Flag Day

I can not remember the last time I have felt so nervous.

We got the girls dressed in their business dress, pulled Lilly out of school, woke Annika from her nap and made our way to the Foreign Service Institute yesterday afternoon. Dave was waiting in the parking lot, drew us through security, and then brought us into the large room where we would learn our fates. Plenty of other kids and family members were there, easing the tension in the room a bit and making me comfortable with my squirmy, impatient and grumpy kids. We sat in the very back. While Annika slept, Sophia snacked, and Lilly colored I listened to the announcements.

The speaker would flash a flag on a large screen behind her. She would read the name of the post, and a very brief job description. And then she would name the person assigned to that post. The first few I breezed through, paying more attention to my kids and listening slightly for Dave's name. But then, as names I knew became more regular, I sat up straighter and concentrated on every post. Because if I just listened for his name, I would have already missed where we were going!

Annika woke up and crawled around the floor. Lilly ran out of coloring pages. Sophia finished all of the snacks. They were getting impatient, and I was getting tense. Jobs we had ranked high were disappearing, and I began to think we would be going somewhere entirely unexpected.

And then, bored Sophia had to pee.

We ran to the bathroom, just around the corner. We raced inside, and I told her to hurry. We can't have been gone for more than one name.

And that name was ours.

When we returned, a friend was waiting by the door with news that Dave has been assigned to the Main State Department offices in Washington, D.C. He'll be working on the Southeast Asia desk, monitoring human rights and religious freedom. It sounds like a really interesting job, and D.C. will fit our family's needs very well for the next year or two.

But I'll admit, as we listened to the exciting places his classmates were assigned, we felt pretty let down to be posted in America.