Uprooted: What it’s like to move with 3 little boys across the world

It has always been a dream of ours to experience living overseas. The idea of an exciting new city, new food and travel was enticing and rose-tinted.  When we told the boys (9, 6 and 4) about the job offer, they weren’t as optimistic. My husband and I pulled out all the movie references we could remember as well as promises of trips to Disney World and Universal Studio. I had a list of things to stress about like renting out our house, selling furniture, finding a new house, finding a good school,  but for some reason I didn’t give much thought to how they’d deal with all of it.

Saying goodbye

We moved out of our home only three days before our departure. We savored every last time with family and friends and before we knew it, we were at the airport. I promised myself I wouldn’t cry so that the boys wouldn’t get emotional. “They” say boys tend to take their cues from mum. Two goodbyes down, the tears came. Between hugs and goodbyes I caught glimpses of the boys in other people’s arms, their tiny body’s trembling, shoulders sagging from the weight of the pain. We cut the farewells short because my 7-year-old (and most sensitive) couldn’t catch his breath between the sobs. Hussain and I put on brave faces and smiles, trying to wipe their tears away. By the time we passed immigration and they saw the planes, the tears disappeared.

House Hunting

Our first few weeks in Dallas were exhausting. We tried to get over the jet lag, started house hunting and furniture shopping from day two. Boredom, tiredness, hanger (hungry-anger) and wrestling in the backseat. It was insane.

The first house we saw was colder on the inside, dark and dingy. For some reason it really affected the boys and me. We were so homesick it was tangible. The boys started playing a game in the car, “let’s pretend we’re in our car in Johannesburg, who are we going to visit first?“ I snuck a peek at them; my eldest eyes were red and he was fighting back the tears. I was wrestling my own tears, so this moment shattered my heart. I held them extra tight in my arms, not sure if it was for my benefit or their’s, and I prayed to God so hard to just bring peace and happiness to our hearts.

We punctuated the house hunting with things to entertain the boys; park visits and KidZania and we let them choose their beds and linen to get them excited about their new rooms. After five days we chose a house. The boys loved this and were so excited to move in because of the big garden for playing soccer and the beautiful playground three doors away.

Time for school

On the night before school started I tucked them in, walked to my room, cried my eyes out and begged God to let them be happy at school, to find friends and to adjust quickly. We walked them to their classes, part of me wishing I could stay with them that first day (Helicopter mum?). My stomach was in knots all day. After school we stood outside searching for their faces among the sea of kids leaving school, anxious but hopeful. We were greeted with huge smiles, excitement and exclamations of “best day of my life” and “I love this school.” My heart at ease, I finally exhaled.

Be there for your kids

What I’ve learnt so far from this move, is that we expect kids to be grown-ups. From the beginning we should have discussed the entire process with them. As things developed, we should have kept them up to date so that they knew what to expect instead of trying to convince them about how much of fun it would be, we should have talked about the hard parts as well, like leaving everything familiar to us and all the people we love. I realised late in the game, but once we were here I tried to make up for the mistakes I made. I held them in my arms and talked about how they were feeling. We did fun things to break up the “have to do’s.” We chose a house together, and in that way they felt part of the decisions. And now we have so much more family time together than we did in Johannesburg. There are no friends or family to visit, no date nights, we do everything as a family and we’re so much closer because of that.

We’ve been here over a month now. We’ve had lazy pajama days and days where we’ve explored our new city. The boys have friends they talk about, they’re excited to go to school and they even love their online homework. We talked about going back “home” and they promptly informed me that I’d be “flying solo.”

They’re never going back.

I am a mum to three peculiar and stupendous creatures striving to strengthen my faith in God. A novice expat consumed by wanderlust. Lover of words and an avid gastronome. I sprinkle love around my home like confetti and honour it because I mean it.

Follow my journey on @from_braai_to_bbq