noodles (and rob!)

February 12, 2012

2012-02-15T14:21:00.000+02:00

February 12, 2012

Another normal week has flown by.

Tuesday we went to the petting zoo for our playgroup. There have really been a lot of improvements made to the place since we first went a couple of years ago. It still wouldn’t meet US standards for many reasons, but since we are not in the US it doesn’t really matter. Sure, there are unsafe things, but if you supervise your children it should work out okay. It helps that the boys are older too. I am less concerned for their safety now than I was when we first moved here.

The ostriches have gotten so big. It is amazing to see how fast those things can grow. Feeding them can still be a little scary, even after all this time. They seem like flying snakes when their long necks whip their heads up and around to get to your food. Aggressive little suckers. The boys have gotten used to the goats, horses, alpacas, pigs, rabbits, and many of the other animals. Since we don’t have a pet it is nice for them to get to spend some time around animals.

We also went back to the library. I think once the novelty of that wears off the boys won’t care about it as much. The selection is small and the environment is, well, it is in a windowless storage room. It is not very inviting to say the least. It is a good place to go to get out of the house for a little bit though. I am glad Tonja showed it to us.

Swimming lessons continue. I am glad that the boys are taking them. Besides the obvious benefits of learning to swim, I have enjoyed watching Justin gain a sense of accomplishment when he masters a skill that has been difficult for him. He is moving along slowly, but he is getting it. I would like to find something non-competitive for him to do wherever we end up next. I think that it is good for his character to fail and continue to work and work until he is able to succeed. Too many things come easily to him and I want him to understand that practice and hard work are essential to progress.

There was one day this week when the boys were driving me absolutely crazy! They are getting so they can play together better, but they can also annoy each other. They know just which buttons to push. It seems like some days they would rather upset each other than have any fun. Good thing there are only two of them.

My seminary class at church is going well. I am excited to see the students coming AND making an effort to be on time. I guess the next step will be to get them to do the work at home they are supposed to do so that they are better prepared to be in class. There isn’t a lot for teenagers in Namibia to do, so I wonder why they can’t find the time to get their studying done. Hopefully I can motivate them. One step at a time.

I feel like I don’t have nearly enough time for the seminary class, yet Ryan’s sunbeam (3 year old) class on Sundays seems soooooooooooo long. The kids are very active and busy, one girl in particular. It is hard to keep them engaged in the lesson. They seem to enjoy it though. I definitely don’t have the chance to get bored.

Last Sunday Ryan locked himself into a bathroom stall. I had the other children with me in the bathroom and I couldn’t get the door open from the outside. The door goes down to the floor, so crawling out is not an option. The dividing wall between stalls, however, does not go to the top. Once I was able to find someone to keep track of the other kids, I was able to climb up the toilet, into the window, over the wall (ducking because there wasn’t a lot of clearance for my head) and then walk my arms down the far side of the other stall until I could swing my legs all the way over and climb onto the toilet. Ryan was happy to have me there. We started to leave the bathroom to get the other kids and go to class when he told me he hadn’t peed yet. What? He must have been in there for 10 minutes. Guess he forgot.

The boys are excited for Valentine’s Day. We have a little party with their playgroup planned, including passing out valentines. Hope it is fun for them.

February 5, 2012

2012-02-07T16:27:00.000+02:00

The most exciting part of the week for us was probably getting the list of potential places for Rob’s next assignment. It is fun to think about the next place we will go and what it will be like for our family. We are reading up on the different places and weighing the pros and cons for each place. Hopefully it won’t be too long until we find out, at least unofficially. It is fun to think of the next adventure. Our next post will probably be one that both boys will be old enough to remember well.

On Wednesday we went to the library with the boys’ friend, Leah, and her mother, Tanja. I would have NEVER found it if we hadn’t gone with them. You go in this small back door and walk down a hallway with boxes stacked around. Down one hallway there is a reception type desk with a woman sitting behind it. She is the librarian. She opens the door to a storage room and turns on the lights. The books are lined up on shelves with very little sense of order. Children’s books are together. Adult books are separated by language. No windows, yucky fluorescent lighting and very stuffy in that room. I am assuming that it is there because the real library is undergoing a six month renovation. The interesting thing about the renovation is that it started in February 2009. Lovely. To get a library card, you have the woman make a copy of your driver’s license. You write down your name, address, and phone number and the books you are taking out along with the date. When you return them, you cross of the books you return. The cards are kept in a shoebox looking box. Wow! Wonder how well that works for them? I am sure they end up missing plenty of books. Of course, no one else was there. Perhaps they can’t find the place!

On Thursday we got to babysit Nicky and Timmy while their parents (Gilbert and Sara) went out to celebrate Sara’s birthday. My boys were so excited to have friends over for dinner. After that they played trains until I finally put my kids to bed. They all played pretty nicely together until about an hour after bedtime. I sat up with Nicky and Timmy watching Go, Diego, Go videos.

Other than that it has been pretty routine. We went to swimming lessons, had our playgroup, and shopped for food. We will see what the next week brings.

January 29, 2012

2012-02-06T21:16:00.000+02:00

I have a friend who writes a journal entry/letter each week. I don’t know if I will be as ambitious as she is, but I want to write on my blog more often. That should be an easy enough goal.

This week was a fairly normal week. That is part of the problem about writing. I feel like I could often cut and paste one week’s events week after week with only minimal changes. Life is fairly routine. Today, however, is my 40th birthday so it seems like a good time to start writing. We even went out today so I have something to write about today.

Monday was a regular Monday. I took the boys to swimming lessons. The boys are most definitely not natural swimmers. They have, however, made progress. They tend to improve for awhile and then plateau before moving forward again. Right now they are on a forward trend, so it is exciting for them. I don’t care if they ever get to be great swimmers, I just want them to be safe (or at least safer) in and around the water. I am so pleased that Justin is able to swim on his back for the length of a full size pool. As he works on other skills, he is able to flip over to his back when he needs and get over to the side of the pool. I love that he has figured out how to “save” himself when he gets in a situation he finds uncomfortable.

We continued on to do grocery shopping. It can be a challenge sometimes with the boys, but generally they are pretty good. They complain that they don’t like it, but neither do I. They were out of tortillas yet again and with tacos on the meal plan for later in the week I feared I might actually have to make them myself. Not that it is hard, but it is just one more thing. We ended up not only finding tortillas on Friday, but an overpriced can of refried beans. It was a fun splurge. I like refried beans rather than meat on my tacos and I had forgotten to soak the beans.

Tuesday is our normal play date day. It has been a nice addition to our schedule. While we were in the US last August, a couple more families moved into the Embassy community. We now get together weekly with Leah (mother Tanja), Isla and Eamon (mother Leslie), and Nicky and Timmy (mother Sara). Leslie and Tanja both have babies less than a month old, but so far that hasn’t disrupted our group. It is nice for Ryan and Justin. They really look forward to Tuesdays. I am happy that I have some other mothers to spend time with. They are great women and mothers. They are able to teach me a lot and it is nice to have some other people with children at similar ages to Justin and Ryan.

Wednesday is another swimming day. The boys did well and they were proud of themselves. Monday night the boys had slept all the way through the night until almost 6:00! I checked to make sure that they were breathing. Tuesday night they made up for it. They were up so early that I was just dragging. They don’t take naps, but they do have a one hour quiet time which allowed me to take a quick nap.

Thursday we went to a CLO coffee at Michelle’s house. It was a small group, but nice to get out of the house to a different setting. The boys were well behaved and it gave me a chance to relax. Later that day Justin had a dentist appointment. We were happy to learn that his cavity has not gotten worse and does not need it filled at this time. Here they seem to like to go all out for fillings in children. The dentist said that they go to the hospital and use general anesthesia. That seems like a bit much for a small filling. I just hope that Justin doesn’t have pain or other problems until we get back to the US.

Friday Mathilde came over to clean. I feel uncomfortable having someone clean my house, yet I love having my house cleaned without me having to do it. With four indoor toilets and two small boys, it is really nice to have someone clean the bathrooms. I like to get out of the house to give her some space so the boys and I took off for the petting zoo. We spent about an hour feeding the animals and playing on the playground. We will really miss it when we leave. It is definitely unique. It has the usual animals like goats, pigs, chickens, geese, rabbits, guinea pigs, and horses as well as warthogs, eland, tortoises, peacocks, and ostriches.

Friday was also the first night I taught seminary at church. I only had four students, but I hope that more start coming. I want it to be a learning experience, but I believe it can be fun too. I want to show them that teaching doesn’t have to mean someone standing up front and lecturing at them the whole time. When I am gone, it gives Rob a chance to spend some quality time alone with the boys. They spend a lot of time with me and tend to come to ask me to do things for them even when Rob is around. They enjoy spending time with him and this takes me out of the equation.

I love Saturdays. Once Rob gets up I get to go back to bed while he watches the boys. On this day, he took the boys with their bikes over to Zak’s house to ride their bikes. Zak (Rob’s boss) has a flat driveway that is perfect for riding bikes. Our riding area is brick and slopes both north and west. The boys really struggle learning to pedal bikes on it. It is either really hard to pedal or they get going too fast. Hopefully their skills will transfer and they will learn to negotiate our more difficult terrain.

Rob had noted that Alvin and the Chipmunks movie was playing at the theater. Not that he and I were interested, but Justin loves the chipmunk movies. Lately he has also been asking when we could go to the movies again. Our only family attempt at the movies occurred about 7 months ago when we saw Kung Fu Panda 2. Ryan lasted a very short time. Justin made it the length of the show, but probably only because I brought gummy candy. This time, we all made it through the 89 minutes. Justin would have been happier if it had ended about half an hour sooner, but he was able to handle it. Ryan made it that long thanks to popcorn, granola bars, fruit snacks, and a cereal bar.

And now it is Sunday. My boys have been so excited for my birthday. They have been making me all sorts of things. Earlier this week I realized that I wasn’t getting any presents from them, so I found a couple of things in my drawers that they wouldn’t recognize and had Rob help them wrap them up. They love wrapping and they love giving presents. For the past couple of days they have been telling me that I couldn’t open the presents until my birthday. They were also quite excited about the cake they purchased on the way home from Zak’s house.

I chose to go to Na’an su ke Wildlife Sanctuary for my birthday. It is about an hour outside of Windhoek so not bad for a day trip. We went on a tour to see cheetahs, baboons, and lions that are unable to be in the wild for a variety of reasons. You can choose some tour options that let you get up close and personal for a photo shot. No thank you! It was an enjoyable drive and nice to get to see some of the animals up close (with a fence). We had a lunch buffet that included kudu, oryx, chicken, and a variety of side dishes. It was a nice relaxing day.

Here’s hoping that posts in the future aren’t so dull.

Six Weeks in the USA

2011-09-16T01:39:00.000+02:00

It is 1:30 AM and my kids have been up since 11:30 PM AGAIN! I am cranky and wishing they would get their acts together and figure out we have changed time zones. I will use this time to complain about my latest travels. Our vacation was great, just the getting to and from had issues. Thank you to all of the people in the world who are kind and patient to those who are travelling with small children. I hope that I can remember what it is like and be helpful to others when my monsters are a bit older.

We were all really looking forward to our vacation in the States. The boys and I had made a countdown chain more than a month in advance. It seemed to take forever for it to be time to go and then suddenly the day had arrived!

Since we didn't leave until the afternoon, I kept busy doing all the laundry, vacuuming, and doing whatever else needed to be done so that when we returned our home would be clean. Obviously there would be dust and stuff, but it would be orderly upon our return.

The airport in Namibia is incredibly small. If it weren't for the required security measures it would remind me more of a bus depot or small train station from some made for TV movie. The size has its pros and cons. Not a lot of services available, but you certainly aren't going to get lost or have trouble getting where you need to be.

Last year we had trouble at check in because we were going from Namibia to South Africa to Atlanta to Seattle to Spokane. For some bizarre reason they can only put 3 locations on baggage tags, so our bags could only be checked through to Seattle. This year we were going from Namibia to Frankfurt to Chicago to Spokane. Yay! Our bags could be checked all the way to our final destination from the start. The check in agent did not know the airport code for Chicago. Seriously? Are we the first people to be going to Chicago? Isn't it in the computer or a book or something? The woman was totally clueless as how to check our bags. We told her the code for Chicago and also Spokane. I still found it very, very strange. Still, bags checked and boarding passes to Frankfurt were in hand. Of course Air Namibia doesn't work with any other airline so we would have to get the rest of our boarding passes later.

We had our exit papers all filled out ahead of time. At the immigration counter we handed over our passports and completed papers. The woman wanted to go through them one at a time rather than look at us as a family. Okay, but should she really start with the children? A two year old should not be separated from his parents, should he? I had visions of him running past the counter once he was cleared and going heaven only knows where. Security was pretty much of a non issue except for the big old car seat we had for Ryan. Ugh. No one ever knows how to get that thing to fit through the x-ray machine the first time.

Normal waiting to board. No pre-board or anything for people with young children, so we wait. We gate check our stroller, leaving us with four carry-ons (two of which were backpacks) and the car seat. We walk out to our plane and up the stairs, dragging the bags and kids with us. Back through the plane with all of our stuff we settle in.

Ryan is ticked that he has a car seat and Justin doesn't. We aren't too thrilled with it either. Justin didn't need a car seat for the plane when he was two, but Ryan is a bit more active. Who wants to be forcing a child to keep his belt buckled for a ten hour flight? For an overnight flight it made sense anyway since Ryan sleeps well in his car seat. Once situated, the flight attendants actually have little bags of goodies for the kids. That made their days. Not a lot of airlines do that anymore, so a real bonus. We wait and wait and then it is FINALLY time to take off.

The little safety spiel is done and Justin is still reviewing the safety card from his seatback pocket. A flight attendant comes up to us and tells us that the airline does not allow car seats to be used on the plane. What? Is that the most bizarre thing you ever heard or what? We have to get Ryan out and buckled up. I wanted to smack the woman in the head with the car seat and tell her what I thought of her, but arguing with a flight attendant is not the best way to start out a trip. I would probably be arrested and never get to go on my trip. The woman was a complete idiot, but what could I do? We got the seat out and, along with the other passengers, got to listen to Ryan cry about having his seat taken away. He did NOT sleep through the flight as we had anticipated.

I know airline food is not looked upon as great to begin with, but somehow the Namibian touch made me really want to gag. Thank goodness that I packed plenty of snacks. :) The entertainment was the movie "Like Water For Elephants" shown on a screen up at the front of the cabin and a couple of pull down monitors. Reminded me of traveling long ago except the headsets were marginally better and didn't cost five bucks. I kind of wanted to see the movie, but with kids that wasn't an option.

We get to Frankfurt and are among the very last off of the plane because we have to wait for the flight attendant to get our car seat for us. We walk down the stairs and our stroller is not there. It is, we are told, on the baggage carousel. Maybe I am missing something here, but why would I gate check something if I wanted it on the baggage carousel? We get on the bus to get to the terminal. I am sure that the other passengers hate us. I can't really blame them. They wait on us to get our kid out of the car seat. Our kid screams on the plane because he doesn't have his car seat. Now we are the last people off of the plane and the bus is waiting for us while we try to locate our stroller. I kind of hate us too, but I don't think it is our fault.

Inside the airport we have to get clear across the airport to another terminal, go through security again, and get boarding passes for our other two flights. We have enough time to do this. What we do NOT have enough time to do is go to baggage claim and wait for our stroller, go through customs, find the United counter to get our boarding passes (rather than getting them at the gate if we don't exit to baggage claim), go through ticket control, passport control, and security. We opt to abandon the stroller.

Once on United, things went better. We were allowed to use the car seat. Imagine that. In seat personal entertainment systems keep the kids happy. Somehow even though I called in to request our kids have children's meals we only ended up with one. It worked out okay. They shared that and a regular meal. They enjoyed controlling what they wanted to watch. Ryan watched the same segment of "Rio" over and over. His system finally crashed as we were landing in Chicago. I guess it can only show a segment a thousand times before it goes berserk. Another flight of about ten hours, but this one was not as bad.

Short time in Chicago and on to Spokane. 33 or so hours of travel, but we made it there alive. Only the Air Namibia flight sucked. I mean, not like it is enjoyable to travel that long with kids, but Air Namibia was the only bad part. The kids behaved well, considering. They were cranky at times, but that is a long trip.

Guess what? Our stroller showed up in Spokane a couple of days after we arrived. There was a big piece of paper with a note on it asking for someone in America to call us. :)

While in the US we flew from Spokane to Portland, Oregon and Burbank, California. Those flights were uneventful. Yay!

We dreaded returning. After much deliberation, we decided not to take the car seat on the planes. We knew it would be helpful for the trip from San Francisco to Frankfurt, but didn't want to have to haul it through the airport at Frankfurt for five hours and not know if we would be able to use it on Air Namibia or not.

Things went smoothly from Spokane to San Fransisco and on to Frankfurt. Once in Frankfurt we were anxious to get our boarding passes for our last flight to Namibia. Air Namibia is not a major airline and our gate was not posted nor was the counter opened. We spent quite a bit of time wandering around the airport. We eventually found a check-in kiosk and were able to print our passes. Rob was confused when he was required to scan our passports face down for the machine to read them when the machine specifically said (and had a picture to match) to have them face up to scan. He asked me if he was just too tired. Nope. The instructions were incorrect. Yay Air Namibia.

We spent more than two hours at McDonald's and its playland. Thank you, McDonald's! The boys got out a lot of energy before the flight. Without the car seat to deal with, getting onto our flight and situated was not so bad. I knew it was going to be a loooooong flight with "Diary of a Wimpy Kid 2" our source of entertainment. Probably just as well that it wasn't something that the boys would want to watch because they couldn't see the screen. The boys did pretty well. I wish they had slept more.

I had very low expectations for Air Namibia and they didn't disappoint. They claim to be the spirit of Namibia or some such thing. I think the country should sue the airlines for slander unless the spirit of the country is supposed to be inconsistency, incompetence, and indifference.

When we landed, of course our gate checked stroller wasn't at the gate, but we didn't care. We had to get our bags anyway. We were pleased that the diplomatic line was open so we didn't have to wait in the long line to get through immigration. There were only a few people in front of us. When it was our turn, we had our forms filled out. The line next to us for SADC (South African Development Community countries) was able to process 23 people in the time it took the woman to process our family of four. Our forms were completed. We had the diplomatic passports with appropriate visas. The information was virtually the same. Why, why, why would it take so long to get four people through? I think Air Namibia and immigration must get their employees from the same employment pool.

I shouldn't have been so cranky, because our bags were not out when we got through. Half an hour after the flight had landed the crews bags got through. Our bags started showing up fifty minutes after we had landed. Remember, it isn't a big airport. Their are two baggage carousels and you can stand in the middle of the two and watch both. I'm wondering if they made some poor soul hand carry our luggage from the plane rather than transport it on the baggage cars. Our bags (including stroller) all made it. :)

If you aren't declaring any goods they randomly screen bags. The woman who was choosing who to screen choose the next two people in line, but her idiotic co-worker misunderstood and starting having everyone go through. There wasn't room for people to wait as the bags went through the x-ray. I continued on through with the kids and the carry-ons (I decided not to have those screened and no one seemed to care) while Rob stayed with the luggage. Our bags were filled with goodies like 15 pounds of salsa, 9 pounds of peanut butter, and other things we wanted to have with us here. They had him go to have the bags examined. Rob takes the bags over to the woman at the goods to declare side and she asks Rob what she is supposed to be examining. Uh, how is he supposed to know? If you were hiding something would you really tell her anyway?

Our shuttle driver was waiting for us. We made it home safely. The house was clean. :) I guess I shouldn't complain, but I am. Now comes of the question of what I will do next time if I have the option. Will I choose the horrible Air Namibia or will I opt to go through crime ridden Johannesburg, additional security screening and pat down, and deal with four flights rather than three? I don't know. I do know that I am glad Ryan will be done with the car seat and stroller. I am also glad that I won't need to carry bulky diapers with me. That's something.

Now I realize that I should be happy that I am not the housewife who got hauled off the plane and searched and interviewed. If I were in her place I would be really really upset. I don't know the whole story though, and am guessing that she probably got pulled because of the people she was sitting with. People who saw the men by the restroom probably got nervous and I would suspect the flight attendants got multiple comments by other passengers. Justified? Perhaps not, but I think that probably things played out as they needed to be played out. I understand being upset, but I think that people were probably doing their job based upon the information they were given.

With the exception of Seattle, I have always been treated respectfully going through security. Employees have been kind to my children (currently 4 and 2, but we have travelled with them younger too) and been polite and patient carrying out their duties. Yes, they have patted down Ryan's rear end. I know that upsets some people and they say that babies aren't security threats. I think that a poopy diaper would be a great place to try to sneak things through. Do you really think the employees enjoy having to search kids and the elderly or infirm? Seattle, on more than one occasion, has ticked me off. The people there were, in my opinion, very rude and disrespectful to me and others in the line. I think a lot of the security measures are strange. I think there has got to be a better way. In the meantime, if employees are just doing their jobs,I try to be patient with them. I can save my frustration for the idiots of Air Namibia. I guess we all have our own little issues, don't we. :)

Oh, and in case you haven't guessed, I hate Air Namibia.

