How long are we here????

We have a long time left in Singapore but yet we are already done with the experience.  Well, three of us are ready to head back home.  My husband of course is loving the experience and even enjoys the travel even though it is exhausting for him.  The homesick feeling has been building over the weeks and is finally at its peak and really taking a toll.  I know this is completely normal and to be expected throughout our entire time here but knowing that just doesn't help.  This feeling isn't new to me but usually I am the only one dealing with it so I can somewhat contain it.  The last week has been a tough one with Haley really struggling and Mason is always asking about going "home".  It is very tough to be optimistic and point out all the positives when I am so focused on the negatives as well.  It also kills me to see my kids upset.  No mom wants her kids to feel like this.  Right now I just feel tired and pretty much depressed but atleast I have days that are better.  It doesn't help that we also really miss our two fur babies.  We see plenty dogs here out being walked and at one point I would have totally snatched up a man's black lab pup if I could have gotten away with it.  Crazy!  Here they are before we all got split up.

They are both doing well in their new homes and we are very lucky to be able to see them when we return home.  Lacey, the older one, is really enjoying "retirement" away from the crazy pup JoJo and she is being ridiculously spoiled by an active family that deals with her craziness well. 

Ok, back to my sad pity party.  Here is where a lot of frustration comes into my life.  Chris has a work pass and I have a dependant pass.  Yep, dependant and it is a real pain in the butt.  In order to do almost about everything you need to have a work pass and since I do not I need my husband to setup and deal with pretty much everything.  This is a problem for me since back home everything was pretty much in my name and I took care of it all.  I pretty much just laugh when something comes up that is tied to his name.  Yep, he still has a "honey do" list here. 

One thing about the whole "dependant" situation that Chris thought was hilarious was our experience setting up a bank account.  We grabbed our passports and our passes and stood in the long line FOREVER. Once we get up there we hand it all over and a ton of paperwork commences. At one point she asks Chris if he is sure he wants me to have access to his bank account. Uh, yes he does if he wants to have a happy wife. The next question she asks is what my spending limit will be. At this point I am like WTF? Of course my husband is very smart and without hesitation tells her that I get the same spending limit as him. But in true "man style" he turns to me and mouths "that is awesome" with a big grin on his face. At this point I am very agitated so that did not help. He found it quite fascinating that it is common for a man to cut off his wife's spending. I find it quite demeaning.

Another thing I am slowly getting used to is being called "Ma'am". Of course my husband gets to be called "Sir" by our helper and I get "Ma'am". Back home I hated if anyone ever dared to call me that since I felt like it meant they thought I was old. I know it is out of respect but why does he get to be "Sir" and me "old lady"? I know, my own little hang up and the fact that it comes out of the mouth of a woman that I rely on so much I am getting over it. Very slowly!

Between being a "dependant" and having a helper I am finding a hard time figuring out my place here.  I can't take care of most of the stuff I normally do and then I have someone else in my home taking care of cleaning, cooking, shopping, etc. so that leaves me here trying to figure out what I can do.  Of course I still make all the plans and run the home but in a different way.  Yes, it is very nice to have someone do the things I don't care for but I have let go of a lot of things that were so much of who I was back home.  Uh, in total control which is where we like to be right???  Luckily we found a great helper but still there are days where I wish I was home alone to just do whatever.  Well, not going to happen!!!  So now I have some extra time but with Chris gone a lot for work I am alone way too much.  As I meet more people this extra time will be filled but even with good friends around you it is hard to not spend that time with your husband.  The kids really miss him as well so his weeks of travel get very long and I also feel guilty leaving the kids with our helper when he is gone so there is that battle as well.

Ok, vent session over.  Whew!

On a positive note we had our first visitors recently and really enjoyed showing them everything we could about Singapore during their visit.  Of course there were some hiccups with getting into Malaysia and all other things that come with foreign travel.  We did finally make it down to Merlion Park to see the famous Merlion statue that you always see in images of Singapore. 

The kids were excited to finally see the famous fountain.  The rest of the week with our friends was spent at many of the places we already have explored so not really anything too new.  Well, there was the whole "let's try durian" moment.  I was very impressed that Haley actually tried it but of course no one wanted to finish it or take any of the rest home.  Yep, not good at all! 

The next couple months will be pretty laid back for us as far as adventures since Chris will be headed back to St. Louis (yes, I am very jealous) and my parents and grandmother will be here in early May.  Our next fun trip will be in late May to Phuket, Thailand for a long weekend.  We also just booked a short one night trip to Batu Batu for this weekend that we are excited for.  It is about a 2.5 hour drive into Malaysia to a place called Mersing where we will get on a small boat for a 25 minute ride to this very small island that has only one resort on it with 22 villas.  I could use a day on the beach!  Maybe a few cocktails.....

Hope you all are still enjoying this even though I am not always showing all the fun stuff.  I know my family and close friends always ask to hear what it is really like to be an expat in another country so I try to talk about all parts of it.  I admit when we signed up for this all I could see was the positive parts and how great life will be while exploring Asia.  Of course there are a lot of trade offs to have this experience but they are very easy to hide from the rest of the world.  Yes, life in Singapore is great and after 6 months or so I will pretty much have it down and probably be close to really loving it here.  But I will still barely see my husband and really miss my family and friends back home.