The Days of Covid19
I think perhaps I need to write a forewarning:
I don't have an agenda for this post, and it's a post that is composed of weeks of very short writings and feelings. Much like a roller coaster ride :) If you get bored easily or don't like to read whining and complaints, go ahead and move on, because this isn't meant to be an entertainment post and it's full of some very raw emotions! If you choose to continue, "godspeed."
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I feel like I would be doing myself such a disservice if I didn't document this current event, the notable Covid19 virus, in writing. What I'm really hoping and praying for, is that in a few years I can come back to this blog, read this post and smile. Maybe even perhaps laugh. Right now life doesn't really seem worth laughing at, but in reality we are currently living the most worldwide documented hardship, well that any of us living has ever seen. It's actually crazy to sit and think about, and since we have so much time on our hands, that's what a lot of us have been doing... Sitting and thinking.
This post has been a work in progress over the last few weeks. Whenever I am feeling overwhelmed with emotion I try my hardest to sit down and write about it, and of course being able to sit and have my own thoughts is a luxury in this house with 3 kids and a husband sitting next to me at every second of the day. That being said, whenever I'm not able to sit down and write it out, I feel like I've done a "good job" at taking my feelings about this whole situation we are in and pushing them way deep down into my toes. Only every so often do I allow them to escape, whether that be through writing or through a conversation with a friend. Like the night I wrote this... "It's lonely and it hurts and I desperately wish I was in the US where I was comfortable, where I spoke the language and were I wasn't terrified of getting sick because of the language barrier. I wish I had my car, I wish I could drive to the store and have my car to load groceries into instead of just buying what I can carry. I wish we wouldn't have moved, oh how I really wish we wouldn't have moved... but we did and we are here, and at the moment we do feel safe here! I wish things were different but they aren't. I wish I had my endless supplies to make crazy amounts of crafts. I wish I had my entire stock of t-shirts that's I've been wanting to make into a blanket for years now but just haven't "had the time." I had a whole bunch of projects in Houston that I had "put off" because I didn't have time for them, and now that I have endless amount of time... everything is just in creates sitting at the dock.. and that really sucks. I can't sort socks, because we don't have enough socks to sort! I mean I should be thankful for these small blessings, and I am... some days, but in reality it just sometimes makes me really sad."
Normally though, I have the ability to turn my emotions off and become numb whenever my worry, sadness, desperateness, loneliness, darkness..etc. start to become too much to handle. Perhaps, this is a defense mechanism I have learned throughout my years but I guess I would say, it's working for me. Thinking about it, I'm not really sure why I'm able to do this so well, as I haven't had an extremely traumatic event happen in my life to make my mind act this way, but nonetheless I'd call myself an expert to being "numb." I might still complain out loud and talk my feelings out occasionally but for the most part I excel at pushing negative feelings so far down that I almost forget about them... until of course you ask about them! ha!
When the Mr. convinced me that Argentina would be a good move for us, of course I was still very hesitant. And I say of course because I used the word "convinced." I like to joke that this move was about 10 years in the making. But I guess it's not really a joke because it's very true. Ever since our oldest was born he has been dying to take us overseas. Texas was enough of a move for me that anything OUT OF THE COUNTRY was completely off limits. Of course this went on for years and years and we kept having babies and well when he came home and told me that he had an offer to go to Pittsburgh I genuinely thought "This is PERFECT! I can get some more time in the North, be closer to my family and we check the box of willingness to move so he can still climb the ladder in his career. Well, I don't have to elaborate on that because well... here I am living in Argentina. After getting 3 kids out of diapers and actually being able to take a deep breath for once in the last 9 years... I said fine. Give it a shot, if it happens great... if not, perfect! We can stay in Texas and watch our kids grow. I don't know if you guys are aware of just how many things have to align for someone to go on an expat assignment but it's A LOT! Like they don't just don't offer to spend THOUSANDS of dollars to move a family overseas for anything. The right job has to be open at the right time for the right person and all the high ups have to agree it's a good fit and well, its a major major process. The fact that we are here, after 1 try is pretty much mind blowing! Well, I guess it was more like 1.5 tries, but that's another story for another day.
I don't have an agenda for this post, and it's a post that is composed of weeks of very short writings and feelings. Much like a roller coaster ride :) If you get bored easily or don't like to read whining and complaints, go ahead and move on, because this isn't meant to be an entertainment post and it's full of some very raw emotions! If you choose to continue, "godspeed."
___________________________________
I feel like I would be doing myself such a disservice if I didn't document this current event, the notable Covid19 virus, in writing. What I'm really hoping and praying for, is that in a few years I can come back to this blog, read this post and smile. Maybe even perhaps laugh. Right now life doesn't really seem worth laughing at, but in reality we are currently living the most worldwide documented hardship, well that any of us living has ever seen. It's actually crazy to sit and think about, and since we have so much time on our hands, that's what a lot of us have been doing... Sitting and thinking.
