Back Tracking....

I have not been keeping up with my "blog/journal". If I analize the reason, I would have to say that the "six month slump" set in for me and I just didn't feel like doing anything, especially writing about my misery. I am feeling better now and I suppose I am over the "slump" and able to look back and feel okay about the past few months. There have been positive things and my life here is not terrible. Just different and I continue to feel a bit over whelmed dealing with all of the changes and differences.

I seemed to be doing pretty well until about October and I think I just crashed. The reality of living so far from my family and dear friends suddenly felt so daunting. I knew that as the mother, I had to hide my feelings and just push on. In an effort to do this, we let the girls have a "fall party". They were each allowed to invite a couple of new friends from school along with their parents and we invited our neighbors that we were trying to get to know. The party was a great success and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. It was a temporary boost to my dole-drums.

In November it seemed that the children were constantly sick! Especially Isabella who was already struggling with going to school in a foreign language. Elena and Isabella seemed to take the brunt of sickness having sore throats, stomach viruses and colds. One would get well and then the next one would drop. And I too was on a roller coaster of nausea!

Thanksgiving while living in a foreign country was much more difficult than I had anticipated it to be. Guess I was wearing "rose colored glasses" whenever I thought about our American holidays in a foreign country. I naively thought that it would not matter as long as we celebrated at our home with our little family. WRONG! It just feels so weird to be so far away where no one else is recognizing what is a BIG important holiday to us. For the first time in my entire life my husband and my children had to go to work and school! It was so strange to send them off on our holiday. We decided to have our own Thanksgiving celebration on Friday evening after everyone came home from work and school. I stayed home from my women's Bible study and cooked by myself all day while they were gone. I don't even cook on regular days if I can help it and now I was fixing an entire Thanksgiving dinner ALONE! The good news in all of this is that I proved I can do it. We also invited our Puerto Rican friend to join us for the evening and everything was very nice. I know that Nilsa enjoyed being with a family and her company made it feel more like a holiday for us too. I also learned from that experience that the key to living here and making our family happy is to try to continue on with our traditions as much as possible, even if we have to make some adjustments to do so.

December thank goodness my wonderful husband had the wisdom and fore sight to realize that we would desperately want to go home for Christmas! We had made plans and booked our tickets back in the summer, at the time, I was not "homesick" and wasn't even sure if it was necessary to go home so soon. Was I ever wrong about that. I found myself counting down the days until we would leave and go home to America and our family and friends. Isabella and I flew first with Stig and the other girls following two days later. I felt such relief when I saw my sister and my nephew at the airport that first night. I was home.

We spent a total of three weeks in Indiana for the Christmas holiday and New Years. As expected the time just flew by! We celebrated Christmas about six times! Adriana was Baptized at our home church, Indian Creek Christian Church. What a wonderful day. I was so emotional though. I burst into tears when I saw Ciarra and Katie walking down the steps at church to greet us. It seemed that my emotions were just raw from being away for so long. Adriana's baptism was so wonderful and she was glowing. Following her baptism we had a party for her at Blu Falls. Uncle Clark baked Adriana a special birthday cake that looked like a horse and it was fabulous, again she was glowing and so excited to have her friends there to celebrate.

As our time was coming to an end, we all started feeling very sad about going back to Belgium. I was dreading the trip home alone with the three girls by myself. Isabella told Tia Erin that she wanted to stay and live with her forever so she didn't have to go back to Belgium. Adriana even started saying she wanted to live in Indiana again and be with her friends. Elena, well she was probably the most distraught. The one and only friend she had made in Belgium (Sabrina) had moved to Kenya over the Christmas break. Elena knew that she was going back to school with no friends and starting all over again. At twelve this is getting much more difficult than it was at 5 and 9. Girls are different by age twelve, they don't "play" unless they know it is "accepted" and they don't really know what to talk about either. Do they discuss "little" girl things, or move on to more grown up topics like boys and celebrities. None of which Elena has any interest in at this time.

We returned to Belgium January 5 without incident. No weeping or gnashing of teeth. Well at least the children didn't weep. My mom and dad came over to spend the day with us the day before we left. As my mom was handing my baby nephew to me before she left I broke into tears. I had to leave the room, I didn't want to cry and get upset, I had to leave and nip it. As we were leaving for the hotel that night, Elena started to get upset, I refused to allow it. My sister said, "you know, you are allowed to have feelings". I understand what she meant and why she said it, but I also know Elena and once she gets going there is no stopping her. If she started crying then she would have been a basket case. I could not travel alone with three children overseas with the oldest one a basket case. I started praying for her and she was able to gain control and we made it with no tears.

Once we were back in Belgium, things felt fine and normal again. We missed everyone, but at the same time it felt good to be back in our home again. School started and Adriana was 100% fine and happy to be back with her new friends. Elena was happy about school even though she didn't have Sabrina. Thank the Lord some girls asked her to have lunch with them and were very sweet when they heard about Sabrina moving. I talked with Elena's teacher and decided that a birthday party inviting all of the girls from her class would be a good start to making new friends. That is just what we did and it was successful. (I will blog about that later.) As for Isabella, I decided that she needed to stay home with mommy. No more "school/daycare" in a foreign language. I am a stay-at-home mommy after all! She is not required to go to school until she is 6, so she will go to the same school as the big girls next fall as she is turning 6 and she will go to kindergarten at that time. This has been a good decision as far as I am concerned. She has not had any more "tummy aches" or nightmares since we stopped taking her to the french school. Everyone's child is different, some can handle it and some just don't do as well, as Isabella's mommy, I feel it was not necessary to push her and make her "handle" it.

Now we are all just getting back into life here in Belgium.