Four boys under four

Life has been extremely busy lately. (More than normal, if that's even possible.) In mid-February we agreed to foster a newborn baby. Kai was at least two months premature, and his mom and twin brother died during delivery. Don't google "preemies born at ____" because you will just panic. But if you were stupid enough to google this at, say, 2am, you would (after panicking) start to realize that EVERYTHING about this baby boy is miraculous.

Not only does he fit into our family SO well (We have so many boy clothes! We have an affinity for twinless twins! I have breastmilk to spare!), but he is in perfect health. He was nursing and swallowing and breathing at an age when he should have needed intubation and a g-tube. He was around three and a half pounds when he came to us. Now he's 10 lbs and thriving. Everything we know about him is another answer to prayer.

I was able to manage nights with Isaiah and Kai for two months before I got desperate and we asked for help. We have a rotation of women who are spending the night in our guest room each night, sleeping next to Kai and giving him bottles (both breast milk and formula) so that I only have to get up with Isaiah. They are happy to have extra work and extra money, and I in turn am thrilled to be getting a couple more hours sleep each night. We are trading in our savings account for the sake of my sanity, basically. (I am sharing this lest anyone think I am superhuman and managing nursing two babies every night. I am not.)

David and James absolutely love Kai. Isaiah is busy learning to crawl, stand up, and eat solid foods, so he's been too busy to notice him. In addition to having FOUR BOYS, a new school term started, and I am teaching English four hours a week! Did I mention we are busy? Luckily most of my lesson plans are ready to go, from when I taught two years ago. And I LOVE having an excuse to get out of the house for a couple hours and talk to grownups. In complete sentences! I taught two periods yesterday and not once did anyone mention poop, snacks, spiders or slugs. It was glorious.

Abram finished his dissertation at the end of February, and is waiting to hear if he passed or has revisions, and will head up to Nairobi sometime this month for his defense. He also wrote two articles for publication in theological journals. He has a few revisions left to do on these articles, but overall, his PhD work is ALMOST done. He has been working around the clock, and we are so relieved he's almost finished. We can't wait to celebrate his graduation in Nairobi in July!

James's birthday came and went in March, and we didn't even celebrate until two weeks later, because on his actual birthday we were all sick with the flu. As in influenza, and no, the flu shot is not available here, and oh my goodness we were SO sick. It was bad.

So when we were feeling better, I made him a little cake, and we had a few friends over, and we gave him a train set and some books that we had bought while in Nairobi (thanks mom and dad!). He also got cards from each of his grandparents in North America, so he was one happy and loved little boy.

The months of March and April were extremely discouraging for us. In addition to getting the flu, everyone but me and Kai had malaria more than once. Isaiah has had it twice, David and Abram and James have had it FOUR TIMES. (Sometimes it's a new occurrence and sometimes it's a resistant strain that keeps coming back.) Caring for sick kids is hard, and Abram has so much on his plate in addition to not feeling well. I've also been struggling to believe we are really called to live in this beautiful place, and do work we love, and watch our boys continually struggle with a disease they wouldn't have if we lived in North America. (No one gets sick in the US...right?) Thankfully, the past week everyone has been HEALTHY (give or take a light cold), and I'm feeling a lot more supported and a lot less discouraged. Thank you to those of you who prayed for us and for our health!

I will try to keep blogging every so often. I have also shared more about this adventure on instagram. We are keeping his little face offline for now!

Please be praying for us, if you are the praying sort. This parenting stuff is HARD! Getting malaria is hard! Nursing two babies is hard! Teaching English is hard, because as it turns out, our language is crazy.

Four month old Kai 

Super-Baba

James's birthday party. He was graciously and magnanimously greeting his guests. 

James's birthday cake (note big brother standing by so as not to miss anything!) 

Mr Cool 

Baby toes

James gave himself a black eye...he got in a fight with his crib and his crib won. 

I left the watercolours out...whoops 

James copied David...sigh. 

Isaiah at 8 months 

Bookworms

James visited my English class yesterday! 

Life and loss and everything in between

I have written a thousand updates in my head. I have actually typed out two updates that remained in the draft folder. I keep vowing to blog, giving up, deciding that no one cares anymore, resorting to Facebook for updates, forgetting the whole thing, and then starting the cycle all over.

