When we prayed about this move, we were listening for God’s will, not the impact on our family. We figured if we were in His will, He would take care of all of the details….and He has, in spades. In fact, some days I pray ferverently that our move back to the U.S. will go as smoothly as the move here did.
One rather heartbreaking, yet amusing, reality is the adjustment for poor little Andrew. He has continually over our 9 ½ months here, struggled with living in England. Now, please understand, he is just fine. We doubt there is any emotional impact to him at all. We just find it rather amusing and a little sad, that we continually hear funny things from Andrew, such as these:
“But it’s a long TIME until we move back to Austin, TX”
“Nothing FEELS right” (this applies to anything. It can be a random saying, just indicating that he is thinking about Austin and wishing he were there, or an answer to our question about pre-school. Sue: What did you play with at school today? Andrew: The toys didn’t FEEL right.)
After months of this, going on every now and then, Paul had Andrew on his own and said, “Andrew, what do you miss about Austin, TX?”, and Andrew paused, thought for awhile, and then said, “Daddy, I’ll tell you what I miss about Austin, TX. My best friend lives in Austin, TX, and I MISS HIM”! It’s those moments when you want to smile that he can say something so descriptive, and yet so heartbreaking at the same time.
Today, in the middle of September, just after eating lunch, Andrew said, “I’m going to pray to God that He’ll send us back to Austin, TX soon”. I stopped what I was doing, bent down to Andrew’s level and held him, and looked him in the eyes kindly. I asked, “Andrew, we’re having a fun time in England. What do you miss about Austin?” And he said, “I just don’t like it that we don’t have a playscape in our back yard”. (I really can’t believe all that he remembers from Austin! He was only 2 months short of being 3 when we left.) I agreed that we had a great playscape in our other house, and I added, “but Andrew, now we can go to the park with the L O N G E S T slide in the world!” He said that he only likes curly slides, and I pointed out that the playscape in our former back yard didn’t have a curly slide!
We both dropped the subject. Pretty soon, Andrew came back to me and said, “My other house had a train table and the train table doesn’t fit in this house”. (We have it on it’s end, leaning against a wall in the garage.) I told him that we could fix that, and let’s set it up! I went to the garage and set up the train table and got his 2 boxes of track and accessories from his room. He excitedly responded, “I’m going to put the track in the train table drawers, because that’s more normal”!
Andrew really is doing just fine. Of all the kids, we worried the least about moving Andrew; and here he’s the one who seems to miss Austin the most. I’m so glad that God is in control, because it’s obvious that we aren’t!
p.s. It’s now about a month after I wrote this (the burglary and my upcoming driving test kept me from posting it sooner), and as of just this week, ANDREW FEELS RIGHT! It’s truly a joy to see him doing so well at pre-school and coming home and reporting that, “they have fun toys there”. Just today, he said, “the toys FEEL right”! He is so much fun!
One rather heartbreaking, yet amusing, reality is the adjustment for poor little Andrew. He has continually over our 9 ½ months here, struggled with living in England. Now, please understand, he is just fine. We doubt there is any emotional impact to him at all. We just find it rather amusing and a little sad, that we continually hear funny things from Andrew, such as these:
“But it’s a long TIME until we move back to Austin, TX”
“Nothing FEELS right” (this applies to anything. It can be a random saying, just indicating that he is thinking about Austin and wishing he were there, or an answer to our question about pre-school. Sue: What did you play with at school today? Andrew: The toys didn’t FEEL right.)
After months of this, going on every now and then, Paul had Andrew on his own and said, “Andrew, what do you miss about Austin, TX?”, and Andrew paused, thought for awhile, and then said, “Daddy, I’ll tell you what I miss about Austin, TX. My best friend lives in Austin, TX, and I MISS HIM”! It’s those moments when you want to smile that he can say something so descriptive, and yet so heartbreaking at the same time.
Today, in the middle of September, just after eating lunch, Andrew said, “I’m going to pray to God that He’ll send us back to Austin, TX soon”. I stopped what I was doing, bent down to Andrew’s level and held him, and looked him in the eyes kindly. I asked, “Andrew, we’re having a fun time in England. What do you miss about Austin?” And he said, “I just don’t like it that we don’t have a playscape in our back yard”. (I really can’t believe all that he remembers from Austin! He was only 2 months short of being 3 when we left.) I agreed that we had a great playscape in our other house, and I added, “but Andrew, now we can go to the park with the L O N G E S T slide in the world!” He said that he only likes curly slides, and I pointed out that the playscape in our former back yard didn’t have a curly slide!
We both dropped the subject. Pretty soon, Andrew came back to me and said, “My other house had a train table and the train table doesn’t fit in this house”. (We have it on it’s end, leaning against a wall in the garage.) I told him that we could fix that, and let’s set it up! I went to the garage and set up the train table and got his 2 boxes of track and accessories from his room. He excitedly responded, “I’m going to put the track in the train table drawers, because that’s more normal”!
Andrew really is doing just fine. Of all the kids, we worried the least about moving Andrew; and here he’s the one who seems to miss Austin the most. I’m so glad that God is in control, because it’s obvious that we aren’t!
p.s. It’s now about a month after I wrote this (the burglary and my upcoming driving test kept me from posting it sooner), and as of just this week, ANDREW FEELS RIGHT! It’s truly a joy to see him doing so well at pre-school and coming home and reporting that, “they have fun toys there”. Just today, he said, “the toys FEEL right”! He is so much fun!
No comments:
Post a Comment