We’ve been in survival mode for the last month or so. I’m sitting down to write this post now and I’m struck by the fact that I used to write a post once a week. Wow, life must have been much simpler back then! πŸ™‚ Handling newborn twins has been a full-time, sleep-deprived haze of nappy changes, feeds and exhausted attempts to keep a 3-year old from feeling neglected. I even had to take a nappy change halfway through writing that sentence πŸ™‚

The good news though is that we’re starting to find time and energy for other things, and thinking about the future. Oscar started at a local nursery and is now enjoying playing there all morning Monday to Friday. It’s his first full week this week and a place at nursery is a real provision, applying as we did in the middle of the term.
Oscar made a friend, he tells the story this way:

I said stinky and (other boy) laughed. We’re friends now.

Oscar, day 3 of nursery
Oscar on big brother duty

Oscar has always spent so much time with us both in Kovol and during lockdown here in the UK we were concerned he wouldn’t take to being at ‘school’, but he’s loving it. It’s a lifeline for us right now as we’re just too tired and busy with twins to give him the attention he’s used to getting. There has been many a time of his just sitting there sucking his thumb while we feed babies. We’re really glad he’s painting, colouring, playing, and socializing – and we get time for other things.

Feeding time

Regarding the future, we’ve decided to extend our home assignment by 6 months and are now aiming to return to PNG in Feb 2022. Right in the middle of our exhausting newborn phase was the deadline for deciding what to do with our rental with our choices being to move to the Netherlands in July or extend our rental for 6 months. Since we don’t have a fixed, predictable income we need to pay for our rent in advance and agree with the landlord on the duration. The minimum we could extend was 5 months. Exhausted and only just coping we couldn’t face attempting to move our family to the Netherlands navigating both the Covid restrictions and the new Brexit restrictions on my traveling to Europe.
So now the plan is to head to the Netherlands in December instead. We’re very much looking forward to spending some time there; Oscar’s grandparents haven’t seen him for about 3 years!

In the meantime, Gerdine is back in the dental chair yet again. Last week she had the first step of the process of having an implant… implanted to replace a tooth that was pulled while in PNG. They inserted a screw into her jaw bone, and she headed home to feed hungry babies πŸ™‚ In 4 months or so the process can be completed and we’re hoping that can be an end to Gerdine’s ongoing tooth problems… or at least tide us over for a few years.
The extra time in the UK hopefully means we can start seeing people also; today is the first day we’re allowed to see other people indoors again. Before the twins came, all our meeting was via Zoom, so we’re hoping we can get around to actually see people now.

We’re itching to get back to Kovol and continue language study but at the same time we’re still overwhelmed by the thought of traveling all the way with our young twins. Once we’re in Kovol we’re minus so much of the support we’re receiving right now and we know we wouldn’t cope.

We’re thinking a lot of our Kovol friends though.We put together this little video for them to see below. We love being able to be in touch this way but unfortunately it puts a lot of pressure on Philip and Natalie in Kovol as they’re inundated with requests for them to pull their phones out to show the video! We thought this video introducing our girls and explaining our plans was important though, and hopefully with the Stous family returning very soon it’ll become old news very quickly πŸ™‚


1 Comment

Naomi Born · 18/05/2021 at 6:23 pm

So great to read your news guys. So happy to hear that Oscar is in nursery and the relief that gives you guys. We would love to come and visit you, we will be in touch! ITs also lovely to hear you speaking the language. AND your little ones are just ADORABLE !

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