The other day as I was picking through my 3 year old daughter's hair for lice I thought, wouldn't it be interesting for me to start a blog that was dedicated to my daily life as a mom in a developing country. My husband and I started a children's home in the Philippines and we live here with our 2 daughters, Layla (3...almost 4) and Ellie (9 months). We currently have 19 other children and 5 staff members who live in our compound. This gives way to a lot of interesting and sometimes challenging issues for me being a mom from a Western background. For example the lice I mentioned. Lice is very common in the Philippines, but not so much in America. With that being said, both of my children (yes, even though I am embarassed to admit it, Ellie too) have had lice more than once. You see, I am not very good at picking through and finding lice on my kids' heads. I am slowly getting better at it, but it is usually the Filipinas here that find the lice. I have also learned that our hair color makes it more difficult to see and find the lice. Filipinos all have black hair and the eggs are very easy to see in their hair, but in our dirty blonde hair the eggs are practically the same color. What joy huh? So, almost every other day now I pick through their hair (when they'll let me) and try and seek out those nasty little creatures. Why oh why are there such thing as lice??? It is actually quite comical sometimes because for Layla this is second nature now so she likes to search through my hair and find the "buggies" as we call them. She has no problem with it. I am constantly amazed to watch her and how easily she adapts to life here. But I guess for her this is all she knows. So, as I begin this writing adventure of my life here I hope you get a little giggle at how different life is here, because I sure do. I have learned to praise God in ALL things...to go with the flow and not freak out so much. It has taken me a while to get to this attitude and I am still not great at it, but I have to choose to be positive...even when I am picking lice out of my kids' hair, or when it is getting picked out of my hair. I have found that when it is my turn to have someone look through my hair it is sort of like a head massage...that is my coping method =) God has sent me on this mission and I am glad to be here!
