That is what my next couple or few years will be about. I think it will keep me very busy and occupied. I was jokingly telling P that in our monthly updates, I should get a section that says, "From the office of Home Ministry" because I'm sure there will be plenty of interesting and not so interesting things to write about with three children under the age of three! I can tell that my mind is starting to shift more and more toward this reality of my soon to be ministry/life as I realize that there is actually a lot of think, pray, and consider in raising three kids--from physical, emotional, and spiritual development to education, social development, language acquisition, what kind of help I should seek, how we're going to rearrange our small (by American standards) living space, how we're going to keep sane, how we can nurture our marriage, etc. My life, our lives are going to be absolutely crazy and there is no denying it! (P and I celebrated our 11 years of marriage this past weekend and we half jokingly but also half seriously said it's our last anniversary celebration for the next few years! Next year, we will be ordering Domino's Pizza for delivery--most likely! ;)
I've been thinking about how I am going to manage being at home with three little kids. I really want to be able to take Elijah on outings (i.e. pool in the summer) but I'm always going to need an extra hand to either babysit or go with me. We've been talking about whether we want to hire live in help, as some friends here are telling us to. We're also talking about how we're going to put all five of us in our bedroom since it's the only one with an AC.....we're talking about interesting bed configurations. (We decided that we're not interested in moving to a bigger place until the kids are a little older.) We may have to buy another AC for the "playroom" but that requires digging a hole through the wall, and if we're only going to be in our place for a couple of more years, do we want to do that? Lots to think about.
I can tell that my "nesting" instinct is starting to kick in, and the first thing I need to do is to to go through all of Elijah's old clothes and wash all the ones with mildew and get them crisp and dry before I repack. I'm eagerly waiting for my in-laws to arrive in a couple of weeks so that they can watch Elijah and I can do all that stuff and go check out some preschools (they call it playgroups) for Elijah when he returns. I think it might be a necessity to send him to preschool. However, I also want to make sure that it will be the right environment for him. At this point, I think I prefer that he be in a good structured learning setting with other kids than to be taken care of by someone in the house. I have noticed that people here don't really know how to play with kids and their tendency is to hover over them which Elijah does not like. My hope is that I can make some of these decisions before we leave in a little over a month, but it may not be possible....
Other than these things, how do I feel about having twins? Honestly, it still sometimes feel surreal to me, but each time I see the ultrasound and see the twins moving around, I find myself excited. They're really active, just like Elijah was when he was in the womb. I wonder what they will be like. We love being parents to Elijah and we feel grateful that we can be parents to two more. But, it does take a bit of getting used to the idea of becoming a family of five in matter of few months! We're eager to find out whether they're of the same sex or not, but we will have to wait until we get back to the States because it is illegal to find out here.
