and wants the best for us.

And then we talked about how this assignment from God might work out for our good. Soon, we will be moving to a part of town where there are many people we know and love. Erik will be a 5 minute walk from work (I mean literally from his desk to our door!). We will have more time as a family and more connection with our team. And that is only what we know - who knows what else God has in store?

We reflected on how this has been a good chapter of our lives, given to us by God. We talked about previous chapters that weren't as great, but we can see how God brought us through. And we ended by confirming our belief that whatever is in the next stage, God is there.

Red Plate Day

We got one of those red "You're Special" plates for our wedding. We didn't realize how, if I can say it, "special" it was at the time. So it wasn't one of the things that made the cut into the 5 bags we brought when we moved to Asia in 1999.

Too bad, because today was a Red Plate Day. Why? Well, for a reason I'm guessing most of you (unless you live on this side of the world) would never have. Ethan came to me after language class today and said, "Mom, I just pooped in the squattie for the first time!"

For those of you unfamiliar, a squattie is what we call the hole in the ground version of toilets popular here. I hate them myself. I'm pretty sure I'm using them wrong, but I'm not going to into details. I love when I go to a public restroom and there is one sitting toilet, because there's always a line for the squatties but they kindly leave the sitting one for us foreigners. I think they probably whisper about me while I'm using it, wondering why I would want to squat 2 feet off the ground.

But back to Ethan. He continued with, "I thought, 'Uh . . . I'm not sure how this is going to work' but then I just did it." He was really proud. He wanted to be the one to tell Erik later. Now if only I could get Megan to use them at all . . .

Oh, and mom and dad, I'm guessing that plate's in your basement. Next summer. I promise. That and everything else. Ok, most of it.

And a few more . . .

Megan decided to get down on the floor to do Wii Fit with me yesterday. As she did she commented, "Ok, let's get this DONE!"

Today as she sat on my lap, she grabbed my sweater and said, "This is a mammal! It has fur!" Don't worry, it's not that our science curriculum is lacking. She just knows how to say something that will crack me up.

Kid quotes

The kids have been shooting out the classic quotes lately. Or at least I think so. Overhead at the Butz house recently:

Ethan, "Let's hope the Korean falls, perhaps." This said as we watched an American compete against a Korean in the 1,000 meter speed skating heat.

Megan, "I'm all milky!" after consuming a little box of chocolate milk in one go.

Ethan, "Mom, I think I've outgrown coloring." Ok, good to know.

Megan, "Mom, what's the key to life?" I think she got this from a movie. I hopefully supplied her with a better answer than the one the cartoon animals gave her.

Things I never thought I'd have to say

They don't warn you, when you become a parent, that you will hear sentences coming out of your mouth that were previously inconceivable to you. Ethan usually is the one who generates these phrases from me, as he is the more physically creative of the two (do you like how I put a positive spin on that?). Over the years I've been led to say things like, "Honey, it's not a good idea to free fall off your lofted bed onto the floor, even if there is a mattress there", "Great drawing, sweetie, but you can't swing your sister from your bed by a rope" (see drawing from December 21, 2004), and "Can you please stop trying to launch mini-muffins with your catapult." After awhile it becomes quite normal to say these things.

So yesterday I added to the list when the kids were eating snacks, and I was compelled to say, "Ethan, please don't try to shoot gummies into Megan's mouth with your sling shot." While I appreciate the fact that he's enjoying this simple toy, and learning to use it well, they were at seriously close range. How do you explain a slingshot/gummie induced wound?

Let it snow!

We have lived in Asia for 10 years and 3 months. Up until two weeks ago, here is all the snow we have seen outside of Minnesota:

The Great Snowfall of November 2002 (Ethan trying to enjoy the snow before it gets swept away by ambitious sweepers)

The Great Snowfall of November 2003 (Megan not really enjoying the snow, but smiling briefly for the camera).
I think one other time there was a light dusting. But here we are in the middle of our third snowfall in two weeks. The first time was several inches. The second time was six! This time, it's still too early to say.

Thankfully, co-op is canceled today so we can just enjoy the snow. It's one of those days when I love the part of town we live in because the park across the street is a beautiful winter wonderland, and the courtyard is a giant playground for the kids. There is an army of snowmen out in the courtyard. They've even built up a big enough pile to make a tunnel! This morning they were playing hide and seek by following each others' tracks. Ethan was clever and walked backwards to confuse his friends. They were so busy they didn't come in for lunch until 12:30, and now they're back out again. Let it snow!

This is the picture you get when you tell the kids to say "snow!"

Kung Fu

Ever since watching Kung Fu Panda, Megan has begged to learn kung fu. I seriously doubted that it might happen, but a few weeks ago one of the other co-op moms decided to organize a homeschool kung fu class. We had our first class today, and it rocked to the power of awesome. Their "master" has been learning since he was eight years old. He trained for twelve years in a martial arts school, traveled around the world doing kung fu (I'm not really sure what that means - he competed? He taught? He just stood on street corners doing kung fu?), came back and got his degree from the sports university, and is now working on his master's. Add to that the fact that his English is great, he was encouraging and patient with the kids, and made it fun for them, and you've got Shi Fu from Kung Fu Panda SO beat.

