Moving On...
We moved out of our home on Friday. The kids and I took a walk in the rain around the neighborhood one last time. I took a photo of my favorite house, as seen here. Then we walked to the park, where I took some pictures of the kids by the toys. We enjoyed the walk, but because of the rain, and because even in the rain the mosquitoes were out, we didn’t stay in the park for too long.
Afterwards we returned to the house and packed up our car and headed out. The kids were pretty hungry and stressed so the ride was long. As we left I stopped in front of our home so we could say good-bye. We were al pretty emotional and many tears were shed. Even now I get teary-eyed just thinking about it. We came over to the mission home, and had some lunch before turning on the TV for 5 hours, which was a great numbing tool for the kids. I on the other hand was exhausted and yet had to make sure that Judy was able to tell me all that I needed to know about the house. As soon as Jon and Judy headed out I started the laundry! I finished washing around 2am, not that I needed to do it all that night, but certain clothes needed to be washed before the next morning, and I had to wait to get them in after getting off of certain people!
Needless to say I was pretty exhausted the next day, and being the day I promised Erin I’d help her pack, I wasn’t looking forward to all the physical labor. Fortunately she called and said that she was just going to come over to the mission house and hang out with us. Later she and I went out to Norte Supermarket and met up with Terry, so the 3 of us went shopping together! We were all pretty exhausted and emotionally drained, yet it was nice to be together. It will be very difficult saying good bye to the 2 of them.
Last night we watched Hook with the kids – more emotional than I had remembered it, and most of us cried at one point. But the kids liked it enough to watch it again today, so I guess it wasn’t that bad.
Last night was the first time in a couple of nights that Emily slept through the night without any difficulties. Lately she’s been having problems sleeping, waking up in terror. Friday night she woke up to go to the bathroom (when I was up waiting for the laundry), and she was walking around when I found her, so I took her to the bathroom, and then later laid her down with Bryon as she needed to be with someone at that point. Bryon says that she kept waking up during the night, covering her ears and saying “Make the voices stop!” He prayed over her, as we had done on the previous nights, and she eventually calmed down. Last night she didn’t wake up during the night as far as we know, so we assume she had a good night’s sleep. Could you please pray with us that she will not be tormented anymore by demonic attacks? She needs to be lifted up in prayer.
Both girls have developed nervous habits, and we ask for prayer for this as well. Eli has finally stopped, after 6 years, ripping her fingernails off. Instead she is now blowing her fingers, and it is almost continuous. Even when she talks, she pauses to blow on her fingers. Emily plays with her fingers and toes, rubbing them together, touching her fingers together in a certain pattern. She is very upset about the habit and wants to stop but recognizes that she can’t stop. I realize that this is a stressing time for both of them and am not trying to break them of the habits, only that when Eli’s blowing drives me nuts, I ask her to stop, but she can’t and that makes her even more nervous. Andres has started sucking his fingers again, carrying his blanket around with him constantly, but he will take them out when I tell him to, and will leave his ‘bati’ in the bedroom when we tell him to as well.
I don’t know if it’s our stress levels that affect the kids so much, or if this is just so overwhelming for them. And I’m sick and tired of hearing people say that children adjust well and rapidly to change, as if it doesn’t affect them at all. For over a month now my girls have had these compulsive habits and we have another 2 ½ weeks before we are in the US, then it’ll take several weeks, if not more, to adjust to life there. Then also we need to include the adjustment when school starts. Hopefully by Christmas they’ll be adjusted. I always noticed that it took 8 months for the kids to adjust to school once the school year started; so by the middle of April next year, they will have fully adjusted. That’s only a year minus two weeks from now…yikes!!!
I figured out our suitcase situation. We’re allowed 20kg. with Argentine Airlines, 32kg. with Copa, so we’re packing our suitcases at 32kg. and paying the extra with Argentine Airlines. That way we can take more and won’t have to have people ship it to us when they can take suitcases to the US for us. Still, there’s about 3 suitcases worth of stuff that people will take for us, and we’ll just have them USPS it to us. Silvana will take stuff for us, and Bryon will be in Ohio in July for his niece’s wedding and can pick it up then. Now that I figured out all that, I can fill our suitcases more and be done with it all. Actually I spent time each day doing the repacking and now just need a scale to determine that each suitcase is 32kg. or under. Hopefully I'll be finished soon, because I really hate packing!
