First Two Weeks in Ferndale

Yes. I know. We arrived home and then went completely silent. We apologize to everyone who had been faithfully following our story while in Costa Rica. We didn’t mean to fall off the face of the earth. It just…happened.

Our first two weeks home have been busy. Very busy. I launched into a 32-hour week at work our first week back (taking one day off), and we all started to adjust to our new life in Ferndale.

Finding a new routine

Spending seven weeks in Costa Rica meant that we had developed a pretty solid daily (and weekly) routine. Mornings were spent in the hotel, typically at the pool and working on English. Early afternoons were an outing, and late afternoons were playtime. Everything ran fairly smoothly day to day.

Unfortunately, all this went out the window and we basically had to start from scratch. I don’t know if it was just the new place, or the new weather, or something else, but the first few days were hard. We had six luggages to unpack, tons of laundry to do, and three children that demand near-constant attention. There was no plan and no outlet.

But we’ve started to find one. Two weeks later, we finally have our feet under us a little more, and they are doing better. Now we are looking forward to a long weekend together.

Making new friends

Oh, how the tables have turned for our three. After being surrounded for their  whole lives by people who speak the same language, they are suddenly immersed into an entirely different culture. We find that they are extremely shy whenever we introduce them to new people. Most of this stems from the language barrier.

Last week the kids met their cousins for the first time. We spent some time at our house playing with toys, and then took a short excursion to the park. It turns out our niece who is nearly three years old totally adores Alisa.

On Sunday we went to church for the first time since we’ve been back. There are several children who have been extremely eager to meet our kids, and they were finally happy to do so. Our kids responded by basically hiding behind us. Figures.

Church went well for all of them, and the kids who have been eagerly waiting them for so long were all very sweet. We hope that we can start to get the kids plugged into a network of friends here.

Speaking a good amount of Spanish has been both a blessing and a curse. It has allowed us to communicate fairly well with our kids, but it has also hindered them learning English. They can get away with speaking to us in Spanish almost all the time, and they know it. This is something we are seeking to change. We keep telling them that none of their friends know Spanish (which is mostly true), hoping that they will seek to learn English more quickly.

Things are better, but still hard

We have been extremely grateful to friends and family who have provided us with meals off and on over the past week. It has been so helpful to not have to worry about dinner some evenings.

The kids demand a huge amount of attention. At first I thought our experience might be normal. We are learning that it is not. The kids may seem “normal” in many ways, but their need for attention is inordinate. We have to meet their need over and over again so that they feel secure. But it is incredibly exhausting.

All three of them clamor for mom all day long. They complain about me having to work all day (and then if I take 15 minutes to do the dishes). It’s hard to get even two minutes alone without one of them asking a question or needing us to watch them do something. It is sweet. We really are connecting. But I cannot deny how taxing and draining it has been day after day (that plus work equals no blog updates).

Meeting their needs

We have noticed that behavior is by far the best when we are in a one-on-one situation with any one of the kids. However, when our time is split among the three (especially by only one parent), as it overwhelmingly is, the jockeying begins. We constantly feel like one of them is getting neglected.

Pray for us to be able to bond with them, and for them to trust us. We want to be close to our kids. But it is impossible for mom to go 13+ hours per day without a minute to herself.

Calling in the cavalry

Tonight we had to call in some help at the last minute to rescue us. As soon as I arrived home, the kids’ were excited to see me. But the complaining immediately began when I said I needed to cook dinner. It’s in these moments I really get exasperated. We need to eat. But they obviously need time with me.

Mom took off to run some overdue errands in Eureka. And promptly backed into a trailer across the street. We have some lovely people who like to park partially blocking us from pulling out. All of her focus was on dodging that car, and she completely missed the object behind.

This added to the rest of the day made me all the more frustrated. She left crying, and I realized we needed to get our feet under us again, especially with Thanksgiving literally tomorrow. Time to call someone to take over for a couple hours.

So, with maybe 3 minutes of explanation, I left our three kids in my dad’s care and left to meet up with my wife. We had a glorious, uninterrupted 40 minutes talking at Eureka Natural Foods. And everything worked out just fine. 🙂

Looking forward

Right now I hope we just survive Thanksgiving. Just kidding. I know we will. But at this point I’d rather sleep all day than eat all day.

Parenting is definitely a joy. But it is also the hardest thing we have ever done. Going from 0 to 3 has been a challenge. Kels and I often remark that if we had only adopted one, we would have this in the bag.

It’s going to take all the love, affection, comfort, security, patience that we can give to help our three kids truly connect with us as their parents. I know one day we’ll look back and say it was all worth it. And laugh at all the memories we made.