Last week of orientation

As we kick off the last week of orientation, I am terribly sick. We even had to miss church in the morning, which we almost never do. But Danny faithfully made me chicken soup. The kids are busy today building forts out of armchairs and bedding, and dancing to A-teens. I'll be ok. Note to self for our next Oakwood stay:

- Bring plastic cups. Toby's pace of glassware destruction is unacceptable.

- Bring a step stool. The kids don't reach the sink to wash their hands or brush their teeth and the overturned laundry baskets aren't going to hold up much longer.

- Bring baby gate to keep "babies" out of the kitchen and out of the fuse box which is low enough to be both wheelchair and one-year-old accessible.

- Bring outlet covers if Giannina is still showing an interest in sticking hair-clips in electric sockets.

Tuesday is "flag day." For some families, it's the difference between finding out whether they're going to Mauritania or to Macedonia. For us, it'll likely be between Miami and Houston.  

Exploring the City

After the kids gave me such a hard time Thursday, I threatened to cancel our Friday outing. It turned out to be, however, just what we needed. Our timing was perfect- we made it, without incident, to the metro, then through the subway lines and on to the Mall. It was overcast, a little colder than expected, but as we stepped out onto the lawn, there it was, like out of a dream, the Capitol building. It was many football fields away, but even so, impressive. "Hey guys, look! It's the Capitol!" The kids gasped and squealed in excitement. What do they know about the Capitol? They were very excited.... I'm not quite sure why. But it did tickle the history-lover in me.

The Washintgon Monument was on the other side but is under reconstruction (probably from that earthquake a year or two ago) and appeared to be covered in tarps and duct tape. It was lacking in glory so we averted our eyes and, you know, gave it a little privacy. We dawdled, taking in the moment, till it started to rain lightly, which snapped us out of our lovestruck daze. We ran for the Natural History Museum where we met up with my highschool friend, Annette, and spent the next 3 hours wandering the museum. The kids got to lead and they were fascinated the whole time. I was a little disappointed in how little they remembered from last year's animal classification unit but I suppose all teachers experience the effects of summer vacation brain-drain with similar frustration. I would have reviewed the material with flashcards if it weren't that we have a box of items that we shipped here a week and a half ago that is missing in action. Also in that box, all our blank paper (a homeschool essential), our kitchen spices, and my only pair of black highheels. I am trying to be gracious.  I am channeling the patience of Job.

The kids loved the museum. They look forward to going back. It left me wondering, why did I even bother with curriculum? We could just go to the museum everyday for the next month and we'd be set. Saturday we woke up early for a special tour of the Library of Congress. I think this may be the most beautiful building I have ever seen. There's a Gutenberg Bible there, as well as a handwritten copy from the same time period. They are housed in a room with painted murals depicting the history of the written word, which the kids and I had just studied on Thursday. Booyah! The Library of Congress, the biggest library in the world, has over 30 million books, over 150 million materials total, including films, historic manuscripts, and music recordings. That's what the tour guide said, anyway. The materials are housed in three buildings named after John Adams who signed the legislation that dedicated it; Thomas Jefferson, whose personal library formed the original catalogue; and James Madison, who is considered the primary writer of the Declaration of Independence. His monument is located in the library that bears his name. All the library buildings are connected to each other and to the House Offices and the Capitol by means of underground tunnels. Noemie was disappointed that she didn't see any books. Oh darn, we'll have to go back. 

Sunday we attended one friend's church in the morning, and another friend's church in the evening. The word of God is living, powerful, and sharper than any double edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit.... We memorized Hebrews 4:12 last week, and how true it is! The first church had friendlier people admittedly, better music, and the congregation was about 8 times the size of the other, but they did not preach the Bible. Rather, they preached a version of it, edited to suit their lesson. I was unengaged. I felt estranged from the fellowship there. The other church preached the Word, and we were absorbed, challenged, encouraged, we identified with the spirit of the people there. A much better launch to our second week.

Look Ma, No Roots!

Last week Tuesday, Danny and I watched as, for over 12 consecutive hours, 4 men took most of our personal belongings, piano and all, wrapped them in paper, and shipped them off to some storage facility somewhere in Maryland. I am afraid a small forest was felled in the name of preserving a sprinkler from my Tallahassee garden, the margarita glasses we've used once in 6 years, our AWANAs pine derby race cars. Reduced to just our clothes and select toys and books, we set off on this new life of adventure. We stayed with my mom until we left on Friday morning. Danny was up at 7 a.m. loading the van. To Danny's dismay, we wouldn't hit the road for another 3 hours. We said goodbye to abuelos and Tia Loida, and didn't stop till we hit St. Augustine. We had lunch with Danny's college friend Judy, then coffee with Karn in Jacksonville. We were in Savannah by 9 p.m. at which point the kids started with their "pio, pio!" complaining of being hungry. Good thing we packed abuela's leftovers! We spent the next morning relaxing at Forsyth Park, having races across the park and eating homemade popsicles. Saturday afternoon, we made it to Raleigh and stayed with Meredith, my best friend in middle school. Sunday morning we attended her church, which, as Providence would have it, is pastored by an old college friend. We got out later than expected on Sunday afternoon and didn't make it into D.C. until after night had fallen. We got lost and had to call my dear Rebecca to guide us to our hotel. Us old-school navigators don't bother with GPSes and smartphones. But a map would have been helpful. Or maybe not.

