Our First Outing

I brought the girls home almost three months ago, so it seems a little funny to be talking about our FIRST outing.  But yesterday was the very first time that I went out beyond walking distance with all three children, and no one else.

We did a lot of outings during Daddy's visit, partly because we wanted to do things with him, and partly because we hadn't realized yet what a bad idea it was!  Actually, at the phase they were in then, it seemed like keeping them busy was a pretty good idea.  We had Hibiscus laying in the middle of a major street screaming and thrashing; another day she tried to escape me in the middle of downtown and I grabbed her and she howled and acted like I had broken her arm; another day Daddy was taking Buttercup potty while I waited with the other kids in a busy restaurant, and Emerson dived into the crowds to decide to go with Daddy without telling anyone or finding Daddy on the way.  By the time he left, my husband made me promise to not take the three kids out by myself, because I couldn't actually keep them all safe.  I was too tired to want to bother, anyways.

The first week, I did take them out a couple times, but in a hired car, and we invited the ten-year-old neighbor boy along too, since it was school break.  He wasn't exactly a strong disciplinary presence, but children naturally act better in front of a slightly older (and well-behaved) child, and he could help me carry things, and technically he could catch a run-away if necessary.  And he thought doing errands with our family was a better deal than sitting around the apartment with nothing to do whatsoever!

Since they started school, that's all they've done.  I've taken them to our local market a couple of times, but I haven't even done that very often.  I can do my errands with the wrap-able child during school hours, and they're pretty much too tired by the end of the day to do much more. 

By the time my parents arrived, everyone was in a very different place than they were two months before.  The girls had gotten used to our routine, trusted me, and could communicate successfully; Emerson had gotten used to the girls and didn't feel like he had to act out to get his share of attention.  I was hoping that when we went on outings with the grandparents, they would get practice in behaving well -- okay, behaving "kind of manageably" -- in public, while we still had extra hands in case disaster struck.  We could also practice basic family skills the girls had never had a chance to learn, like "we go into a different place but we still belong together, and we use the same general rules, and then we come home together and life goes on normally."  And "when we go out we're not going to leave you behind and disappear."  And we did have a number of outings, large and small, and they went amazingly smoothly.  I wish Daddy could see us now!

So this is our first weekend on our own for a while, and I thought that maybe we're coming far enough along that we could try going somewhere.  After all, one of these days we're going to have to leave the house and get on an airplane and not see anything or anyone familiar for 40 hours or so!  We might want to start smaller!  On Friday walking home from school we talked about what we might want to do.  Emerson voted for going back to the craft market (more toys!) and Hibiscus wanted to go "on the boat" again.  

Saturday morning the kids were playing happily, but rather chaotically, and I was tempted to skip the outing, or at least postpone it to the next day.  But then I got a call around 11 from the woman who has been helping us with the logistics of getting visa extensions.  I'd agreed to pick up the passports on Monday, but she wanted to meet me and give them to me today.  Could I be in Kabalagala, at our usual meeting place, by noon?  Um, no, there is no way I could be anywhere in an hour, but we agreed to aim for 12:30.  

When it was time to get ready to go, all the children were running around kind of wildly, but Hibiscus was being downright difficult.  She lay on the bed and sulked and wouldn't do anything I asked.  A lot of this routine is actually familiar from going to school and outings with grandparents, so there wasn't any reason to be so confused.  As I have said, my parenting discipline is based around routine, and the awareness that I can't force them to do something, but I can limit what else happens until they do it.  So I told her that I wanted to have a fun outing with all of my children, but if she wouldn't get ready, she could stay with our Kenyan neighbors. Which is safe, but not very entertaining.  She perked up and said she would bring iPad, and I said she would NOT.  Then she mostly sat around and wailed, and said she would stay in our apartment all by herself.  I also said she would NOT, my children do not ever stay by themselves.  

I think it is a testament that I do not ask too much for my children to do in chores, because although our routines (bedtime, dinner, getting out the door) CAN take an hour or so, if the kids suddenly decide there is a reason to hurry, they can get it all done in just a couple minutes.  So a couple bursts of industry got Hibiscus ready to go out, but then she started sulking and refusing to put on her shoes, insisting again that she was going to stay home alone.  I looked her right in the eye and said I would put her shoes in her pack and drag her out the gate if I had to, but she was going to go with us, and we would all have more fun if she decided to walk properly.