Happy (Early) 4th of July

2011-06-26T20:35:00.000+02:00

Even though it isn't the Fourth of July yet, we attended the annual Embassy family party to celebrate. (Not to be confused with the official party which I seriously doubt will include a bouncy castle!) Since we are in the Southern Hemisphere, it is winter here right now. It was an absolutely gorgeous day! I had the boys in long sleeves, but they would have been okay in t-shirts. Oh well, saved me from having to put sunscreen on their arms.

That's my boy, going up the slide!

Justin and Rob were partners in the three legged race. I competed with Ryan tied to my leg. He thought it was the funniest thing ever.

Doesn't Justin look comfy?

After the three legged race, Justin decided a game of tug-of-war was in order.

Penduka

2011-06-25T21:35:00.000+02:00

Rob and I went to visit Penduka, a small community not too far outside of town. From what little we had read and heard, we were under the impression that it was a tourist type destination. We knew that it was an organization that helps disadvantaged women by teaching them how to make craft products that can be sold. I envisioned a large gift shop with smaller areas where you could watch the women working on the projects. There is indeed a small gift shop and you can see the women at work, but Penduka is not there for the tourists, it is there for the women. It is a no frills operation focused on helping women in need become more self sufficient.

A map painted on the wall of one of the buildings shows the layout of the community, which includes some bungalows for housing some of the women.

One of the small buildings was for bead making. Glass bottles are collected throughout the city and then broken and molded into beads for jewelry. The women who make these beads are all deaf.

View out to some of the bungalows.

Outside of the main building. This building houses the gift shop as well as the sewing area, the pottery area, and the batik printing area.

I was very impressed with their TB program. They provide treatment to people with TB. The people are monitored to ensure that they take their medication. Before they take it, they are given some food. Being fed is a motivator to come and it helps reduce some of the side effects of taking the medication on an empty stomach. During treatment, patients are taught how to make simple bead crafts. They are paid for each piece they complete. The catch is, no payment until they have finished their treatment. I thought that was brilliant! Who wants to give up all of that free money?

With so many charity scams and mishandling of donations, it was nice to be able to see something in action. It was also nice to be able to buy some crafts that were actually made in Namibia. So often the things you find here are brought in from other countries and the prices are marked up.

Here is Ryan wearing the apron that I bought him at Penduka. I loved the colors and the animals on it.

Justin looks pretty cute in his apron too. They had some with gorgeous embroidery, but I knew I would never allowed those to be used as aprons! Now my boys have aprons to wear when they "help" cook and when I want to help protect their clothes when they are eating.

Here is the Penduka website: http://www.penduka.com/en/

Here is a shot of the area around Penduka. I took it through the van window on our way home.

Here is a picture of one of many barber shops set up along the way. Why you would need so many places to cut hair is beyond me. I suppose it is a way to try to make some money without much in the way of start up costs. Unemployment is incredibly high here.

More random homes/businesses/storage sheds

Back in town we stopped at this little shop. Someone had told Rob they have the best fries in Windhoek. Well, the fries were good, but not great. They must not like crispy fries here because they just don't make them that way. At least they are potatoes and probably contain trans fat. How can that be bad? Our vote for best fries in Namibia is definitely out at Okapuka game lodge. Kind of far to drive for fries though.

Game Drive Afternoon Trip

2011-06-13T14:31:00.000+02:00

We FINALLY made it to the Okapuka Game Lodge. It is only about 40 km away from Windhoek, so it is one of those things that we could do any afternoon. Of course that means it is something we hadn't gotten around to because it is so close and doesn't require a lot of advanced planning. Fortunately, we went with a couple who is only here for a couple of months. That means they have a tighter timeline. That was the motivation we needed to go.

Warthogs were everywhere! I took this shot while sitting at our table. We snacked on some fries while we waited for it to be time to leave for our drive. Rob and I agree that the fries were the best that we have had in Namibia. Very reasonably priced too.

We saw two crocodiles while we were out on the game drive. While we were snapping pictures of one, a warthog came trotting down the path. It saw the croc, returned back into the brush, and made a wide detour to get around. Not that I really had any desire to see a creature mauled by a crocodile, but it would have been interesting to see how fast that croc could move. He looks so harmless just resting there. I've seen enough nature shows to know better though!

We saw probably about 20 giraffes in all. We didn't get close to a lot of them though. I was amazed at how well they can blend in to the the landscape. They are obviously tall and I would have thought that would make them stick out. Their coloring matches up with the dry bushes and trees though. I find giraffes one of the most interesting animals to watch. They are graceful and just different. Very neat to view them here as opposed to a zoo. I get better pics in a zoo, but it just isn't the same.

The tour guide feeds the rhinos, so we saw plenty of them. I liked this picture because you can tell how close they got to us. It would have been easy to reach out and touch them. Our guide assured us they were vegetarians, but that doesn't mean anyone wanted to run around and play with them. These guys are BIG. We saw a couple of them have a disagreement and I sure wouldn't want that horn coming my way!

These are springbok. We saw tons of them as well as kudu, oryx, sable antelope, blue wildebeest, hartebeest, eland, and the like. Our guide had the facts about which were the fastest, which could leap the highest, which were the largest, etc. etc. They eat a lot of these animals here. I have tried some when we went to Etosha. Not horribly impressed, but I am not big on game meat. We saw one oryx with only one horn and it was facing the wrong way. Our guide told us it was from incest. "Incestuous antelope" became my favorite phrase of the day. The little oryx looked a bit like a unicorn reject.

I love all the birds' nests hanging from the trees. Namibia has a lot of interesting birds, but they are fast, small, and hard to get pictures of unless you have patience and a good camera. We also saw baboons, but they were fast and uncooperative with getting their pictures taken. Baboons cause a lot of mischief here.

Nice fire going at Joe's Beerhouse. We had an early dinner so it wasn't cold yet. When the sun goes down, winter can be chilly here, especially if there is a wind. Joe's is a tourist "must" for eating out in Namibia. I opted for a beef steak rather than some of the more exotic game choices that are available. Our poor waitress seemed a bit confused by Americans who didn't want sauce dumped all over their meat. The garlic butter on it was perfect! Why would we want to mess with that? They really love their sauces here. Unfortunately, I don't find them very appetizing.

A friend told me that the boys wouldn't do well on the drive. I know a lot of places don't allow small children because it is hard to get them to follow directions precisely if wildlife get out of control. I think our boys would have been fine as long as they weren't sitting on the edge. I would have felt that they were safe, but I sure wouldn't have enjoyed myself. They would have been bored. Justin is so clueless at spotting things too, I wonder if he would see a rhino unless it touched him! They got bored just looking at a few pictures. The comment Justin made was along the lines of you saw a rhino, cool, let's go play now.

So Mom, Dad, Meredith, or other potential visitors. I will take you to Okapuka if you visit us. It is close, the game drive itself is short (only 90 minutes) and inexpensive. You get to see a little of the wild without it being inconvenient. :)

Rant, Rave, and Well Deserved Praise

2011-06-09T14:56:00.000+02:00

I love to shop at Kohls for clothes for baby and toddler items as well as some other basic odds and ends. When our Chinese rice cooker died, Kohls had the best price on the replacement (okay, I only compared with Amazon, Macys, and two or three other sites), especially since I could get it at 30% as a Kohls charge card holder AND get $10 back for every $50 I spent. I am a regular Kohls customer for things like that.

This week my two kitchen wooden spoons arrived in a box big enough for a bed pillow, but they had it dropped shipped from their supplier so can't blame them for that, and my other items did not arrive. Box came with packing slip and some baby items that were not at all what I ordered. Not even close. Sigh. So I want to return the things that aren't mine and get the things that I ordered and paid for.

Living overseas presents challenges, and returns are one of them. With the time difference and the often crappy connection I have for phone calls, e-mail customer service would seem the way to go. I explained the situation. Questions were asked of me. I responded, but of course the same person didn't get that e-mail. Trying to go over things (guess they don't read the whole thread or the notes that they take) is like a game of telephone and the message doesn't get through.

I gave up and called as I had done on a previous occassion. Nicest customer service on the phone. Very polite, very helpful, and the problem was dealt with. Not only was it corrected, but it was corrected to my advantage as a courtesy for my inconvenience. Nice. They have kept me as a customer. I hope that as they look over my order history they can see that I am a reasonable person. I know that there are people that try to scam companies over things like toddler boy socks and bath tub ABC letters, but I am not one of those people.

Specific kudos go to the supervisor who just knew that 20189 is State Dept zip code and that they could not schedule a UPS pickup so I could return items. The wonderful woman who spoke with me on the phone honored the prices of my original purchase OR the current sale price, whichever was to my advantage. Now, how much money is Kohls out? In my mind, they aren't out any. They have kept a customer. For me, it wasn't about the money either, but about customer service. Thank you, phone customer service. Now to get your e-mail representatives with a more efficient, helpful way of doing things.

Rice Cookers and Fighting Eland (Two Different Subjects)

2011-06-08T17:44:00.000+02:00

Such exciting happenings in the Weber household. Our rice cooker died, or was at least very sick. It would sometimes shock you when you touched it. Hmmm, not a good sign. Our outlets all have individual on/off switches so I could just turn off the power before touching it, but really it seemed like a sign to get a new rice cooker. We bought it in China for something like $10 to $12 US and it had a good run. During our move from China to Japan it got dented, but it kept on working. Now, after just over five years of faithful service, it was ready to get a new one. The replacement ended up costing $70. We have only used it once so far, but it seems to be of a better quality. Time will tell how it holds up. Now I just need to remember that it is 110 volts and not 220 so I don't plug it in directly and blow it up. (Left: old cooker, Right: new cooker)

Before swimming lessons, we stopped off at the petting zoo. We saw two elands (or is the plural eland just like the singular?) butting heads and pushing each other around. These guys are taller than I am and were being quite aggressive. I wanted to take video or at least get a picture, but my camera was in my purse and I didn't want to let go of Ryan's hand. The animals roam free and we weren't too far away. Ryan was trying to be a peacemaker and I feared that getting out my camera might just be the distraction that allowed him to enter the fight himself. I got a shot of one of the eland a bit later when we were further away. Doesn't he look calm and friendly in the picture?

See how exciting our lives are? Maybe you have had a rice cooker die lately, but how often do eland fight right in front of you? Hopefully after our day trip on Saturday I will have something a bit more exciting to post. :) Just wanted to put something up since I said I would post more often.

I Just Want to Plug In the Humidifiers!

2011-06-01T14:17:00.000+02:00

It is winter now. The long summer rainy season is over and humidity levels have dropped drastically. Time to plug in the humidifiers in the bedrooms. I put it off longer than I should have because I knew it would not be a simple task. We have three humidifiers. One came with the house and it has a skinny European style plug. One that we brought with us is from the States (okay, probably made in China, but a US brand) and has a US plug and needs a transformer to convert the voltage. The one we purchased here has a round European plug. Now, to get them plugged in and operational... Pictured are some of the many styles of adapters we have. Here in Namibia they have the most ridiculous plugs, just like in South Africa and who knows where else. The prongs are huge and make me think that these are training plugs, kind of like they make the fat crayons for toddlers. I figure out a configuration that works, but wouldn't you know it, when one of the adapters is plugged in, it turns off the power to the outlet. All of the outlets have on/off switches, and to push the adapter in far enough to make contact forces the outlet off. It took probably about 40 minutes to get three humidifiers plugged in. The outlets alone are a reason not to live here. I hope that the next place we lives has something more sensible that can use a universal adapter. I feel like I have enough adapters that I could open my own Radio Shack.

Back to Blogging?

2011-05-23T16:18:00.000+02:00

Okay, there have been a lot of reasons that I haven't been blogging. One of them is actually pretty stupid. There were two obnoxious widgit graphics that appeared over my text and I didn't know how to get rid of them. I know that I could look online to find out or just experiment with settings, but our internet can be SO slow sometimes (remember dial up speed?) and with the boys constantly distracting me it was just not something that I was doing. Today (I hope) I did it! Yay! Now that that isn't there to bother me, perhaps I will get back to more regular blogging. At least I have been doing monthly updates of what I have been doing with the boys on my blog http://entertainingmykids.blogspot.com/

I want to write a bit about our trip to Etosha last month, but for now I will write about my tripS to the store to buy food. This morning I went to the fruit and vegetable market to buy produce and milk. That was all that I needed. I got the produce. I can generally accept that our produce is trucked in from South Africa and does not always look the way I expect produce to look. I can also usually deal when an item or two is out of stock. Today there was no milk to buy. Correction, there was no milk that had an expiration date any later than today. There was some with yesterday's date and some with today's date. That doesn't really help me for the rest of the week.

This afternoon I decide to head out to the market to buy milk. My husband wants some ramen for work as well. Simple enough. Still, since I am making the trip I might as well buy for the week. They had tortillas in stock (yay!) which I have not seen for three weeks. We are out, so I bought five packages of eight tortillas to put in our freezer. That starts us out at $15 US. I continue, happy that they do have milk AND ramen AND even the kind of yogurt my kids like. The dates on the products are all good. Of course since I am buying so much I figure I should get flour since I am low, chips, etc. etc. Once we get over the magic number of $15 US we need to get a tax receipt so we can be reimbursed for the 15% tax on things here. (Your state tax isn't sounding so bad now, is it?) I load up the cart and decide I should check how much money I brought. I wasn't going to get much and now I have quite a bit. I have about $100 US so I plan accordingly. I end up buying about $70 worth of stuff. The boys have been playing with food in the cart, trying to climb out, making loud noises, grabbing for things on the shelves, etc. etc. I am so frazzled as I check out that I forget to get my tax receipt. Grrrr... I could wait in the looooooooong line at customer service, but I really don't want to be with my screaming demons a moment longer. There goes $10 US down the drain. I know, not a huge sum, but it still makes me mad. There was no good reason not to get that "free" money.

So we get home and the boys are walking so slowly while I am carrying heavy bags. They are fighting to get in the house and I open the door without turning off the alarm first. I have to push past the kids who are hanging on my legs and trying to be the first ones in the house and get over to the control panel to turn it off before the alarm company starts calling. Then Ryan is upset and needs comforting. Justin decides to help put away the food because he knows I am not pleased with them. He puts some in special "tricky" places for me. Lovely. I think I have found everything. I wish I hadn't been busy with Ryan so long.

Good thing I got more than milk and ramen because I am NOT looking forward to my next trip to the store!

Swakopmund Vacation

2011-01-18T21:47:00.000+02:00

This weekend we finally got out of Windhoek for the coast. We made the four hour drive to Swakopmund, Namibia, the second largest city in Namibia (not saying much) and the closest city to Brad and Angelina's place in the country. We had a nice time, but I think it it overrated. Don't think that it would be nearly as popular if there were more to do here.

We got to Swakopmund at lunch time on Friday. Everyone always talks about the cute little cafes and restaurants. They are supposed to be kid friendly (which I have decided means you can let your children run around like brats without regard to their safety or any consideration of other people), but come on, my kids are four and two. We decided to just hit KFC and even waiting for that was hard for the kids. They were EVERYWHERE! At least they enjoyed the food. We made our way to where we were staying, a 3 bedroom place in the north end of town. It worked out perfectly for us. We had plenty of space and had a kitchen, meaning we didn't have to eat all our meals out. :) We rested a bit and then walked over to the beach for a bit. Yes, we had to get sandy and wet so we had to go back home and change. We made a quick stop at the Snake House. For about $4 each, we were able to see snakes in three roms that all together were smaller than our kitchen. The boys enjoyed the snakes, and loved watching the chameleon get fed. They also loved climbing on the jawbone of a whale. Easily entertained. We walked around the downtown area for a bit and then headed to the grocery store to pick up a few items.

Saturday was cool and rainy, but we headed for the main beach area and playground. Next to the playground, a bouncy castle park was set up. For a fee, the kids could bounce around to their hearts' content, and oh how they loved it. We spent HOURS there. Justin's favorite was the inflatable water slide. Ryan tried it once, but when he climbed to the top he was freaked out by the water and perhaps the pitch of the slide. I think it was just as well because otherwise he would have been wanting to climb up it all day. Instead he kept climbing up a rope cargo net, using his arms and not his legs. He got really tired, but what great upper body strength!

For lunch we found a charming cafe (meaning overpriced mediocore food) and then headed over to the Kristall Galerie. This is a pretty small museum that could be seen in about 10 minutes. It has a cave replica which frightened the boys the first time through. Ryan was wrapping his legs around mine, afraid to move. After the first time through, we couldn't keep up with the boys. They thought it was great. They also have an area where you can "find" polished rocks. Ryan mostly wanted to throw them in the water.

Back to the bouncy castle area for a couple more hours. Justin kept gong back to the water slide over and over, while Ryan and I wandered over to the ocean. Justin and Rob eventually joined us, and we enjoyed having the waves get our feet and legs wet. When the boys started to shiver, it was time to head home.

Sunday was a lazy day. We had gotten WAY too much sun on Saturday and all ended up with burns. :( We headed out to a pizza place for lunch and had an African take on Italian food. Home for a quick nap and then we were back at the beach. This time we had hats and protective clothing as well as PLENTY of sunscreen. Justin liked playing in the sand and Ryan liked playing in the water.

Each evening after the boys were in bed, Rob and I watched a DVD. While taking small children on a trip means it is a trip and not a vacation, it was still nice. It was good to be at the beach and to have a few days without laundry and other routine chores.

Internet Shipping Woes With Various Merchants

2010-07-26T11:35:00.000+02:00

Usually I do not have problems with online shopping. Lately, it seems, things just haven't been going my way. I suppose that considering the amount of shopping I do online, I am bound to have problems at some point.

My first incident was with Discount School Supply. Let me say right up front, it was NOT their fault. It was the fault of our stupid mail drop. Discount School Supply was AWESOME! I received a fast, personal response to my question. I couldn't believe that it wasn't a generic script. This was a conversation with an actual English speaking person who was trying to help me even though my situation was not their fault. The customer service rep helped me come up with a few possible solutions. They truly went above and beyond. I even fell below minimum purchase for free shipping (not to mention they had to ship things out more than once for me!) and they refunded money to me for the undeliverable merchandise but did NOT charge me for shipping. I love Discount School Supply. They have fun things, good prices, and the best customer service I have encountered. Even so, I had to deal with it and was disappointed by the whole mail drop issue that I couldn't resolve.

Next, I placed an order with Toys R Us. They were having a fantastic sale on Thomas Wooden Railroad things. Some of the items were 50% off! I am not a big Thomas fan (probably an anti-Thomas, person actually), but Justin and Ryan like the stuff. How could I resist this (and some of the other) sales? It was a one day thing, and I quickly took advantage! Got my order confirmation and was good to go, or so I thought. A few days later I get an e-mail saying that my order was canceled because of an error with my billing address. Please contact my credit card company if it isn't correct, blah, blah. The only thing I could come up with was that Toys R Us refused to allow the apostrophe that my billing address contains. Back and forth I went in e-mails with their customer service. FINALLY I got someone who told me that it wasn't my billing address, it was my IP address, they just didn't have an error message for that. Well, indeed I am ordering from outside of the US. They have sent me things here before without any problem, so what was the issue? I was told I could re-order, but the sale was over so things would be full price. Great deal, huh? I was ticked! Phone calls and e-mails were not very helpful. Ironically, I became a "fan" of Toys R Us on facebook and it was there that I actually got some real help. From there I was able to get information that would actually help. Eventually, I got my order at the sale prices. It was a lot of work though. I thought that since I had a confirmation number, tracking number, etc. and they canceled my order without contacting me first that it should be easy to fix, but no. They made me fight for my sale items.

Last month I wanted to take advantage of a sale at Linens and Things and get a comforter for Ryan since he is sleeping in a twin bed. When I would get to checkout, it kept telling me that my credit card could not be processed at this time. I thought it was a problem with the site, so I tried again later. I decided that it might be a problem with my IP address, since I was ordering from Namibia. I have had that problem before. I decided to block my IP address and try again. Unfortunately, our internet is so slow here that when I did that, my session would time out. Frustrating! I noted that they take paypal, so I decided to pay that way. I forgot to unblock my IP address first, so Paypal put a hold on my account because they had reason to believe someone was trying to access my account fraudulently. Sigh. It took awhile to get things squared away with them. It was a bit of a pain, but I understand why they did it and don't blame them. Just an annoyance for me.

A week or so later, I decided to set up an iTunes account. I don't have an ipod, iphone, or ipad, but have been exploring my options. I went to sign up and it told me that my e-mail already had an account. Oops! I figured that I had set one up sometime and just forgotten. I had it reset my password via e-mail. I signed in and set a new password. I looked at my security questions and they were bizarre. They weren't mine! Then I noticed that the account was set up for a Larry B--complete with address, phone number, etc. Guess he must have a very similar e-mail address because I can't see any benefit of him giving my e-mail address instead of his own. I sent iTunes an e-mail. They said they would take care of it. They were very prompt with their reply. Unfortunately, it has been 22 days and they haven't taken Larry's credit card or other info off. I also have credit. Poor Larry B is now locked out of his account. He hasn't used it for about 15 months, so maybe he doesn't care. My friend, LT, had trouble with iTunes charges on her credit card for several purchases that she did not make. Now I am a little wary of iTunes. Anyone else have problems with them?

I wish my sister were here. I would rant and rave and tell her my woes and have her write my blog. I just find that I am not very motivated to make these the great stories I know she could make out of them.

Happy Shopping!

Under $20

2010-06-15T11:29:00.000+02:00

Remember in China how I was always so impressed with how much I could get for so little? My Namibian shopping experiences are not at all like my experience in China. I have to take a pasta salad to a party on Saturday. According to the recipe it serves 12, but since it is a potluck side dish I figure it will serve more.

