Culture Shock revisited

It's been a month since I arrived to my new home in Nairobi and I have to say I feel pretty good, maybe it's the sleep Baby Ty has been allowing me to get at night, or maybe it's the area we are living in, or maybe it's from having a better idea of what's important to me when I get to a place.

Many people might remember my blog post I wrote after spending some time in Laos, It's my culture shock and I'll cry if I want to. It was difficult to get into the swing of things, especially with a newborn so most would call us crazy for doing the exact same thing again, only this time we split up and the older kids came over a month before me and the baby. Tess was a pretty great baby, but she kept me up most nights affording me time to Facebook stalk all my friends who were 12 or 14 hours behind me. Ty is polite enough to sleep until 20 minutes before my alarm goes off, so I am a pretty well rested new mom of 4!

Four kids! It's crazy around here some days, so I am really thankful to be living on a large compound with lots of other families and very close to a playground and pool! It make my life 10 times easier to be able to tell the kids get out and go play! While Nairobi is considered a high crime place, and I don't expect to be letting my guard down, it's nice to be able to have the kids ride bike and socialize with their friends while i get to chat with other adults.

While we were living in Laos we didn't quite get into a good rhythm for getting out and socializing without the kids, so we agreed that it was pretty important to find someone who we felt comfortable with and wouldn't have a problem staying with the kids.

Having a reliable person in the house was also pretty important to me because I've finally decided to finish school. With a new baby at home school work can get tricky, but having someone to help with him will be very important.

It wasn't the smoothest of landings; having a terrorist attack occur 4 days after arriving and my husband having to work crazy long hours, all the kids out of school when Ty and I were jetlagged and a moody housekeeper banging around the house. It feels like we might be finding our normal and that's good.

I can't put my finger on the exact thing that has left me feeling good, but I can say it's great to be able to experience the honeymoon phase of culture shock and I hope it lasts for the next 2 year ;)

Time to put that baby on and GET OUT THERE!