She put on her shoes and backpack and stomped along.  You must be careful to not mis-interpret this as any kind of compliance; it is based soley on performing enough tests to realize that I actually will drag her out and lock the door.  And also on enough tests to realize that it's not going to be very fun.  Speaking of which, I'm only about 120 pounds, so I think I'm not big enough to adopt any 11-year-olds!

(To put it another way, I couldn't make her put on her shoes, and I couldn't make her walk, and I didn't tell her I would; but I removed the option of being by herself.)

I think there was something more going on, emotionally, for her than just not feeling like going potty and re-filling her water bottle.  I think there was something that was making her upset and resistant to going out with us.  Maybe she knows that she is safe in our family and our family environment but felt like her security would ebb when we left our usual routine; maybe she remembered throwing screaming fits on the street and felt like she was going back to that territory.  I tried to give her the option to open up about something else ("are you scared something bad will happen when we go out?") but she didn't have anything to say, I think because she is not very much in touch with herself or her feelings.  That will be work we haven't started yet!

In a perfect world, maybe I wouldn't have two other wild kids running around, and we would have a flexible destination to get to.  But as it was, picking up our passports properly was not something I was willing to sacrifice for a conversation that wasn't going anywhere, so I drew the hard line, told her to get ready, and ignored her histrionics.  I figured that going out and finding out first-hand that nothing bad happened might be the best answer for her anyways.  This child is an experiential learner, to put it mildly!

As soon as we got out the gate, everything was fine.  There was plenty to do and see, and we were back in the normal routine of walking through the village.  Thanks to Gramma and Bubba's visit, we even had familiarity with getting into the minibus taxis.  This was a big issue for a while, because the little girl who previously didn't have enough money for food, let alone bus fare, had decided that she was WAY too fancy for public transportation, and insisted she wouldn't go anywhere unless we hired a private car.  She even knew that she had to share a seat with Emerson, and not to stick her head and belongings out the window.

We were running late, and we got a slow taxi.  Some of them just drive down the road and pick up and drop off passengers; some of them stop at every little junction and call out to everyone walking by to see if they want to get on, and drive partway down little streets to see if there were any potential passengers.  This was the most avaricious taxi I have encountered, because it was fishing for extra passengers even when all the seats were already full!  It is illegal here to carry more than the licensed number of passengers, and there are enough traffic checks that not only do most taxi conductors follow the rules, unless it's rush hour most passengers will refuse to get on a taxi without a proper available seat.  So it took a really long time to get from our end of the line, to Kabalagala near the city-end of the line.  

We got off and walked the short distance to the complex where we had arranged to meet.  This sounds small but is actually a big adventure.  The taxis will stop just about anywhere, not just at regular stops, so we were let off within a few yards of our destination, but there were no sidewalks or anything at this point, just a deep gutter and a grassy hill on the other side.  I needed to wrap Buttercup, which meant that both my hands would be occupied for a few moments.  I thought about letting her walk so I didn't have to stop, but Buttercup on the ground takes a lot of hands for longer than the time it takes to wrap her, so I wrapped her and then had enough hands for all the walking children.  They are getting so wise that no one dived into traffic while waiting!

Our contact had been waiting for us.  She handed me the passports, squeezed the children's cheeks and kissed mine, and drove off.  Now the fun can begin -- or something!

We had met at the pastry shop where I usually go with Buttercup on ATM-and-shopping days.  (In fact, this was the person who had introduced me to the pastry shop and the place to buy bread.)  I thought we could have a nice little treat for lunch, so we found a table OUTside, and the children paraded in to pick something out.  The children were allowed to get their toys out of their backpacks while we waited for our order to come out, which since it is just pastry it never takes very long, but little children can get into mischief very quickly!  