This post has been a work in progress over the last few weeks. Whenever I am feeling overwhelmed with emotion I try my hardest to sit down and write about it, and of course being able to sit and have my own thoughts is a luxury in this house with 3 kids and a husband sitting next to me at every second of the day. That being said, whenever I'm not able to sit down and write it out, I feel like I've done a "good job" at taking my feelings about this whole situation we are in and pushing them way deep down into my toes. Only every so often do I allow them to escape, whether that be through writing or through a conversation with a friend. Like the night I wrote this... "It's lonely and it hurts and I desperately wish I was in the US where I was comfortable, where I spoke the language and were I wasn't terrified of getting sick because of the language barrier. I wish I had my car, I wish I could drive to the store and have my car to load groceries into instead of just buying what I can carry. I wish we wouldn't have moved, oh how I really wish we wouldn't have moved... but we did and we are here, and at the moment we do feel safe here! I wish things were different but they aren't. I wish I had my endless supplies to make crazy amounts of crafts. I wish I had my entire stock of t-shirts that's I've been wanting to make into a blanket for years now but just haven't "had the time." I had a whole bunch of projects in Houston that I had "put off" because I didn't have time for them, and now that I have endless amount of time... everything is just in creates sitting at the dock.. and that really sucks. I can't sort socks, because we don't have enough socks to sort! I mean I should be thankful for these small blessings, and I am... some days, but in reality it just sometimes makes me really sad."
Normally though, I have the ability to turn my emotions off and become numb whenever my worry, sadness, desperateness, loneliness, darkness..etc. start to become too much to handle. Perhaps, this is a defense mechanism I have learned throughout my years but I guess I would say, it's working for me. Thinking about it, I'm not really sure why I'm able to do this so well, as I haven't had an extremely traumatic event happen in my life to make my mind act this way, but nonetheless I'd call myself an expert to being "numb." I might still complain out loud and talk my feelings out occasionally but for the most part I excel at pushing negative feelings so far down that I almost forget about them... until of course you ask about them! ha!
When the Mr. convinced me that Argentina would be a good move for us, of course I was still very hesitant. And I say of course because I used the word "convinced." I like to joke that this move was about 10 years in the making. But I guess it's not really a joke because it's very true. Ever since our oldest was born he has been dying to take us overseas. Texas was enough of a move for me that anything OUT OF THE COUNTRY was completely off limits. Of course this went on for years and years and we kept having babies and well when he came home and told me that he had an offer to go to Pittsburgh I genuinely thought "This is PERFECT! I can get some more time in the North, be closer to my family and we check the box of willingness to move so he can still climb the ladder in his career. Well, I don't have to elaborate on that because well... here I am living in Argentina. After getting 3 kids out of diapers and actually being able to take a deep breath for once in the last 9 years... I said fine. Give it a shot, if it happens great... if not, perfect! We can stay in Texas and watch our kids grow. I don't know if you guys are aware of just how many things have to align for someone to go on an expat assignment but it's A LOT! Like they don't just don't offer to spend THOUSANDS of dollars to move a family overseas for anything. The right job has to be open at the right time for the right person and all the high ups have to agree it's a good fit and well, its a major major process. The fact that we are here, after 1 try is pretty much mind blowing! Well, I guess it was more like 1.5 tries, but that's another story for another day.
Since I was hesitant on even doing this whole expat thing I had prepared myself for a pretty miserable first couple of months. Reading any kind of expat anything, you find out very quickly, it's extremely common for the traveling spouse to have a hard transition. I mean it all makes perfect sense since not a whole lot changes for the working spouse, but the traveling spouse is the one setting up the house, getting the kids settled in, figuring out how life works in a new country, buying groceries and goods, taking kids to appointments, etc. Since I've done a move before, multiple actually, I know myself well enough to know that I go through what I call "hibernation." If we are really being honest here, most just call it depression. When my world gets flipped, so does my mind and well I tend to travel into a spiral of pretty unhealthy thoughts, and the urge to never get up off the couch creeps in. Because I know this about myself, when making this international move I really tried hard to talk freely to my friends that would listen and explain to them what I was anticipating would happen in hopes that it actually wouldn't. I'm excited and pissed to tell you that what I anticipating happening, didn't happen at all... what actually has happened is something not anyone could ever prepare for.
My husband spends A LOT of time on reddit. For those that haven't been introduce to reddit, basically it's a massive forum website where people post about news, memes... and a whole heck of random things. I remember him telling me one night after we put the kids to bed that he was reading about this virus that was affecting people in china. "Cool" I thought, "So which pile should we put these books in?" Seriously my head was spinning uncontrollably in the deep midst of moving to another country. Moving internationally is very different from a domestic move for the fact that you literally have to physically TOUCH every single item in your house and pick a pile for it to go in. Packers just don't show up to your house put everything inside a box and off it goes to get unpacked in a week or so. This process is/was so tedious, the very very last thing I cared about was some virus that someone got from a wet seafood market it China. The next time he brought it up was a few days later, and he seemed, well sort of scared I remember. Thinking back on this moment, all I remember is that we were in a hotel room and he was very uneasy when he talked about how China was going to build a hospital in less than 10 days. I do actually remember paying attention when he talked this time because that seemed absolutely mind boggling to me. An entire hospital, why?? And how and why so fast? None of it made sense, but again my mind was really wrapped up in what was currently happening... which was that I was moving my family of 5 to another country... one that I had only been to 1 other time. I know my mind was really preoccupied but how or why didn't I ever think that something like that could be spread across the globe? It's almost like since I wasn't Chinese or moving anywhere close to China, I couldn't have cared less about this crazy virus.