But Facebook memories reminded me that two and three years ago, I used to consistently update my blog. I re-read one blog entry this morning and realized it's more than just an update of what's going on in our family. Or at least, it used to be.

I used to write because I like writing. I used to capture not only the "where are we now" moments, the "which country are we in and how many babies have we had" moments, but the in-between moments: the homesickness that catches you unaware when you're rinsing dishes in the sink. The life-loving moments that fill your heart to bursting when one of your boys holds hands with his neighbour and leads her gently to the sandbox to play. The when-will-this-end moments that come in waves, malaria on top of colds on top of dirty diapers on top of funerals. The what-did-I-learn-today moments that occur on a daily basis but fade gently into the back of our minds as we fall asleep each night, things that build us up and make us into better people, but don't get written down or overtly observed.

Back when I only had one or two children, I made time to capture all this. And I'm not even sure how many people read this blog, but I realized today how important it is for me. Even if no one reads it, it's there for me, and since I can type faster than I can write, it can be a journal of sorts. Our life here is unusual, and since sleep deprivation causes memory loss, perhaps I can look back on this when I'm old and grey and have adjusted the font on my computer to geriatric size, and I'll sit in my rocking chair and squint at the screen and mutter under my breath about the memories I chose to capture here.

When I'm washing dishes, nursing a baby, or trying to fall asleep at night, and chastising myself about my lack of blogging, I wrestle back and forth: first of all, no one is beating me up about this except myself, and I need to be gracious with myself and "let it go", etc etc. Second of all, can you imagine if I told one of my neighbours about this internal struggle? Me: I just really need to blog, you know? It's been a year. Them: I have no idea where our next meal is coming from...what's a "blog"?

So then the pendulum swings back to "who cares" and "no blog at all". But then I swing back the other way, again, to this: I need to write. It used to be life giving to me. And so I'm going to try. Again. And I may neglect it, again. But that's okay. I can care for my neighbours, and keep perspective, and still make time to write. Right?

Eleven months ago I wrote about our upcoming trip to Nairobi. At that time we were expecting twins. In June of last year, we lost Simeon at 27 weeks gestation, and in August of last year, Simeon and Isaiah were born at 36 weeks. We buried Simeon in September and had a memorial for him in October. All of these things are worth blogging about, and I don't know if I'll ever get around to it. This is one of the reasons I didn't get back to writing- because the things I need to write about were piling up, and I got overwhelmed. And how can I write about the little things if I haven't caught up on the big things? But here we are. I might never get around to writing down all the details of 2017. It wasn't a great year. Our son died.

But so much of that has been captured by camera and by memory. We don't forget the details anytime soon (some I wish I could). Nor will I forget the kindness of our neighbours, our families, our home church and our colleagues. They lifted us up in that time and carried us to this point. I still ache to hold Simeon every day. But the pain has lessened. I wonder, when Isaiah smiles, sits up, or rolls over, what it would be like to watch them both grow. To watch them grow together. To watch James try to kiss both babies, instead of just begging to "kiss Saya?" every morning, noon and night. To discuss a living child with David, instead of talking about where his brother is now, and why he can't play with him just yet. To hold them both. To hold all four of them.

So here we are, nine months after we lost our baby, almost seven months after we brought Isaiah home from the hospital. We are exhausted. We are busy. We are happy. We laugh every day. I cry every other day. Boys are no joke. They climb windows and bring dead beetles to the dinner table and stick their fingers in every single thing you bake. They have big feelings and strong opinions and loud voices and dirty feet. They have the energy of a dozen caffeinated puppies. They hate brushing their teeth.

Abram finished his dissertation at the end of February, which is a huge accomplishment worthy of celebration. He still has to write two articles to be published in journals by the end of May. At that point he will defend his dissertation, and at THAT point he will truly be done. The dissertation is a huge load off his shoulders, but he's still quite anxious to be finished with all assignments, and to move on to the next chapter of our lives. (Which is basically the same chapter we're in now- teaching and child-raising- but without a PhD hanging over our heads.)

We stayed in Nairobi for five months last year, but we've been home in our little village in Tanzania since late October. I made a quick trip to the States with Isaiah in November, which warrants another blog post at another time. Since then, we've been here at home, Abram has been teaching, and I spend every waking moment trying to parent our children, or trying to recover from parenting our children.