I always make the older children pack and carry their own packs, with water, entertainment, and anything else they might need.  I help remind them what to put in it, but then they are responsible for what they have -- or don't have.  Emerson had brought along the giant, hardback Madeline compilation, which he wanted to read out loud, but only to himself, which miffed Buttercup and made Hibiscus sulky.  Since Emerson had a giant hardback books, Hibiscus had to grab one too.  However, hers was even more complicated, and her reading skills are about at "cat."  (Literally.  She sounded out "cat" earlier that morning, which I think was her first totally independent word!)  She had this general idea that I was going to read it to her, which I wasn't, because with three children in a restaurant, Mama cannot focus her attention on any one thing like that!  She somehow convinced Emerson that he wanted to trade books, which went smoothly, but "cat" didn't help Hibiscus read Madeline either, and now Emerson couldn't read his book either.  He had the story that he really wanted to know, but it started with two pages of solid words with no pictures and he felt overwhelmed.  I told him I would help him if he started, and he actually read most of the first paragraph with me reading a couple words and cheerleading.  Independently, so I could keep one eye on the girls.  Once Hibiscus gets to this stage of reading ability she will be unstoppable, but Emerson is of a much more fearful character, and he's so worried about doing badly that it's very hard for him to start anything that looks difficult.  So I was very proud of him for starting in on the dense-looking text!  Meanwhile, Buttercup was climbing on and off her chair, asking for "hep me, Mama" to do one thing or another, and I was trying to convince Hibiscus to not swing off the balcony, or at least not let Buttercup follow her and just plain fall off the balcony.

Luckily our food came quickly.  I indulged the children and ordered a pot of hot chocolate for them to share, which they discovered they liked so much at Budongo Forest with Bubba!  Then we had the issue of sharing things.  I let each of the children pick out one or two items, but didn't order an even number, and divided everything into three or four portions.  There was a little bit of shock for someone, that she didn't get a portion of everyone else's food AND get to keep the whole amount of HER selection!

However, there was a little problem with the food.  Emerson started right in on his treats, although naturally he didn't want any of the quiche I had ordered.  Buttercup has also learned that we get yummy things here, and reached right for her favorites.  Hibiscus was excited in theory, but then realized something shocking: none of this was bread, or "food and soup." Thus, it was not edible.  Everything in the quiche was things that she likes, but they were mixed together differently, so she wouldn't eat it.  One or two of the other things eventually made it down, but mostly she nibbled and pushed her food around.  And drank the chocolate!

In the middle of the meal, she announced that she had to poop.  No, she announced that she "need go POOP right now, Mama, I need to POOP!  POO-OOOOOP!!!"  This is an example of behavior that's kind of cute, or at least forgivable, in a toddler, but restaurant diners really do not want to hear about from the elementary school crowd!  It is also an example of how one adult has a really difficult time on an outing -- or even one competent person at all; I let the 10-year-old stay at the table with some children while I took someone else to the bathroom.  After several escalating arguments about whether a bathroom trip could be postponed ("I don' wanna POOP IN MY UNDIES, Mama!"), I sighed sadly at my nice hot tea, convinced all the children to put their pastries down, gathered up the things I didn't feel safe leaving at the table, and we traipsed all the way across the courtyard to the building with the bathrooms in it.

The bathroom had two stalls in it.  I had needed to pee since before we even arrived, so I took Buttercup into the larger stall and told Hibiscus to use the other one, because I knew it would be a long time before anyone else would get a turn with a poop en route.  But she refused to be in a stall by herself, and Emerson refused to go in with her, preferring to follow us.  I told her that we could talk to each other the whole time and we were all together, but she just stood in her stall and whined.  Again, I know there are emotional issues of being alone going on here, but when you have three children with full bladders, what are you going to do?!  So we all went potty and wiped and washed our hands and looked in the bowl full of rose petals and experimented with the soap and dried our hands and made faces in the mirror, before I could reach a pause with the younger children.  Then we all stood in the main part of the bathroom with the door open, and watched Hibiscus poop.  

She had been in the stall the whole time, but didn't pull her pants down until she had plenty of company.  One might note that if she managed to hold it that long within inches of the potty, she could have possibly done the same thing in the cafe while Mama got to drink her tea while it was hot!

Then we traipsed our troupe back across the parking lot to the cafe.  Hibiscus trailed behind, and then proudly showed me a pretty card that she had found.  I marched her back to put it back (my budding kleptomaniac!) and the other children managed to not fall in the fountain in the meanwhile.  Buttercup was on her own two feet, which meant that it was impossible to do anything quickly, and it seemed too difficult to make her walk back to the other building and back again.  Walking in new places is novel enough that she pretty much follows along with us, but as soon as it seems boring -- like going back and forth -- she would rather be the toddler who escapes to more interesting environs.  She was too shy to run off two months ago when Daddy was here, but she is my top escape artist now!