He told them that they are going to learn all the animals from Kung Fu Panda, so today they started with crane. He walked them through it step by step, and by the end even the littler kids were pulling decent crane kicks. I'm not sure which one they'll learn next week, but as we were walking to the car and I asked Megan how she liked it, she said, "Good, but I'm looking forward to him teaching us back flips." Yeah, I don't know if that's going to be part of the curriculum, but who knows? Watch out world - we're going to have trained warriors on our hands here.

I don't know what that means

The kids are working on short presentations for a little homeschool gathering we're having on Friday. Megan wrote about Sacagawea. Ethan chose hippos.

Yesterday, after Ethan finished typing his, he asked me if Megan had written hers by hand. When I said yes, he said, "Hmm . . . I prefer to use labor saving devices."

Later, he told me, "I don't really know what that means."

Surprising then that he used it in the right context!

So Much for Child Proof

When I discovered that Ethan had helped himself to his gummy bear echinacea, I questioned how he could possibly have opened the "child proof" bottle.

"I read the instructions."

Ah, yes. We're in that place now.

Random quotes from the car

Our car has been a place where we've had some fun conversations with the kids (it's one of the main reasons I'm glad we sacrificed their college education to buy one here). Here are a few quotes from the car recently:

Megan, "These are good, they're GREAT, they're AMAZING!!!!" In reference to her first taste EVER of Nilla Wafers. They were on sale at Cold Storage for $4.10, making them what - only twice what they are in the States?

Megan, "I LOVE Chinese New Year!!" after receiving about $40 worth of money in red packets.

Megan, "I know. You could put some in one bowl, some in another, mix the chips in one of the bowls and TA DA!!" explaining how I could make brownies without having the peanut butter and milk chocolate chips (which were also on sale for only twice their worth) mixed in all of it so she could have one brownie without them. She really didn't want them in her brownie.

and my personal favorite, "No one is buying my hot dogs." (from a dejected Ethan). I think I'll let you try and figure out what that was about.

Bullfrogs and Butterflies

In an effort to make room for the board games which have been accumulating in this house (have you played Pandemic? Ticket to Ride? if not, you might not be having as much fun as you could be), Ethan and I rearranged some storage spaces in the living room. Namely, we moved the record collection to a less accessible place after confirming that my parents don't spend their evenings listening to them. In the process, I was surprised, delighted, amused and nostalgic as evidenced by the exclamations I made:

"Wow! Look at all this classical music! We need this for our music time in homeschool!"
"Hey - Peter and the Wolf! I wanted this one!"
"Aw, Kenny Rogers."
"Is that Pat Boone? Oh, no, it's Richard Chamberlain. Huh - he was good looking."
"Look! John Schneider!"
"The Oak Ridge Boys Christmas!"
"A signed copy of Petra?"
"Hey - Michael W. Smith with a beard."
"Gamble family!" (and I launched into a little tune from it)
"Carman. Gotta love Carman."

But the best of all was finding the collection of records we had as kids which includes: Bullfrogs and Butterflies, Music Machine, Learning America The Fun Way, Nathaniel the Grublet, Sir Oliver's Song, and All Time Children's Hits.

The kids are currently listening to a scratchy session of Learning American the Fun Way since that's what we've been studying in homeschool. The children on the record are currently screaming, "Indians! Indians! What do we do?!?" We'll have a little talk later about political correctness.

The best part was when Ethan pulled the first record out, looked at and said, "Megan! Check out the size of this disk!"

The Magic Kingdom

My first trip to Disney World was when I was six, so it seems fitting that Megan's first trip would be at the same age. I think six and up is the perfect time to take kids to Disney. Our kids were wired with excitement as we parked, took the tram to the "transportation center," hopped on the monorail, and entered the Magic Kingdom.

We thought it might be better to hop on the train to the back side of Disney and make our way forward to avoid crowds. Turns out the train's pretty slow, so I don't think we beat anyone, but it was a fun ride nonetheless. The first ride we hit was Goofy's Barnstormer, which is a mini-roller coaster. Ethan and I went together with Megan, Nonna and Erik soon to follow. Ethan laughed the whole way, and we had barely slowed down when he exclaimed, "Let's do it again!" I think he might have been happy just staying there the whole day. But we moved on.

I have some strong memories from my first trip which kept cropping up as we moved through the park - the Mad Tea Hatter's Ride which, as it turns out, is more fun when you're six; Snow White's Scary Adventures, which we avoided after we scared the pants off Megan in the Haunted Mansion; Pirates of the Carribean, where you can tell which animatronic people were created more recently than 1980; and the Jungle Boat Cruise, which was on a much larger river when I was 4 feet tall. Or so I remember. It was fun to relive my own memories while watching the kids make their own. And thank God for fast passes, though this time of year isn't a busy time at Disney. We hardly had any wait time for any rides.

