I sat down to write something on Monday, didn’t like anything I wrote, and haven’t had a chance to write something since. Samuel is being entertained by the wonderful lady we’re staying with. Her husband is the one who took Toffer off to Thailand and Nepal. HOORAY that they are coming back tomorrow. It’s not soon enough!

So, as the title says, single parenting is hard. I applaud all of you who have been single parents in the past or are currently single parents.  Full time parenting at home is hard, but take away Daddy and put us in a foreign city for a week and I’m spent! I don’t know how people do this all the time.  Praise God that Toffer gets back tomorrow. I’ve only made it this far by God’s strength and grace.

So, our activity level has decreased a little this week. Here’s a quick run down of what we’ve been up to:

Sunday-We went to church where I spent most of the time in the restless baby room with a restless baby. In case you haven’t met Samuel, he’s pretty much always a restless baby. We didn’t have a chance.  Late Sunday afternoon and evening we spent with one of the other HCJB Global families. They have a fifth grade boy and a sixth grade girl who just adored Samuel. We enjoyed getting to know their family and more about the mission from their perspective. 

Monday-We went to the Botanic Gardens with the niece of a friend of ours from high school.  She has two little boys, one close in age to Samuel, so it was great to talk to get to know her more after communicating through Facebook for months and also to get her advice on Singapore with little ones. Samuel and I also went to the Chinese Gardens and had several people come up asking to take pictures of/with us. It was kind of weird and creepy and if I’d been in the US I would have said no, but here blue-eyed white people aren’t common. In case you were confused, I’m white and Samuel’s 3/4 that are white are pretty white, so we stood out in an all Asian crowd at the gardens.  The gal I had met with earlier in the day said people come up and ask to take pictures of her kids, so I wasn’t completely unaware that it could happen.  We went to a hawker stand for dinner and got prata.  I do like prata. 

Tuesday-Moving day! We are staying with a different family now. As I said earlier, it’s the guy who Toffer is off adventuring with and his wife.  We’re probably more interested in living in this area of the city as it’s closer to the office, so it’s good to get a feel for it.  We spent the afternoon wearing ourselves out in Little India.There’s currently a festival called Deepavali going on.  I’m not sure what it’s about, but there were lots of signs about it. We went into a Hindu temple while we were down there. I’m glad I had someone with me to tell me it was okay because it was quite interesting. They were doing some special ceremony with the statue of one of the gods.  Flower offerings were in front of lots of the shops along the street and all over in the temple. We ate Indian (of course) for dinner and Samuel did pretty well with it.  Things I’ve heard about Indian food in a diaper are true. I can’t wait to get home to cloth diapers!

Wednesday-Every Wednesday morning there is devotion time at the office.  Toffer is out with two of the guys on his trip and a couple of the other guys are at a conference, so most of the group was the wives.  It was nice to see everyone together and one of the families who had been out on furlough came back over the weekend, so I got to meet them. This afternoon has been uneventful. Samuel took a nap and I vegged and watched some tv while he did that. It’s nice to have a little down time. 

I’m not sure what all the rest of our trip entails. We are planning to go to Chinatown after Toffer gets back. Plus we’re having dinner with the family who just got back from furlough.  Please continue praying for God’s peace and guidance as we finish up our trip. It’s been much more wearing on us than we had throught it would be.