When we arrived in Buenos Aires the week of Valentines Day everything sort of fell into place. It actually seemed almost odd how well things were going. Our house was already ours, they were able to set up our rental furniture to come the day after we arrived and while we were all sleep deprived and walking zombies when it did, we were so thankful to be in our actual house and start to settle in. I quickly found the grocery store, made a friend with an English speaking Starbucks worker from Columbia and the kids started school. We hired a pool guy, and someone to cut our grass. We traded some US dollars for Argentine Pesos, bought a large washing machine... things were definitely going. And well, I guess I could say they were even going well. My little guy and I were bored a lot of the days, and he spent waaaaaaaaaaaaay too much time on his ipad but "It's ok" I thought... "this is totally temporary... I just need to get through the first couple of months." I started looking into preschools for him, I started to make friends AND I was so looking forward to my US friend and her daughter arriving for a visit. I'm making it seem like butterflies and rainbows, which it definitely wasn't, and there were a few dark days, but for the most part... it was fine. Perfectly fine.
We had been living here for 3.5 weeks when my US friend came to visit. I facetimed her the day before she came and said "I'm calling you like this because I need to see your face... are you scared of this "corona virus?" She said "nope." and that was the end of the conversation. At this point all we knew really is that it was being spread through China and Japan and the Diamond Princess ship was quarantined. Well she came with two stocked suitcases with items like Vanilla Coffee Creamer, a Swiffer Wet Jet and disposable cleaning pads, a couple toys and books I had requested and then threw in some Clorox wipes for the heck of it. When I opened those suitcases I had NO IDEA I would be using those wipes to wipe down every single item that entered my house in the coming weeks.
During my friends week long visit, we laughed... a lot, spoke so much Span-glish, ate so so much good food, interviewed and hired a housekeeper for me, looked at a preschool and so much more! What a huge blessing it was for her and her daughter to come, and such a rise in my families spirits... until the day they left and we got an email from my kids international school that they weren't allowed to attend school for 2 weeks since we had been in contact with a person from the US. That night I broke and I broke HARD. Then I started reading, and reading and reading. Much like my husband had been doing for many days now.
Let me recap our timeline..
Let me recap our timeline..
Friday January 31, 2020 Got the all clear to book the packers and our plane tickets.
(Kids were off school for a break the whole next week)
Tuesday February 4th, 2020 Packers 1st day
Thursday February 6th, 2020 Packers Done
Sunday February 9th, 2020 Late Night Flight to BA
Monday February 10th, 2020 Landed in BA
Tuesday February 11th, 2020 "Moved in" to our New House w/ Rental Furniture
Friday February 14th, 2020 Valentine's Day... Big Kids Start School
Friday March 6th, 2020 US Friends Land in BA
Wednesday March 11th, 2020 US Friends Leave BA... our internet starts being sketchy
Thursday March 12th, 2020 Big Kids International School Sends Email Stating "Anyone that has come in contact with anyone that has traveled to or from Countries "XYZ" must self isolate for 14 days before returning to school." Our internet is not working at all, we contact our provider to come get it fixed. They tell us they will be there Sunday... Sunday comes and they tell us he needs another guy and they will come Tuesday.
Friday March 13th, 2020 Big Kids School announces it will begin Distance Learning following Monday
Monday March 16th, 2020 Big Kids have their first day of Online Learning... without internet
Things start to get hazy after this point. It's like the days & weeks blur together. It was during this week, of March 16th that the entire country of Argentina went into full lockdown. We learned that we were being discriminated against because we were US citizens and they were scared to come fix our internet, even though we had been living here for a month. All flights in and out of the country stopped, schools closed, and you were only allowed outside if you were going to the grocery store, pharmacy or were an essential worker. At some point they also halted all "leisure" walks, and started stopping people walking dogs asking them to only walk up and down the block their house was on. Meanwhile, the US has MANY more cases than we do but hadn't put a hold on much... besides people started hoarding Toilet Paper... Never in my life have I been more excited to have 4 bidets in my house, and the scare not having TP never even crossed my mind! HA!
Throughout the next couple weeks we watched the US go into lockdown, have been mandated to wear masks anytime in public, saw the city of Houston mandate masks. We watched from afar the silly US people that have protested all of these new "rules" to try and keep them safe while living in a country where the majority accepts these rules and moves on with life. Is it hard here, yes! But it's hard for everyone in the world right now! Aside from the virus, our middle child became ill with a high fever for 2 days and every other sign of "Dengue Fever." After a quick google search I knew it wasn't something I wanted to take him in for and possibly expose him to covid inside of an ER but after he developed a rash I figured I would at least contact his doctor. After doing so she insisted I take him immediately to go have blood drawn and come up with a conclusion on if he did in fact have Dengue. We called up our remise driver that we have become good friends with and he took J and I to a local ER (it was a Saturday.) The english speaking doctor assured me I could just go in get his blood drawn and we would be in and our in the matter of mins..... but of course that's not how any place ever operates anywhere in the world. I was so so so grateful our remise and our friend was with us to translate.... well and to hold down J while getting his blood drawn, after he had given a urine sample and had a very unexpected throat culture taken as well. Poor guy had a young kind girl speaking to him in only Spanish, a mom who was in complete culture shock, and a remise driver telling him in his broke English he's going to be ok while holding basically in choke hold to get the blood drawn. Having to deal with a medical emergency in a country where I don't speak a lick of the language has been one of my greatest fears in moving here. As terrible as the entire situation was, I'm very grateful my first experience with healthcare here wasn't an emergency, I kind of got to see how they do things here, and of course it ended up to be a positive experience overall, despite being a little traumatic for both J and I. Through the next couple of days he continued to improve, we had a doctor come twice to the house to draw more blood and within the week he developed a totally gnarly ear infection that drained down his next for almost an entire week! We have learned that there are some medications here that you actually don't need prescriptions for, and we have ordered from a pharmacy... well correction, our neighbor ordered from a pharmacy for us since we don't have a local payment card! Have I mentioned how grateful we are for our wonderful wonderful neighbors??? To this end this Dengue story, we still don't have a definite answer to weather or not middle J did in fact have Dengue or if perhaps he had an extremely mild case. His dengue antibodies were present and rose significantly (in his blood) through his blood draws, but the antibody range he was presenting with wasn't in a "positive" category. With his ear infection that followed, we don't know if perhaps he did have an ear infection which caused the fever and the symptoms of Dengue, or if he did have a mild case of Dengue that then caused an ear infection. I believe it will probably just be one of those things that we will never really know.