Medium jar of mayo (generic was $1.90 cheaper a jar than Hellman's)
Red wine vinegar (hopefully! Didn't see any red wine vinegar at the store, but decided brown grape vinegar might be it. Generic was $6.28 cheaper than German brand)
Black olives (jar, but equivalent of a can of olives in the US)
1 kg of spiral pasta (saved just over $4 by getting non-colored over tri-colored)
2 yellow bell peppers
4 tomatoes

FOR A TOTAL OF $17.98

Maybe I am just really cheap and out of touch with US prices, but this seemed like it cost a lot. Often there is not a choice of brand. Since some of the items here had a local or imported option, I was able to save. For produce I got the cheapest option. All the produce was looking pretty dismal. There are some other ingredients that I already have on hand. We will see how it tastes. Perhaps I should have spent $12 to get "quality" ingredients.

Of course I also purchased additional items including 1.06 gallons of milk ($6.85) and 17 cough drops ($3.32). The cough drops taste like burped up sausage, though they claim to be cherry flavored. I think I will stop coughing just to avoid using one.

Eggplant Recipe?

2010-06-14T14:03:00.000+02:00

When we lived in China we used to go to a nearby restaurant and get an eggplant dish that I absolutely LOVED. I never knew eggplant could be so delicious. So today when I was on allrecipes.com and saw they had a Chinese site, I wondered if perhaps that site might have a dish similar to the one I loved so much. Well, they might; I am afraid that even with (or perhaps because of) the babelfish translation of the page, I will never know. I think this one is close though! http://allrecipes.cn/caipu/2009/----.aspx
0 Easy Altogether takes time: 25 minutes
Prepares 10 minutes to manufacture 15 minutes

Component: 3

The daily family activity eggplant is together the delicacy the good for both young and old cooked food. The land has the different cooking method color fragrance to be but complete.

Preparation material
Eggplant 500 grams
Tender garlic stem 2
Green pepper 3
Auricularia auricula 50 grams
Oil 7 buckets
Thick bean sauce 1 bucket
Soy sauce 1 bucket
Salt, monosodium glutamate respectively right amount
Water starch 1 bucket
Chili oil 1 bucket

Manufacture method

1. Peels the cleaning the eggplant, slivers the length 4 centimeters, thick 1 centimeter strip; Slivers the section the tender garlic stem cleaning; Slivers the scrap the green pepper.

2. On the wok burns down the heat, puts in the oil 4 buckets, pours into the eggplant strip to turn fries several, adds the salt, bakes receives basically to the eggplant strip moisture content does, bails out the oil asphalt is ready to be used dry.

3. The wok gets angry again, puts in the oil 3 buckets, fries the fragrant thick bean sauce, gets down the tender garlic stem section, the auricularia auricula and the blue hot pepper block fries the fragrance, pours into the eggplant strip, uses the soy sauce to blend flavors again, the water used starch thickens soup, to drench into the chili oil to fry uniform then.

18 Months Already!

2010-06-10T22:30:00.000+02:00

Last week TB (short for Tiny Baby since I am trying so hard not to call him Tiny or Tiny Baby anymore) turned 18 months. A friend of mine was coming up with ideas for her son's birthday cake, so I decided that half birthdays are great reasons to have a cake and made one for TB. I ate about half of it. Oops. I also discovered that I need to call way in advance for well baby checkups with the pediatrician. We don't get in until July 6th. Evidently there are only 6 pediatricians for a country the size of California (much smaller population though). Oh well. Don't really have concerns about how he is doing so it isn't that big of a deal.

To add to Ryan's previous word list, he can now also say:
moon
sunbeam
tree
cat
bath
hat
shoes
hot
eyes
ears
teeth
nose
up
banana
chip
cracker
snack (meaning fruit snacks, something Justin didn't even know about at 18 months!)
spoon
more
water
bubbles
ball
whee!
wow
boo boo
Momo (name of toy hamster)
Justin (hard to understand, but consistent)
Diego (and Go, Diego, go)
Bo Bo (as in Bo Bo brother monkeys from Diego)
Click (from Diego)
llama (because of Diego)
Oh man! (from Dora the Explorer)
teamwork (from Wonder pets. He doesn't know what it is, but he knows it is what's going to work.)
Ah-choo!
Ha! Ha! Ha!
prophet
Jesus
amen

I think that these are new. I was writing a list on the back of an envelope and tried not to make duplicates, but without having the other list in front of me I am not sure. Regardless, even if every single one was a duplicate, Ryan can say much more than Justin's 10 words at 18 months. I am surprised Ryan can say anything at all because Justin never shuts up! When he runs out of things to say he just kind of stalls with mumbles as he looks around the room for an idea for a new topic. I think sometimes he even bores himself, but he keeps at it. Could we have a future lawyer or politician? He is pretty creative with excuses too.

TB is already sleeping in a twin bed (with the toddler bed beside to "catch" him if he rolls off) while Justin was in the crib until we needed it for Ryan. He is climbing, jumping, and doing a lot of the things that Justin is doing now. Maybe he will decide to use the potty soon. Yeah, right.

Justin is Ryan's favorite person, with Diego a close second. Too bad it isn't them that Ryan calls for in the middle of the night.

Happy Birthday to Meredith!

2010-06-02T12:18:00.000+02:00

This year my sister, Meredith, has been writing nice tributes to family members on their birthdays. Since I doubt that she will write one for herself, I decided that I should write one. Hopefully, she will put a link on her blog to mine so that her friends can see how wonderful I think she is.

I don't have the writing ability or creativity that Meredith has. To do her justice I should have started on this long ago. I won't put it off until next year though. It seems to me that all too often people put off saying nice things about people until they die. It is nice to be able to share stories and memories about someone who has died, but isn't it nice to tell the person while they are still alive?

Meredith and I are very different. We have very little in common, yet I always enjoy the time I spend with her. She is incredibly creative and that comes through in just about everything she does. I love her writing, her drawing, her pictures, her crafts, and the way she is able to recount simple, everyday things in a way that has you on the edge of your seat. To get a letter from Meredith means a handmade envelope, a cute little doodle, or witty words. To have her tell you about something she saw or did is like you were there yourself. I really admire her talent. I often think that I have some good ideas, but not the talent to do with them the things she could do. Maybe I am just lazy, but I feel like I would have to work so hard to come up short of what I see her regularly achieve.

I see myself as a rather boring person. I like to be safe, comfortable, and secure. That may seem like an odd statement from someone who currently lives in Africa and moves every 2 or 3 years. I don't like to take risks. Meredith dreams big and finds ways to make it work. I love the way she makes bold choices that I would never make. She doesn't go for easy, she goes for exciting. I would be a nervous wreck living the way she does, but I love that she does it. I think that when she looks back on her life she will have very few regrets of things she did not do.

It was hard to decide what to write and what pictures to include. I started with a huge pile, but realized that I needed to choose only a few. I tried to find some that people may not have seen of her. The first is pictures of sweet little Meredith when she was a newborn. She is ten years younger than I am and seven years younger than our brother. We were so excited to have a baby sister and we loved her to death. At four pounds, four ounces she was like a doll. Even at an early age she was her own person. She had the cutest little facial expressions and she knew how to SCREAM!

This next picture was taken the second time we lived in Belgium. I don't know exactly how old she was when it was taken, but kindergarten age is the oldest she could have been. She decided that she wanted to marry someone we knew from church. She made him a picture and I think considered it an engagement. What a good sport he was! Don't you just love Meredith's Rainbow Brite dress? Very 80's. She had a lot of clothes with personality including two jackets. The purple one was Michael Jacket and the pink one was Janet Jacket. How cute is that?

Meredith and I generally got along. Sure there was the normal squabbling that you would expect siblings to have, but with so many years between us we weren't competitive or anything. She was my baby sister and I loved being a big sister to her. When we did have fights, arguments, or whatever you want to call them, they didn't last long. This is a note that she wrote to me near the end of my senior year. She would have been just shy of eight years old.

Here is a picture of Miss Meredith A Bak playing T-ball. Even at a young age she was good at sports. :P

I wish I knew when this picture was taken. Obviously it was some Christmas. I believe it was between 1991 and 1994, but no guarantee. We decided to be "Bow Legged Sisters" though I am not sure why.

This is another Christmas picture. I would guess it is also 1991 to 1994, but not the same Christmas as the previous picture. Our dad had (and still has) a tendency to call Meredith my name. One time she had a friend come over and when he answered the door he greeted her and said, "you must be Kathryn's friend." Poor Meredith. (In defense of my dad, I only have two children and I can't keep their names straight. Not only do I call them each other's names, I call them my siblings' names as well!) My dad had labeled some of our Christmas presents and we decided to label ourselves to make things easier for him.

Meredith has always been creative. In high school she was into drama. Here is a program from Meredith Madness II. (Yes, there was a first Meredith Madness too.) She wrote and directed all of the plays AND acted in most of them. She has the ability to crack me up. In college she continued to be part of a drama group that performed as far away as Hawaii. Don't take a big sip of a drink when Meredith is talking, or you might just have it come spraying out your nose as you laugh.

This last picture is one drawn by Meredith to represent our family on a trip we took to Yellowstone in May of 2001. There is our dad, mom, me, Meredith, our brother (Nathan), and his wife (Amy) holding their son, David. Nathan and his family were living in Colorado at the time, I was living in Maryland, and Meredith was home from college for the summer. Now I understand Meredith is not going to have pictures hung in museums as great masterpieces of our time, but I love her style. She has made posters, books, shirts, and other things featuring her cartoonish art work. It always brightens my day to see something that she has drawn.

I had hoped to go through this yesterday and fix it up a bit, but I had a migraine and didn't even turn on the computer. There was something else that I wanted to add, but I can't remember what it was. It will have to go online as is. Sorry, dear Meredith, that it is not better. I love you. Happy, Happy, Birthday!

Cleaning for the Maid

2010-05-19T21:02:00.003+02:00

Not too long ago, I read a post on Facebook about cleaning before the maid came to clean. I could identify with Sheena's post and, based on the comments, it seemed that a lot of other people could too. Now it isn't like I clean the windows or vacuum or anything before she comes, but I figure I need to try to get a lot of the clutter put away. How well can she really clean if I have things out that she needs to clean around? Nice to know that in cleaning for the maid I am not alone. I do have some issues though. I haven't found anyone who can clean things right.

"Wow!" is what I know you are thinking. What an incredibly together person this Kathryn is to have things so perfect that no one else can reach those standards. Yeah, not even close. I can be completely unbothered by an inch of dust on the bookshelves or some other thing that you would think would annoy me. It is in the little things. See this picture of how the canisters were put back after the kitchen was cleaned today?

I know, you are wondering what it is about them. Is it the missing wooden spoon? Nope. I broke that long ago. Could it be the pill container sitting on the tall canister? No. That's where I like it. Is it that they are not evenly spaced with the fronts centered? Kind of. The brown sugar canister (the one without the spoon) should be centered under the outlet as shown in the picture below. THAT is the correct way for it to be.

I have many, many little "things" like this. I know they are things that shouldn't matter and they really don't. If Rob were to clean the kitchen and have the canisters back incorrectly, that would be okay because it would be thoughtful of his to have cleaned. If I have them back the wrong way, that's okay because it means that I was in a hurry or preoccupied. If my main focus was cleaning though, I would do it the correct way. So having someone come in to clean and then not do things "right" bothers me. It primarily bothers me that I notice it and want to (and often do) fix it. I think that I am jealous that I don't have the opportunity to give a cleaning task my undivided attention the way I would if I were my own maid. Hmmm... there's an idea.

Now Rob is probably just shaking his head if he reads this. He is wonderful and encourages me to have someone help with the house to take some of the load off of me. Guess he will think this just proves that no one can do anything right and make me happy. That isn't true. I was always in a great mood in Japan after Bimala had cleaned our place. She didn't always get the spacing of items on the bookshelves quite right. I noticed, but I was able to move on.

Oh. Yes, Mom, I am taking my zoloft. :) See how well adjusted I am to notice these kinds of things and be able to deal with them?

(Plumbing) Repairs in Namibia

2010-05-14T11:18:00.001+02:00

Okay, so we seem to have a leak in a water pipe or something outside. The plumbers arrived quickly. Yep, three of them to check things out. That was over an hour ago. Now there are only two of them. Guess one is the driver. English (which is Namibia's official language so I don't want anyone giving me a hard time about expecting people to speak English rather than learn the language of the country) is not their strong suit. Hopefully plumbing is because it appears that all the brick walk along side the house is now dug up. Great. Can you say loooooooooong project?

I hate having people come to repair, inspect, or do anything. It is so much work. I knew we were off to a typical start when I was asked if I had a mop. Evidently, they meant plunger. I gave them a plunger and they wanted to know if I had a better one. Hello?? Maybe you should bring some tools. (I know, what am I thinking? We have had people using rocks as hammers until we have lent a real hammer.) THEN I am asked for an adapter so they can charge the cell phone. It has a European plug not a funky Namibian/South African one. THEN they asked me to feed them. I don't mind providing drinks when people are working but (1) they are not working. The two of them are hanging out in the shade sitting on my chairs waiting (I am assuming) for guy #3 to come back with equipment. (2) This is not a luncheon. I did not plan on feeding you today. I give them bread and fruit along with some lemonade. This is done primarily because these guys are working on my water and I don't want to get them upset at me because heaven knows what they could do to mess things up or draw out the process forever. I TRY to assume that it is just cultural because I know that workers are usually provided meals or meal allowance as part of wages. They are already ticked that I don't have coffee for them. Sigh.

Meanwhile it seems that every time I try to do something they need to be let in or out or have the power turned off or something. I kind of need to be available to them and I don't all together trust them either so I have to keep an eye on them. I guess we really need to have the pipe fixed though, so what can I do?

And She's Out!

2010-05-10T21:39:00.000+02:00

Okay, so this morning (it was still Mother's Day in Idaho where my mom lives) I was wishing my mom a happy Mothers Day and chatting with her as I often do on her Sunday evening/my Monday morning. I am in the play room with TB. He is watching Go Diego Go while I am talking away. Justin wakes up and comes in. He sees Grandma on the computer screen and says a quick "hi" before starting in on his wish list. He tells Grandma that he wants party blowers, pudding, and various other things. She sends us a lot of packages, but the way Justin rattles off his list like he is sitting on Santa's lap telling all about what he wants for Christmas. I don't think he understands how lucky we are to have someone like her in our lives.

So after he has made his wish list known, he decides to go over and watch Diego with his brother. Of course the episode that is on is not acceptable to Justin so he starts whining for me to change it. Wanting a few more minutes of quiet so I can talk with my mom, I get up to grab the remote and skip to the next episode. I pick up my laptop as I stand and walk over by the TV. Next thing I know, I am on the floor, my laptop is on its side, Ryan is shaking his sippy cup (his not-so-subtle way of saying he wants more) while Justin is complaining that I haven't changed the show. Evidently I passed out. My back and head are now sore and I am developing quite a bruise on my foot where the laptop hit it.

Been feeling lightheaded all day. It's the day AFTER Mothers Day though, so I guess I need to try to push forward. The day of rest is over.

Neglecting the Blog

2010-05-06T09:42:00.000+02:00

Rob went back to the US for over two weeks and I have certainly been neglecting this blog. Life was even more boring than usual in terms of things to write about. The boys kept me VERY busy, but there was nothing really to say about going through the chores of the day and keeping the kids under control. Now that he is back, I am hoping that things get back to a comfortable level of boring with some fun thrown in every now and then.
I have been blogging, however. I have been working on a new blog. It is called Ways I Entertain My Kids and it is located at http://entertainingmykids.blogspot.com/ . Its purpose is to remind me of the things that I do to keep my kids busy. When Ryan gets older, I can repeat some of the activities. If I go back to teaching, some of the ideas might be useful there as well. Anyway, I decided to put them in a separate blog because I write enough about my kids to begin with. If you don't have kiddos the same ages as mine you probably don't want to hear about nursery rhyme crafts or their favorite toys in detail. Even if you do have kids the same ages you might not want to hear about that. So anyway, look if you want. I plan on keeping most of the ideas VERY simple. I am not trying to be Martha Stewart or some sort of child entertainment genius. I am going with what gets me through the day. Soon I will probably have a post about the kids playing in the boxes that their toys come in. Sometimes the boxes are better than the toys! So really, it will be down to earth, nothing fancy. Any "special" materials I have will be leftover from my teaching days and things that can be easily improvised in a simpler fashion. I just wanted my school stuff to be durable so I didn't have to make it again every other week. :)
Enjoy or ignore. It is primarily for me. I think the boys will enjoy it later in life too. :)

Will I Ever Sleep?

2010-04-05T07:59:00.002+02:00

Towards the end of March, Ryan was not sleeping well at all. No new teeth appear to be coming in. Most times he would wake up I could find no real reason. Sure there was the occasional (too frequent in my mind) loud nice that would wake him up, but most of the time I had no idea why he would decide to scream instead of sleep.
I have always believed that Ryan has the potential to be a good sleeper. While things like crying it out didn't work for Justin, I felt that Ryan was different. Unfortunately, to allow him to do this disturbs Justin. It is bad enough to have one of them up in the night, but to start a cycle where both of them are up and cranky is more than I was willing to handle. This past week Ryan finally pushed me to the point of trying the cry it out method with him.
Now Justin would cry and cry until he would either throw up or he would fall asleep pulled up to the bars in the crib, fall over, and then wake up again. Ryan likes to fling his body around violently. He will hit his head or manage to hurt himself and get bruised up. I didn't care. I was going to let him scream his high pitched, blood curdling, I-am-going-to-die scream. Ten minutes later, there was a loud crash followed by brief silence and then continuation of the screaming. TB mastered the art of climbing out of his crib.
Because he has been such a climber, this probably shouldn't be such a surprise. He has always been too zoned out in his crib to try it. Often in the night he would stand in the crib and face the wall while calling for me. Sometimes he would just be in there sitting, too groggy to even get his balance. No longer! We have graduated to a toddler bed now, like it or not.
The first night was very rough. By the third and fourth night, things weren't so bad. He may choose to initially fall asleep on the floor rather than his bed, but he does fall asleep. I sit in the room until he doses off. Ryan has only gotten up once for each of the past two nights. J
Unfortunately, now it is Justin's turn to not sleep. He got me up FOUR times on Saturday night and three times last night. Half the time I can't understand what he is saying. Last night he told me that he wanted his mommy. Uh-huh. I told him I was Mommy and that seemed to satisfy him so he could go back to sleep for awhile. Tiny also sometimes cries in the night and will then push me away and call for Mommy. These boys just have sleep issues. Great. By the time they start sleeping well regularly, I will probably no longer be able to sleep for more than a couple of hours at a time. L
Is it a wonder that I am in such a brain fog half of the time?

Religious Confusion?

2010-04-01T10:41:00.000+02:00

I had been trying to explain to Rob where something was in Namibia and of course he knows street names and I know landmarks. I thought that the white and baby blue mosque would be a good landmark he would know, but it wasn't. Only fair I guess since it turns out the street is Sam Nujoma, a major street here. I should have know that, but I digress...

Islamic Center and Quba Mosque, Windhoek

As we were approaching the intersection, I pointed out the small corner grocery store that carries limes and fresh cilantro as well as a few other hard to find things. Justin noticed the mosque and wanted to know what it was. I told him that it was a mosque, a kind of church. He wanted to go to that church. I tried to explain to him that there are lots of different churches and that this church was not ours, it was for Muslims. All of this, of course, going over his head.

He insisted that he is a Muslim. I told him that he was not. He became upset with me and said that I called him a Muslim when we lived in Japan. This had me quite puzzled. I could not think of why he would think that. Seemed pretty random to me. I could not come up with any possible scenario in which I would call him a Muslim. He had to clarify for me.

"Mom, you used to call me the Muslim when I was little!" That statement was enough to help me figure it out. Justin's nickname for a long time was Muzz or The Muzz. His memory, connections, and misunderstandings amaze me. What a sweet little Muzz he is. :)

Easter Party

2010-03-27T20:58:00.000+02:00

So, pretty obvious who didn't like the Easter Bunny. I figured that we should have a picture taken anyway. This is a snapshot of how it was for TB at Easter. Justin, on the other hand, was a bit amused. He told me that it wasn't a real rabbit, just a person playing hide-and-seek in a costume. Luckily he didn't look for the person. That would have been a bit awkward.

Justin had a blast dying eggs. Next week we will be dying some at home. I am hoping that the novelty of egg dying has passed and he will be able to choose more colors than blue AND be able to keep his hands out of the dye. His hands remained quite blue today. Always lovely.

All the egg hunting, egg dying, and eating, must have worn him out because Justin took a nice nap. Too bad his brother didn't follow his lead. Too bad Justin didn't want to go to bed tonight because he had a nap. Sigh.

Easter Bunny's On Its Way

2010-03-26T18:36:00.000+02:00

Tomorrow we are going to an Easter party. We will see if the boys have a good time or are too freaked out by an Easter Bunny the size of an adult human. Hopefully we will have some cute pictures to put up for tomorrow. For today, here is a picture of the cookies Justin and I made. How great is it to have a little kid? Me making them with him is fun and cute. A woman in her 30s who is not particularly talented in the area of cooking is a bit strange. See, he makes what could be strange and turns it into fun and cute.
The bunny face cookie cutter was something that my mom sent us along with other Easter goodies. Thanks, Mom! We didn't use the flower cookie cutter yet though. It is more of a spring kind of thing and I am afraid that fall is definitely on its way. Still dark at 6:00 am and right now (6:30ish pm) I am watching a gorgeous sunset. I know they will be fun to decorate in the spring though, and TB will be old enough to help!

