Tuesday 19 August 2008

So long, Farewell, Auf Wiedersehen ..........


I have been rather slack about updating this blog in the last week. We are in the middle of saying our goodbyes and also have a visitor from the UK this week so we have been rushing around seeing the sights for one last time. We spent all day and evening on Oak Beach downtown on Friday night watching the start of the Air & Water show - lots of displays from jets and various stunt planes doing 'doopdedoops' as E calls them! Then it culminated in a fireworks display at 9pm. I can't believe the kids made it through the entire show - they played on that beach for 6 hours!! We made our way home on the 'El' (elevated train) all the way up to Linden which is right at the end of the line. The children finally made it into bed at 11 very sandy but content!!


It seems strange to be going home now we are actually almost there - to begin with the weeks went by so slowly but now time is racing by. The beaches are closing (seems mad when it's still 80 degrees) in preparation for the start of term tomorrow and summer season is officially over. I am putting off actually loading up the suitcases but we purchased a huge new one which should hopefully encompass all the new purchases from the summer. We will be going home with a lot more shoes than we arrived with for starters ...plus a basketball, a Barbie horse and various other items that individual family members deemed essential purchases.
Tonight we have a farewell meal with everyone at Fusion. We've made some really good friends during our time here and we will miss them.
I guess I now need to decide whether or not to continue this blog - the idea was to keep everyone at home up-to-date with what we were up to in Chicago so in some ways it will be redundant, though I must say I have rather enjoyed writing it so we will see..................

Saturday 9 August 2008

Rain, rain go away...........



We got caught in a ridiculously heavy downpour at Morton Arboretum, west of Chicago, this afternoon ... 10 mins after this photo was taken the rain had gone and it was bright sunshine again!!! This weather is MAD!! My contact lenses were blurred all the way home as the rain had actually gone into my eyes (mind you, I have always had rubbish eyelashes!). It really felt as if I had taken a shower with my clothes on!

Thursday 7 August 2008

Storms

oh dear! I had a look at the BBC Weather page earlier on and it really is a pants summer in the UK this year, isn't it? I suppose it won't bless you all if I mention that E, M and I spent a happy morning at the beach - tho I now have very red shoulders. Am I the only Mum who can never be bothered to put cream on herself because by the time you have plastered it on all the kids and set up all the towels, snacks, drinks, etc in the shade, it's pretty much time to come home anyhow?? Today I was fooled into leaving the shade by the nice breeze and only put cream on myself once I started to feel the burn. Oops! Needless to say I now have terrible strap marks as the aforementioned boob tube languished in the beach bag..... The water in the lake was actually pleasantly warm today - to the extent that I was seriously considering taking a dip myself but then the water was closed and swimming suspended due to 'high surf'!!! This did make me laugh - it was hardly Waikiki -sized waves - but it was actually a relief as I get a bit nervous when my children are in the water. They are far more confident than me and I don't put much faith in my ability to rescue them if they did get into trouble.

Anyway, the high surf is obviously a hangover from the severe storms we had on Monday night. I have witnessed some pretty spectacular storms in Africa but the storms here are something else. I've been woken from a deep sleep several times by enormous claps of thunder that appear to shake the house. On this occasion, the storm was earlier inthe evening and while the children slept, we watched an incredible display of forked lightning out of the window. The wind was relatively calm here but downtown there were high winds, some pretty severe storm damage and the tornado sirens were wailing! Check out the photos here http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/weather/chi-storm-ugcpg,0,3524130.ugcphotogallery

With 2 1/2 weeks to go now, we are starting to think about packing up and winding down though we are all really looking forward to Rachel's visit next week. It will give us a great excuse to revisit some of the tourist attractions before we leave. The male members of the family are gearing up for the release of the new Star Wars cartoon next weekend (indeed, I have been accompanied by a mini Clone Trooper in full gear and helmet most of this week!).

And now I really need to pay some attention to my ironing pile. Boring, but true!

Friday 1 August 2008

Tomatoes

I completely forgot to mention a rather more light-hearted discussion that I had with E yesterday - he approached me in confidence and said, rather concerned, "Mummy, tomatoes (in American accent) aren't real, are they?" After I tried to explain a number of times that it was just another way of saying 'tomatoes', he elaborated, "No, I mean those things that spin round in the sky"..... Aahhh! Tornados! I was able to reassure him that we probably wouldn't encounter one but I did laugh for a long time first...............!!

Sacrifices

When you embark on and adventure as a family, such as we have, you expect to be stretched and challenged. The interesting thing is that it's often things that you didn't expect which turn out to be the major challenges. One of these for us has to have been the way in which we parent. It seems to be very different from the American way and it's so difficult to try and maintain some level of discipline and routine when the kids' whole world has been blown apart! They have generally had a great time (tho they are starting to ask more and more about when we go home and missing friends) but I feel we've gone backwards rather in terms of what is acceptable behaviour!!!

I've mentioned before in this blog how trips out to the supermarket have been incredibly stressful and I just feel that I am generally less in control of my children than I was!! They have definitely all become more self-confident which is great and we've been really proud of the way they have gone into completely new environments and found their feet so quickly. But is this all at the expense of the (generally) good behaviour we seem to have left behind in the UK. I'm not naive - my children are not perfect; far from it, but they do seem to have become more unruly in the last couple of months.

One of the biggest challenges has been to maintain regular bedtimes - we have always striven to have all 3 down and quiet around 7:oopm. Admittedly this is partly for our sanity, but also because they all still need 11-12 hours sleep and their general behaviour seems to deteriorate rapidly if they are up late. As church here is on a Sun evening we aren't home before 9 and then once drinks and bedtime routines are done, their heads aren't hitting the pillow before 9:30 at the earliest. Children here generally seem to stay up later and I've seen several child-focussed activities advertised which start at 7pm or later so I wonder am I just being old-fashioned and stuffy..... tonight, for example, while my husband is off seeing Radiohead (my favourite band as well as his), I am at home babysitting our 3 plus 2 of our friends' children (they are grabbing a well-deserved night on their own before the imminent arrival of number 3). The option of hiring a babysitter was mooted but I couldn't in all conscience have left them all with her - esp 2 who are away from home for the night. Whilst you may just think I'm being stuffy I just can't help feeling that, in the long run, it's worth maintaining some routines and that actually my children respond well to having clear boundaries set. Time will tell but I don't think I'll ever stop trying to keep my kids in order and as well-behaved as they can be.

I really miss the group of excellent young parents we have at NCC. It's such a blessing to have so much support from friends who are striving for the same things you are. I guess that's a real sacrifice when you are church-planting as there is inevitably a mix of attitudes and opinions when a small group of people from different backgrounds get together, albeit with the same goals.