The weeks that followed the Dengue/Ear infection fiasco have been filled with soooooo much school work. Yes I have an education degree, but the desire of ever putting it into use after having kids has never been there. This situation though is so much different than actually teaching a class. The International school here been super wonderful and diligent about making sure the kids are still learning what had been planned out for the year, however because of that I"m having to go through these lessons with my children, try and understand exactly what the teacher is wanting them to do, and then force... urgh I mean encourage them to do just that. Our oldest has taken to this new way of learning like it's the best thing that has ever happened to her. She is constantly asking me if she can continue doing homeschool like this. To be honest, I would have NEVER EVER EVER IN MY WILDEST DREAMS would have agreed to letting her be homeschool but after seeing her wake up each morning, plan for the day, ask questions if needed but do the majority of the work on her own in the morning and then "be free" for the rest of the day has been so enlightening to her growing personality. I would have no problem in the future if this is truly something she would like to continue with. Middle man on the other hand. I have got to watch him demonstrate his "passion" (or lack of) learning and it saddens me so much to write, when I sit down with him each day I'm taken back to my early days of learning and struggle... but this whole topic is another long subject for another day! I want to wrap up my thoughts on school by expressing that because of this crazy lock down we have been forced into, getting to know my children's personalities has been the best part about the entire experience. Sure, I birthed these kids so I tend to understand what makes them tick. However, when they are in school for 8 hours a day, have after school activities and then spend weekends hanging out with their friends, you tend to kind of forget who they are, if that makes any sense. The forced ability to slow time down, and genuinely get to learn my kids again, they way I knew them as newborns/babies has really been a true blessing. I've found myself staring at them more, watching them become more like children, teens and thinking about what might they look like as adults. I've been able to tap into their learning styles, understand why they act the way they do, see what truly interests them and watch them interaction in relationships from afar. This is the part of this awful situation that we are in, that I hope I never ever forget!
The day we learned that our Sea Shipment (aka ALL of our belongings) was leaving the port in Houston was a very strange day of confused emotions for me. As excited as I was that our stuff was actually on it's way, I also knew that customs was shut down here so it really didn't even matter that it was coming. I also started thinking that if perhaps the company that we are here with wanted to pull us out and put us back in the US... where would our stuff go then? It also brought up the thoughts of ok, say we leave to go back to the US on our own terms, what happens if we aren't here to receive our shipments? It was all just very confusing, and to be honest still is. As of today, both our sea and our shipments are sitting in customs here in Argentina. Our air shipment has been cleared and is ready to be delivered but I don't believe the deliver company is deemed "essential." I keep asking "what if they just dropped it in our garage with no contact?"... but I'm not receiving an answer. So with that, we wait. We just wait, it's really all we can do...
Often at night we have conversations about what this lockdown would have looked like for our family had it occurred just a few weeks early. I know it would have been hard, but not nearly as hard as it is currently. I feel like the only way to actually describe our current situation is just "sad." One night early on I was having an extremely bad night filled with feelings of fear, sadness and was just completely overwhelmed. I contacted a group of my friends and told them "I"m, deep down in my bones, sad." I then had this same conversation with my husband a few weeks later. We discussed my feelings of sadness were being caused my uncertainty, lack of control in my world, lack of comfort, feelings of uneasiness and not being able to provide those things to my children either. He said his feelings of sadness were coming more so of the "what will's." What will the world look like after we beat this virus? What will this world wide lock-down do to our economy? What will his job look like in a few months? It makes sense knowing our family roles and our personality that we would be feeling so different in this crazy time. I'm feeling with my whole being and concerned about emotions and comforting the family, and he's feeling for the future and the well being of our children in the days to come.
When we packed our suitcases for our big adventure of moving to another country, we anticipated we would be "living out of our suitcases" for around 6 weeks or so. It didn't seem unfathomable, people go on vacations for that length of time all the time. I allowed all 3 kids to stuff their carry on suitcases with as many toys of their choice, just as long as they were able to zip it closed. Things like stuffed animals, hot wheels, American Girl Doll and clothes, little toy figurines, a few coloring supplies and I did buy my soccer loving fan a new soccer ball to inflate and play with in our new backyard. That was it. We packed pool toys and floats since it was still "summer" when we arrived. Transitional food took up a lot of our suitcase space, and of course shorts and t-shirts since that was the weather we were coming into. Well 6 weeks has come and gone. Our air shipment with things like all of our cold weather clothing, our xbox, our big computer, printer, coffee maker, Vacuum, hair clippers, bedding and all 3 kids favorite toys, Play Mobil and Legos have been sitting at the dock in customs for well, I guess it's been about a month now. Since we have been here the weather has changed. We are needing long sleeves and pants in the evenings, it's too cold to swim even in the bright sunlight, and to put it lightly, my kids are very much over the toys they brought. Please don't get me wrong, we have everything we need to survive. We have a lovely roof over our head, food to eat, and more electronics than one family actually should have and we are doing just fine. But it's those small things that unless you were packing your suitcase knowing you were about to enter into a world wide pandemic you would have never thought to be essential. My boys all desperately need haircuts, and while we definitely don't have clippers, I thought ok well, I can just use scissors. This is fine... I don't have a comb. Non of my boys use a comb on a regular basis... probably because I keep their hair so short but URGH! I did finally end up borrowing a comb from a neighbor and cutting the boys hair as best I could. While their hair is FINE, they definitely resemble little dutch boys! HA!