Smarter than Mommy?

2010-03-25T12:26:00.000+02:00

Ryan already thinks that he can outsmart Mommy. Sadly enough, he often can. He loves to torment his brother, so I try to keep him away from his big brother whenever Justin is in the bathroom or doing something quietly in his bedroom.

The bedroom area in our house consists of a long, narrow hallway with the master bedroom on one end, Justin's room on the other, and Ryan's room, the boy's bathroom, and the half bath on one side. The half bath is in a bit deeper than the other rooms, and we have a linen closet and the dirty clothes hamper tucked inside that little nook.

When Ryan is annoying his brother, I yell at him, chase him, shoo him away, or something of the sort. He has determined that the wisest course of action is to leave when asked, hide out in the little nook, and once I have walked past him, return to annoying his brother. This plan worked only a couple of times (at least that I know of!) before I caught on. See, he will probably have to be at least 18 months before he can fool me all of the time!

One time when I chased him out of the bathroom and he hid in his clever little hiding spot, I continued past him just a little bit and then turned to wait to see what he did. The look of smugness on his face was priceless, as was the look when he realized that he had been caught. Sneaky little boy! We both laughed!

A couple of times when I have been singing to him before a nap or bed, he has pretended to be asleep. I don't know what the point of that is. I put him in his crib and leave. He gets ticked off and we begin the process again. Guess he doesn't think all of his plans through yet. That's okay, neither do I.

Ryan continues to amaze me with how much he understands. He knows where things belong, he knows what he should and shouldn't be doing, and he knows how to at least try to be sneaky. He is stubborn and fights to get what he wants. He will intentionally injure himself for attention. I can just see his little thought process. "Oh, Mommy isn't giving me undivided attention. I will show her by flinging my body backwards into space and hitting my head and doing heaven only knows what else in the process. My fake cry is lousy, but if I am hurt I can sure shriek. Maybe there will even be blood or bruising..."

Justin Be Nimble!

2010-03-25T12:19:00.000+02:00

Since the boys both continue to enjoy the nursery rhyme Jack Be Nimble, I decided to have Justin make his own little candlestick. He painted a paper plate and a toilet paper tube. You can see in the picture that we only had a leftover birthday paper plate. I cut the center out, as the plate was so big, and used some of the outer edge as the holder for the candleholder. After the paint dried, I cut the bottom of the toilet paper tube so I could staple it to the plate. I also stapled on the handle. I know, that means that Justin wasn't doing it himself, but who really wants to deal with a frustrated 3 year old? We added some torn tissue paper as a flame. Yay! I wonder how many ~~days~~ hours it will last before one or both boys destroy it? I kind of hope soon so I can throw it out before it becomes a sacred treasure. We have a small pillar candle that we use to act out the rhyme so we don't need anymore clutter. I just thought that Justin would enjoy painting a little bit and creating something. I also printed out the words to the nursery rhyme and cut them out so he could try to put it in order. Simple enough that he doesn't need to be able to read the words, just know the rhyme and use initial sounds to help him paste them in the right location.

Guess it is time to come up with another nursery rhyme. I am getting sick of this one. We did Baa, Baa Black Sheep awhile back ago, but it wasn't as much fun. You ever try acting that one out? Boooooooring! Maybe Little Miss Muffet or something.

Head, Shoulders, Knees, and...

2010-03-11T17:06:00.000+02:00

TB enjoys singing (listening) and moving to songs like "Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes" so I try to get Justin to sing along with me. It is cute to watch Ryan try to imitate his brother. Sometimes Justin gets tired with it before Ryan does. When this happens, he has to find a way to liven up the song. This usually means modifying a song, always in a way he finds silly. This week the song became "Med, moulders, mees, and moes" until Justin decided that lacked the silliness he was aiming for. I was so proud of myself for keeping a straight face when he started to sing "Head, shoulders, knees, and penis" with accompanying movements. I guess I shouldn't be surprised. I can only hope that the absence of a reaction on my part means we won't have to hear that version too often.

And, as you may note, Ryan has also taken to wearing Justin's underwear on his head. Got to be just like his older brother. Lovely.

Mr Observant

2010-03-09T20:17:00.000+02:00

Today one of my projects was to go through the bag of keys we got when we moved into our house. Some were labeled, many were not. I pulled out my handy dandy label maker (a gift a few years ago from my friend, Lisa) and got to work labeling the keys.

Our bedroom and bathroom doors have the old fashioned European keys. Now I know most people just leave them in the lock, but not us. Our first night here, Justin locked himself in the bathroom and couldn't figure out how to UNlock the door. We removed the keys. While I doubt he would repeat the incident, Ryan might. Even if no one got locked in, keys would likely get removed and put in a special safe place never to be seen again.

Now believe it or not, there are times when we MIGHT want to keep the kids out of the bedroom or bathroom. Since Ryan has now learned to open doors (stupid easy to open handles instead of knobs), it seemed wise to have keys reasonably accessible. A hook on the back of our bedroom door is an ideal place. Less than an hour after I had added the keys to the hook, Ryan came to me and took me to the door. He pointed up to the keys and made unhappy grunting noises. He doesn't miss a thing. It makes it very hard to put anything past him.

Tiny's Vocabulary at 15 Months

2010-03-06T16:54:00.001+02:00

When Justin went in for his 18 month check up, I was hard pressed to come up with 10 words that he could say. I started carefully keeping a log to watch how his vocabulary was growing. Before long, I could no longer keep track of everything he could say. His vocabulary had expanded greatly and included being able to identify all uppercase letters and most lowercase letters (stupid b,d,p,q) before he was two years old.

I don't know if TB (Tiny Baby) will be such a lover of the alphabet, but at 15 months he has a bigger vocab than his brother did. I guess I won't have to worry when the 18 month check up rolls around. Right now he can (meaningfully) say:

mama
dada
baba (bottle even though it is a sippy cup now)
ball
baby
bye-bye
go (and something that I think is supposed to be "ready, set")
bee-bo (The word used for belly button in the Sandra Boynton Belly Button book)
there you go (In addition to obvious meaning it also means he wants something. He will point and say it over and over until you give him what he wants and say it to him.)
thank you (his response to you giving him something and saying there you go to him)
peek-a-boo
uh-oh
moo (for cow and other cow like animals)
woof (for dog and other dog like animals)
roar (for dinosaurs, lions, and other roaring type animals)
where are you
light
tickle
goo goo (I think it is supposed to be choo choo since he says it when he plays with trains)

That's all I can think of. He sure has pointing, grunting, fake crying, and screaming down too.

Viola?

2010-03-06T15:53:00.000+02:00

Okay, I know that I make lots of spelling and grammar mistakes. As I type into my blog right now, I realize that I don't even know where the spell check function is located now that I have changed formats. You are going to get a lot of mistakes. That does not change one of my pet peeves. I absolutely can't stand when people write (or even worse say) "viola" when "voila" is what they really mean. I don't care if the voila has an accent mark or not, but people, the two words are very different. A viola is an instrument in the violin family or a flower similar to a pansy. Voila is an interjection that is defined by Merriam-Webster as "used to call attention, to express satisfaction or approval, or to suggest an appearance as if by magic" in their online dictionary. Some may argue that it is an easy typo to make. Perhaps sometimes it is indeed a typo, but I think far more often it is people not having a clue what the word really is. Maybe I should clean the kitchen or take a zoloft instead of worrying about it.

Growing Like Weeds!

2010-03-04T13:39:00.000+02:00

I just changed my poopy baby and he wanted new clothes too. As I was looking for a shirt to go with the pants he pulled out, I realized that he is growing SO fast! I put on an 18 months shirt and he is almost too big for it. Now sizes are inconsistant and he even has a couple of shirts labeled as 9 months that he wears, but it looks like 24 months/2T is the new shirt size for him. Of course in pants some of the 12 months are still a plenty big around the waist but getting short. It looks like I will have a whole pile of winter size 12 months clothes that he will outgrow without ever wearing. Thank you Southern Hemisphere for messing me up with that! In theory, having boys both born in December should make hand-me-downs work perfectly. Not really sure what the winter will be like here. Not snow and ice, but we won't be running around outside in shorts either. At least the clothes he won't ever wear are all hand-me-downs worn by at least one other child. I am sure that there are PLENTY of charities here who can use whatever we have to pass along.

I looked for some pictures of the suburb of Windhoek called Katatura, but don't like to steal people's pictures. Because I have not yet been, I don't have any of my own. Here is a link to some that I found:

Katatura

The pictures were uploaded on 1 February so they are recent. Looks like the photographer went so some interesting places. We haven't traveled much yet. As you can see from the pictures, might be more enjoyable to do some touring without the children or with some additional adult assistance. Come and visit and we can see some of the country and area together!

Practice Clock or Folding Clothes?

2010-03-04T13:16:00.000+02:00

Okay, right now I am watching my boys and (obviously) typing away on my laptop. I need to stay here or I am sure they will start fighting, become incredibly lonely for me, or something. That's just the way it goes. So I should be folding the mountain of clothes before me, and I am sure that I will, but I decided that first I would work on a clock for Justin. Now Justin has a large Judy Clock and some smaller Judy Clocks so it isn't like he is without one to use, but I thought that if he had one with numbers he could put on that it might add a little something new and be something we could have him play with on the go.

I will print out the clock and the numbers sheets and then cut out pieces as necessary before laminating. I will choose out a set of clock hands and then use a brad to attach them to the clock face. I will choose a set of numbers to use as well and apply velcro to the backs of them and to the blanks on the clock.

Will he like it? He will either love it so much he wants to sleep with it, or be completely indifferent. You can never tell with that kid.

Potty Training

2010-03-02T13:35:00.001+02:00

This week I was talking with my parents, my sister, my brother, and my sister-in-law. It was almost 7 AM on Monday for me here in Namibia, around midnight for my sister in New York, and a little before 9 PM on Sunday night for everyone else. Through the 'magic' of skype we were able to talk for free and spend a little time together as a family catching up.

Catching up included an update on Justin's potty training. He is doing really well. He wears a pull-up at night because he doesn't stay dry through the night. I also make him wear one if we are going to be out and about for an extended period of time. In the US I would probably just drag him into store bathrooms when I thought it might be close to time for him to go, but here in Namibia... Well let's just say I am never really sure what facilities, if any, may exist.

I am crazy about charts and Justin seems to be the same way. We have charts for when he says his prayers, when he reads a book, when he follows the rules, and, of course, when he uses the bathroom. He loves getting to the end of the row or finishing a chart and moving on to a new one. He counts to see how many spaces are left on a chart and comes up with a plan for how he will finish it. My sister, Meredith, came up with an idea that I loved--a chart that lists number of days without an accident. You know the signs you see up by construction sites, at the gates of military bases, along dangerous highways, and probably any other number of places. How could I not love the idea?

This is what I came up with. I used Mayer Johnson Boardmaker because I happen to own the program and it was already open in a window on my computer. I found some construction related graphics at http://www.donotenter.com/cool/ucgraphics/index.htm and http://www.free-clipart-pictures.net/construction_clipart.html and went a bit overboard with my creation. I will print out the sign and some numbers, laminate them, and then change the numbers to reflect the number of days my boy has successfully used the toilet, night time excluded. I have a feeling that he will love it!

Busy Boys at Work

2010-02-14T20:53:00.002+02:00

Sometimes Justin can be so cute. He can entertain himself playing and be fun to observe. Once he knows he is being watched he changes his behavior just a bit though. I have wanted to get him doing his hammer play for some time now, but haven't been very successful.

TB, of course, wants to be JUST like his brother.

I -Scream, You Scream, We All Scream For Boogies!

2010-02-02T11:45:00.003+02:00

Justin was playing with his toy food, making a great party for me. Tiny was also present, though he was more of an uninvited guest. Justin asked me if I would like boogies on my ice cream.

"Boogies on my ice cream?" I asked.

"Yes, because I think that I took some boogies from my nose and squeezed them on the ice cream and then said ha ha ha and moved away from left to right so do you want boogies on your ice cream or no?" he explained.

I guess I should just be glad that it isn't real food.

Seahorse Love

2010-01-20T21:10:00.005+02:00

I know, you are wondering how I managed to get such a flattering shot of myself. You have to do what you have to do so I had TB and the seahorse in one hand and the camera in the other.

Justin had (and still has once the rest of our stuff arrives in Namibia!) a Playskool glow worm that he quite liked. I am a fan of the glow worm too, but it does have some flaws. I hate that it plays music for such a short period of time. The new and improved sea horse will play for a full five minutes. It also has two volume settings and an on/off switch.

Grandma got TB the seahorse. When Justin saw it, he loved it too. What a surprise. I think it will be a keeper. Ryan thinks it is cute and I hope that it helps soothe him. Last night, however, it did not. He noticed how bright it glows when there is no other light in the room and took that opportunity to play peek-a-boo with it. He would cover it up with his blanket, pull the blanket down, say "peek-a-boo" and laugh. It would have been a lot cuter at a more reasonable hour of the day.

NOT a Fan!

2010-01-18T21:19:00.005+02:00

I just removed myself as a fan from a Facebook page that suggested ideas from the following blog entry:
http://www.freeshipping.org/blog/40-eco-friendly-ways-to-repurpose-household-items

I wasn't sure if it was a bad joke to rave about some of the ideas. Sure, I have been known to make lists on the back of junk mail envelopes. Why not? There is usually junk mail lying around. But to scratch out the address and use for my own mail? I don't think so Tip #17!

#22 Use old light bulbs inside of socks as a darning egg? I confess I had my grandma darn a pair of socks for me. I really, really liked the socks and couldn't find another pair like them. I don't know a lot of people who darn socks. I don't know that it is cost effective. Do people have to take a day off of work to have time to darn socks? If you don't want to be wasteful can't you find other uses for your old socks and buy new ones? I use old socks as disposable rags. Maybe people find that idea strange.

Ideas #18, 19, and 21 involve reusing boxes etc. for kids to play with. That I can understand. My kids often like the box as much as the toy inside. I know both of my children have enjoyed pushing around their diaper boxes (both full and empty). Covering boxes with patterned contact paper though? How much does that cost? How long are these 'toys' going to be around?

#14 suggests saving dryer lint (because it is highly flammable) and stuffing it in empty toilet paper rolls and using as a fire starter. Great. I envision people everywhere saving piles and piles of dryer lint.

#38 recommends using old toothbrushes for cleaning. Uh oh. I do that. Maybe I will be following all of the suggestions before too long.

I hope you are not in such financial shape that you have to reuse your envelopes or use cereal box liners in place of wax paper. If you are trying to make a difference for the environment, there are other ways to do it. Personally, I think that most Americans like to do little things and feel all warm and fuzzy about being 'green' while it hardly even makes a dent. In Japan we had to sort our garbage into a million (okay, not that many) different types. http://www.city.minato.tokyo.jp/kurasi/gomi/bunbetu/download/files/tirasi_English.pdf
You willing to do that?

Here in Namibia, things are packaged very differently. It isn't necessarily attractive, but there is a lot less waste. Do you buy your lotion in a bag? You really don't need another bottle if you already have one. Refills in particular are not grabbing your attention as you walk down the aisle.

Go ahead and feel all warm and fuzzy because you reused your Styrofoam meat tray for giving neighbors baked goodies at Christmas (tip #36). Go ahead and leave me off your baking list. I probably don't want to visit your house either. You probably have a lot of junk lying around. Or maybe your house is made out of all the stuff you so frugally repurposed.

Clueless

2010-01-18T21:04:00.005+02:00

The other day while I was sitting in the playroom with Justin, I mentioned that we might have some friends over for dinner. He immediately got his brain in gear, trying to figure out where people could sit. He was telling me how we could 'scootch' the table and someone could sit by TB and someone could sit by Daddy. I told him that I thought we would eat in the dining room. Obviously this is something we have not done yet here. He looked at me with a puzzled expression. I repeated that we could eat at the dining room table.
"There's a table in the dining room?" he responded.
I assured him that there was and encouraged him to check. He ran out of the room and returned a moment later.
"Mommy, you were right! There is a table in the dining room!"
I asked him how many chairs. He again ran to check, and was amazed there there are eight chairs at the table. He didn't mention the two other chairs in the dining room on either side of the china cabinet. I figured it was a big enough shock to discover that there is table in the dining room. He was bound to notice it sometime, right? I mean, we haven't been here quite two months yet.

Facebook Apologies

2010-01-14T17:37:00.005+02:00

To all my blog readers who are NOT my facebook friends, I apologize for not writing more often. I fought long and hard before getting "into" facebook. I think that FB is, in many ways, a way of keeping in touch that says, "hey, I am interested in what you are up to, but don't care enough to write, call, or send an e-mail!" I still think that is quite often true. I have discovered that it does allow me to keep in touch with people I would not otherwise. Let's face it, I can't even keep my blog up to date, I am behind in responding to e-mails. Perhaps FB isn't such a bad idea. I also thought (correctly) that it would be an easier way to upload pictures of my boys for me mom to see. It is a pain for me to do on my blog and it seemed that my mom always had trouble with flickr. (No offense, Mom!) I have found that I can use FB to quickly send a link to a friend, to share a quick thought, or to let people know that my day is NOT going well. I would hardly send an e-mail out to everyone I know to say that I broke my baby toe! I also enjoy hearing quick updates about what other people are doing. Hearing other people's highs, lows, and day-to-day events helps me feel like I am not the only one who goes through some of these things. So, though it was completely unintentional, I am a facebook user. I will try to keep up with my blog and e-mail. If you want more frequent updates, add me as a facebook friend. Chances are I would like to hear what you are doing too!

Today was quite a day. I decided to make tortillas and had to fight off the ants right while I was making them! My spray bottle broke so I have not been as diligent about vinegaring the counters (more on vinegar later). I was able to keep on the winning side of that fight. :) Then right AFTER mopping the kitchen floor, I discovered two ants in the pantry. Two ants, you may think, is not a big deal. With our current ant situation I doubted that those two were alone. I mean, how often do you hear of only TWO ants hanging out together? I wanted to get the pantry under control as soon as possible, so I started wiping down the shelves with vinegar. I love using vinegar because it helps with ant control AND it isn't harmful to my kids. As I am moving things and wiping down shelves, I DROP a container of sugar and it goes ALL OVER! Now in the best of circumstances that is not a pleasant situation, but on a still damp kitchen floor... Let's just say that sticky sugar floor is not something that I think will help me in the war with the ants. I tried to clean it up as best as I could. In the meantime, the ants were making off with the crumbs from the boys' lunch because I did not IMMEDIATELY sweep and/or vacuum the area by their table. Sigh. Of course I had some help too.

At least Justin and Ryan were decent human beings while I tried to take charge of the kitchen. I didn't get some of today's other chores done, but that's okay. Then Justin decided to go to the bathroom, squat BESIDE the toilet, and poop his pants. Lovely. We got a later start on potty training than is ideal because of our move, but he has been doing great. Last week his big boy underwear arrived and he has been doing well staying dry during the day. A new Duncan train is now sitting in the bathroom, just waiting for Justin to poop in the toilet instead of his underwear. Justin seems motivated. When the time comes, we shall see. He loves his big boy underwear!

Probably the highlight of my day has been that I got to take Excedrin for my headache. I have weened TB! For the past month I have been nursing him only in the wee hours of the morning because it is so much easier to pull him into bed with me at 5:00 AM and lift up my shirt and go back to bed than to make a bottle. A little sad to lose that bond with my baby, but he is 13 months now. I had it easy with both kids. They were good nursers, but would also take bottles. It is nice to have a baby cuddle up with you.
I also got to play a bit of wii. Justin begs to play the monkey game (Donkey Kong Jungle Beat) which means he wants to watch me play it. Ryan likes to think he plays too.
Rob will come home after a long day at work and have a surprise waiting for him. There is a millipede either resting or dead behind the curtains in the kitchen. I have saved it for him. I picked one up once with a little too much firmness and the crunch sound and feel was really gross. I don't like to touch them if I can help it. Rob was also in charge of catching a beetle this morning. I have gotten better about bugs, but I am not a fan.
Maybe the rain will stop soon and we can go outside and play.

Ryan the Toddler

2009-12-30T20:30:00.003+02:00

Evidently the medical definition of a toddler is a child who between 12 and 36 months of age (at least according to the online medical dictionary I used and we all know if it is on the internet it HAS to be true ;), right?) I know I always thought of it as a young child who is new at walking. That seems to be a popular definition, again according to the infallible sources of the internet. Either way, Ryan is now a toddler.

It took him longer than his brother, but not by much. Justin was walking a few days after his first birthday. Ryan is going to be 13 months old in four days. If I were learning to walk and had Justin constantly running around me, I would be a bit cautious too!

Ryan has been cruising forever. He has been confident in standing in the middle of the room. The walking just wasn't happening even though he loved to stand. He even loved to stand holding things. Here he is playing peek a boo.

Sometimes I swear that he is teasing me. I would try to get him to walk to me and he would get down and laugh. I just hope that he isn't as stubborn as his mother or we are in trouble.