Below are a few pictures from the past seven months, everything from the birth of the twins up till now, in no particular order. Next week is James's second birthday, so I'll make every attempt to blog about that in the next, oh, six months or so.

Playing piano with a friend

David and Isaiah 

David and James carrying their baby (dolls) on their backs

Isaiah Immanuel Kidd 

Isaiah at one month 

Abram and his boys 

Isaiah

Playing outside 

Isaiah had emergency hernia surgery in October at 7 weeks old.
We were thankful to be near a good children's hospital in Nairobi. 

Our road trip from Nairobi back to Tanzania with our nanny-friend Mary.

James painted himself

Abram and Isaiah 

Abram and boys with our tanzanian family 

Isaiah is, in general, an incredibly happy baby

Taking a bath 

Abram and boys 

David opening presents with friends, on his third birthday, last September

I made Abram turmeric macaroons for his birthday 

Abram reading with James

David's birthday 

In the hospital with the twins- Isaiah on the left and Simeon wrapped in a blanket

David and James meeting Isaiah in the hospital 

Headed home from the hospital 

Isaiah at six months 

A day in the life

I have wanted for a while now to give you guys a glimpse of our daily life. But it's so hard! It's hard to find time. It's hard to explain to people who haven't been here. It's hard to strike a balance between "real" and "readable".

First of all, life here can be really heavy. There are funerals in our village at least once a week. People come to our door asking for work or loans, or selling their chickens or produce. People are hungry. The rains are always late, or not enough, and harvests are small. The economy is slow and work is scarce. Or they ask for medicine and medical advice (thanks, webMD!), or a ride to the hospital, or help paying a doctor's bill. We give protein and supplements to nursing mothers, cough medicine to sick babies (we have a full supply thanks to David's cough-a-thon last year), bandages and clean cloths for cut fingers, drinking water to whoever knocks on our door.

David sharing a cup of soup with some of his favourites

But there's so much that isn't said in that paragraph. "Drinking water" sounds so simple and can be taken for granted, but the people coming to our door often don't have running water, and even if they do, it has to be boiled, filtered and cooled before it is drinkable. "Harvests are small" means almost nothing to people who buy the bulk of their food at a grocery store, as I did when I lived in the States, but our friends and neighbours live off of what they can grow, and there is no grocery store in our village. A doctor's bill is often $5 or less, but if you don't have an income, it might as well be $500. A bus ticket into Mwanza, where the bigger hospitals are, is about $4. But the average daily wage is $2. Imagine if it cost you $150 to get to the hospital.

The weird thing about life being hard here is that most of this isn't happening to our family. Thank God we have our health and our finances are stable. We don't lack food. We have a car and can drive to the hospital if we need to. These things aren't happening to us, but happening around us. But when you live in a close-knit community, when you really love your neighbours "as yourselves", then their problems become yours; your burdens are theirs. (We are so grateful for our neighbours and friends when one of us- any of us- is sick and we need an extra hand around the house!)

So. As I said. Life here can be heavy. Just living here is a full-time job. I thank God every day for the two women who help me around the house, washing dishes and diapers (BY HAND), and watching David in the evenings while I cook dinner. I don't know what I would do without them, and they in turn are grateful for an income to support their families. Even with help, getting through the day is a full-time job: cooking all our meals from scratch (90% of our diet is perishable and local!), changing diapers, nursing James, trying to keep David busy, and answering the door a dozen times a day.

Essentially, that's my day: cooking, playing with the boys, and answering the door.

"Answering the door". I am starting to take this for granted, then a quick chat with my sister reminds me of how different life is in the West, or even in the suburbs. In the US, you could go an entire day without someone coming over to your house, unless they are invited and expected. Give or take a UPS guy or a quick hello from your neighbour, your door is probably closed and quiet. Try to visualise this with me:

Because doors here are often left open all day, and doorbells are nonexistent, people say "hodi" (hoe-dee) when they come to your door- it's essentially the equivalent of saying "knock, knock!". This was, notably, one of David's first words. We get around 15-20 "hodis" a day. The hodis range from friends stopping by, to workers (we try to find work find as many people as we can, doing work for the school, working in our yard, fixing things around the house, watering flowers- anything that helps them provide for their families), people asking for a cup of water, people in the village asking Abram for advice or counsel, people asking to borrow money, people wanting to play with David or hold James, people asking for a ride somewhere, people selling us food (chicken, fish, fruit and veggies), people asking what time it is, students dropping off assignments or asking for help with their work. There are often a few extra people around the table at mealtimes, and mornings can often find Abram in the kitchen, doling out bone broth to whoever stops by...and on and on. And on. Some days it takes me an hour (or more) to do something that should take about 15 minutes. (Though I'm not sure if it's the visitors or David who is to blame...)

