Tonight is hard. I’m scared. I’m really scared.

I arrived in Pune yesterday, late at night.  Today Chris was home and I had a chance to nap, and wander the safe, lovely, quiet neighborhood, play in the pool with the kids and throw balls for the dog.  In the evening, after a grueling session of waking the twins from a nap when they screamed and cried because their sweet little bodies could not understand why they should be awake, we went to the playground to bounce on the torn and broken trampoline.  We walked through the neighborhood and took pictures of the beautiful flowers. 

Then we went to the playground and Gracie befriended a sweet little girl. 

A bit later, some boys showed up, close to George’s age.  When the little boy rode up on his bicycle, George said, “I wish I had my bike.”  The little Indian boy asked what he said.  After I explained, he asked George if he wanted to play cricket.  George said yes, but said he didn’t know how.  The little boy responded almost in horror, complete shock that a boy wouldn’t know cricket.  I allowed George to run off with the boys to the clubhouse lawn and was very pleased when he put aside his shyness and they ran off together. 

It was such a lovely day.  But tomorrow, Chris goes to work, and I have to get the kids to school.  A new school, far away up in the hills.  I need to take our driver and take them there.  I feel like I need to stick around the first day.  But here’s the thing.  I’m scared of our driver.  He doesn’t smile, he doesn’t look at me at all (I’m the madam, not the sir).  He is a terrible driver and Chris has smelled alcohol on him.  Though we’ve tried to replace him several times, we cannot get a new driver until Saturday.  We’re stuck.  And I have to get my carseats installed and get my kids in the car with this man.  I have to trust him to take us to the school.  But if you ask an Indian if they know where something is, they will say yes.  If you ask them if they know of a particular shop, they will say yes.  If you ask them nearly anything, they will say yes yes.  But they may not have understood a word of what you’ve said.  And I have to take my three children, put them in a car with a man who frightens me, and ask to be taken someplace I know is about 45 minutes away and that I have NO IDEA how to locate.  Then I have to check my children into a school where I really have no understanding of what will happen or how they will be treated.  I am especially nervous about Alexander.  He is one of the brightest, sweetest, most endearing children you will ever meet.  But he has Aspergers.  And he gets unregulated and out of sorts very easily, especially when he has just been uprooted and moved to the actual other side of the world.  If you know what Asperger’s means, it’s great.  You just work with him calmly and get him to run around for a minute, or bounce or swing if he’s too distracted and you need him to refocus.  You patiently redirect him, or help him to focus.  Then he can participate again.  If you don’t understand this, he is someone who doesn’t listen and doesn’t sit still and won’t sit still or stop talking when you ask him too.  He doesn’t even understand why he should ever have to wait.  So if people are not willing to recognize that he is a little different and still incredible, he can very easily be labeled as a ‘troubled child”  or a behavior issue.  I’m so afraid he will be made to feel less.

I’m trying to reach deep down to find that adventurous girl   But she was before infertility and marriage and three kids and a quiet PTA mom kind of life, that I’ve really enjoyed. 

who would have jumped into nearly any situation with little hesitation (probably often when I should not have).

I’m terrified.  I wish I wasn’t, but I am.  I’ve cried a lot of tears today.  I’m trying to face tomorrow.  I want to be positive and happy as I send my kids off to a new school in a new country, where they are already asking, “why do we have to be here?” and “why does a good promotion mean we have to come to India?”  They don’t understand.  Why should they?  But I have to make this the best possible experience for them.  They shouldn’t see me sobbing in fear as I contemplate facing the unknown outside our society walls.  And I try to make sure they don’t.  But they sense my fears.  They feel my stress.  We’re too close to keep that all separate.  So I get them to bed with snuggles and love.  Then I whisper to each of them, “I love everything about you” and tell them something special about them from that day.  And I smile and cuddle and encourage.  And when they are asleep, I collapse into a blubbering, snotty heap of sobbing woman.

Tomorrow.  I look at my wrist, read my bracelet, “She believed she could, so she did,” take a deep breath, and hope.  I’ll face it tomorrow.  I’ll even try to embrace it.  Tomorrow.