Well today he was walking 7 to 10 steps in the playroom. He did it multiple times. It was so cute to watch how excited he looked. I finally clapped and said yay and then he went all limp noodle. I couldn't catch him on video. Finally, FINALLY I did. I wasn't the best walk of the day, but it is the one I got.

I am sure that before long I will wish that he weren't walking. It is only the start of more trouble.

And, speaking of trouble, how is this kid? Terrible twos has been replaced by Three year old from hell? It does get better, right? I shouldn't complain. Justin is normally a pretty good child. I think that makes it all the harder for me when he has a meltdown. Obviously in this case he is overtired and frustrated. Doesn't mean he is fun to deal with.

Sorry for all the video clips. Now that we are in Africa I figure I better keep Grandma up to date! Skip over them if you want. Don't feel badly. Sometimes I even find them a bit dull, but I figure better too many than not enough.

The Christmas Story According to Justin

2009-12-28T14:11:00.003+02:00

When you have a 3 year old, the birth of Jesus has a rough time competing with Santa and presents. Kind of an abstract concept. I bought the Fisher Price Nativity set thinking that it might help a little in the whole explanation of the Christmas story. Certainly it would bring some excitement into Justin's life. I mean more Little People and animals can't be a bad thing!

Not as interested in it as much as the Santa stuff, but he seems to get some of the basics. He has told the story in his own words a few times. I have learned some things from his accounts.

1. There wasn't enough room in the hotel and if they went in the hotel it would go ka-pow and explode everywhere because it was way full.

2. The wise men liked to sing a lot, mostly "dum de dum de dum" as they walked along.

3. On the way back home, one of the wise men stepped on some icy ice and he said "whoa" and fell down.

4. The presents were heavy so Mary and Joseph had to help lift them.

I wish I could remember all of the interesting things Justin threw in the story. I finally got him to consent to being recorded. Unfortunately the recorded version was not my favorite. He gets a bit camera shy and needed a lot of prompting. Tiny kept getting in the way too. Oh well. I imagine that when he is older he will enjoy watching it.

The Spirit of Giving Through Regifting

2009-12-23T09:28:00.003+02:00

This year we have taken a new approach (at least for us) on the idea of regifting. We have been here in Namibia for less than a month. There are all sorts of expenses associated with moving into a new home. We have been stocking up on food basics (flour, sugar, salt, spices, pretty much EVERYTHING!), cleaning supplies, pool toys :), outlet adapters (I HATE the stupid plugs here), bath mats, door mats, and a million more little things that add up. Everyone thinks of Africa as a cheap place to live, but let me tell you Namibia is NOT a cheap place at all. So anyway, our focus is on getting the things we need to try to get settled in.
BEFORE we came out here, we also spent a lot of money on things like a wii and some games, a bike for Rob, some food from Costco, toys for the boys, clothes, upgrades to Windows 7 and some other software, and heaven only knows what else. It isn't like we haven't bought anything. Some of the things could have been Christmas presents if we had waited.
So now Christmas is going to be here in a couple of days. The boys are taken care of, but Rob and I did not buy anything for each other. My mom and dad got us some things from our Amazon wish list (Thanks, Mom!), but other than those three gifts we have nothing under the tree. No big deal for us, but I suddenly worried about what Justin will think. Big three year old that he now is, he might actually be upset about that. He doesn't let a thing get by him. This is where the regifting comes in. I found some earrings and a bracelet in my jewelry box that Rob will help Justin wrap up for me. I grabbed a book, swim goggles, and a new comb from one of Rob's unpacked boxes and Justin helped me wrap those up yesterday. My sister sent me a book that she just finished reading and I will have Rob give that to me. (You don't mind, do ya Mer?) I need to grab something small that I can wrap for Rob from me. Justin and Tiny each have a present to give to each other too, but theirs are actually new things.
Silly, it might seem, to wrap things that we already own. Rob and I really don't care. I mean do you think he will be excited to get the goggles he bought before Justin was already born? Well, he might be if he forgot he had them, but that isn't the point. Justin was so excited to wrap something up for his dad. He will be thrilled to see Rob open the present and oooh and aaah over it. I guess in our regifting the real present we will receive is seeing the smile on Justin's face and enjoying the excitement of our kids. Cheesy, perhaps, but true.

Christmas

2009-12-18T11:32:00.003+02:00

We got the tree decorated. Justin was able to help put things on the lower branches. Ryan was able to take things off of the lower branches. It became a race to see who was faster. My busy little boys! Justin wanted to climb on a chair to reach higher, but we nixed that and forced him to stay within his reach. Parents can be so mean. The first ornament on the tree was one that Justin made at the Embassy Christmas party. He was so proud of the ornament. It is, well, let's just say that it is a treasure because my 2 year old made it. I don't think we have to insure it or anything. He had so much fun with his "project" too. My mom got him started on the idea of doing projects. Projects can be a variety of things involving glue, paint, markers, crayons, etc. I need to be better about getting projects for him to do. It isn't like I don't have anything. A lot of my teaching stuff is here and I have several things that Justin can do. It just gets to be a pain with Tiny helping all the time and Justin needing help but not wanting to have help.

Okay, back to Christmas. Yep, in that picture Tiny has something small in his mouth. Justin makes it nearly impossible to keep things even close to baby proof. Actually, since Tiny is over a year now I guess it is 'toddler' proof. My baby is so big! Ryan loves to stick anything and everything in his mouth except when I want him too. He will eat ants, paper, rubberbands, and the like, but will turn up his nose at new foods. Why is it that kids do that? Don't say that those things taste better than my cooking. At the Embassy party, Justin was a bit shy of Santa. When the gifts started coming out of the bag, Daddy was able to persuade him that maybe approaching Santa was not such a bad idea. It took awhile, but Justin did warm up enough to get his present and talk Santa's ear off. Probably better when he was shy. Ryan, on the other hand, was very different. He cried even getting near Santa. The picture of me with Tiny and Santa was the happiest Tiny was during the whole Santa time. Isn't it strange? I know it is common for small children to be afraid or shy of Santa, but my kids are generally so outgoing and love everyone. Justin was already blabbing about Santa non-stop, yet seeing him in the flesh was another story. Probably even stranger than kids being afraid around Santa is the need we parents feel to push our kids onto the lap of this stranger (don't we usually say DON'T go to strangers?) and try to get a picture. What are we thinking? Beats me.

Ryan at 1

2009-12-16T12:52:00.007+02:00

Not very exciting, I know, but if I don't put it here I will forget.

RYAN
At 12 months:
your child is 22.7 pounds, and that is
at the 45th percentile for weight.

your child is 32 inches, and that is
at the 95th percentile for height.

-Cruising well, standing on his own, and (unfortunately) an EXCELLENT climber, but not walking yet.

-Day before first bday took two steps and then a full body lunge to Mommy.

-Ravenous Beast! Wants to do it himself and have it look like everyone else's food.

-Signs eat and want, otherwise screams or points

Leaving Idaho for Washington DC

2009-12-13T21:17:00.003+02:00

November 20, 2009

We needed to get up at 3:30 in the morning so we could get to our 6:15 flight out of Spokane. Ryan decided to get up at 1:00 AM. Great. I really needed an extra early start to a long day. With my parents helping out, getting to the airport and checking bags was not a problem. Getting through security with my two boys, two carry on bags, a car seat, a stroller, jackets (snowing outside and you never know what it will be like on the plane), and liquids is enough to wear me out. Justin is able to get his own shoes off and on, so that is one helpful thing he can do. He wanted to help push the gray plastic bin along too. Sweet, but not as helpful. We got through and put back together again. United does NOT let people with young children board early. That meant I had to wait until seating group two. I am capable of carrying all my things and dealing with my boys, but it is difficult. Someone offered to carry my stroller.

On the plane, the flight attendants were friendly, but not helpful. Perhaps they don’t like one adult traveling with two small children. I only had TWO carry-ons. One was a small backpack and the other a small bag. We are talking under the seat kind of carry-ons. The airlines RECOMMEND that you have a seat for infants and use a car seat, so you would think that when you do that they would be helpful. Nope. I had to lug it clear back to my seat and buckle it in while balancing Tiny and keeping an eye on the ever-friendly Justin. The flight was uneventful, which is good. Justin announced that he could see Denver and that it was going to be a great day.

Off the plane with the car seat, carry-ons, and kids. Someone saw me reaching for the stroller and helped me get it set up. I loaded up Justin (Tiny rides in the ergo baby carrier. I had a hard time shelling out $100 for a baby carrier, but I have loved it and have not regretted it.) and put one carry-on over the stroller handles. That meant wearing the backpack on my back and throwing the car seat (in a travel bag) over my shoulder. We had a little over two hours to kill. Now I can get around, but it isn’t a lot of fun to carry all that stuff and navigate. My plan was to find a play area and camp out there for awhile and then change diapers and get food before we boarded the next plane. Can you believe that an airport the size of Denver’s does NOT have a play area? Great. Justin and Tiny both wanted to burn off energy and there are only so many appropriate ways to do that.

Justin wanted to go up and down escalators, which was a no go. Can’t do that with a stroller and a bunch of junk. Then he asked me where Grandma and Papa were. Oops. Even though we had talked about the trip, he somehow hadn’t realized that they weren’t with us. I thought we were going to be in for a major problem, but he accepted that they were back home. He was excited to see Daddy again so I focused on that. I couldn’t find anything that Justin wanted to eat. We got a McDonald’s happy meal for him and Tiny to share. Tiny ate more. Justin was thrilled with the toy—a nerf blaster of sorts. Great airport toy, something that fires darts. I told a little white lie about needing Daddy’s help to put it together (and then Justin showed me that he knew how!) and told him how it might get lost or broken if we used it before the hotel. Diaper changes went smoothly enough and we headed for our gate.

The boys were active, but stayed within a small area and left other people alone. Many friendly looking people commented on how I had my hands full. One woman offered to carry the stroller to the gate for me and get one of my carry-ons to my seat. When they didn’t ever call for people with small children, she even went up to ask. Nope, they don’t care. Go ahead and bump people’s arms as you go down the skinny aisles with a hungry baby and a huge car seat. We got to our seats and a man held Tiny while I got his seat installed. A couple sitting across from us said that they had three small children (visiting Grandma) and knew how difficult travel could be. They offered to help. They ended up sitting with Justin when I had to change Tiny. They also helped with the car seat, a carry-on, and a sleeping Justin when it was time to get off the plane. They were very nice. Another woman brought us the shoe Justin managed to lose somewhere along the way.

Justin expected Daddy as soon as we got off the airplane. I was glad to find Rob waiting at baggage claim so Justin didn’t have a complete fit.

It was a long day, but made easier by the kindness of strangers. So next time you travel, if you are able, help out someone who looks like they can use an extra hand. Don’t just say you will help if they need, be specific so they know you are sincere and what you feel comfortable doing. Offer to wait in line to buy their food or to save them a table while they get it. Volunteer to hold/watch a child so a mom can use the airplane bathroom without taking a dozen “helpers” with her. See if you can carry a bag on/off the plane. Let the woman with the screaming kid get in front of you in line. It is amazing how much small things can help. I have been very blessed in my travels and have been able to get through hard times a little easier because others were willing to help. And, the next time you are inconvenienced, you are allowed to be annoyed, but remember it could be worse.

Outsmarted by the Kids

2009-12-13T21:14:00.000+02:00

I got Tiny a couple of sippy cups, which he seemed to really enjoy. So did Justin. I don’t really want Justin to use sippy cups because he is almost three and does not need them. He does have a couple of sigg water bottles that he can tote around with him. He likes those. So does Tiny. In fact, Tiny LOVES them. They are spill resistant, but not spill/leakproof like the sippy cup. Tiny ends up making a mess. Not so bad at home, but on the go or in hotels he can get wet enough that he needs a new change of clothes. Tiny now rejects HIS cups and wants only Justin’s. Sigh. I decided to ask Justin to drink out of Tiny’s cup. A few minutes later, guess who was interested in his sippy cup? That’s right; Tiny just wants whatever his brother has. Now Justin doesn’t want to give Tiny back his cup. Back to the drawing board.

Quarters I Need

2009-11-07T21:14:00.002+02:00

No, not a plea for free money, I actually need these quarters to complete my 50 state quarters collection. It is hard to do when you spend most of your time overseas! The quarters I still need are all from the PHILADELPHIA mint and include the following states:
Wyoming
S Dakota
Washington
Utah
Oklahoma
New Mexico
Arizona
Alaska
Hawaii

Those of you who will be seeing me when I am in the DC area, look through your change now. :)

Mail in Namibia

2009-11-06T06:49:00.004+02:00

I know I haven't written much for awhile. I have been putting pics on Facebook and posting video on YouTube without noting it in the blog. Since I am at my parents' house right now, there isn't a big need for me to keep my mom up to date. I should get better again once we leave Idaho.

We are leaving for Namibia on Thanksgiving Day. We will not have APO mail there. Several people are curious about our mail situation while we are there. We will be able to get mail through the diplomatic pouch. All the long, boring details can be found at http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/22183.pdf, but I have copied the most relevant information and pasted it below. The post office also has some information at http://pe.usps.com/text/dmm300/703.htm#wp1113914. One thing it notes there that I think is worth mentioning (since I have two small boys) is that no weapons or things resembling weapons, INCLUDING TOY GUNS.

U.S. citizen direct hire members of the foreign affairs community and their family members may receive via the personal pouch letters and packages at a maximum size limit of 17x18x32 inches (no single dimension can exceed this limit) and maximum weight of 50 pounds.

In addition, aerosols, alcoholic beverages, ammunition, items for resale, bulk supplies, corrosives (acids), currency, explosives, firearms, flammables, glass containers, illegal substances, incendiary materials, narcotics, plants, poisons, and radioactive substances are prohibited. It is now permitted to send 16 ounces of liquid per box; liquids include anything that flows, such as syrup.

Using express mail services does not get mail to a post any quicker because the express mail service is only from the point of origin to Dulles. Packages may be mailed at any post office in the United States or sent by United Parcel Service, FedEx, DHL, or other non-postal means of transportation (although these also only speed the material to the Dulles starting point).

When using the Dulles, VA, zip code, for security reasons, nothing in the address field should reference in any way the mission, the office, your job title, or anything official about where you work.

All parcels should be securely packed and sealed. Insured and registered mail services are not available for items sent through the pouch and the Department accepts no liability for loss or damage.

FYI: Theoretically, you shouldn't have to pay Virginia sales tax to this zip code since it is only for diplomatic pouch. Don't count on all online vendors to have this in their system however.

Hope this answers questions for people. Let me know if you have others. I will do my best. Most things should be able to get to us fine according to these restrictions. We have many restrictions on what we can send out.

Before and After

2009-10-12T02:17:00.004+02:00

Justin really REALLY needed a haircut. He hates getting it done, as does everyone involved in the process. My dad took Justin to Barber Mike. When it became obvious that just a trim wasn't very practical (didn't take long to discover that and I wasn't surprised), we just shaved it off. I think he looks older!

Back in the USA

2009-09-16T08:15:00.004+02:00

Well, we have been back in the States for about a week and a half now. I think we are on the correct time zone. Who's to say though? Neither of my boys are known for their outstanding sleep habits. Right now it is after 11:00 PM and Tiny is not showing any signs of being sleepy. Why don't my boys need more sleep? We are also still fighting colds that we caught soon after our arrival. Nothing like snotty noses, sore throats, and coughs to make sure we don't get a full night's sleep.

One of my friends gave Tiny a little xylophone. He LOVES it, which means that Justin also loves it. When Tiny doesn't sleep, at least he gets a chance to play with some of the toys his brother always takes away from him!

At least our trip over was uneventful. Check in at the airport in Tokyo was a breeze. The Embassy driver parked the van in the loading zone and helped get our bags inside. He was even able to say something that got us to a check in counter that didn't have a line. Once past security we found a play area where Justin and Tiny were happily entertained until it was time to board the plane.
Now it is probably impossible for a nine plus hour flight with a nine month old and a 2 1/2 year old to be fun, but it wasn't bad. I spent most of the flight holding Tiny. He hates his car seat. He was fairly content and even slept some of the time for me. Justin slept restlessly when he slept. At one point he screamed for apple juice, but I don't know that he was awake. I think it was just another episode of him talking in his sleep. I had a bag full of things for the boys to play with, but the winner by far was the green stretch tube that my mom had sent. We didn't even get to most of the airplane toys. That means I can use them on other segments of our trip. Behold the great stretch tube! Maybe I should buy a dozen for Christmas and wrap them up separately.

Arrival in Seattle meant customs and a five hour layover before our forty minute flight to Spokane. The boys were decent human beings, but five hours is a long time and the Seattle airport is one of my least favorites. I think it has all the inconveniences and annoyances of a large airport without very many of the benefits. It does have a small play area. We basically spent our time there and the food court.

My parents were awaiting us in Spokane and we drove back (in two cars because of all the luggage) to their home. Finally able to rest. Thank heaven for grandmas!

Today Rob and I took the kids to the lake. They had a great time. It took Justin awhile to decide to try out the water, but Tiny was ready from the start. He loves the water and screams when he has to get out.

Friendship Day

2009-08-29T13:49:00.006+02:00

It started like a fairly normal Saturday. Of course we have already packed out, so we have very little left in our house to entertain the boys. Ryan has his beloved Sophie Giraffe, so he was content. Justin is a little harder to keep happy. He is anxious about the move and it comes out in some less than desirable ways. Today was Friendship Day at the US Embassy (Tokyo) Housing Compound. Since we live right on the compound (at least until Friday!), it made sense to check it out. Lots of other people had the same idea and came out on this hot, humid day to celebrate, well, I guess friendship between the US and Japan.

The highlight had to be riding in the little fire engine bumper car type things. Justin actually enjoyed that. He got to go once with Mom and then a second time with Dad. We got there early before there was a line. I don't know how people manage to wait in long lines with a 2 1/2 year old. Justin isn't a big fan of standing still and waiting. Since he didn't have to, all went well.

I was so excited for him to jump in the moon bounce castle. We had to wait until a group of older kids got out, but then he had the chance to try it out all by himself. He didn't want to jump. He just stood there until he decided to sit. There he was, all by himself on the moon bounce doing absolutely nothing. Sigh. We moved on. I thought he would enjoy playing with a water balloon. I guess they do this in the US too. Little round balloons with a bit of water inside them are put on an elastic cord. It is like a mini punching ball. This reminds me of when I was a kid and my family lived in Japan. Of course this doesn't mean that I ever had one of these when I was in Japan. It very well could have been in the US or Europe. The memory makes me smile, so I guess we will just leave it as it is. Justin kept changing his mind as to which one he wanted. I ended up carrying it. He wanted to go home. We went home. Rob went back out to get us some food. After lunch, I decided to run downstairs and grab a soda (free). Justin had a fit and wanted to go too. Okay. We went down and ran into Lucas and his family. Lucas and Eli were having a meltdown, so the family came up to our apartment for awhile. Lucas ended up napping, though Justin did not. :( Eli and Tiny got to play. I got to have some time with Alicia. We went in and out a few times, Justin never really enjoying anything. How can you not enjoy the mist tunnel on a hot day?

Early in the day we encountered Sesame Street characters. Justin was a bit scared. We talked about how they were just pretend and that there were people inside them just like a Halloween costume. Justin wanted to go back out and see them. He told me they were not real and just costumes, but he refused to go near them. Oh well. Lucas did. Tiny and I got a pic with Cookie Monster too.

Later in the evening, Justin seemed to have recovered. He wanted to go to bed at about 5:00 PM, so we were challenged to keep him awake until closer to his real bedtime. He gets up early enough as it is.

Final Countdown

2009-08-23T13:41:00.005+02:00

We are in our final few days in Tokyo. In under two weeks our adventure here will be complete. The movers have finished packing us out and I am ready to go now! We still have Internet and cable, so if it weren't for the kids this could be a rather relaxing time for me. Not a lot of responsibilities for me right now. The kids make the difference. Justin, once excited about the move, is now not so thrilled. How dare they put his toys on the truck! He keeps asking where a certain toy is and then letting us know that he does not want it to go on the slow boat to Namibia. A little late for that now. With so little in the house it would seem sensible to find things out of the house to do. Whenever we are out, Justin is anxious to get back home to Harris Tower. When I had someone watch Tiny for a few hours, Justin was frantic. He did not like having his brother gone. He was relieved when I "found" him again. We have gone over and over that mommies come back and that everyone in the Weber family will go on the big airplane together. He gets it somewhat. He can tell people all about what we are doing and is excited about seeing family and friends. The reality of seeing his things disappear is a bit unsettling for him though. Just wait until further reality hits him. 1. There is NOT snow at Grandma and Papa's house right now. There was when we left in February, and he seems to think it should still be there. 2. Our house in Namibia will not look anything like the duplo model he built.

We will miss the produce vendors who come each week. They think Justin is so cute (obviously don't live with him) and shower him with free extras--oranges, bananas, peaches, grapes...

Tiny will miss Eli, his baby buddy and brother of Justin's friend, Lucas. Justin has made a lot of friends here. I hope that he is able to make some new ones when we get settled in Africa. They won't live as close as they do here! We won't have such a great playground to play on either, though we will have a yard and a pool. Ryan is just getting to the point where he gets excited when he sees the swing. He likes to swing with Justin. Note the cicadas making all the background noise in the video!

We finally made it to the Meiji Shrine. It isn't very far, so it was something that got put off for one reason or another. Justin's favorite part was the gravel. Our least favorite part was temperature heat index above 100. Ugh! On our way back home we stopped for lunch--at Wendy's. Justin was happy with his frosty, ketchup, and fries. Tiny was content to chew on a straw. Rob and I were just glad to have a cool place to sit that would accommodate us and our two rather lively children.