These girls ask to hold James almost every day!

Some days, it feels overwhelming. Most days, I really enjoy it and look forward to it. Entire days go by where I don't leave my house (except to weed in the garden, if I'm lucky and James naps!), and being extremely extroverted, I appreciate the chance to talk to people over the age of 2. My Swahili is good enough to talk to them, and I know most of their names and faces by now. David loves the attention. Abram enjoys building relationships with people, but some days make it hard for him to get any work done. Our American neighbour described her life as a "ministry of interruptions", and I am starting to see it that way, too. Imagine yourself at home in the evening, chopping onions, nursing your baby, answering the door, getting someone a drink of water, and chatting with a neighbour, all at the same time. Lovely? Or stressful? Well, both.

A few of our neighbours stopping by for a visit

If we follow Jesus's example in the gospels, there's not a lot of room for privacy. But as a young couple with young kids, we need some family time! It's hard to find a balance, but we are learning and growing, and grateful for the opportunity to develop close relationships with the people in our village. The American church talks often of living authentically and living in community. In the West, "community" is controlled, planned, and safe. Here, it's unscheduled, unpredictable, and at times, inconvenient.

One of the reasons I struggle to write about this is because I don't want to seem like I'm complaining, but I want people to understand how different our life is here. If I mention offhand to someone that we have several visitors a day, I'm not sure they really grasp what I mean. I hope I've been able to paint a bit of a picture for you. We have such an amazing village of people who love David and James and we love sharing our home, our stories and our resources with them...it can be exhausting, but it is so worth it. 

James Silas

I have tried to update our blog a million times. Two kids under two is hard. Slow internet is hard. A thousand interruptions is hard. Just while writing that sentence I got interrupted six times, and only twice because of my kids.

My point is: James Silas Kidd was born on March 28, 2016, at 9:05 am, after 12 hours of (unmedicated*) labour in a hospital in Nairobi, Kenya. He weighed 8lbs and was 20 inches long- a full pound heavier and two inches longer than David was. (Now, at 3.5 months, he's 14lbs, and more-than-20 inches.)

He's the best. He's very different than Davidy, and by that I mean, calm, quiet, laid-back, happy, easy going...you get the idea.

We named him James after my favourite book of the Bible/because it's a name we both like. His middle name, Silas, is from Abram's Tanzanian grandfather, who "adopted" Abram into the family several years ago, and who passed away in March, just two weeks before James was born. We miss him and love him so much!

We are settling into a routine as a family of four. About once a week I get the boys to nap at the same time. (About once a week David doesn't nap at all.)(It's really fun.) Of course this routine will quickly be disrupted, because we are headed to North America soon! We will be in the US and Canada from September-mid April. We are so excited to catch up with family and friends! In the meantime, here we are! A houseful of boys.

I would like to blog more (than twice a year), and often compose nice long posts in my head, but they rarely make it to my computer, as you can see. I have no idea if anyone actually checks our blog. But I"m too stubborn to give up entirely. Just being honest! 

*Yes, I will brag about unmedicated labour. I won't preach about it, but I decided I have earned the right to brag! 

 

Abram on Father's Day

David aggressively loving on his little brother

Family of four!

Two months old (Don't ask me where his 1 month or 3 month photos are...! I did take them)

Catching up- September

Whooooooa. Another 10 weeks have gone by since I blogged. Again. I'm sure very few people care. But I do! I'm determined not to give up. I post lots of random stuff on facebook, and people get to see pictures of us, but I like looking back over our blog, because it's more of a summary of major events in our life, you know?

So, while I have internet (hooray!) and David is out playing in the grass (hooray!), I'm going to try to post a few quick updates of the past few months. Here's September.

Two major things happened in September (I think. Who can remember/):
~I started teaching at the bible college- my first time teaching adults. Ever.
~And, David turned one! We survived a year of parenting! Hooray!

