One I-want-to-go-home Night

I've written lately about how well we are doing here, with the kids making great progress in Spanish, making great friendships, and having fun with visitors from home. But, we had a set-back this week. It was a rough week for all of us, but especially trying for Nathan. Poor Nathan had his first bad case of Moctezuma's revenge. He missed two and a half days of school because he had to stay home and stay close to the bathroom. (He really would have had more fun at school.)

In addition to all of the stomach discomfort, he had to deal with the minor discomforts of our apartment. Perhaps we haven't filled you in our apartment news lately. We live in a very small but cheerful apartment in which most things function most of the time. The electricity usually works, but sometimes only the wall sockets work and the ceiling lights don't. Last week, our toilet -- which had been rocking on its base since we moved in -- finally started to leak. Another problem is that we sometimes don't have running water. The water just stops running in our building for a few hours and then comes back. We have become accustomed to this and I always store water in extra bottles for our dry spells.

This past Tuesday night was our night for suffering from all problems simultaneously. The water stopped running in the evening and didn't start again until 7:00 am. The electricity in the ceiling was out. The toilet had just broken. So poor sick Nathan spent most of the evening in a flashlight-lit bathroom, flushing with buckets of water into a leaking toilet. He was miserable.

Although we all have had I-want-to-go-home moments during our year, we just crashed on Tuesday. Nathan and Theo's great-grandmother had just died on Tuesday. So, we were sad and thinking about family a lot, even before the great waves of nausea rolled in. It just all added up to one I-want-to-go-home night.

We have bounced back. Nathan is just about back to normal. He had enough energy to go to swim practice on Friday and he even scored a goal in a soccer game on Saturday. So, his spirits have improved. I am proud of myself for taking a day off on Wednesday to keep Nathan company and handle household problems. I looked up a few words in the dictionary and called the plumber myself. By the end of the day both plumbing and electricity had been fixed. Theo is just happy that we all are in better moods now.

Granny used to say that "getting old isn't for sissies." And, since she lived to be 100 years old, she knew what she was talking about. Perhaps living away from home and learning a new language isn't for sissies either. And, we have not quit yet. We are back in the game.