The only part of the day I really didn't enjoy was Space Mountain. I know - it's one of the best rides, and it was Megan's favorite. But having my petite six year old, who barely made the height requirement, be flung back and forth in her seat in front of me in almost total darkness terrified me. Especially since by that point of the day she was all into the "raise your arms like this, it's more fun!" kind of coaster riding. I reached as far around the seat as I could and clung to the hood of her sweatshirt, like that would help if she launched from the car. I know, irrational of me, but I couldn't help it.

What surprised me about Disney was the amount of crying I observed. There's no crying at Disney World! C'mon - it's a magical place where dreams come true! Can I offer an explanation and perhaps a warning? The children who were crying were the little ones - the ones who were scared of the rides and the giant characters, tired from missing naps, and from being dragged around a huge amusement park. They're just too young. Save your money. They won't remember it anyway. Unless you know that your kids are troopers who love new experiences, take them to the county fair until they're old enough to appreciate it.

Wait until they're five or six, then have a great day with them, like we did.

Taking Care of Miles

We had the opportunity last night to watch our friends Jamie and Jason's new son Miles, while they went away for the night. Miles was adopted when he was just a day old, and he's coming up on two months now. It was a fun way to see how our kids reacted to having a baby in the house. Here's the gist of it: for Megan, he was "Someone willing to receive all my extra love, hugs and kisses! I want a baby brother!!!" For Ethan, he was, "Someone who has brought a whole new set of things for me to worry about! When is he leaving?!?"

From the minute we picked him up it was obvious:
Megan wanted to sit next to him.
Ethan didn't want her to touch him.
Megan wanted to comfort him when he didn't enjoy the car ride.
Ethan wanted us to be done with the car ride because he was very concerned that Miles was whimpering.
Megan wanted to hold him immediately.
Ethan wanted to know why he was fussing.
Megan wanted to kiss him and feed him.
Ethan wanted to know if he was going to be woken up during the night.
Megan wanted to hold him even though he was crying.
Ethan really wanted mommy to hold him so he might stop crying.
Megan wanted to put the pacifier in his mouth.
Ethan wanted Megan to STOP trying to put the pacifier in his mouth.

And on it went.

You could get the idea that Ethan is a bit cold hearted, but he just has a high value on order and is quite protective. He was genuinely concerned that Megan might do some damage to Miles with all her touching and finagling. He also has been having a hard time sleeping lately, so he was worried about his night. Thankfully Miles didn't cry at all at night - I had to wake him to feed him (he's been having this reflux issue) and when I did he woke right up and gave me a smile like, "Hey lady. What's up? Milk? Yeah, sure, I'm cool with that."

The kids are at a movie with Erik right now and I'm about to take Miles to his next home stay - kind of like a progressive dinner, but with a baby. Hopefully Megan won't be too disappointed that he's gone when she gets home. I think Ethan will be relieved.

Conversation in the car

Megan, "Ethan, are you going to buy the Millililum Falcon?"

Ethan, "It's not Millililum Megan, it's Millininum!"

Megan, "Millinilum?"

Ethan, "No, MillININUM!"

Me, "Ethan, do you mean the Millennium Falcon?"

Silence. Followed by several minutes of trying to get the kids to say it right.

AWANAS

Did you go to AWANAS as a kid? I did, at the Baptist church across town. I don't have many memories of it, so I guess I must not have participated long. My brother did though, and I'm told he memorized ridiculous amounts of scripture.

Our kids have finally joined this year and they are HUGE fans. I suspect this is primarily because they get AWANA shares which are like money, which they can use to buy things at the AWANA store (although since they are both hoarders, they haven't spent any of it yet. They're gunning for the big ticket items).

Megan seems to have a knack for memorizing, so she's already onto her fourth "jewel." Ethan's book is a bit harder, so more is required of him at each level, but he's still plugging away and doesn't seem to mind that Megan's got twice as many shares as he does.

I'm doing my part as an AWANA volunteer which means I get to listen to the older red team boys and girls recite their verses. It's actually been really fun, since I get the same kids every week and I can encourage and celebrate their progress with them. What cracks me up is that I often have difficulty understanding their Singaporean accents (about half are Singaporean, half "others") so sometimes I'm not sure they said their verses right but I don't have the heart to tell them that. And sometimes they forget the verse entirely and stand there shooting out random Biblical words, "Jesus . . . Father . . . . prayer. . . " like if they keep doing this eventually the words will join together into coherent sentences.

Today was Biblical character day so Ethan went dressed as Moses and Megan went as Deborah. Megan got third place out of the younger kids (I think because she was one of the only girls who didn't choose to dress as Mary or Esther) so she scored 10 shares.

The best part is that they still give the kids those goofy little red vests that we wore. Some things never change.