We arrived with nothing but a remaining tub of yogurt and granola. I found myself on Monday morning with an otherwise empty fridge and pantry, Danny off on his first day of work (talk about calling it close, I know!), just me and the four kiddos figuring things out on our own. Which in D.C. is no easy task. Good thing they speak English here! We did have a map with us now, but it turned out to be useless anyway. I tried to find the corner grocery store and ended up in another city. The streets in D.C. change names every few blocks. And none of them go in straight lines. This place is a labyrinth. I had to stop at a bank to get directions. Once I was properly oriented, it was nearly smooth sailing. Two hours later, I made it back "home." With much less than $120 in groceries, even though that's what I had to pay for them. Unfortunately, I got lost again in the parking lot of our complex. I couldn't remember which building was ours. I haven't braved driving since. But there's lots to do at the complex. Everyone staying here works for the same agency as Danny. People walk around on their cellphones saying things like, "We got Malawi!" or speaking in Croatian. When they speak in English, they speak in acronyms.. HHE, EFM, BSAC. You hear it at the pool, on the playground, on the tennis courts. Perhaps when we come back in March, the kids can take tennis classes.

There was an icecream social tonight but my kids were rotten today so I was the only one who deserved it. I had planned to go, but at the last minute Danny decided to give me a demonstration of how to walk to the Metro. It's a ten minute brisk walk. Which is how I found myself sitting on a bus bench with four kids, in D.C. at night, wondering, "How on earth did I get here?" And the thought occurs to me periodically. Because really, I just put a bullet in normalcy. I don't think I'm going to know normal for a long time. On the plus side, Danny went from shooing vagrants and arresting distraught, corpulent Bulgarian women, to crossing paths with four-star generals in the halls and wearing suits and ties. As Noemie says, he looks "fantastic." As Toby says, "fantastic carwash poops." Giannina says stuff too, but I don't understand most of it.

Our First of Many Moves to Come

When the first details about Danny's new job and consequent relocation began to trickle in, I was overwhelmed with the complexity of the arrangements. Apparently, my mind is still swimming in this rip current of interminable logistics. The movers arrived at 9 a.m. yesterday morning to wrap our things in obscene amounts of paper and cardboard. Danny and I slept only a couple hours the night before, organizing, segregating, and labeling everything. But movers on a mission don't have time to read labels like **STAYS!**, and I now have perishable food items that will be perishing away for the next 7 months in a storage facility, next to my melting candles, a bottle of ant poison, and the condo owner's throw blanket, no doubt. Perhaps I would have caught the errors if it weren't for that, despite all our efforts, we were not done labeling before the movers arrived, and I was frantically trying to sort the Master bedroom, bath and closet while the movers did their business elsewhere. Another disadvantage to making split second packing decisions in sleep deprivation and confusion, is that you tend to have thoughts such as, " I shaved my legs this morning! I can put my razors in storage!" Twelve and a half hours later, the truck pulled off with our stuff. I don't know that I had ever been so sleepy in my life. And I will have hairy legs tommorrow to boot.

Danny returned to our semi-vacant apartment today to wrap up loose ends while I stayed home with the kids and did school. When my mom dropped us off in the afternoon, the apartment didn't look all that different from how it looked when we left it last night. I ran around in panic, gathering hangers, emptying trash cans, stuffing suitcases, but it was no use. There was more to do than could be done before church, where we were looking forward to seeing our church family one last time. Now it's midnight before our original intended departure date and we still have hours of work ahead of us to clear out the apartment. We're staying an hour away at my mom's house, which makes for long trips to deliver those random items that weren't quite "storage" but are not necessary in the next 3 weeks. There are an alarming amount of items that fit that description. Like my crochet rug-in-the-making. And all the food in our refrigerator. I packed our suitcases with the wrong time frame in mind so those have to be disemboweled and repacked. Otherwise, we won't fit it all in the van. Which we probably wont be able to do anyway. I'm desperately behind in school lessons (though we did get to a particularly appropriate reading on  nomads today). I suppose even now I still don't know what we're doing, or what I would do differently next time. I don't even know when we're leaving.