Speaking of borrowed items, we have borrowed more things than we can count. And honestly, I don't think I'll ever in my lifetime forget the generosity of our neighbors for sharing their things with us. One neighbor in particular pushed for us to take a couch that wasn't being used much in their house. Of course I was hesitate, because I don't want to take someone else's belongings but in the end I agreed it would be nice to have. Every single night when the Mr. and I sit down to watch TV after the kids are in bed we talk about how grateful we are to have the extra couch. It has allowed us to actually be a family in our living room. We all have a comfortable seat, and we all successfully watched a brand new movie (Trolls World Tour) last night with plenty of room to spare.
I just don't want to forget what it's like to live in these times right now. I'm not sure how I could possibly forget as I'm sure these stories will be the ones I tell my grandchildren someday! "We moved your mom/dad to another country less than a month before the world changed from Covid 19." At the same time I can feel sorry for myself for such a predicament that we are in, I'm also so proud of how resilient my kids have been, and well myself and Nick too! I find I catch myself being super thankful for the things that we actually do have, realizing that it could be so so much worse or thinking about what life would have been life if we would have chosen to live in an apartment here. I'm super grateful that we have a yard, we are able to step outside for a breath of fresh air if we need it. We can yell and scream and really just be us, without worrying about neighbors or such. We each have our own bed... well you know besides the big guy and I do share one, but it's a king sized and we really thought that we would have a rental queen! I'll take a king over a queen any day of the week. Is our bed comfortable? Heck no, but it really could be so so much worse. I brought sheets for my kids, and their thin blankets from their beds, they each have a stuff animal or 5 to cuddle with, and with the exception of the guy that can fall asleep anywhere at anytime, we all brought 1 of our own pillows. I'm grateful we have a big bathtub that gets used each and everyday, multiple times a day. We joke that it's actually our small fry's swimming pool.... he's seriously in it every single day. While we have absolutely nothing on our 3rd floor currently, it's nice to know that we actually have space to spread out if one of us needs some a lone time. Do I wish my house was filled with our own belongings and stuff to keep us busy? ABSOFREAKINGLUTELY! I miss my stuff so so bad, I want rugs on our floor, I want the proper clothing, and my kitchen supplies... the list could seriously go on for forever. As much as I play the "what would I have packed differently if I would have known" game in my head I'm extremely proud of myself for packing what I did. I had no way at all of knowing what I would be in for as far as having to stay at home for so so many days, but I did prepare myself for not having our stuff for a while... not this long, but a while. So I packed a lot, and I was very specific on the items I did pack. To be completely honest, there's nothing that I forgot that we can't live without... and for that, I feel like I really need to pat myself on the back!
To end this post I want to highlight a few of the other positives I have gained from this experience. Things that I hope to someday be extremely grateful lessons to have been learned, or times that had been had. I have cooked more, really stepping up my game. Trying to find ingredients in a foreign country is very difficult, but slowly I've been learning more and more in the kitchen and finding the things we really like. Meals are coming together, and the kids would tell you some of my best dishes have been made here in this kitchen... on our rental cookware, served with our rental serving ware! Moving onto to the same topic of rental things, I am grateful of all the "funny" things that they threw into our rental package that on the first day I was like, why would we need this? Things like a random handheld mixer, a "k cup like" coffee machine, a large number of small trashcans, nightstands and lamps for the kids, just things I wouldn't have deemed "necessary>' but have proven to be extremely necessary when living without your stuff for an extended amount of time! Another positive out of this experience has been cleaning a house with nothing in it. Yes it still gets messy and dirty and sheets needs washed and laundry done... but holy smokes! Because our belongings are so limited, it takes no time at all to "pick up the house." Such a huge positive that I'm really learning to be grateful for! Nick has been home with us the entire time we have been in our house.! It really has been nice for him to be home with us for this entire time. We have learned together how to pay the water guys that bring us water, how to interact with the pool and lawn care people. How to order food from restaurants and grocery stores. These are things I would have had to figure out on my own but since he's been home with me we have been able to do it together, and for that I'm really grateful for. Some other things that are on my running list of things to be greatful for during this time is
*Being able to take Spanish lessons from home without having to figure out how to travel to someplace.
*The idea of putting little dude into preschool here was weighing so heavy on my heart and well know, that decision was made for me!
*My kids are obsessed with playing Roblox and while I don't love the game I love to watch them be so creative and play with each other!
*I am saving so much money. I really truly hate to admit this, but when you are taken away from all US stores... cough cough Target... and I don't leave my family to go browse a store for fun I'm not accidentally spending $100 here and there. I am buying only what I need for many different reasons, and it's been really enlightening just how much we buy something because we think "we need it." We don't need it!