Jesus On the Farm?

2009-08-14T09:48:00.006+02:00

Today I was folding laundry and trying to entertain Tiny when Justin suddenly shouted for me to look at the wall. I thought that there must be some sort of horrible bug or something. It sounded pretty urgent. I looked, but I didn't see anything.

"Where?" I asked.

"There, Mommy! It's Jesus Christ!" exclaimed Justin.

Sure enough, there on the wall is the Greg Olsen O Jerusalem print that has been on our wall since we have moved here. If there is something that you don't want Justin to see, he will find it no matter how well it is hidden. Have something in plain sight and he is oblivious.

"Yes, Justin. That's right. It is Jesus."

"I think he is on the farm, Mommy."

"Why do you think he is on the farm, Boo Boo Boy?"

"Because maybe he has to feed all His sheep. When I get big I want to go to the farm and help Jesus feed the sheep."

"I think that's a good idea, my sweet, sweet boy."

(Sorry about the picture angle. I was trying to minimize glare.)

2009-08-09T08:02:00.003+02:00

How can Justin manage to be such an angel one minute and such a devil the next? I was surprised to see this picture of Justin in the lamb costume. It isn't that he dislikes costumes, just it means he had to stop moving for five seconds to get it on! We are on week 9 of summer camp. It is our last week. :( Next week the movers come! So much to do still.
Justin is starting to get into the whole moving thing. We are the proud owners of a step 2 playhouse. Some people brought it with them when they moved to Japan and found that they have no room for it. We don't have room for it here either, but we will in Namibia! Justin is anxious to get to Namibia and put the thing together. Rob said that the playhouse will not be leaving Namibia. I guess there will be a lucky school, daycare, or family who inherits it next. At almost 300 pounds it is quite the item! I think the boys will have a blast with it.
I continue to have a regular helper in the kitchen. Prep times take at least twice as long with his assistance. I try to get as much done as I can while he is at school.

Justin has made lots of friends here. He looks forward to seeing them at school or at the playground. It is going to be hard for him to leave them. I don't know that he will have the chance to play with kids as much in Namibia. I guess we will figure all of that out once we get there and settled in a little bit.

We had an earthquake last night (Sunday). It was a 7.1, probably the biggest we have had during our two years here. The funny thing is I didn't even feel it. Well, that isn't exactly true. I felt it, but I thought it was just me until Rob pointed it out. I developed a horrible headache on Saturday evening and turned to benedryl, one of the few things a nursing mother can take, to try to keep it under control. Puking, resting, and keeping doped up on benedryl made me feel much better, but I felt a bit off balance and tipsy all day. I went upstairs to check on Justin (already in bed but not asleep yet) and he told me that his toys were falling down. Can't pull one over on him. Didn't seem to phase him.

The thunder and lightening we had on Friday evening had him a bit uneasy. I decided to make the thunder less scary and more fun. Justin and I donned our rain boots and other rain apparel and headed out into the pouring rain to splash in the puddles. And splash we (mostly he) did! He had a blast. I regretted that I didn't have my camera. I don't know that it would have taken any quality pictures in the dark and rain though. We developed the ritual of giving each other a high five each time we heard the thunder. I came up with the theory that the louder the thunder, the more rain we would get to splash in. Justin loves thunder now.
Tiny is crawling all over the place. I think he would rather be walking though. That will come soon enough. He is now 8 months old. I can't believe how fast my little baby is growing up. Soon he and Justin really will be able to get together and plot against me.

Here He Crawls

2009-08-02T13:46:00.003+02:00

Here comes Tiny! Now that he can crawl he won't stay put! I was trying to take pictures to compare with pictures I took of Justin. Tiny didn't want to stay still to pose. He will be eight months old tomorrow. Justin was not quite six months when I took the pictures of him. Guess that is why he stayed put better.

Here is a pic of Justin (at five months, not a current pic).

Welcome August!

2009-08-01T14:26:00.004+02:00

It has been a long week, yet it has flown by. I don't know how that happens. I continue to be up a lot in the night, but at least while Justin is in school I get to catch a little nap with Tiny on most days. There are only two weeks left of Justin's summer school and then I don't know what I will do to keep my sanity. Wouldn't you know that the movers are coming the week AFTER school gets out. Sigh.

This week I made it out with a friend to the fabric area of Tokyo. I bought some fabric as part of a Christmas present for my sister. Now assuming that she reads my blog, I realize this spoils the surprise. She won't know what kind of fabrics though. Justin saw them and wanted to know if he could have them. When I told them they were for Aunt Meredith he said that maybe she would make him a blanket with it like she made for Tiny Baby. So, here is the not so subtle hint for my sister. I think he would like to have some of the fabric on a blanket for him. How can she refuse?

Justin seems to be ready for toilet training. Sometimes he asks to sit on the toilet. I didn't think much of it, until he started to pee whenever I agreed and let him sit on the potty. Today I put him on the toilet three times and asked if he could make peeps. He did all three times. I am sure that people wondered when we were cheering for his penis in the bathroom stall at church! He isn't staying dry in between toilet trips, but I think he is ready to work on it if I try to take him on a regular basis. Great. We move in less than five weeks. Not exactly ideal. We will work with diapers (doesn't seem to bother him) and pull ups rather than underwear for now. Maybe when he is ready to poop in the toilet we will move on. Right now he will run away and tell me that he is NOT making poopies. Hmmm... Not at all suspicious to run off and say you aren't making poopies. I don't mind though. It gives me a few minutes of peace and quiet while he takes care of things. Peace and quiet are rare commodities when Justin is around.
Ryan continues to like to eat. Here he is chewing on a carrot. He loves these little teething food bags. Justin never really did. Correction: Justin NOW loves them and thinks he needs them too. Of course he does.
Ryan can now crawl. It has been a week now. Justin is already annoyed. He tries to explain to Tiny why big boy toys are off limits to babies. He likes to tattle on his brother too. Yeah, good plan. I will put Ryan in time out if he doesn't listen. Poor Justin.
Tiny enjoys being able to get to things. He has pulled a few things off of shelves onto himself. Oops. Guess we have to TINY baby kid-proof the house again. He is discovering all sorts of "toys" that have previously been denied him. Take the strap to Justin's booster chair, for example. Why have we been keeping that from him? How awesome is that? And it doubles as a teether. Ryan finds the most interesting things.

I got some goggles for Justin to see if that would make hair washing less of a drama. Short answer is no, it does not. I have not given up hope though. He may be a challenge, but he is a kid you can talk and reason with--usually.

I thought that I had posted this clip of Tiny, but evidently not so here it is.

Not Much To Say (And I Lost My Voice)

2009-07-26T07:02:00.006+02:00

When we were in Idaho, Justin got into the routine of cuddling up with his Papa and watching "Green Anaconda" and some other favorites on YouTube. He would watch with other people too, but Papa was his YouTube buddy. When we returned to Japan, we went for quite some time without watching what Justin refers to as his shows. He kept talking about them, singing songs from them, and asking for them. Now he often gets to watch them after his bath. He sits on the couch and some combination of the family watches Justin's shows. It will be fun for him to get to watch them with his Papa when we are back in Idaho this September. Even Tiny is enthralled by the Green Anaconda song. I thought it was cute to have him watch it while holding his green stuffed snake toy.
For those of you who don't know the video, here it is.

Justin's cough still lingers. Tiny is sounding less and less like Darth Vader each day. Now I have a cough and have lost my voice. No voice since Thursday night. I think I just need to not talk at all for awhile. That isn't happening when I have to keep after Justin. I have developed the yell-whisper voice. I look forward to him returning to school on Monday. At least three hours right there when I can rest my voice.

Don't really have much to say about this week. Here are some pictures and rather rambling captions for them though.
Is he truly interested in the nutritional content of the formula? Nope. The can is a favorite toy of his AND Justin's. I think Justin likes it because Ryan does. Why spend money on expensive toys when empty formula cans are so entertaining? Since Ryan is primarily breast fed, he doesn't go through much formula. Guess that's why we have to bother with the toys.

Aren't my boys cute? I hadn't realized how much fairer Justin is than Tiny until they started bathing together. Justin is one pale dude. Maybe Justin will look like Rob and Ryan will look like me.

Doesn't show up very well in the picture, but mosquitoes were eating me alive! Ryan got a couple of bites. Justin is free and clear. He's the one outside the most too. I guess he moves too fast for the little suckers. I bought some little stickers that are supposed to repel mosquitoes. They seem to make a difference.

Teeth, Toy Story, Toilets, and More

2009-07-18T13:36:00.006+02:00

Last night I got to spend a few hours with my two boys. Justin woke up a little before midnight. Rob got him settled again, but it didn't last. I went back in a little while later (while nursing Tiny) and attempted to get him settled again. Justin coughed, Tiny woke up, and and the two boys started laughing at each other. I walked Tiny to get him back to sleep and sat with Justin for two rounds of his music. Wide awake still. Well, HE was wide awake. I sure was not. My arms were getting tired too as I was holding Tiny and wiping his runny nose so he could breathe. I decided to ask Justin if he wanted to go downstairs and rest on the couch with me and watch a show. He was more than willing. I put in Finding Nemo, something Justin has never watched more than about five minutes of. I figured it would last longer than an episode of Dora and maybe lull him to sleep. Nope. He was only semi-interested, but his cough kept him from falling asleep. I put in Toy Story, a show he has not seen before, and put Tiny down in his pack and play beside us. Poor baby got Justin's cold and is coughing too. He would settle himself though, so finally Justin got to rest on me. Maybe NOW he would fall asleep. Shortly into the movie, Justin exclaimed, "It's Buzz! I play with Buzz at school!" I guess instead of liking the toy because of the movie, Justin likes the movie because of the toy. He was hooked! Kind of funny since earlier this week I was talking to Kai's mom (Kai LOVES Buzz) and said Justin hadn't even wanted to watch Toy Story yet. Justin's coughing started again and disturbed Tiny. It was about 4 AM. I got Rob to deal with Justin while I tried to get Tiny back to sleep. I only got about two hours before Tiny decided he needed to poop and be up for the morning. Now it is 10:30. Tiny is taking a nap and I am sitting with a cranky Justin on the couch watching Toy Story again. He loves it. I opted NOT to try church with the boys today. When Rob gets back I hope that Justin will be ready for a nap and I can also sleep , leaving Rob with just Tiny to deal with. We shall see.

Justin got a new hat this week. Actually, he got two new hats, but I only have pictures of him with one of his new hats. I am happy that he wears them outside. It isn't a battle like it seems to be with so many kids. I think a lot of that has to do with Grandma being consistent last summer. Hat came off, Justin went inside. Some days here he doesn't need a hat, but in Namibia it will be critical! He has been really good about sunscreen too. That kind of surprises me because he hates lotion. Sunscreen is very similar as far as I'm concerned. I told him that we need sunscreen to keep his body safe in the hot sun and he doesn't complain. In fact, he would probably protest if I didn't put it on him.

Tiny still isn't crawling, but he manages to get around somehow. He raises himself on his arms, throws his rear in the air, and lunges forward. If there is something available, he will push with his feet to get some movement. He doesn't like to stay put. If interesting things are going on around him, he wants to be a part. In this picture, Daddy and Justin were having fun without him and he wanted to join in. After I took the pic, we let him loose. He has four teeth in, but four more are following. They make him miserable, and the rest of us suffer too.

This past week Justin has peed in the toilet four times. He has ASKED to sit on the toilet, and then peed. Good sign, right? I should be toilet training him. Great if we weren't moving in first week in September. We won't be in our new house until the end of October. That means lots of flying and lots of hotels. Sure, I want to be on a 20 plus hour trip to Namibia and working on toilet training--NOT! Maybe if he is interested he can have pullups at Grandma and Papa's house.

I think I will put up more of Justin's summer camp pictures on facebook. Enjoy!

2009-07-13T02:47:00.004+02:00

Guess what Tiny has been enjoying lately? That's right, he loves the swing. Justin likes to make sure I know that Tiny is just a baby and can't go fast like he can. Justin constantly reminds me that even though Ryan is getting bigger, he is still just a tiny baby. Justin, on the other hand, is medium. When he can't do something by himself, he is "too medium" and not too small or too little or any of the more common things children tend to say. Luckily, Justin agrees that Ryan is big enough to swing so everyone is happy.

Justin and Ryan seem to like each other. They can already crack each other up and seem to like to be on top of each other, hitting at each other, squealing at each other... Justin gets so mad when Tiny kicks him or pulls his hair. He doesn't seem to find it fair that Ryan doesn't get punished for actions that are off limits to Justin. To protest, he will often go into baby mode. He will lie on his back and say, "Goo Goo! Ga Ga! I'm a baby!" That lasts until it is no longer convenient to be a baby. Lucky me.

Since we are moving early in September, we are not bothering to work on the whole toilet training thing with Justin yet. What's the point? Leaving here and then traveling to various homes and hotels across the US before a hellish day (as in about 24 hours) of flying to our new home in Namibia. We will worry about it there. Well, Justin has started showing interest in poopies. He wants to see his, the baby's, anyone's. He will rate them in terms of color and size. He will tell me he is having one and that he doesn't want to sit on the toilet. Once he is finished he does want to sit on the toilet so I don't have to put on a clean diaper. Doesn't work that way though. Sometimes he requests to sit on the toilet. Yesterday he said he needed to sit on the toilet and he actually had to pee. He was so excited. Great. We will probably be missing our toilet training window of opportunity and our child will be a freak and need therapy. Just one of many ways I will screw him up for life. Good thing I have a second child to try to get it right--or at least better. :)

Justin came home from school on Friday looking just exhausted. He fell asleep almost immediately, and when he woke up he asked for water. He had a temp of just over 103. He drank and drank and continued to run a fever unless he was on motrin. He didn't have much of an appetite and was extremely needy, but nothing else seemed to be wrong. It just made for a long weekend. Sunday afternoon he seemed better, but since he didn't sleep well, I am keeping him home from school today. I am very disappointed. He had a slight fever again this morning, but is acting pretty normal. He is tired of being cooped up and is quite obnoxious.

Meanwhile, Tiny's two top teeth finally broke through last week. I swear they were the slowest teeth in the history of baby teeth. He had a HORRIBLE night last night and I had no idea why. Surprise! This morning I looked in his mouth and it looks like he is getting FOUR more. Two more on top and two more on bottom. It is going to be a very, very long week I fear. He hasn't been nursing well and I end up smelling like sour milk as my clothes get soaked with milk he is crying for and then rejecting. Ah, motherhood.

Guess I better tend to the whiners. Not that I can do anything to soothe them right now, but at least I won't feel as guilty if I am trying.

Tourist Pics?

2009-07-04T13:46:00.003+02:00

Rob and I went to Asakusa and I took some less tradiional tourist pics. I thought my sister might enjoy them. I think she could get a job making these kinds of signs for the Japanese public. The first was taken on the metro. Thank goodness for THIS sign. How often do you see this on a crowded Japanese subway? I certainly never have. Guess the sign works!

I also enjoyed the pooping pigeon signs. Don't feed them or they will poop on you. They shoild only be eating worms. Check out the poor victim on the sign. It just isn't worth the risk.

Gargles and Dogs

2009-07-03T13:43:00.003+02:00

Tiny makes the funniest little gargling noise. I think he sounds like some cute Star Wars type creature. Not an ewok, but something cute. I was so excited to get this on video, but unfortunately it didn't work out so well. He likes to throw his big head around and it got him a bit off balance. You can hear his heartless parents laughing in the background when he accidentally rolls over and it scares him. It was just kind of amusing because he does lose his balance so often because of his head. Whether he is sitting, being held, or on his stomach, Tiny likes to get that head back as far as it can be thrown.

FINALLY I was able to get a little of the gargle noise. It is much cuter when he is doing it happily than when he is doing it while crying.

Justin loves to read books to himself. Go, Dog, Go! is one of his current favorites. Here is the part where he has to stop and explain that the dogs do not match the trees that they are in. Guess I have him doing a little too much sorting and matching. I am turning him into an obsessive little monster.

This is one of Justin's favorite parts. He likes the "Do you like my hat?" dialogue between the two dogs. He even acts it out. Beware! It is hard to know if you are supposed to like his hat or not. Heaven forbid you like it when you shouldn't or vice versa. I like when he acts out this part of the book with his toys and changes the voices for the two different dogs.

Here he is with a segment from the dog party part of the book.

Too bad the lighting wasn't very good, but Justin is not one to let me move him to a better place to get things on video. You would think he would cooperate so he could watch himself later. He loves watching himself.

Quilts, Water, Jumps, and Cheers

2009-06-29T04:13:00.006+02:00

This week Tiny got the little quilt that Meredith made for him. He really likes the fabric on it. Sometimes he tries to pick up the white dots off of the brown background. I am not sure if that is cute or sad because he obviously isn't ever successful. He has managed to grab onto the quilt and pull it over on top of himself as he rolls. That takes talent. Probably more talent if you are doing it intentionally, but still, we are all impressed, Tiny.

Justin continues to like to help in the kitchen. It can be hard to come up with jobs for him to do. Rob thinks that at some point in his life Justin will accidentally reveal to the world the strange things his mother has assigned him to do. Yesterday while I was cutting up watermelon I gave Justin some watermelon rind and his little scrub brush. I asked him to clean it so we could throw it away. He must think I am quite the clean freak! He did an okay job.
Doesn't Tiny look so cute relaxed and chilling with Dad on the couch? I ordered him some new shoes. He rarely wears socks long because he can (and does) pull them off.

Even though Justin gets plenty of time at the wading pool, Tiny does not. We went over for a bit on Saturday and Ryan LOVES it. I am going to need to find some kind of baby pool float for our pool in Africa.

Tiny likes the jumper, but he ADORES big brother Justin. Whenever he is upset I know Justin can cheer him up IF Justin is willing, I try to make it fun. Here he is cheering on the tiny jumper. Two different short segments.

Mommy's Hair!

2009-06-26T09:34:00.003+02:00

Not too surprisingly, my hair started falling out after I gave birth to Tiny. I have a lot of hair to begin with, but it is just EVERYWHERE now. Hopefully eventually it will calm down to more normal fall out levels. Ryan is six months old now. Sometime it has got to get back to normal, right? Well my hair is everywhere and in everything. Justin comments on his discovery of "Mommy hair" and is even so kind as to return last lost hairs to me. I guess I could try to attach them back on?

I have been getting more and more grays. Rob says it makes me look distinguished. I tell him that only men look distinguished with gray hair. I decided that instead of letting the grays continue to creep I would take a shot at covering them up. Not only are they gray, but their funky texture makes them stand out when they are short, calling even more attention to them. Sometimes I can get Rob to pull out what I refer to as flocks of gray, but he isn't very good at it.

I selected Nice and Easy shade 120, natural dark brown. I wonder if ANY hair dyes have the word fake in the color name? Natural seems to be a key word. Why, you may ask, all the detail about shade number? Well, if this works out I will want to do it again. They have a tendency to change the pictures and that makes it hard to remember exactly which 'natural' shade I selected. Now I can check back on my blog to see.

Justin will probably continue to find Mommy hairs in the tub, in his bed, in his cereal, on the floor... Hopefully they won't be gray ones though.

Funny Boys

2009-06-21T08:00:00.000+02:00

Justin loves letters and numbers. His ability to count helps make things easier for me at times. He understands first, next, last or #1, #2, #3. He doesn't have the fine art of negotiation down very well. When told that he has a two minute time out, he will often give me a counter offer of five minutes. Whatever works for him!

Poor Justin was having a hard time counting the train track pieces when they were in an oval. He is generally a pretty accurate counter, but since the oval leads back into itself he recounted the same pieces and made it past 20, but not quite to 30.

Tiny, unlike Justin at the same age, understands that the jumperoo is for jumping and not just standing. Ryan does have the advantage of a cheering section though. Go Tiny!

Pictures, Video, and a Pretty Good Week!

2009-06-16T06:40:00.005+02:00

What a great week! Justin started the toddler summer camp program and he loves it. I probably love it even more. Too bad it is only 9 to 12 and not full day or sleep over. ;) Every morning when he wakes up, Justin makes sure to tell us that he has energy and is ready to go to school. Too bad he still wakes up around 5:00 AM. We have tried to convince him to sleep later, but he just isn't interested in sleep. Can't be my child.
Justin's "school" begins each morning at the wading pool. It is easy to convince Justin to get ready for the pool every morning. If only everything could be so easy with him.

The playground also reopened this week. Thank goodness! After school, Justin has lunch and a nap before we head back outside. He is enjoying the new equipment. He is still an outdoorsy kind of kid though and spends about as much time in the dirt and the sticks as he does with the playground equipment.

Tiny continues to be my ravenous beast. He loves his solid foods! So different from Justin at this age. He enjoys his foot too. I find green beans, peas, sweet potatoes, carrots, and squash on his legs, feet, socks, ear... That baby food sure gets all over.

Tiny loves playing with Justin's toys. I suppose it is only fair since Justin is constantly taking Tiny's toys away or trading them out with Tiny and insisting that the trade is mutually agreeable. It is a good thing that Ryan is such a good natured little guy. He is starting to protest sometimes though. I don't blame him. Not only does Justin take things away from Tiny because they are "for grown-ups, not babies" but he sometimes finds that he NEEDS to play with Tiny's rattle or other baby toy.

