When Potato Soup Makes You Cry

Having proper expectations has been said to alleviate much of the difficulty of a transition. Our move to Kenya should not have been any different. I mean, it is not like we haven’t made international flights with young children or packed (most) all of our earthly belongings or said too many goodbyes and hellos. I remember my mom fondly recalling how fun it was to set up her home after she got married, but that excitement has lost some of its luster now that I’ve set up a new home, in a new country, 4 times in the last three years. And I’ve visited Kenya for extended periods of time. So if anyone should have proper expectations, it should be me, right?

 Kijabe and I go way back... to 2005 when I came as an undergrad student at LeTourneau. This May we met up with a professor of mine who attended school at Rift ValleyAcademy and was on the team in 2006

When Ryan came home from one of his first days of teaching and found me teary-eyed, he knew why. I was struggling with loneliness, struggling to remember where to buy milk and how to get more cell phone minutes and who to hire to work in our home. I was juggling new schedules of Ryan as a teacher and coach and my schedule of when the preschool moms got together or neighbors walked for exercise. My head just felt like it was exploding with all the new information it was supposed to keep filed away, all the while my heart was simply longing to be known without explaining our long complicated story. Our evenings which used to be filled with swims in the Kwilu River and dinner with the Rices in Congo, or more recently, filled with laughter during Kendall-Potter game nights in Togo were now empty slates. So as Ryan looked into my eyes, he gently said, “It’s only been a couple of weeks. How long were you giving yourself until you expected to feel settled?” I looked up at him and sheepishly answered, “A week. We’ve done this so many times before.”

An analogy I like to use is that of jumping into a very cold swimming pool. You KNOW what it is going to be like, you’ve done it many times, but it still SHOCKS you and takes your breath away when you first enter the water. That’s how it feels to move to a new country with small children. First in the airport as you realize you don’t have nearly enough hands to push all the luggage carts needed to transport your stuff and to keep your kids from attempting to get a ride on the luggage conveyor belts behind the counters. Second you hold your breath when you board that first flight and know you must convince your two active children to stay in a 10 square foot space for hours. And then there is jet lag. And the initial inability to communicate either due to lack of language acquisition or lack of a SIM card in your cell phone. They are just experiences you EXPECT are going to be hard, but that doesn’t take away the SHOCK of the journey it takes to make it through to the other side.

Sydney learned that drinking chai is a nice twice a day tradition in Kenya

Here in Kenya, we found someone to help with basic household tasks right away. It was a huge blessing. She has over 20 years of experience, can cook really well, and loves the kids. In preparation for my return to work, we also decided to try out someone who could focus on caring for our precious active kids when we can’t be home, taking them to play at the playground instead of being cooped up at the house while someone is cooking or cleaning. This is where the potato soup comes in. A sweet woman agreed to come a couple of days a week to do primarily childcare, but our trial period wasn't going so well. Sydney ran away from her once and resisted her care, which isn’t so surprising. Living in her 5^th country and feeling out of control is a little how I feel sometimes- and Sydney is expressing it by trying to control her very small piece. The nanny had seemed stressed out by the kids instead of enjoying them. To top it off, while the kids were napping during the afternoon, I asked her to prepare a simple potato soup for the evening. Just before she left, potato soup sitting on the stove, she asked me if it was going to get better. Broken, I replied, “They are little sinners just like me. I promise we’ll work on it but I can’t promise it will get better because I don’t know.”

Rift Valley Academy has a lot of space to run... and get lost in!

That night, stressed at the probability we were going to have to try another new person with our kids, stressed that our kids were not behaving and putting that guilt on myself for moving them so much, and stressed that no one would love our kids like their nannies in the past, we started eating the potato soup. And I started crying. It was… really spicy hot. Hence the tears. But the crying continued because the soup was also terrible. It was so thick that we didn’t need a bowl and a spoon but a plate and a fork. Did I mention the soup was really spicy? Little red flecks looked back at me from my bowl. I went over and checked the recipe. Nothing in that recipe was spicy or red. So now I looked at my family who was depending on me for food that night, and I had no plan B. I was failing at staying at home, failing at trying not to stay at home (preparing to go back to work in January), failing at parenting, failing at being a wife.

Before I finish the story, I need to admit something. I dread the question, “So how are you doing?” or “Are you feeling settled yet?” at this point in our journey. Because I want to be honest and foster greater community. Because I know that the person asking usually genuinely cares. But I don’t know what to say. I dread it because I have no idea how to put into words that make sense how I’m doing. It’s been a month now, and I don’t feel settled deep down. Sure, routines are getting established and I spend much less mental energy on simple tasks of daily living. But I am still adjusting to the huge transition of being the primary parent. In nearly 4 years since having Sydney, this is the first time when my primary role is to be a mom and where no one is relying on me as a doctor. It’s hard to say this without guilt pouring in. But any physician who has suddenly stepped away from his/her practice of medicine, any working mom for that matter who has stopped working outside the home, even for a season, has somewhat of an identity crisis initially. I’ve read about it on blogs. I expected it. I knew what was coming. (Picture cold swimming pool again.) But it is still a huge adjustment. I LOVE my kids. I LOVE spending time with them. I am so glad that I get these 6 months to soak up each new word Zack says and each new skill Sydney learns. But I also LOVE medicine and delivering babies and doing surgery and physically working hard and many times saving lives. I MISS talking about medicine in a campus full of teachers. I MISS interacting with patients. I MISS feeling competent.

Who am I? I miss feeling competent.

 Not feeling competent when ALL the milk is anywhere but in a bowl or cup after 5 minutes of my absence.
Mama said there'd be days like this.

I miss feeling competent because, as my primary role during this short season is to be a mom, days that are wrapped up in two tiny people don’t often go according to a plan and don’t often reflect the effort I put forth. Some days I feel awesome and others are train wrecks. It’s the difference between the moment your kids have gotten up from their nap for the third time while the other is still crying himself to sleep, and the glorious moment when he finally falls asleep and your three year old is sitting and “reading” her bible stories. One moment you feel you can’t do this any longer and the next you realize you have time to yourself and can sleep and then you love being a mom again.

Sydney has made a good friend already. Hoping she becomes as dear to the kids as their previous nannies.  

So… the potato soup was the end. And the beginning. A new day came. We asked someone new to come and she has been wonderful so far. Zack has started to sleep through the night and is eating well. Sydney stayed with two sweet families while we went to Malawi and was a “great houseguest” and “so polite” from their words. Encouragement came. In this new season, I need to put into practice what so many working moms turned full time moms have talked about. My kids’ behavior is no more a marker of my worth than the number of surgeries I do or babies I deliver. I need to cling to the fact that I am a child of God. Yes, I’m also a mom, a wife, a doctor, a friend. But the one thing that will not change even with death or disability is that I’m the daughter of a King. Jesus is our rock, unchanging, unfazed in His love for us whether we are helping to save a life or helping wipe another snotty nose.  

I LOVE my kids :)