Making Home

It’s sinking in now, that this is home. Aaron is here at last, and now we go about having this baby and making a home here, along with all the work we need to be doing.

It’s not really home yet though. Not like you might imagine. It’s a house shared with another large family and their often stopping in extended family as well. It’s a very big comfortable house, with lots of room, so it’s not as crowded as that sounds. It is kind of chaotic though at times.

They are so gracious, and kind and welcoming. They have made space for us in their space, and allowed for us to be bumping up against their routines and we are so blessed to have this time to find our way through this strange country, and this strange time in such a welcoming and safe place. There are children everywhere and my kids think it’s awesome to have so many playmates so near at hand.

I have been alone with my kids in our little house for 2 years. The presence of other people presses against me. Almost like a physical sensation. I even felt it when Aaron would come home from the road, his presence like a slight pressure at the back of my neck.

The people who come and go, they press at my back, like a weight I am bearing up somehow. It makes no sense probably, except to introverts.

There were so many people here, for so long, that when briefly everyone left for a week or so I felt like my shoulders just dropped themselves down several inches, and I took a deep breath and looked around at just us, just my family together, and realized, “This is going to be so easy once we’re on our own again.”

It was so quiet.

This house is so big I have to yell all the time to keep my kids corralled. There are so many places they can wander to, usually before they have finished school or chores of course, and I am constantly calling them back. That may be one reason it was such a relief to have just us here. They had fewer reasons or distractions to run off to. And they could hear me more easily when I called.

We went to visit Pai the other day, where we think we are going to choose to live for the next few years here. Rachel and her kids greeted us with open arms, after the 3 hour curvy ride that took us there. Rae and I have lived together before. She’s one of those people I lived so closely with that for a long time I felt incomplete without her around. So it was different there, even with 9 children bumping around each other the whole time. It was lovely to be with her, and lovely to watch our kids learn how to be friends with each other. The nights are considerably cooler also, which I thoroughly enjoyed.

Rae gave me the most comfortable sleep I have had since getting to Thailand.

The boys hanging out in the kitchen.

breakfast

My shoulders dropped right down again to where they belong. I’m excited to find a house and to finally move into our own space again, even though the kids will probably find it a mournful event as they say goodbye to so many new friends, and their cousins.

We got home 2 nights before Aaron’s arrival. Which we were very excited for, and the kids made plans for celebrating his birthday as soon as he got off the plane, since he was flying on his birthday. He made it through the whole day, the party, the swimming pool, the walk back from the cake shop. And then he slept like a dead man, for a very long time.

In the 4 days since we got back, one child here, Aaron’s nephew, fell out of bed and had to be rushed to the hospital for 9 stitches. One of the trucks broke down. The power has gone out 3 times. Bam Bam decided to try and follow some of the other kids on a walk and got almost to the main gate to this neighborhood before he was found, while I was out getting groceries. Little tried to carry a giant wok full of steaming hot curry to the table all by herself, dropped it halfway there, and burned her foot. We continue to battle with the staph infection that BamBam got from a bug bite and is all over his neck, and face, and bottom. Plus it’s a pretty full house.

I leave it to you to guess the state of my shoulders today.