Power on

I have these moments when I'm lying on my bed in the small flat we're renting, staring at the ceiling fan which is not moving because of a power out, willing it to move, and I'm thinking, is this really me, eight months pregnant with my fourth child? Because I swear it's someone else.

We have a game, actually, where we point at the fans and yell, Power ON! and the last person to say it before the power goes back on wins.

Maybe you can tell that this little flat is getting a bit old? Although we thank God everyday for a roof over our heads. And the ceiling fans, which usually work. And the food that we make in our little kitchen, even though yesterday I had a bad experience with some peppers that I thought were harmless capsicums- green peppers, you know- but turned out to be of the blow the roof of of your mouth variety. The kids had plain rice for dinner, and I squashed those guilty feelings like a bug under my shoe with the thought that even in America kids eat plain rice for dinner sometimes.

India is incense, bathing by candlelight, tooting horns on the street, color everywhere, tropical heat like a sauna.

And here we are, being us, winding up the last of this time in the little flat over the bar on the busy street. Soon we move to our temporary home in a house in the jungle- we'll be living here for about five months, long enough to have the baby and get our feet under us a little more and look for a more permanent location. The stuff we shipped will arrive soon, and we will no longer have to stick to sudoku (YaYa's getting really good) and origami (Kid A is pretty amazing) and the three shows I have downloaded on I-Tunes. Soon we will have internet access and phones and homeschool will start up again (we had an early summer break this year) and everything will stabilize a bit.

I look at my kids and my husband and my heart almost breaks with love for them. I feel my Muffin kicking me and I am so happy to be here, waiting for our sweet little monsoon baby.