This is a very LONG clip, so if you aren't Grandma, you might want to go ahead and just skip it.

My friend, Erin, gave me a little push car that her daughter has outgrown. Ryan loves it, but so does Justin. I am able to give Ryan some time with it while Justin is away at school.

A Long Week with Little to Show

2009-06-11T08:55:00.006+02:00

This past week was a long one. Monday morning Tiny had his six month check up. He is now 70 cm long (27.5 inches) and 8.09 kg (17.8 pounds). Tiny isn't as big as I thought. He started out big, but he is lighter than Justin was at this age and I believe (I looked it up, but forgot again) just slightly longer. Guess we just know a lot of small babies, because he seems big! Of course shots come along with the 6 month checkup, but Tiny did pretty well. In fact, Tiny was probably better behaved than Justin. Justin. He is a whole other story.

This week the playground here has been closed as they install new playground equipment. That means no playground time for Justin. We usually spend significant time there. We tried some other locations on Monday and Tuesday, but they weren't too successful. The playground is fenced in so nicely and is a safe place. Justin wants to explore and wander and that is hard for me to do with Tiny in tow. That leads to him disobeying me and that means coming back in. Running away is NOT okay and means we immediately go home if he does not come when he is called. That usually means carrying Tiny in the Baby Ergo (which I love by the way) and holding a kicking and screaming toddler under one arm as I head back home. The variation is pushing the stroller with one kid and carrying a baby or a screaming toddler. Neither choice is a lot of fun. Monday, June 15, 2009 will be Justin's first day of "school" as he begins the toddler summer camp here on the Embassy compound. I made him a calendar to count down the days. I think I have been looking forward to it more than he has!

Tuesday I did have a good moment with Justin. He fell asleep on the couch. He hasn't been sleeping well. He has suddenly developed a fear of being in his room alone. He screams and screams. He wants someone right there with him. It hasn't been pretty. He wakes up several times in the night too. As a result he is overtired and so are we! A good mother would probably get him up to his bed, but I was just thrilled that he was quiet and let him sleep right there!

Wednesday was a busy day. I went (with my two boys) to a friend's house. I hadn't been there before and finding places in Tokyo can be crazy, even with directions. It took me just over an hour to walk to a place that should have taken somewhere between 20 and 30 minutes. We ended up calling her from just around the block to get directions from where we were. Yay! Now we know where it is! The walk back was going much better. I knew where I was going. Justin and Tiny were both actually being great. We would get home, have lunch, and maybe I could get them both down at the same time for a nap so I could have one too! Then at Roppongi Crossing, waiting for the light to change, I collapsed. I came to and saw people around me, asking if I was okay. I was totally embarrassed that I had passed out, and was helped up, and started on my way again. I don't think I was out very long and perhaps it even appeared that I had just tripped. I am not sure. I probably didn't take two steps before I passed out again. This time when I came to, someone was holding Tiny and someone else was holding Justin while people were checking on me. I was assured that Tiny was fine and that he had not hit the ground or stroller. Justin wasn't upset, mostly interested. An ambulance arrived and my vitals were taken. The paramedics looked more like workers in a radioactive environment all covered from head to toe with protective gear. Kind of freaky. I was able to convince the paramedics (or whoever they were) that I was okay enough to take a cab to the Embassy doctor rather than get hauled away in an ambulance where I would be admitted for heaven only knows how long. Rob thought it odd when I called him and simply told him I needed to be met at the gate. I didn't think I could get to the health unit on my own.
EKG was fine and there seemed to be nothing really wrong with me. My blood pressure was low, especially in the upright position. My blood sugar was a little low and I had a slight fever. My main problem was the stiffness that was letting me know I did indeed fall. Rob took the rest of the day off (and half of the next day) so I could rest. I was so proud of Justin during the incident. After was another story. Once we got home he became a monster for his poor dad. I am fine, don't worry, Mom!

Thursday I was supposed to go to IKEA with a friend, but I cancelled. Friday was probably the highlight of my week. Justin has developed a love of cooking. I have to sneak into the kitchen if I don't want his help. His help means it takes me a lot more time and that there will be a lot more mess. Quality sometimes suffers as well. Not that I am a great cook or anything, but I do have higher standards than Justin as this picture shows.

On Friday, Bimala came over and spent four hours cleaning our house. She worked her buns off for all four hours. Things looked sooooooooooo much better. I think she is a miracle worker. She is going to come once a week. It was great to spend time with my boys and not worry about trying to get things done around the house. Tiny doesn't crawl yet, but that day will come before I know it and even with Justin out of the house three hours a day, I think I will be busy.
Saturday Justin and Rob went out to try to burn off some of Justin's energy while Tiny and I got our produce for the week. In the evening, I took Justin over to Daly Hall to watch a movie on a big screen. He hasn't ever been to a theater before and I thought this would be a good introduction. It was The Tale of Despereaux (or whatever the title of the cartoon is). He lasted almost 45 minutes. He got to cuddle with Mommy and eat popcorn. He wasn't interested in the movie, but who can beat 1:1 time with Mommy and food?

So, while I am not thrilled about this past week, I guess I can't really complain. My poor cousin's family is sick with the swine flu. She has seven kids, two (twins) not much older than Tiny. One of her kids (I don't think much older than Justin) is in the hospital. All I had was a little tumble. Neither of my kids got hurt. Justin doesn't seem traumatized, just interested in my boo boos. I fell in Japan, a very safe country where people came to my aid rather than walk on by, or worse yet, do harm to me or my children. Rob was able to take time off work to help out, Justin will be heading off to school, and someone else is cleaning my house. I think I have it pretty good. That might not be my attitude when (not if) the boy(s) wake me up in the night. :)

Patience Is a Virtue

2009-06-05T13:49:00.007+02:00

Lately Justin has been trying my patience. I don't know what it is with him. I know that he has had a cold for the past couple of weeks, but I am starting not to be so sympathetic about that anymore. He can be SO obnoxious. I find myself sometimes hoping that he has a horrible ear infection or is in a great deal of pain because that would explain WHY he has been so hard to deal with. I don't want it to be a long lasting phase. I don't want my child to be a brat. I am trying to have patience and to make sure I spend quality time with him to minimize the jealousy he feels towards Tiny. He can be such a psycho Dr Jekyll/Mr Hyde. Charming and sweet one minute, spawn of the devil monster the next. It drives me crazy! I never know what Justin I will see!

Today he had a meltdown when we had to come inside. I have a rule that if he runs away from me, we have to come in. I can't chase after him very well when I have Tiny and it is basic safety that I trust he will come when I call him and not run off in the opposite direction. He thought he was being funny until I dragged him home kicking and screaming. I have discovered that when I start to video him, Justin calms down a bit. Guess he doesn't like to have a record of his misbehavior. Of course he doesn't cooperate doing cute things for me either...

After we had time to settle down from that incident, I asked him if he would like to make cookies with me. We had a pretty good time. Luckily, they weren't the best cookies ever because we could never duplicate the recipe exactly. The recipe called for 3/4 cup sugar and 3/4 cup brown sugar, I fill up a 1 cup measuring cup almost full and Justin gets most of it in the bowl. We needed two eggs, Justin got about 1 1/4 into the bowl so we added another. The whole process was kind of like that. He had a fun time though. He loves helping in the kitchen. I don't mind if I have the time. It can take me longer to reheat leftovers than to make the original meal when I have my helper.

Yesterday Tiny sat independently. He may have done it before, but this time it was long enough that I can say it officially. Before I never knew if he needed to be more upright, sit for a longer time period, catch himself and sit back up if he started leaning... Poor Ryan doesn't get a lot of time to practice though. So often I am protecting him from his overzealous brother. Justin wants to wrestle and play rough with Ryan, and Ryan would like nothing better. Justin does not get that Tiny isn't physically able to do that. When Tiny hits or kicks Justin, Justin gets mad at him and retaliates. Seems intentional to him I guess.

The playground is closed through the 14th of June because they are going to take out some of the old equipment and put in some new things. It is going to be a loooooooooong ten days. We usually spend quite a bit of time out there every day. The slide and the see saw are going to be replaced with newer, safer ones. The "bus" is going to be replaced with something else. It will be hard to beat the bus for fun. All the kids loved it.
I do love the way my boys laugh together and at each other. I love seeing how Justin goes from being totally clueless about a puzzle to doing it independently. I like trying to figure out his rules for Twister. I love Justin's big hugs and Tiny's smiles and squeals. I am amazed each day at how quickly Ryan is growing. He is my ravenous beast. He loves rice cereal and tolerates green beans, peas, carrots, and squash. He likes bananas and absolutely devours mashed potatoes. I don't remember Justin enjoying solids so much. It is hard to keep food away from Tiny.

Tiny Loves Justin

2009-05-29T06:53:00.008+02:00

Trying to catch up with posts. This one will not be very interesting. Sorry. Pictures for Grandma though. :)
Luckily, Tiny loves Justin. Justin often decides he MUST have Tiny's toys. Of course this is most likely because he has no toys of his own, right? Here is Justin taking over one of Tiny's books and telling Tiny it is okay to have his big brother rip the book out of his hot little hands. Tiny likes his infant gym and guess what--so does Justin!
This ball is one of Tiny's absolute favorite toys. Justin has tried to play catch with Tiny. It is hard to be too upset with him when he is honestly trying to play with his brother. He seemed surprised that Tiny didn't catch it. He told Tiny to catch, but it still hit Tiny in the face. Tiny has a pathetic little cry that indicates a fear/hurt/surprise type emotion.

I have a game called Ring Around the Nosey that I bought several years ago on clearance at Toys R Us. The kids in my classrooms over the years have enjoyed it. Justin, Tiny, and I played with it for awhile. Justin cheated (and won) and Tiny doesn't play very well. We had a good time though.

Here is my sweet talking Tiny!

Zoo and Green Beans

2009-05-17T10:36:00.006+02:00

Friday we went to the zoo. I thought that since it was a non-holiday weekday it wouldn't be too crowded. Wrong! I think that there were more people at the Tokyo zoo than live in all of Namibia. When we move to Namibia later this year we will see if I was right or not! We managed to get away from a lot of the crowd and see the major animals that we thought Justin would be expecting. He was quite excited to see the rhino, the green anaconda (which he said was "the biggest snake he's ever seen!"), the Galapagos tortoise, and the iguana. All of these animals are featured in youtube videos that he used to watch with Papa.

The zoo also has a petting zoo area. Justin enjoyed the goats and the sheep. He was so excited to see them, that he managed to trip and hurt himself running in to see them. He scraped himself up pretty badly and screamed to let everyone know it. After washing up, we returned to the petting zoo. A zoo employee took Justin by the hand and (in Japanese) consoled him. Justin ate it up.

Saturday was the sidewalk sale here on the Embassy Housing Compound. I had a large roll of stickers that I used as price tags for the items. I was VERY careful to always put the permanent marker up out of Justin's reach. We had an incident with a dry erase marker he found and I am still finding places he got. I knew I didn't want a repeat of that incident with a permanent marker. I didn't, however, keep the roll of stickers out of his reach. Surprise! When I asked him what happened, Justin told me that he made me a present with my circle stickers. How can I be upset about that? Tiny got into the fun too. He enjoyed the strips of waxy paper that were left after I removed the stickers.

Tiny got to try a new food. Evidently green beans are not as exciting as rice cereal. We will see if the next veggie is any better for him. If nothing else, I must admit that he is quite flexible. He has managed to kick the bowl out of my hand a couple of times.

Do you think he likes green beans?

Look! It's Ryan sleeping without something on his face.

Video Clips of Rolling and Not Rolling

2009-05-17T10:30:00.004+02:00

Even though Tiny has been rolling for awhile, I still want to catch it on video. I have not had success. He is more interested in me and the camera. When I turn my back, he immediately rolls.

Justin, on the other hand, is all too happy to show off for me. I am sure you are so impressed to see a two year old roll. ;)

I find it more interesting to watch how Justin plays with his toys. These stacking/nesting cups have numbers on them. It is helpful since Justin is about as good at visual spatial things as I am. Poor child! He has fun with them though. Warning: probably boring video if you are not Justin's grandmother, mother, or Justin himself.

Playing Outdoors

2009-05-09T12:51:00.008+02:00

Now that spring seems to be here to stay, I have been spending a lot of time outside with the boys. The nearby playground is a favorite spot. Justin has really learned to maneuver the playground equipment well since we have been back in Japan. He owes a lot of that to his dad. I hate seeing him climb because that can mean falls! There have been some, but thus far nothing major. See how brave I am letting him go into the treehouse?
Justin really enjoys having other kids out on the playground with him. He has a lot of fun with Sammy, who is about Justin's age. I hope that in Namibia we are able to find some kids for Justin to socialize with. It is good to see him having so much fun doing such simple things.

Sammy's dad was out on the playground the other day and took some pictures. I think this one really captures my Justin. The poor little kid always looks a little bit neglected. I swear he doesn't stay clean and groomed for more than five seconds! Sometimes I take advantage of this and don't put forth much effort. The other day when I told Justin that I needed him to come over so I could comb his hair, he told me that he didn't need to be handsome because he wasn't going to church, he was going to the play park! True indeed, but it would be nice if he didn't look like he was in charge of his own grooming.

Tiny is still a pretty mellow guy. Once he starts crawling I don't know if he will be as content to just sit in the stroller. He loves watching Justin. I admit, Justin is entertaining!

Justin is intrigued by the big kid swings. I should point out that I do NOT push him high, or really very much at all. He is not ready for that and I don't want him to land on his head. He likes to swing with me or in the baby swings though. He can never get as high as he would like.

Tiny still likes things on his head when he sleeps. Don't cover up those arms and legs too much or he gets upset though. What a strange little kid. People look at me like I am a bit weird when I throw a burp rag or lovey over his face when he is screaming. It often means he is tired and needs his face covered. Sometimes he instantly stops crying.

One day when Tiny was asleep, I decided to help Justin with a "big boy" puzzle. Good, quiet activity, right? Not when he gets excited about getting pieces to fit. Needless to say, his enthusiastic cheering woke up the baby. :(

So What Does That Mean?

2009-05-07T06:02:00.003+02:00

I bought these postcards for my sister last February. I thought they were very typical of Japanese things written in English (and French). I know the words individually, but I am not sure what meaning is intended. I finally got around to putting them through my scanner (a Fujitsu ScanSnap 9510 which I just love!) so I could put them up on my blog. Since my sister is one of the few people who reads my blog, guess they won't be such a novelty when they arrive in her mailbox. Oh well. She can eagerly anticipate getting mail from me. :) Guess I should send it soon...

Tiny continues to enjoy baby rice cereal. He is my ravenous beast. Now when I put him in the high chair, he starts whining. It used to be a great place to sit him where I could keep an eye on him. Now he expects he will be fed when he is there. When he sees the spoon moving towards his mouth he goes insane! His mouth goes wide open and he squeals while frantically moving his arms and legs. He probably burns off more calories when he eats that he is taking in.

Justin has a cold or allergies or something that is causing him to have what I call pulsating boogies. Yum! He is also drooling since he can't breathe through his mouth. Lovely. My whole house feels what I guess can be described as tacky. It isn't exactly greasy or slimy or sticky, but definitely gross. Guess I should stop typing and start cleaning. :)

Why doesn't Justin sleep?

2009-05-03T10:11:00.008+02:00

Sigh. I just finished reading my sister's latest blog entry. I shouldn't do that before I write. It discourages me. It would be fun to be creative and witty with my entries, but I find myself struggling to even put together somewhat coherent sentences. I want to record some of my thoughts and the events of the week because I know otherwise I will forget them all too soon. I am going with the theory that something is better than nothing.

This week I decided to sort through my floppy disks. I mean, do I really need behavior tracking sheets I created for students over ten years ago? What about scoring software for a test that is now obsolete? So many things I found I just didn't need, especially not on floppy. Well, silly me was going to get rid of them. What was I thinking?!? Justin has decided they are the best toy ever. I mean, you can stack them, line them up, act out five monkeys jumping on the bed with them, build them into a birthday cake... The list just goes on and on and on. I think that I should think of a marketing angle and sell the things as the newest and greatest toy.

Justin has also been enjoying the wooden blocks that his grandparents sent him. He builds a lot of towers and animal playgrounds. He was particularly proud of this structure. I am not sure why, but for some reason this one is cool in his mind and he wanted a picture of it.

He has really been getting worn out this week. We have been playing out on the playground for a couple of hours each morning and then coming home for a snack. Justin will then ask to watch something on TV and totally crash within minutes. It isn't his normal nap time, but I won't argue with him sleeping. I will take peace and quiet whenever I can get it. If only Tiny would sleep at the same time so I could have a little nap myself. Not sure that I can complain about Tiny though. Right now I am up with Justin. It is almost 4:40 on Monday morning. Justin has been up since 2:00 AM. He appears to have insomnia. I didn't know toddlers got insomnia. Surprise!

Ryan turned five months old today. Yesterday I thought he turned five months. Evidently I don't know what day it is half the time. I had decided to start solids at five months. I think I started Justin at four months and he wasn't that into it. Tiny was ravenous! I had to make more! I tried nursing him when he still seemed hungry and he refused. He wanted that great flavor of rice cereal. He sure can track that spoon and get his mouth open and ready.

We received a huge box of hand me down clothes from my sister-in-law this week. Justin was quite excited. He loved piling them on the floor and making a cozy nest for himself. He also expressed that he liked to roll around in them. I don't mind too much when he does things like that until he takes clean, folded clothes and does it.

All in all they are good kids. They are so cute together. My favorite sound is the two of them laughing together. I try to remember that when my eyes get heavy and I have trouble focusing.

No Pictures?!?

2009-04-26T08:28:00.004+02:00

I just went to look for some pictures to upload for this week. It doesn't appear that I took any. Oops. While a welcome change for you, the poor reader, it is an oversight on my part. I try to take pictures of my sweet boys. They are growing up so fast.

This week I was looking through pictures of Justin when he was 6 months and younger. I can't believe how fast that little baby has changed into a very busy, very opinionated toddler. His growth is incredible. He keeps me busy and is a challenge. I am sure that soon I will look back at pictures of him at this age and be just as amazed at how fast he grew. Hmm... I don't know if that sentence makes sense. I am still not getting enough sleep, thank you very much boys!

Justin received some wooden building blocks from my mother this week. When he saw them (mind you he walked right by them several times without noticing them before he literally sat on them) he was so excited and asked me what they were. I told him they were a present from Grandma and Papa. He exclaimed, "blocks!" and then added, "I can build with them!" We have been doing a lot of building and destroying and rebuilding.

His favorite books for the week include Dr. Seuss' Green Eggs and Ham, Dr. Seuss' ABCs, and I'm the Biggest Thing in the Ocean. He tries to read them on his own and has memorized a lot of them. He gets scared of some parts, like the "scary" alligator for A and has to read it from a distance. He is such a screwy kid that way. He loves things that scare him, but he doesn't like to be too close to them. He pretended he was a dinosaur and then needed me to hold him because he is scared of dinosaurs.

Tiny continues to be a joy. He is a good natured little fellow. He reaches out with one hand and holds on to a crib bar while he sleeps. He is experimenting with his voice and can be quite loud. He laughs at Justin and enjoys watching his big brother. Ryan even laughed when I used the syringe bulb to suck boogers out of his nose. Talk about laid back!

Yesterday it was pouring rain. Justin and I spent almost an hour outside. He loves any chance to put on his raincoat and rainboots to splash in the puddles. I am not quite as enthusiastic, but I do like to see him having such a good time. I also wear my boots so I can splash. I am sure people wondered about us being outside intentionally in that weather.

Hopefully this week I can remember to take some pictures and remember some of the cute things that the boys do. The amount of sleep Justin gets (and therefore the amount that I get) has a lot to do with it. There are some days when it is all I can do to function.

Another Week with Kids

2009-04-19T08:06:00.005+02:00

I love the way Tiny sleeps. Just give him a blanket (or burp rag, or hat, or towel, or shirt...) and/or cover his head and face and he sleeps pretty well. Certainly better than Justin did or does. I love it when I am near him when he wakes up. He opens his eyes and is immediately happy if he sees me. Even as I type, he is in the same seat as the picture with one blanket over his head and another clutched in his hand. So precious. Now looking at the next picture and seeing Justin out cold you might jump to the conclusion that he is a great sleeper. WRONG! He has been having night terrors and other funky sleep things going on lately that have made it hard for Rob and me to sleep at night. Evidently even though Justin appears refreshed in the morning, it must take something out of him too.

I know that the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that children under two NOT watch TV, but Ryan disagrees. Look at the way he contorts his body to see the screen. He can roll front to back and back to front now and thinks he is pretty cool. Sometimes his arm gets caught under his body and that ticks him off. He has a set of lungs and knows how to use them. I wish he would use them more often. The other day I caught Justin shoving foil from some candy into Tiny's mouth. Was Tiny screaming? No, he was laughing. He also laughs when Justin sits on him. Hello!?!? Why do you encourage him, Ryan? Ryan thinks that Justin is the best toy ever. I don't know if he is as good as TV though. TV is pretty awesome.
Ryan has also started using his Jumperoo. He likes it better than the swing or the chair. He jumps in it only a little so far. I have to raise it yet again. He is a tall dude and ready for setting three of four. At this rate he will outgrow it by next week!
I continue to be amazed that people have more than two children. My brother and his wife are expecting their fourth. How on earth do they manage? I can't get enough sleep with two of them! I look forward to the day I can smile again instead of clenching my mouth closed to keep from yawning or drooling. I wonder what it is like to NOT have a full laundry hamper. I think there was a time in my life when I didn't have to vacuum at least once a day. Oh well. I have grown rather attached to the little buggers--MOST of the time.