I am teaching English to the first year students here at Nassa Teological College. The students have to have a certain amount of English to get accepted, but they usually still need some brushing up (don't we all?), so the first years take a 5-hour, year-long course, currently taught by yours truly. The most challenging part of this is that there was no curriculum, syllabus or even standards for the course. So I did some digging around online (mostly on my phone...or, when we have electricity, I am working on English, and hence no time for blogging...) and looked up other school's suggestions. Then I mashed together an outline of what I wanted to teach them, and went from there.

The first term was a ton of work- covering grammar and writing, vocabulary and reading comprehension, figurative versus literal language, etc. There are a lot of resources online, but most ESL classes are geared towards people who are learning English and are living in the US. So a lot of the context - the stories, examples, figures of speech- don't apply to my students here. In conclusion: planning the class was a LOT of work.

Teaching was actually pretty fun, and I think I'm doing pretty well. My students are amazing, and they all did really well in the first term! I'm very proud of them. And I'm looking forward to teaching them again next term.

Abram taught three courses this last term: Hermeneutics, Isaiah and Hebrews. He taught almost every morning, and in the afternoons, he keeps busy with his dissertation, ministering to people in our village, writing sermons for occasionally preaching on Sundays, and helping with some of the vision and development for the college. Abram also keeps track of our family finances, so he is always, always busy. He's such a hard worker, and still finds time to spend with me and David! I married a good one, you guys. A really fun twist in the plan is that he's been having significant computer problems. This makes it hard to work on school or his dissertation, in case you were wondering.

But none of that is as interesting as baby David eating chocolate cake for the first time.

See what I mean?

David's birthday is on September 25th, and he shares a birthday with Abram's Tanzanian sister, Neema. So on the 26th (a Saturday), we threw a small party for the two of them. This is, in the long run, so unimportant, but I spent a lot of time thinking about how we could celebrate David's birthday in a culturally appropriate way. I wanted to find a balance between North America and Tanzania, and I think we managed it! (Most everyone who was at the party has probably never had their own birthday cake before.)

For those interested, I baked a small, paleo chocolate cake for David (and myself). Almond flour, cocoa powder, honey... I melted chocolate chips and made icing out of butter and honey and decorated with sliced bananas, since those are David's favourite food. It was SO GOOD, you guys. Probably the best cake I've ever had- gooey and creamy and rich and sweet. If you notice a huge amount of cake missing in the pictures, that's because I ate most of it.

Because almond flour is a precious resource, I made a larger, normal cake for Neema and our guests. I don't think it turned out as well- it was really dry- but I think Neema appreciated it!

Our gift to David was custom-made wooden alphabet blocks. He loves them and plays with them every night before bedtime. They were pretty expensive, but we hope they last years and years. We didn't give them to him at the party, but later, when there wasn't a huge audience. (We already have more nice things that a lot of our neighbours, and I'm sure to them, David is quite spoiled. And he is. We have been so blessed.) The other gifts David received were: a card and cash from our next door neighbour, some eggs from another neighbour, and a (live) chicken from Neema's parents (David's Tanzanian grandparents). Pretty fun gifts, for a one-year-old! (The chicken is no longer with us. She was delicious, though.) We also got a book from Abram's parents in Canada (which he loves), and some clothes, toys and books from my family. Thanks, guys! We felt so loved.

This is much longer than I planned- thanks, D, for playing nicely outside- and I'm pleasantly surprised at my pregnant brain's ability to remember anything that happened 3-4 months ago.

Here are a few more pictures of David's birthday party. (Thanks Abram for grabbing some photos!) They uploaded out of order, just for fun.

We are so grateful that he has such a loving community and family here in Tanzania. And in Kenya. And in Canada. And the US. What a loved little boy.

David and his Tanzanian Grandpa (Babu)

Digging into the frosting.

The birthday twins and their cakes.

I didn't think to take a single photo with David during his party. This was afterward. Oh well.

Singing happy birthday- D was clapping along.

Being efficient. This eating style was a hit and people still talk about it.

Another family photo taken after the party.

He ate every single banana slice off first, before digging into the cake.

Neema, David, Baba and Ashby

Carrying out the cakes. (Like I said, the pics uploaded out of order.)