Afterwards we returned to the house and packed up our car and headed out. The kids were pretty hungry and stressed so the ride was long. As we left I stopped in front of our home so we could say good-bye. We were al pretty emotional and many tears were shed. Even now I get teary-eyed just thinking about it. We came over to the mission home, and had some lunch before turning on the TV for 5 hours, which was a great numbing tool for the kids. I on the other hand was exhausted and yet had to make sure that Judy was able to tell me all that I needed to know about the house. As soon as Jon and Judy headed out I started the laundry! I finished washing around 2am, not that I needed to do it all that night, but certain clothes needed to be washed before the next morning, and I had to wait to get them in after getting off of certain people!
Needless to say I was pretty exhausted the next day, and being the day I promised Erin I’d help her pack, I wasn’t looking forward to all the physical labor. Fortunately she called and said that she was just going to come over to the mission house and hang out with us. Later she and I went out to Norte Supermarket and met up with Terry, so the 3 of us went shopping together! We were all pretty exhausted and emotionally drained, yet it was nice to be together. It will be very difficult saying good bye to the 2 of them.
Last night we watched Hook with the kids – more emotional than I had remembered it, and most of us cried at one point. But the kids liked it enough to watch it again today, so I guess it wasn’t that bad.
Last night was the first time in a couple of nights that Emily slept through the night without any difficulties. Lately she’s been having problems sleeping, waking up in terror. Friday night she woke up to go to the bathroom (when I was up waiting for the laundry), and she was walking around when I found her, so I took her to the bathroom, and then later laid her down with Bryon as she needed to be with someone at that point. Bryon says that she kept waking up during the night, covering her ears and saying “Make the voices stop!” He prayed over her, as we had done on the previous nights, and she eventually calmed down. Last night she didn’t wake up during the night as far as we know, so we assume she had a good night’s sleep. Could you please pray with us that she will not be tormented anymore by demonic attacks? She needs to be lifted up in prayer.
Both girls have developed nervous habits, and we ask for prayer for this as well. Eli has finally stopped, after 6 years, ripping her fingernails off. Instead she is now blowing her fingers, and it is almost continuous. Even when she talks, she pauses to blow on her fingers. Emily plays with her fingers and toes, rubbing them together, touching her fingers together in a certain pattern. She is very upset about the habit and wants to stop but recognizes that she can’t stop. I realize that this is a stressing time for both of them and am not trying to break them of the habits, only that when Eli’s blowing drives me nuts, I ask her to stop, but she can’t and that makes her even more nervous. Andres has started sucking his fingers again, carrying his blanket around with him constantly, but he will take them out when I tell him to, and will leave his ‘bati’ in the bedroom when we tell him to as well.
I don’t know if it’s our stress levels that affect the kids so much, or if this is just so overwhelming for them. And I’m sick and tired of hearing people say that children adjust well and rapidly to change, as if it doesn’t affect them at all. For over a month now my girls have had these compulsive habits and we have another 2 ½ weeks before we are in the US, then it’ll take several weeks, if not more, to adjust to life there. Then also we need to include the adjustment when school starts. Hopefully by Christmas they’ll be adjusted. I always noticed that it took 8 months for the kids to adjust to school once the school year started; so by the middle of April next year, they will have fully adjusted. That’s only a year minus two weeks from now…yikes!!!
I figured out our suitcase situation. We’re allowed 20kg. with Argentine Airlines, 32kg. with Copa, so we’re packing our suitcases at 32kg. and paying the extra with Argentine Airlines. That way we can take more and won’t have to have people ship it to us when they can take suitcases to the US for us. Still, there’s about 3 suitcases worth of stuff that people will take for us, and we’ll just have them USPS it to us. Silvana will take stuff for us, and Bryon will be in Ohio in July for his niece’s wedding and can pick it up then. Now that I figured out all that, I can fill our suitcases more and be done with it all. Actually I spent time each day doing the repacking and now just need a scale to determine that each suitcase is 32kg. or under. Hopefully I'll be finished soon, because I really hate packing!
posted by Christine Butler @ 7:51 PM
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