On the way back from returning the card, Hibiscus reached out to pick a flower, and I told her she wasn't allowed to pick the flowers, they were not ours, and this was her warning for an X if she picked another flower.  She protested that Emerson had a flower, which I hadn't seen, but I told him that he shouldn't pick any flowers either, and it was his warning for an X too.  Hibiscus promptly picked a flower.  The fact of Emerson's having a flower and her not having any was just unbearable to her!  But since I had already given her a warning, that meant she now had her X.  (Three X's mean a lost privilege.)  Emerson didn't, because he obeyed me once he heard the no-flowers verdict.  However, once we got back to our lunch table, he told me that he would take an X for his flower-picking, too, and now they both have an X.  Both my children are scrupulously dedicated to exact fairness and equality, kindergarten version!

We finished our lunch.  We packed up our things.  And we headed to our next adventure: the MIDDLE of the courtyard.  In the outdoor restaurant are, they have a small thatched structure with two tire swings hanging down in the middle, over a patch of sand.  This is about as close to a playground you get in Uganda!  One day we will surely have some wonderful playground adventures, because the kids were totally entertained for another hour or two.  They played on the tire swings, on their own swing, all together, and two at a time.  They played in the sand and covered their legs with giant mountains.  And then another batch of children came by and climbed the structure itself and hung from the beams inside the roof, and as soon as they left my children let out their inner monkey and started up the beams.  

Buttercup usually takes a nap and she didn't have one, so she was a little fussy.  Hibiscus was feeling sulky, so for a while she was on her own swing while the other two shared.  I was really proud of Emerson's developing big-brother-ness as he swung slowly and made sure she was properly seated before he swung around, even though it was interspersed with telling her she was too slow and to go away.  (I think that's pretty normal too!)  Then Hibiscus told Buttercup to come on to her swing with her, but it also shows how they are developing as a threesome, because although Buttercup visited her sister, she chose to leave her and go back to Emerson's because he was being more gentle and considerate.  It used to be that Buttercup would side with Hibiscus no matter what, and no matter how mean Hibiscus acted to her.  There were a couple funny-sad moments, like when Buttercup slipped into the middle of the tire and got afraid of the movement of the swing all around her.  But she was jumping up and down and screaming, and it was her jumping that kept spinning the swing around!

The monkeys going up the beams was quite telling.  Hibiscus was in the roof almost immediately.  Emerson tried to climb the pole, and it was too slippery for him to make much progress, and the act of slipping was scary to him, so instead of trying harder he kept losing whatever progress he had made.  Needless to say, little Buttercup did not get anywhere at all, but she kept ahold of the bottoms of the poles and trying to make the same gestures that her siblings did.  

Finally, after a lot of fruitless imitation, she discovered that she was just the right size to play a really fun game with the low horizontal support pole at the bottom, where she would put her tummy on it, flip forward, put her hands down and walk on her hands forward until her tummy and legs went over the pole and came off the other side.  She first did this onto the grass side, which was great fun, but then going the opposite direction she got a face full of sand, and cried.  Typical of this little girl's dedication, however, after she got wiped off, she went back and did the same thing over and over and over and OVER, until it was time to leave, and figured out how to keep her eyes out of the sand.  She can really find things that are challenging to her and play in her own way when she lets herself.  She still needs a lot more practice and confidence in her own ability to find joy, instead of of just imitating whatever any other child is doing, whether or not she can do or enjoy that activity.

Both the younger children wanted me to help them climb the beams.  I told them that I thought as high as they could climb was a safe height, but I eventually relented and let Emerson use my knee.  I said I wouldn't help give him a boost or anything, but if he could use one extra foothold to do the climbing himself, I'd let him have that.  He was still kind of worried, but after a couple tries he made it up into the roof beams.  I also stood near and kept my hand near him for the first couple ups and downs, but didn't actually help him.  He went up and down a bunch of times, while I helped less and less, and gradually gained confidence in himself.  I am proud of him, and I think this is an instance where having a sister with a different personality was a big help to him.  He wanted to get up into the beams like the other group of kids did, and (except for short arms) had the skills to get there, but his fears got in the way.  I think he would have given up on his own.  But with his sister perched up there calling to him, he really REALLY wanted to get up there, and started to believe he could.