*I have gotten more rest/sleep than I have in a very long time... so much so that finding motivation to get moving can be a challenge these days! Looking back at my activity level before we left Houston to know makes me sad.. but I'll get back there someday!
*All in all I've really learned how to make do and live with less. Do I think I could live with way for forever, nope! And I still really want my stuff to come, but we are really doing just fine! Less is more... right?
It's been crazy to me to pay attention the ups and downs of my emotions. Reading back through the days of writing that I used to compose this entire post has been tough feeling again the hard moments, but grateful for the positive ones. A few nights ago, I was attempting to make a little iMovie to document our entire month+ spent together at home. I sat making this movie on my phone while my littlest dude laid in my lap and I felt so at peace. Seeing these pictures I had taken, looking back at the laughs, tears and many many emotions we have shared as a family really struck a cord in my heart. One min I find myself thinking "this quarantine stuff isn't so bad!" but then the next moment, I'm verbalizing... "if this is really how life will be from here on out, I don't think I want to live." How can one persons emotions go from extreme highs to extreme lows?!
This has definitely been a crazy adventure and one I'm not sure I agreed to when I signed up for it, but it is our life and it is our reality. The only thing I can do is choose to make it positive one!
Cheers to the next, unforeseen future of when this madness will end, and we will be able to visit the US and hug our friends and family. Until then, may life bring us memories we can cherish... and of course our stuff.... we would all really like our stuff just in case I haven't mentioned it before! HA!
CHEERS!
Things start to get hazy after this point. It's like the days & weeks blur together. It was during this week, of March 16th that the entire country of Argentina went into full lockdown. We learned that we were being discriminated against because we were US citizens and they were scared to come fix our internet, even though we had been living here for a month. All flights in and out of the country stopped, schools closed, and you were only allowed outside if you were going to the grocery store, pharmacy or were an essential worker. At some point they also halted all "leisure" walks, and started stopping people walking dogs asking them to only walk up and down the block their house was on. Meanwhile, the US has MANY more cases than we do but hadn't put a hold on much... besides people started hoarding Toilet Paper... Never in my life have I been more excited to have 4 bidets in my house, and the scare not having TP never even crossed my mind! HA!
Throughout the next couple weeks we watched the US go into lockdown, have been mandated to wear masks anytime in public, saw the city of Houston mandate masks. We watched from afar the silly US people that have protested all of these new "rules" to try and keep them safe while living in a country where the majority accepts these rules and moves on with life. Is it hard here, yes! But it's hard for everyone in the world right now! Aside from the virus, our middle child became ill with a high fever for 2 days and every other sign of "Dengue Fever." After a quick google search I knew it wasn't something I wanted to take him in for and possibly expose him to covid inside of an ER but after he developed a rash I figured I would at least contact his doctor. After doing so she insisted I take him immediately to go have blood drawn and come up with a conclusion on if he did in fact have Dengue. We called up our remise driver that we have become good friends with and he took J and I to a local ER (it was a Saturday.) The english speaking doctor assured me I could just go in get his blood drawn and we would be in and our in the matter of mins..... but of course that's not how any place ever operates anywhere in the world. I was so so so grateful our remise and our friend was with us to translate.... well and to hold down J while getting his blood drawn, after he had given a urine sample and had a very unexpected throat culture taken as well. Poor guy had a young kind girl speaking to him in only Spanish, a mom who was in complete culture shock, and a remise driver telling him in his broke English he's going to be ok while holding basically in choke hold to get the blood drawn. Having to deal with a medical emergency in a country where I don't speak a lick of the language has been one of my greatest fears in moving here. As terrible as the entire situation was, I'm very grateful my first experience with healthcare here wasn't an emergency, I kind of got to see how they do things here, and of course it ended up to be a positive experience overall, despite being a little traumatic for both J and I. Through the next couple of days he continued to improve, we had a doctor come twice to the house to draw more blood and within the week he developed a totally gnarly ear infection that drained down his next for almost an entire week! We have learned that there are some medications here that you actually don't need prescriptions for, and we have ordered from a pharmacy... well correction, our neighbor ordered from a pharmacy for us since we don't have a local payment card! Have I mentioned how grateful we are for our wonderful wonderful neighbors??? To this end this Dengue story, we still don't have a definite answer to weather or not middle J did in fact have Dengue or if perhaps he had an extremely mild case. His dengue antibodies were present and rose significantly (in his blood) through his blood draws, but the antibody range he was presenting with wasn't in a "positive" category. With his ear infection that followed, we don't know if perhaps he did have an ear infection which caused the fever and the symptoms of Dengue, or if he did have a mild case of Dengue that then caused an ear infection. I believe it will probably just be one of those things that we will never really know.