Here is a clip of Tiny making Tiny type noises. I would say that it is pretty boring if you aren't family, but Rob would probably tell me it is boring even if you are family. I am not sure which clip it is. I tried taking several, but the boy just didn't cooperate. I figured it didn't matter which one I uploaded.

Easter

2009-04-12T09:54:00.000+02:00

Today was Easter. We had a nice Easter lunch with some friends from church. Justin was in heaven because he knows the kids who were there from his church nursery class. How fun is that? It was nice for me too. A delicious meal without the prep or cleanup. I could get used to that. :)

Justin was excited to look in his Easter basket and enjoyed more candy than he should have. He has been reading books about the Easter bunny with me and has really gotten into it this year. We talked a little about how we think about Jesus at Easter, but didn't go into that much. I figured if it came to Justin choosing between Jesus and the Easter bunny that he wouldn't make the choice I would want him to make. He's two years old. Getting candy from a walking, talking rabbit makes more sense to him than someone dying (not that he knows what that is) and being resurrected. Pretty big concept for adults. Hopefully this year he will get a little bit of the Jesus part at Christmas and be able to carry it over to Easter. For now we will continue to work on Jesus loves Justin and pictures of Jesus with children and other happy pictures.

We dyed eggs this week and he was thrilled to be able to watch the eggs change color. Better yet were the eggs that had his name written on with wax crayon. It was like magic to see the egg come out colored with his name on it! It did make quite the mess. I had the foresight to have us perform the messy task out on the balcony with Justin wearing only a diaper and an art smock. We had the table covered with a trash bag and plenty of wipes and water to keep things under control. Justin and I both ended up with dye on our hands and arms. Ryan was unhappy sitting just inside the doorway, so I moved his chair out with us and he promptly fell asleep. I was a little worried that he would get dye spilled on him and be green or something. Luckily, that didn't happen.

We also went to Nandemo (community center) this week for their mini sports club. Justin had a blast. He got kind of bored listening to some of the directions since they were in Japanese. The people running the activity had a lot of fun things, but they moved through a lot of them too quickly. The childen would have enjoyed doing some things over and over instead of once or twice. Oh well. If they have the time to plan a billion things instead of just a few, more power to them. Towards the end we had to make a less than graceful exit. Justin was not listening to me. It is important that he listens since I have Ryan with us (in our new Ergo baby carrier which is the best). If he doesn't listen, we are done. So I ended up carrying Ryan in the carrier and a screaming, tantruming Justin through the gym, down the hall, and to the stroller. Justin didn't even get his shoes and socks back on. I hope he gets it. I carried him home from the playroom once and ever since he has been so good about listening to me. We'll see. The gym is pretty fun. It has a lot of tempting things like a slide, trampoline, balls, bikes (and trikes and unicycles), balance beams... All that and space to run. So hard to listen to boring Mommy. (You may note that he has had a haircut in these pictures. Yay!)

Please Can We Get Out?

2009-04-10T13:32:00.001+02:00

We have such good time at Nandemo, but eventually we do want to go back home.

I Love the Slide!

2009-04-07T07:31:00.005+02:00

Justin has refused to go down the green playground slides for some time now. In the dry, winter weather he got a zap thanks to static electricity and decided to shy away from the risk. Well this week he decided to give it another go. Not too suprisingly, he loves it. He tells me that he loves it with the kind of attitude that sounds like he has known all along he would, but that I was the one holding him back. My silly little Justin.

Here he is on the playground with his friend, Ellington. When he first met Ellington he thought his name was Oxygen. That makes no sense. Everyone knows that Oxygen is a girl's name. :) Now he often says it as if it is three separate words. It is so cute. Ellington is such a good natured little boy. He is a bit younger than Justin and Justin sometimes gets overexcited and knocks him over or runs too fast when they are playing scream and chase. Ellington just keeps smiling. (Note how Justin is in DESPERATE need of a haircut!
The cherry blossoms are out and absolutely beautiful. Gentle breezes blow some of them down like soft, fluffy snowflakes. It is pretty and not cold like snow. I was standing out on the playground with Justin and Ryan. We were the only three people there. Ryan was asleep and Justin was actually being quiet. As the blossoms floated up, down, and around in the slight breeze I felt like I was in some sort of artistic foreign movie scene. I didn't see any cameras or hear any music or sound effects, so I am pretty sure it was just a rare, beautiful, quiet moment in my life.

The Glass Is Half ?

2009-04-05T06:54:00.005+02:00

Okay, so finish the sentence. Are you a glass half full or half empty type person? I would finish the sentence so it reads

The glass is halfway across the room and Justin needs it with NEW water RIGHT NOW!

I do know that the laundry basket is not half full or half empty. It is constantly FULL. How is that possible? I can't do laundry fast enough some days. When my mom was here she did a million loads for me. Moms are the best. I love my mom. I'm not always so sure how I feel about being a mom though. The sick leave, vacation days, and work hours aren't very good. Maybe we should form a union. Wouldn't that be something?

This week has had its ups and downs. Occasionally I feel like I may actually even have my act together. Five minutes later, Justin will have me wanting to throw him across the room. He can be so stubborn and obnoxious. He acts like he is two years old. I wonder if he will outgrow that phase when he is three. I suppose I can't fault him for acting like a two year old when he is one. He can be such a sweet boy too. I love him so much. He and Tiny can just get going at the same time and often do.

Tiny now rolls from stomach to back intentionally. He thinks he is pretty cool. He is working on blowing raspberries and his constant spit bubbles are a source of entertainment for Justin. I love the times that Ryan and Justin are by each other, blowing bubbles and laughing. They look so cute together laughing and drooling.

Ryan slept all night in his crib this week too. He woke up for a 1:30 AM feeding, but otherwise was on his own. It was hard for me to sleep because I wondered when he would wake up. He has been sleeping in bed with me and Rob. Last night he was sleeping on his own, but when he woke up in the night to be fed I brought him in bed to nurse him and fell asleep before putting him back in bed. Oh well. I figure whatever works so I can get sleep. Tiny insists on having something on his face while he sleeps and I have finally given in. I worry about it, but I am sure that I am not the first mother to let her infant cover his face up.

Ryan is sleeping better than Justin is. Justin talks in his sleep and I hear that on the monitor. Justin gets up and does things in his sleep. Justin has vivid dreams and wakes up disoriented. Sigh. He was up at 4:30 the other morning and it made for a loooooooooooong cranky day. Generally he has been pretty good though, going down at 8:00 PM and up at 6:00 AM or so. I shouldn't complain.

Justin's favorite story of the week is There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly and he loves reading the different versions of the story we have, watching it over and over (and over) on DVD, and acting it out with the manipulatives I gave him. I wish he would cooperate for pictures and video clips. He does such a nice job retelling the story, but the kid is stubborn around the camera.

Tiny's four month check up is tomorrow. I guess I will find out just how big Tiny Baby is getting.

Another Week Down

2009-03-29T08:17:00.004+02:00

This week the weather decided it wasn't going to be spring yet. It wouldn't have been so bad, except the previous week was so nice. That meant more time indoors and more time for Justin to drive me crazy. He is just so jealous of Ryan sometimes. He will do anything for attention, even negative attention. It can be trying. Poor sweet boy, feeling a bit displaced. The thing that really gets me though is when Ryan is actually asleep and I could spend time with Justin one on one if only he didn't do everything in his power to wake Tiny up. Then I have a grumpy baby and an upset toddler. Great. Ryan continues to like to have things over his head (preferably including his face) when he sleeps. Once he wakes up I move the blanket off of his mouth and nose at least. It ticks him off when he wakes up if it isn't still there. He can really scream too. I try to vary which blanket/burp rag/lovey I let him use so he doesn't get too attached to any single item. For now that is working. We will see if it lasts.Tiny is moving more and more, though still not rolling intentionally. He loves his feet. I know most babies do, but in Ryan's case I think it might be because that is the one toy Justin hasn't figured out how to take away from him yet. Amazing how interesting baby toys can become to a two year old when someone else has them. Justin still loves books. He likes to be read to and to read on his own. Evidently he now also likes to read to his "green anaconda." I don't know how long that will last. Many things he once loved are now feared. Even pictures in books can be scary and he will run away before the offending page can be seen. As soon as it is turned, he returns back for the rest of the story.

Sunday, March 22, 2009

2009-03-23T04:34:00.007+02:00

I wish I had a better way to keep track of the cute things that Justin and Ryan were doing. I just haven't found a way that works well for me. I am going to make a goal to try to update the blog once a week.

Justin was challenging in church today. When he was removed to the hall he kept asking to go to the bathroom. Since he is in diapers and we aren't working on toilet training it seemed a bit odd for him to request the bathroom. I asked if he wanted his diaper change. Justin HATES getting his diaper changed, so I was surprised when he said that he did. I changed his diaper without any complaint from him. When finished, he said, "Mommy, nursery class!" He had remembered that I try to change his diaper before taking him to nursery, so if he got me to change him it MUST be time for nursery, right? I explained that the nursery was still closed and that Sister Brown, his teacher, was still in sacrament meeting. Ever the problem solver, Justin told me, "go get Sister Brown." Of course. Why hadn't I thought of that?

Tiny is getting bigger and bigger everyday. I haven't seen him roll from back to stomach, but I have left him on his back and returned to find him on his stomach. I don't know how intentional it is. He really likes his side. Ryan is starting to coo and laugh more and more every day. He is amused by Justin (who isn't?) and almost anything that silly Mommy does. I am enjoying him so much. He is happier than Justin was when he was this age. I also have more confidence and am not so stressed about what others will think about how I am parenting. Tiny makes such cute cooing and gurgling sounds. He also has a little whine that lets you know he wants attention.

Justin loves reading and being read to. Of course that doesn't mean that he can stay by you when you are reading to him. There are "scary" parts in books. Did you know that in Are You My Mother? they call a steam shovel a snort? Pretty scary stuff! Justin remembers when the "scary" parts are coming and retreats to a safe distance for those parts. It cracks us up when he will ask for a DVD or a book and then hide behind something for protection.

I am being brave and allowing Justin more and more freedom on the playground. It is hard not to be overprotective. He trips over his own shadow and has many boo boos that he feels are serious. One of these days he will have a serious boo boo. For now Ryan spends his time at the playground napping. It works out well. Ryan gets in a good nap without interruptions from Justin and Justin gets some energy out.

I wonder why I chose WASHABLE ink for Justin. Oh my! I try to let him experiment with different art materials. He can make such a mess though.

2009-03-16T01:28:00.004+02:00

I love this picture of Tiny in the tub. It makes me laugh. I swear I didn't photoshop his head on another body. That's what it looks like though, doesn't it! He wasn't cooperating for pictures at all. I kept trying to keep him somewhat covered up and he wanted nothing to do with the washcloth on his body. Why be in the tub if you can't be completely naked and free? Tiny really loves the tub. Even better is being in the tub with Mommy (the real tub, not the little blue one) so he can enjoy the deep water. That is a rare occurence though because Justin would be so jealous if he found out.

I noted on Tiny's blue tub that it has several specific warnings. You know the obvious like don't leave your baby unattended, but one I wasn't expecting. It says not to use the infant tub in an adult sink or bathtub. Where exactly am I supposed to use it then? I hope the tub police don't come get me.

Justin was SUPER cute in the tub. He was singing along and did a Justin original. Then he went on to do his version of "Dem Bones" which included his penis being connected to his be-bo and his thigh. Rob says that must be some penis! Justin sure thinks so. He ran off naked

It's Been Awhile

2009-03-11T11:46:00.009+02:00

It has been awhile since I have written. It has been nice to be back home in Tokyo, but taken awhile to get back into the groove of things and come up with a routine. With two small boys the routine isn't always set as well as I would like either. My boys do keep me busy. I am not sure how people deal with multiple small children. I do not do well.

Justin continues to make me smile and laugh while testing my patience at the same time. He has tried kicking me out of the house in the morning by commanding, "Mommy go work, Daddy sit on floor play!" Little does he know that there are days Mommy would like to leave and go to work (or go anywhere). Now that my mom has gone home and isn't here to help with the boys I don't even get to go to the bathroom by myself very often. Can't leave my boys alone together or who knows what would happen. Justin has a love/hate relationship with Ryan. When he is jealous he gets a bit rough intentionally. Other times he just loves him to death with too tight hugs, overly enthusiastic tickles and pats, or by sharing toys--especially stuffed animals on the face. He seems to enjoy waking the sleeping baby and then complaining about the crying. Sigh! Tiny, bless his heart, is pretty good natured. Now that he is more alert and smiles, coos, kicks, and reaches for things, Justin is more interested in him. That is good and bad. Tiny is definitely more interested in Justin. Whether he just likes watching his brother's antics or watches in dread and fear is anyone's guess. He has such cute smiles and laughs. He has expressive eyes too. Even Rob has noticed and mentioned it a few times. There are times when Ryan looks and me and we just connect with each other.

Justin has a doll named Bobby. I tried catching him being gentle and loving with Bobby, but as soon as the camera came out, Justin started beating the poor thing. Guess he doesn't want me to think I can expect him to be sweet with Ryan.

Ryan loves having a blanket on his head. If he had his way it would cover his face completely. I think he is going to be a sleeper who needs a blanket. The SIDS police will probably come and take me away. I don't mean to make light of SIDS and feel for people who have lost a child to SIDS, but I am getting really tired of hearing all the contributers. Pacifiers reduce the risk. Being premature increases the risk. Blankets increase the risk. Sleeping on stomach increases the risk. Increased altitude increases the risk. Co-sleeping increases the risk. The list goes on and on. I wonder how they know this. Is it antedotal? Could it be that babies with blankets or those who sleep on their stomach actually sleep without being held and therefore are more at risk? If a baby is constantly held by an awake and alert individual, wouldn't that be the best way to prevent it? There are just too many rules for me! I know, sleeping in the swing is bad too.

Justin and the concept of time out are getting to know each other pretty well. Justin generally hates time out, but he does like playing time out. He will plop his body on the time out bench and say, "Time out 2 minutes, 3 minutes, 4 minutes, 5 minutes..." He often chooses 18 minutes. Eighteen is still his favorite number for some reason. After giving himself a time out, he laughs. He says, "ha ha ha," just like that by saying it instead of actual laughing. He will call my name repeatedly and make sure to get my attention before he refuses to comply with his own time out. Sometimes I admit I am tempted to enforce them. :)

Ryan is often in Justin's thoughts. The other night when Rob asked Justin if he wanted to say the prayer Justin said that he did. Rob asked Justin who he wanted to help him. Justin paused for a minute and then shouted out, "I want Tiny Baby help!" He was rather pleased that he came up with this. From now on we will be more specific with his options.

Countdown to Japan!

2009-02-03T04:49:00.004+02:00

Today is Monday. Since we are leaving early on Thursday morning for Japan, I was relieved that Ryan's passport has FINALLY arrived. Yes, I went in to apply for it on January 7th. Yes, it went through the special issuance office and should have been done more quickly. Right now I don't care that it took way longer than it should have. I am just happy to have it in my possession. Packing is underway, frequent flyer numbers and special meal requests have been added to the reservations, and things are looking pretty good. Now I am just hoping that we can be relatively healthy. Today Justin was coughing so hard that he threw up on me. A nice compliment to the boogers that he put in my hair and the sour milk smell I share with Tiny Baby. Please just let us be healthy for our flight. The main leg of the trip is already a hellish 10 hours and 45 minutes. At least we should be able to survive the trip since my dear mother is coming along to help me with the darlings.

Once we get to Japan the fun will continue. We have another child and lots more stuff to try to cram into our tiny apartment. It is going to be interesting. I have a feeling that there will be rubbermaid containers out on the balcony We do have a couple of storage rooms in our apartment. Unfortunately some genius thought it was a good idea for the doors to swing into the room, greatly reducing the amount of usable space in the small rooms.

Of late I have not been enjoying Justin. Even my mother has called him a vile, slimey creature. He truly is disgusting. He looks like he has been neglected for quite some time. It doesn't take long to go from tidy and neat to smelly and nasty. Talk about a kid only a mother can love. Love is the key word, he certainly is not very likeable.

I have been enjoying Ryan. He is such a cuddly little sleep buddy. Yes, I do hope to get him sleeping on his own once we adjust to the time change in Japan, but I am going to go with the flow. I stressed so much over Justin and didn't enjoy the cuddle period as much as I could have. Now I try to treasure holding this (not so) tiny baby in my arms. Two months old tomorrow. He is not so little. He has grown and changed so much. I haven't taken as many pictures of him as I did of Justin. I guess now I am dividing time between the two of them. I also am holding Ryan a lot to protect him from his brother's love and also his jealousy. Here is Ryan trying to sleep in the swing. Justin kept sharing balls with him and then wanting them back.

Snotty, screaming, even puking, I love my boys. They bring me joy even when they are not bringing happiness.

Highlights of a Mom's Week

2009-01-31T05:48:00.003+02:00

(in no particular order)

--Justin dumped a bunch of water out of the bathtub. That meant his bath was OVER! As I was dressing him, I asked him how the floor got wet. He said, "I have an idea--water!" Duh. I should have known that. I was right there. :)

--"I want to hold it!" said Justin, when he wanted to hold Ryan.

--"Tiny Baby too loud!" screamed Justin, after he smacked his brother with a toy and woke him up.

--"I love you, Mommy," says Justin with a big hug. That pretty much says it all.

--Smiles and coos from Ryan. He melts my heart when he watches me so intently. He likes me best of all. Of course he is used to me from hearing my vomiting for nine months AND I am his food supply so I don't know that it is such an accomplishment to be his favorite. Everyday he grows and it amazes me to watch him change.

--Justin's fever breaking after a sick cranky morning that meant I was not going to have a happy birthday. It's terrible to admit, but if he is sick but not too miserable (thank you motrin!) he lies around and is easier than he usually is.

--"Oh no, two missing!" Justin's response after learning to count to 3 with Kai-Lan on the Nick show Ni hao Kai-Lan. He decided to count his fingers in Chinese, but ran out of knowledge before he ran out of fingers.

--And a thought that has been running through my mind: Dora the Explorer's parents really need to supervise her more closely.

Are Two Monkeys Different Than One?

2009-01-31T05:33:00.002+02:00

Justin plays a game called the animal game with my dad. Basically, one of them names an animal and then the other one names another animal. They take turns going back and forth naming different animals. Justin could not play this game at all until a month or two ago. Now he is pretty good, though not surprisingly, he is not as good as my dad. (If he were better than my dad it would be time to put my dad into a home.) Today he wanted to play the animal game but my dad was at work. Grandma said she would play with him. Justin wasn't sure about that. How was he to know that Grandma knew how to play the game that took him so long to learn? At one point in the game Justin said monkey. Grandma said an animal and then it was Justin's turn again. He was unable to think of a new animal so he came up with TWO MONKEYS. Surely that counts, right?

A Trip to the "Zoo"

2009-01-23T20:23:00.003+02:00

Today it was too cold to go outside and Justin really needed to get out of the house. The wonderful Grandma Pat was willing to babysit Ryan so I could take Justin somewhere--anywhere! First I dragged him to TJ Maxx. Poor kid. They were having 15% off all purchases so I had him look through the clearance clothes with me. I ended up finding him quite a few cute things at very good prices. That made me happy. Then we went to Petco. Justin was thrilled to see ferrets, hamsters, guinea pigs, mice, rats, snakes, turtles, spiders, lizards, iguanas, birds, fish, frogs, someone with a dog, and probably a few other things I no longer remember. Less crowded than a zoo and much better climate control, not that there is a zoo near where my parents live anyway. We then went to IHOP for pancakes. As we pulled into the parking lot, Justin became concerned. He had told me that he loved pancakes, but then told me that Grandma and Papa love pancakes too. He got upset that they weren't there. I think something like "Grandma, Papa love pancakes. Oh no, not here!" were his exact words. I convinced him that it was okay and we went in. When we were being seated the man asked how we were and Justin replied, "I want pancakes please!" We were told that we were in the right place. Justin and I had a good time and he ate so much. I was impressed. It was a nice afternoon out with my big boy. I truly enjoyed it and felt so grateful that my mom gave me this opportunity for some 1:1 time with my little boy who is learning to share his mom most of the time.

Yes Sir, Yes Sir, Three Bags Full

2009-01-22T05:59:00.003+02:00

Some people might think that Justin is very polite. True, he does say please, thank you, you're welcome, and I'm sorry. Often these are even unprompted. My favorite, however, is when he says, "yes sir!"

I did not teach him to say this. He says it to men, women, children, stuffed animals, and probably to many other things. If you listen closely you will probably hear the rest of what he has to say. He continues with "three bags full. One... master. One...dame. One...boy...down the lane."

Sometimes Justin can be quite rude. He will tell me (or other people) to go away as he puts up his hand in a 'talk to the hand' fashion. If he wants to sit where I am he will tell me to move and specify a location that gives him plenty of space--sometimes even into another room! I better monitor his nursery rhymes or he might try to put me in a pumpkin shell. I might want to consider moving into a shoe if he gets too out of control. Being whipped and sent to bed without eating his favorite foods would be quite a threat.