Now I Know That the Blau Kids Are Excited to Travel

Today I figured out just how excited everyone is to travel to China next week.  I feel like I have been running in place for the past two weeks trying to get everything ready for our trip.  Not only do I have to pack bags for eight (soon to be nine) people who will be traveling for three and a half weeks halfway around the world.  I also need to prepare our house and affairs for us to be gone for that same amount of time.  I don't want to have to worry about anything going on in this part of the world while I am away.  That takes some preparation, and I'm just not on top of things yet.

One giant problem for me is that while I devote myself to one particular task the rest of the house goes to pot.  I have been working and working (or at least trying to work) and it seems as if I can't make any headway.  I don't run my house like a ship.  I will never be that person who has people commenting on how organized and clean my home is.  I won't ever have an immaculate home.  Even after the kids are all grown I want my home to feel lived in and loved.  It won't be a museum where the grandkids visit and are made to sit quietly on the couch so they don't ruin the cleanliness.  Most of the time I hope to at least keep it from being disgusting or unsanitary.  Sometimes I succeed.  Sometimes I don't.  I made a decision when I had children that I would not be that parent who drives her children to keep the house spotless.  I have no criticism for those who do that.  I just never wanted to do that myself.  There are just so many other things that I feel are more important to worry about.  I don't think that my children are suffering for my decision to parent this way.  I feel as if we have a relatively happy home, and my children are relatively well adjusted.  The main problem will probably come if any of them marry someone who is a little more anal retentive about cleanliness.  Then there will be some adjusting to do.  Now sometimes my cleaning philosophy is helpful, and other times it is not.  Trying to prepare for this trip is one time when this philosophy has come back to bite me in the butt.  While at another point in my life I might have cringed as I picked up the half-eaten apple off the floor and mentioned to the kids that I would prefer it if these things would end up in the trash magically somehow.  In the past week finding such an object would lead me to a full blown tear fest, wondering if I was ever meant to get prepared for this trip.

This evening I decided that it was time to make this a family issue.  Herman had to leave this evening for his school board meeting, and once he left I gathered the kids in the living room for a family council.  They rambled in one by one, begrudgingly.  Every one of them had something more important to do -- like making a tent out of blankets, battling the Romans in a simulated war game, watching the latest episode of iCarly -- you know, important stuff.  But they came when I called (they are such good Blau kids!).  I talked to them about how much I needed to do to get ready to travel.  They already know a lot of this.  They have seen the ever growing pile of suitcases and trinkets in my bedroom.  I told them that there are two things that they can do to help the family get ready to leave -- help me do a good strong cleaning session this evening and then work hard to avoid creating more messes during the next two weeks.  Now I have made these kind of impassioned speeches before -- usually before the holidays.  Usually I get a half-hearted agreement from the kids to do what they can.  The job gets done, but there isn't much enthusiasm in it.  But today I witnessed a miracle.  This is how the kids reacted:

Oh yeah!  Amazing!  Hurray!  We got right to work.  Things weren't a totally disaster in the house, so it wasn't a huge project.  We even went outside to the front yard to clean things up.  That probably caused a few of our neighbors to jump for joy in their homes as they saw their property values rise right before their eyes.  It is hard to be the family with kids in a neighborhood of retired military couples who spend their entire days working on their yards.  Our house is the disappointment of the neighborhood.  Oh well!  At least we made everyone happy this evening.  

So now my fingers are crossed that this enthusiasm for cleaning will last.  It would make these last twelve days before travel go so much more smoothly.  

In other preparation news, I think I have purchased just about everything I'll need for the trip.  I want to get a few more treats for the plane, but other than that I'm going to trust the Chinese groceries to have what we need.  Today we stopped by Wal-mart after dropping some papers off to the accountant.  Laney and I bought some bubbles to take with us because Laney read that bubbles are a great distraction for the children as they meet us initially.  Who doesn't love bubbles?  I also bought some jelly bellies for bribery as well.  I was so excited to read the blog entry of my adoption buddy Tara who met her new, sweet daughter today.  She got a little purse and coin purse for her little girl who is a month younger than Minsy, and that sounded like a great idea, so maybe we'll shop a bit more.  It was so neat to hear about Tara meeting her sweet Luci.  It makes me excited for our turn in exactly three more weeks.

Today we took care of another preparation duty.  We stopped by all four of the kids' schools to see how we should handle their long term absences.  They will be missing a total of seventeen days of school.  Because Laney is schooling at home she is in great shape.  She is already way ahead of schedule for this semester, so she can afford some time off.  Katie, Hyrum, and Joseph are going to just be dropped from school for those three weeks.  They will keep all of their things at school, but as far as the school records are concerned, they will not be officially enrolled in Waynesville schools for those three and a half weeks.  We are still going to have each of the kids make an online journal entry of the trip to send back to their class while we are gone.  This will keep them involved in writing while they are missing.  Spencer will also be dropped from the middle school, but we will keep him up-to-date on the lessons he is missing because it is a bit more complicated to miss information that you are learning at the middle school level.  If he doesn't keep up it might make things harder once he returns to class.  Savannah is the most complicated child to plan for because she is a freshman, and she earns credits for graduation, so she can't afford to lose those.  It turns out that if she drops out she would lose any credit for this semester.  The school is going to work out some sort of system where she is still required to complete her work, but she will have some sort of system in place to do it without too much problem.  Luckily Savannah is super smart, and she has over 100% in all of her classes.  Technically she could miss all of her assignments for the three weeks and still get a fairly good grade.  But Savannah is kind of a perfectionist when it comes to grades, so she'll work her tail off to get the A she desires.  It'll all work out fine.  It is just weird to think that I am pulling all of my kids out of school this month.  I would have never thought I would do something like this.  But this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and I think that we will be learning more on this trip than they could ever learn in these three weeks at home.  Luckily the kids are great students and great at adapting to whatever situation is thrown at them, so I think that they will do just fine.

So tonight the house is cleaner.  My bags are packed with everything that I can pack before next week.  My taxes are finally turned in for 2010.  I got some dental work completed before leaving for China (Hurray for a great dentist!).  I've planned for the education plans of my kids.  I have researched all of our travel itinerary locations over and over.  I'm as ready as I can be twelve days before a major trip.  There are no worries here.  This adoption is what our family is supposed to do.  We have felt blessed and guided by Heavenly Father at each step in the process.  Now it is time to just relax and enjoy the ride.  But first I'm heading to the chiropractor tomorrow to work out the mess I have made of my spine and neck while stressing out about things.  I'm a mess.