The weeks that followed the Dengue/Ear infection fiasco have been filled with soooooo much school work. Yes I have an education degree, but the desire of ever putting it into use after having kids has never been there. This situation though is so much different than actually teaching a class. The International school here been super wonderful and diligent about making sure the kids are still learning what had been planned out for the year, however because of that I"m having to go through these lessons with my children, try and understand exactly what the teacher is wanting them to do, and then force... urgh I mean encourage them to do just that. Our oldest has taken to this new way of learning like it's the best thing that has ever happened to her. She is constantly asking me if she can continue doing homeschool like this. To be honest, I would have NEVER EVER EVER IN MY WILDEST DREAMS would have agreed to letting her be homeschool but after seeing her wake up each morning, plan for the day, ask questions if needed but do the majority of the work on her own in the morning and then "be free" for the rest of the day has been so enlightening to her growing personality. I would have no problem in the future if this is truly something she would like to continue with. Middle man on the other hand. I have got to watch him demonstrate his "passion" (or lack of) learning and it saddens me so much to write, when I sit down with him each day I'm taken back to my early days of learning and struggle... but this whole topic is another long subject for another day! I want to wrap up my thoughts on school by expressing that because of this crazy lock down we have been forced into, getting to know my children's personalities has been the best part about the entire experience. Sure, I birthed these kids so I tend to understand what makes them tick. However, when they are in school for 8 hours a day, have after school activities and then spend weekends hanging out with their friends, you tend to kind of forget who they are, if that makes any sense. The forced ability to slow time down, and genuinely get to learn my kids again, they way I knew them as newborns/babies has really been a true blessing. I've found myself staring at them more, watching them become more like children, teens and thinking about what might they look like as adults. I've been able to tap into their learning styles, understand why they act the way they do, see what truly interests them and watch them interaction in relationships from afar. This is the part of this awful situation that we are in, that I hope I never ever forget!
The day we learned that our Sea Shipment (aka ALL of our belongings) was leaving the port in Houston was a very strange day of confused emotions for me. As excited as I was that our stuff was actually on it's way, I also knew that customs was shut down here so it really didn't even matter that it was coming. I also started thinking that if perhaps the company that we are here with wanted to pull us out and put us back in the US... where would our stuff go then? It also brought up the thoughts of ok, say we leave to go back to the US on our own terms, what happens if we aren't here to receive our shipments? It was all just very confusing, and to be honest still is. As of today, both our sea and our shipments are sitting in customs here in Argentina. Our air shipment has been cleared and is ready to be delivered but I don't believe the deliver company is deemed "essential." I keep asking "what if they just dropped it in our garage with no contact?"... but I'm not receiving an answer. So with that, we wait. We just wait, it's really all we can do...
Often at night we have conversations about what this lockdown would have looked like for our family had it occurred just a few weeks early. I know it would have been hard, but not nearly as hard as it is currently. I feel like the only way to actually describe our current situation is just "sad." One night early on I was having an extremely bad night filled with feelings of fear, sadness and was just completely overwhelmed. I contacted a group of my friends and told them "I"m, deep down in my bones, sad." I then had this same conversation with my husband a few weeks later. We discussed my feelings of sadness were being caused my uncertainty, lack of control in my world, lack of comfort, feelings of uneasiness and not being able to provide those things to my children either. He said his feelings of sadness were coming more so of the "what will's." What will the world look like after we beat this virus? What will this world wide lock-down do to our economy? What will his job look like in a few months? It makes sense knowing our family roles and our personality that we would be feeling so different in this crazy time. I'm feeling with my whole being and concerned about emotions and comforting the family, and he's feeling for the future and the well being of our children in the days to come.
When we packed our suitcases for our big adventure of moving to another country, we anticipated we would be "living out of our suitcases" for around 6 weeks or so. It didn't seem unfathomable, people go on vacations for that length of time all the time. I allowed all 3 kids to stuff their carry on suitcases with as many toys of their choice, just as long as they were able to zip it closed. Things like stuffed animals, hot wheels, American Girl Doll and clothes, little toy figurines, a few coloring supplies and I did buy my soccer loving fan a new soccer ball to inflate and play with in our new backyard. That was it. We packed pool toys and floats since it was still "summer" when we arrived. Transitional food took up a lot of our suitcase space, and of course shorts and t-shirts since that was the weather we were coming into. Well 6 weeks has come and gone. Our air shipment with things like all of our cold weather clothing, our xbox, our big computer, printer, coffee maker, Vacuum, hair clippers, bedding and all 3 kids favorite toys, Play Mobil and Legos have been sitting at the dock in customs for well, I guess it's been about a month now. Since we have been here the weather has changed. We are needing long sleeves and pants in the evenings, it's too cold to swim even in the bright sunlight, and to put it lightly, my kids are very much over the toys they brought. Please don't get me wrong, we have everything we need to survive. We have a lovely roof over our head, food to eat, and more electronics than one family actually should have and we are doing just fine. But it's those small things that unless you were packing your suitcase knowing you were about to enter into a world wide pandemic you would have never thought to be essential. My boys all desperately need haircuts, and while we definitely don't have clippers, I thought ok well, I can just use scissors. This is fine... I don't have a comb. Non of my boys use a comb on a regular basis... probably because I keep their hair so short but URGH! I did finally end up borrowing a comb from a neighbor and cutting the boys hair as best I could. While their hair is FINE, they definitely resemble little dutch boys! HA!
Speaking of borrowed items, we have borrowed more things than we can count. And honestly, I don't think I'll ever in my lifetime forget the generosity of our neighbors for sharing their things with us. One neighbor in particular pushed for us to take a couch that wasn't being used much in their house. Of course I was hesitate, because I don't want to take someone else's belongings but in the end I agreed it would be nice to have. Every single night when the Mr. and I sit down to watch TV after the kids are in bed we talk about how grateful we are to have the extra couch. It has allowed us to actually be a family in our living room. We all have a comfortable seat, and we all successfully watched a brand new movie (Trolls World Tour) last night with plenty of room to spare.
