One month down, 6 to go..My time so far

I have only been here a month, but this month has done a lot to change my perspective of almost everything. I never realized how much work goes into being a parent all hours everyday. Babysitting is not too hard and at the end you go home and leave the children with their parents, but living here really is a full time job and has been the best experience of my life.

With no one really that I know, I have been forced way outside of my comfort zone. I am living with complete strangers, looking after their children. If I didn’t know about responsibility before, it is the only thing I know now. I have people that depend on me. I HAVE to get up every morning no matter what I feel like or how late I stayed up the night before reading or chatting. And no matter how tired I am, I have to drink lots of tea so I can wake up and be pleasant and cheerful or the day will be crummy. If the boys see me in a good mood, they are more likely to be in a good mood, but if they see me at all in a bad mood, it gives them permission to be nasty as well.

Patience is a virtue. I never really had much patience, but being in charge of a 5 and 6 year old require it full time. Everything takes more time to complete and even though I know that I could have everything done in less than half the time it takes them, I have to be patient and help the boys. Theo has just begun to read and it is fun to sit with him and watch him form the sounds and then put them together and read to me. Henry is a bit more advanced and constantly pushes himself to read better but gets mixed up on words a lot. I have learned that it is ok to mess up and just take my time with things. It is much more rewarding to sit there and take the time to help the boys figure out how things work than to do it for them just to complete the task.

One thing I have never been very good about is being independent. I have always been surrounded by people, whether it was all my brothers and sisters or all the neighbor kids growing up, or all the sports teams or all my friends, I have very rarely been on my own before. Even at college I live with over 100 girls and you have to work hard to be by yourself. And if I am not at Chi Omega, then I was usually with Grant. Living here I am by myself a lot which at first was the hardest and scariest part (even worse than driving!) because all of the sudden I had all this time by myself and I didn’t know what to do. I have done a lot of reading on anything I can get my hands on as well as my Bible which has been amazing to have so much time to do. I really enjoy walking around the nearby towns by myself and just taking everything in. It is also nice to explore London by myself without the issue of making sure everyone in a group gets to see everything they want. I just have myself to wander around and think about my life. At times I do wish that I had people here to explore with me, like my mom who was born in this country or any of my family or Grant. It is hard to see such amazing and beautiful places and sights and not have someone to share the moment with.

While it has been the biggest thing I have ever done in my life and something that I love, it has also been so hard to deal with the homesickness. I really don’t get homesick but Bloomington is just over an hour away from home so that helped a lot. Being here I miss having the luxury of familiar faces. I do have my family here, but it is so hard to go every day knowing that I will not see my mom or my dad or my brother or sisters (not that I saw them anyways!) or Grant or my friends. I’m not going to run into anyone I haven’t seen for ages at the store or go out with them on a Wednesday at Champps. I can’t go over to Kellie’s house with all the girls or have facebook sessions with Sara or lunch with Kara or Broad Ripple with Hallie, Mandy, Katie and Jenn. It is so weird to think about how much I took for granted living with everyone for simple things like a familiar face. I really do miss that a lot. It is nice that my dad will be here this week and then Grant comes in a month and a half and then mom will come for my birthday in November. It is nice that I have gotten to spend time with Nicole and Christy will be here so soon, and I will also see Kate. But I really do miss everyone.

I have also had to go out of my way to make friends which I have never had to do before. Ever since I was small, I was always surrounded by friends. From cousins (and the Lux’s) to neighbors (especially the Whites), I had it all. At preschool I made friends easily and had a lot of play dates and then the same with grade school. I had Kaitlin and Kate and the three of us kept adding to our group and after a few years we were solid with Colleen, Heather, Lauren and Sarabeth. We all played every sport imaginable and that is the easiest way to make friends like Lindsey Love and Annie and everyone! And then in college I joined Chi Omega and have some of the most amazing pledge sisters in the world that I know are friendships that will last me my whole life because those are girls I would do anything for. I even have dreams about Chi O while I have been here (especially about silly things like being late for rush!). But I am not trying to say that I’m so cool or anything, just that I have been so blessed with the love and friendships that I have in my life. It is exciting to meet new people but hard! I found that if you smile a lot and try not to be too awkward people like you J

One thing I love about living with this family is the way I interact with the boys. Sometimes it is unbelievably hard because they can be so cruel, but the times they are sweet make it all worth it. I love the way they melt into my body to give me cuddles or the way they study my face with such seriousness as I tell a story or explain something. That look with the slightly cocked head, wide eyes that you can tell are deep in thought and half open mouth and they take you in with such a serious expression gets me every time. Especially because usually they still have dirt in their hair which is a mess and the reddest, rosiest cheeks and are usually playing with their hands unconsciously but fully hanging on to every word I say. Watching them watch movies is hilarious. They do not watch much TV so whenever it is on, its like being in a trance and you cannot tear them away. It is so funny to see the emotion on their face as they watch shows or films because they get so into the characters and half the time I watch them instead of whatever is on. I love how at bed time most nights when I put them to bed, we read a story in bed with one boy curled up in the crook of my arm on each side. As the story winds down, I can sense them beginning to get drowsy as their bodies recognize that it is bed time. After we get settled into each bed, it is time for a lullaby where we either sing “Daisy” or “Sunshine”. The words to “Daisy” are:

Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer do. I’m half crazy over the love of you. It won’t be a stylish marriage, I can’t afford a carriage. But you’ll look sweet, upon the seat, of a bicycle made for two.

“Sunshine” goes ‘You are my sunshine, my only sunshine. You make me happy, when skies are grey. You never know dear, how much I love you. Please don’t take my sunshine away.”

I used to sing Sunshine with my mom so singing it with them always makes me tear up because I miss my family so much.

I love the way the boys reach their arms up for a big hug, or walk up next to me and quietly slip their hand inside of mine while we walk. The feeling I get when they pick me flowers and call me their ‘precious darling’.

It is very amusing to listen to Henry and Theo explain things like love and God and everything else to me. One of Theo’s favorite things to do is make statements beginning with ‘wouldn’t it be funny’ or ‘wouldn’t it be dangerous’ and you know that something hilarious and totally random is going to come out of him mouth. “Wouldn’t it be funny if a car went on a plane and they were flying over the ocean and then penguins jumped out and went surfing on the back of sharks?” haha most of the time I just don’t even know how to answer this so I just crack up.

Of course there are times when I want to pull my hair out, when the boys are moody or look at me and tell me they hate me because they have to go to bed are times that are hard to deal with. Every time I get a mean look or a mean word it breaks my heart and pains me to think of how many times I said the same to my parents and how I know that in their hearts they know what I was thinking but the fact that I said it is something I can never take back and that is a very bad feeling. Of course I will always have arguments with them, but parents are the two people in this world who love you no matter what. You are a part of them; half of you is from your dad, and half from mom and no matter how you look at it, its not going to change. I know I am a long time away from being a mom myself, but this is definitely a close job. But until then, it is showing me how to be a better daughter and when I get home I hope I can show that.

Well there it is so far. Most of my blogs are about the details of my life here and my adventures, but this is the other part of living here-my emotions and what it is like to basically just decide to make a life change and then go for it. I know it is a lot of reading but I just wanted to put down my thoughts and feelings so far.

I hope everyone had a great weekend and please email me with anything I should do while I am here! I am open to suggestions!

Cheers

XX