Officially Official

I discovered this charming little show on one of the kid channels called Charlie and Lola.  It's a british children's series that is absolutely adorable.  Largely because all the characters have the cutest english accents, but also because it's just a really nice series about a brother and sister that doesn't include jealousy or petty-ness or name-calling (well they did have one episode about squabbling where they called each other 'mean' but in the most adorable way possible), in fact they get along and the big brother is always looking out for his little sister and finding ways to help her.  I love it.  Anyway, Lola is always overdoing her adjectives and adverbs and I think it's rubbing off on me.  For instance there was one episode called, "I am Far Too Extremely Busy" or "It is Absolutely Completely Not Messy".  I'm way more addicted than Asher.

And so, in honor of Lola:

It is most definitely completely officially official.  We are moving.  It is quite a heady thing, buying a one-way ticket for your entire family to another continent.  I have to say, it made me a little woozy.  I am completely shocked at how this move is affecting me.  

When we were first married, and Jeff was looking for his first post-doc, we were considering Japan and Australia among other places.  I was all for Japan, Jeff wasn't sure if he could even move as far away as Chicago.  And now, here I am, desperately wanting to be jumping-out-of-my-skin ecstatic and instead I'm mostly nauseous. It's not that I'm not excited.  It's not that I'm not thrilled.  I have always wanted to live in as many foreign countries as possible and I still do.  But something else has come into play.  I think it is that this feels like the first real home that I have helped create for my family.  Now I find that I'm not so quick to run out the door and I'm a little sad at the prospect of having to start over.  

And then of course there are the people, our friends who have become more like family.  They have seen us through so much, watched us become parents (very literally, a few were in the room and even more were on the phone as Asher came into the world).  They have only ever known us as married, missed all the foibles of our youth (haven't missed many of our adult foibles though;) and yet they know us, who we are, what we struggle with, our hearts desires.  They have truly become Family, God-parents and Guardians, Sisters and Brothers, the truest of Friends.  I can't go any further down that road, not yet.  I'm not ready.

After all that, I must say, I really am very excited.  I have always wanted to go to England but have only ever made it to the airport between flights to and from Greece.  I remember thinking as I looked out the window at the countryside below that it wasn't right that I was going somewhere else.  It was almost a physical pull to want to stay there instead of going on to Greece to meet Jeff.  I feel so blessed that Asher gets the opportunity to travel as well and grow up in different places.  He may not remember much yet, but he will grow up with family and friends on three different continents (we have friends that have just moved back to South Africa) that, Lord willing, will remain good friends and be visited frequently.  I have always wanted to expose my children to travel and different cultures and what better way than to actually live there.  And if we're really lucky, each of our children can be born on a different continent.  (For those of you trying to figure out how many more times we're planning on moving, we'll likely only have one more child biologically and then we plan to adopt internationally)  I get all hyper just thinking about it.  

So not all my stress that's keeping me from sleeping is bad stress, it's just excitement...a lot of energy that doesn't have anywhere to go just yet.  I may have to start packing really early just so I have something to do.  Although if I think about it, I don't actually have a ton of time.  We're going to be in Canada visiting family from Dec. 5th to 23rd, and we have to be out of the apartment at the end of December (even though we're not actually leaving until later in January).  Okay, maybe not the best thing to think too hard about just now.  Feeling a little woozy again.