I just don't want to forget what it's like to live in these times right now. I'm not sure how I could possibly forget as I'm sure these stories will be the ones I tell my grandchildren someday! "We moved your mom/dad to another country less than a month before the world changed from Covid 19." At the same time I can feel sorry for myself for such a predicament that we are in, I'm also so proud of how resilient my kids have been, and well myself and Nick too! I find I catch myself being super thankful for the things that we actually do have, realizing that it could be so so much worse or thinking about what life would have been life if we would have chosen to live in an apartment here. I'm super grateful that we have a yard, we are able to step outside for a breath of fresh air if we need it. We can yell and scream and really just be us, without worrying about neighbors or such. We each have our own bed... well you know besides the big guy and I do share one, but it's a king sized and we really thought that we would have a rental queen! I'll take a king over a queen any day of the week. Is our bed comfortable? Heck no, but it really could be so so much worse. I brought sheets for my kids, and their thin blankets from their beds, they each have a stuff animal or 5 to cuddle with, and with the exception of the guy that can fall asleep anywhere at anytime, we all brought 1 of our own pillows. I'm grateful we have a big bathtub that gets used each and everyday, multiple times a day. We joke that it's actually our small fry's swimming pool.... he's seriously in it every single day. While we have absolutely nothing on our 3rd floor currently, it's nice to know that we actually have space to spread out if one of us needs some a lone time. Do I wish my house was filled with our own belongings and stuff to keep us busy? ABSOFREAKINGLUTELY! I miss my stuff so so bad, I want rugs on our floor, I want the proper clothing, and my kitchen supplies... the list could seriously go on for forever. As much as I play the "what would I have packed differently if I would have known" game in my head I'm extremely proud of myself for packing what I did. I had no way at all of knowing what I would be in for as far as having to stay at home for so so many days, but I did prepare myself for not having our stuff for a while... not this long, but a while. So I packed a lot, and I was very specific on the items I did pack. To be completely honest, there's nothing that I forgot that we can't live without... and for that, I feel like I really need to pat myself on the back!
To end this post I want to highlight a few of the other positives I have gained from this experience. Things that I hope to someday be extremely grateful lessons to have been learned, or times that had been had. I have cooked more, really stepping up my game. Trying to find ingredients in a foreign country is very difficult, but slowly I've been learning more and more in the kitchen and finding the things we really like. Meals are coming together, and the kids would tell you some of my best dishes have been made here in this kitchen... on our rental cookware, served with our rental serving ware! Moving onto to the same topic of rental things, I am grateful of all the "funny" things that they threw into our rental package that on the first day I was like, why would we need this? Things like a random handheld mixer, a "k cup like" coffee machine, a large number of small trashcans, nightstands and lamps for the kids, just things I wouldn't have deemed "necessary>' but have proven to be extremely necessary when living without your stuff for an extended amount of time! Another positive out of this experience has been cleaning a house with nothing in it. Yes it still gets messy and dirty and sheets needs washed and laundry done... but holy smokes! Because our belongings are so limited, it takes no time at all to "pick up the house." Such a huge positive that I'm really learning to be grateful for! Nick has been home with us the entire time we have been in our house.! It really has been nice for him to be home with us for this entire time. We have learned together how to pay the water guys that bring us water, how to interact with the pool and lawn care people. How to order food from restaurants and grocery stores. These are things I would have had to figure out on my own but since he's been home with me we have been able to do it together, and for that I'm really grateful for. Some other things that are on my running list of things to be greatful for during this time is
*Being able to take Spanish lessons from home without having to figure out how to travel to someplace.
*The idea of putting little dude into preschool here was weighing so heavy on my heart and well know, that decision was made for me!
*My kids are obsessed with playing Roblox and while I don't love the game I love to watch them be so creative and play with each other!
*I am saving so much money. I really truly hate to admit this, but when you are taken away from all US stores... cough cough Target... and I don't leave my family to go browse a store for fun I'm not accidentally spending $100 here and there. I am buying only what I need for many different reasons, and it's been really enlightening just how much we buy something because we think "we need it." We don't need it!
*I have gotten more rest/sleep than I have in a very long time... so much so that finding motivation to get moving can be a challenge these days! Looking back at my activity level before we left Houston to know makes me sad.. but I'll get back there someday!
*All in all I've really learned how to make do and live with less. Do I think I could live with way for forever, nope! And I still really want my stuff to come, but we are really doing just fine! Less is more... right?
It's been crazy to me to pay attention the ups and downs of my emotions. Reading back through the days of writing that I used to compose this entire post has been tough feeling again the hard moments, but grateful for the positive ones. A few nights ago, I was attempting to make a little iMovie to document our entire month+ spent together at home. I sat making this movie on my phone while my littlest dude laid in my lap and I felt so at peace. Seeing these pictures I had taken, looking back at the laughs, tears and many many emotions we have shared as a family really struck a cord in my heart. One min I find myself thinking "this quarantine stuff isn't so bad!" but then the next moment, I'm verbalizing... "if this is really how life will be from here on out, I don't think I want to live." How can one persons emotions go from extreme highs to extreme lows?!
This has definitely been a crazy adventure and one I'm not sure I agreed to when I signed up for it, but it is our life and it is our reality. The only thing I can do is choose to make it positive one!
Cheers to the next, unforeseen future of when this madness will end, and we will be able to visit the US and hug our friends and family. Until then, may life bring us memories we can cherish... and of course our stuff.... we would all really like our stuff just in case I haven't mentioned it before! HA!
CHEERS!
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