Hibiscus wanted me to boost Buttercup up, too.  I explained, with great repetition, how I thought each child was safe at the level to which she could climb independently, and I was not going to lift Buttercup up if she couldn't climb on her own.  I think Hibiscus is starting to listen to me, because not only did she stop scolding me to make Buttercup stop crying by lifting her up, I even convinced her to not jump down and lift Buttercup herself.  (It's slow progress though; this morning she went in to the other room and gave Buttercup something I had told them explicitly she wasn't supposed to have.)  Both girls have trouble realizing that Buttercup is her own individual person, and Hibiscus has trouble realizing that everyone does not like and dislike the same things that she herself does.  So she splashes water into Emerson's face, which she likes but terrifies him, and puts blankets on Buttercup who is already hot.  The house-climbing example seemed to be a manageable one; maybe even Hibiscus could figure out that balancing ten feet in the air was not a good location for a clumsy two-year-old, or maybe she reasoned that she would have more fun if she didn't have to worry about her sister.  Which is a healthy development in their relationship as well; six-year-olds should feel free to challenge themselves in their play, and leave their baby sisters with their parents sometimes.

Meanwhile, Hibiscus also spent a fair amount of time wandering around the courtyard.  She looked in the flower pots, sat at all the chairs at the other tables, peered intently at what other people were eating and doing, and oversaw the gardener.  She was good about staying in the general courtyard, which had clearly defined edges.  But she found the decorative fountain nearby, and a couple times after playing in the sand she announced that she was "going to wash hands" as she went by.  The fountain was the type that was built to look like a small pond in the rocks, maybe 8 feet in diameter, edged with natural rocks, with a tall centerpiece that gently sprayed water.  At about her third visit, the other children got curious and followed her, and things immediately got a LOT more fun.  Emerson balanced around the outer edge, to where he could get his arms in the fountain part, and announced that he was "taking a shower," which is REALLY FUNNY to kindergarten-ish-aged kids, because when you are taking a shower you are NAKED and people can see your BUM!!! HAHAHAHAHA!!!  This inspired Hibiscus to more wild feats as well, and then she noticed that her hair had sand in it, so she kneeled on the edge and vigorously splashed water on her head, the way African people bathe.

Another disadvantage of being a solo adult is that you cannot simultaneously remove three children from a decorative fountain which they think is a swimming pool.  They had never seen (or in Emerson's case couldn't remember) a decorative fountain, so they figured this must be either a bath or placed for their swimming pleasure.   And Hibiscus does not yet believe in anything that exists for purely enjoyment; she spent the first few weeks at our apartment trying to see what was edible on every single plant in the flower garden.

Luckily, this is Africa, where they are not so picky about things, and more importantly, it was late afternoon, when hardly anyone was around the restaurant anyways.  Because while I was trying to stop the older children from their high jinx, we turned around to find Buttercup all ready to dive all the way into the fountain.  She had been sitting on one of the rocks with her feet in the water, as she likes to do at the pool, and she had worked up the courage to splash all the way in.  I grabbed her just in time.  She was soaked up nearly to the waist, tennis shoes included!

Soon after it was time to pack up and go.  I told them five more minutes, and Hibiscus shouted "NO!  Six minutes!"  I agreed.  It's such a pleasant change to argue time with children who don't fully understand their numbers yet!

I got them to go by saying we would be like Llama Llama, who first does shopping and then a treat.  Saying "Llama Lllama, stop all this llama drama!" and then putting all their names in for Llama, got us all the way across the parking lot.  "Drama" is a very entertaining word, apparently.  However, we got through our (very, very short) shopping trip without any Llama Drama or Hibiscus Drama or Emerson Drama or Buttercup Drama or anything.  Not that Buttercup had much chance of drama, since her shoes were out of commission and being the wrap with no nap made her so sleepy she could hardly even wiggle, let alone put up a lively argument for all the things I should buy in the grocery store.  Although I forgot the hot chocolate, which I had actually intended to get for them!

We had apples on the mini-bus for our "treat," which got us all the way home.  Hibiscus is my only fast eater, and she is currently missing such a large number of teeth that it's a wonder she can make any progress on an apple at all!  

And that was our outing!  Except for the beginning, it was quite successful.  Although I don't think we'll be heading any time soon to any fancy restaurants, or in fact pretty much anywhere that people like to have general silence, or not hear about other people's bowel movement, or mind a gaggle of children in their decorative fountains.