I had a dream last night that we we moved back to Singapore. Since waking up, my mind has been flooded with the sights, sounds, smells and the food, oh the food, of Singapore, and it makes me want to go back.
While I speak longingly about Singapore, the truth is, I hated it when we first moved there. Don't get me wrong, the moment our plane touched down, I could feel the surge of excitement in my body. I mean, here we were, just the four of us, Adam, Isaiah, Caleb and I, on our first real adventure. An adventure, when all was said and done would prove to be one of the greatest experiences of our lives. We knew, of course, that there would be times of trials and frustration. We weren't ignorant of the fact that we would have to make some major adjustments while living in a new country. It's just that we didn't expect our adventure would turn sour shortly after boarding the plane in Los Angeles, headed for Tokyo.
You see, I failed to mention before, that Caleb was only 17 months old at the time, and had just learned to walk one month prior to our trip. Now you may be wondering why he was such a late walker, and I will be the first one to tell you that it was all my doing. Here's why...Isaiah was an early walker. In fact, he didn't really walk as much as run, and climb, and do things that no ten month old should ever do. But I never really worried about him because he has always been a very coordinated person. Seriously, he was like a cat, always landing on his feet. Caleb on the other hand, was not, and so I never encouraged it. It was pure selfishness on my part. I wasn't ready to deal with the tumbles and falls that I knew Caleb would take, nor was I ready to deal with the constant vigilance it takes when you have a new walker; a walker who is full of curiosity but lacking discernment. But most of all, I wasn't ready to let my baby grow up any faster than he already was. And so I would gently push him back down whenever he would stand. I would beg and plead with him not to walk. I wanted him to stay cuddly and kissable forever. In all honesty, he wasn't in a big hurry anyway, and that made me happy.
Then one day Caleb started walking, or as I like to put it, stumbling, flopping and tumbling. Just like that he was no longer content sitting in my lap and playing, and it happened shortly before we had to make that horribly long flight.
Now, if you have a child at this stage of life, here is what not to do. Do not, I repeat, do not put them on a 21 hour flight across the Pacific Ocean.
Nothing good can come of it. Nothing.
I kid you not, Caleb screamed for seven of the twelve hours it took us to fly to Tokyo. And believe me when I say that it's a good thing that there are no automatic windows on the airplane because if there were, you can be sure that I would have been out the window in a flash. It would not have mattered if we were 30,000 feet up in the air. My strange fear of water would have quickly been forgotten if only I could roll down those windows and get out. I would have done anything...anything... to get away from the heart pumping, hand shaking panic that I was experiencing, all thanks to this bundle of joy sitting in my lap, which, by the way, is not what I was calling him on that particular day.
I learned something about myself after that experience, and this is it: I would rather be in a coffin than on a plane with a screaming child. And believe me when I say that I am slightly creeped out by coffins. And by slightly, I mean I wouldn't touch a coffin with a ten foot pole, even if was empty. But if ever given the choice between a screaming child or creepy coffin, there would be no hesitation, I would happily climb in, lay down and close the lid. No questions asked.
But at the time there was no coffin to crawl into, just a screaming child to deal with. Somehow we survived though. We landed in Tokyo and were given an hour before we needed to board the plane again, so we took the opportunity to stretch out and let the boys run around the little play area.
And yes, this picture is really cute. Caleb looks happy, but I am pretty sure he was only smiling at the major stink eye I was giving him on the opposite side of the camera.
Oh well, at least he was happy
Then came time to board the plane again, and I did the only thing any helpless mother can do...I started praying...oh how I prayed...that Caleb would not make a peep the rest of our 7 hour flight. And thankfully he did pretty good. His little body was so exhausted from crying that he fell into a deep sleep, only waking up when we made our descent into Singapore.
And that's when I got really excited. The worst, I thought, was behind us, and it can only get better from here. But I didn't take into account the fact that I was spent; emotionally from dealing with Caleb and physically from...well, being awake for 24 hours.
After gathering our bags, with children in tow, we made our way through customs, then found our driver and headed to the place we would call home for the next seven months, Fraser Suites.
After arriving at Fraser at 2 o'clock in the morning, we checked in and received the key card to our flat. After a quick ride in the elevator and a short walk down the hall, we saw it, room 5-08, but when we inserted the key and tried to open the door, it wouldn't open. After looking at each other, Adam said "maybe it's the wrong key", and then went back to the lobby to get a new one.
In the two minutes that he was gone, I stood at the door and just stared. A strange feeling of exhaustion and the desire to crawl into bed mixed with excitement and wonderment of what lay behind that door was almost more than I could take.
And then I heard the ding of the elevator and both Adam and the desk clerk got out. Then the desk clerk looked at us, smiled and then proceeded to swiped the key and push open the door.
Did I mention that Adam and I were trying to pull the door open when we thought it was the wrong key?
Talk about feeling like an idiot
But we were too tired to care what he was thinking, and too excited to explain why we would do such a stupid thing in the first place. We had arrived, the door was finally open and we were about to walk into the place that we would call home!
As I walked through the door and looked at our flat, tears welled up in my eyes, and rolled down my cheeks. Reality hit. We were no longer preparing to go to Singapore. We were here. It was real and it was staring us in the face, and suddenly, I wasn't so sure about it.
But that's a story for another time....
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