Sunday, March 8, 2009

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.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hey Laura, Nathan & Theo,
We were just thinking about you this week and missing you all at home. So I'm not surprised you had a missing-home night! At least we had the lights on while we were missing you... We are so sorry about Granny's passing, although we know she was tired and ready to go. Easter won't seem the same without all of you.
Glad to hear things are on the upswing again. Thanks for the great blogs, we love hearing all your news.
With hugs from Diane & Elizabeth

Laura said...

Diane & Elizabeth,
Thanks so much for all of your comments on our blog. It makes us feel like there are people at home who are cheering us on ... and there are days when a little extra cheering is a huge help!
We'll miss you at Easter, too. We don't have any bunnies or lambs in our Easter plans. We're going for big mammals this year and we are going to try to pat some whale babies to celebrate the arrival of spring. We'll keep you posted and let you know if the whales cooperate.
Hugs back to you!

Aunt Beth said...

Hi Laura and Nathan and Theo
It good to have a couple of REALLY BAD DAYS to make you appreciate the fact that you are not on vacation in Mexico. We miss you and had pizza and beer with Mark last night to celebrate Nathan's birthday. Hang in there. We had a broken toilet in France for a weekend and our landlady wouldn't pay to have the weekend plumber come so we had to do the bucket thing. I was so ticked about it, but at least there was no Moctezuma's revenge on top of it!
Love to all of you! Aunt Beth

Logan Baldridge said...

Thats terrible. Gosh thats horrible. Belch. I now what you mean i got E.Coli over the summer and i missed the 4th of July. I spent a day in the hospital.