Internet Shipping Woes With Various Merchants

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

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?

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!

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!

     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

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

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!

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

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?

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?

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

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

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?

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!

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...

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

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

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: 

1. mama
2. dada
3. baba (bottle even though it is a sippy cup now)
4. ball
5. baby
6. bye-bye
7. go (and something that I think is  supposed to be "ready, set")
8. bee-bo (The word used for belly button in the Sandra Boynton Belly Button book)
9. 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.)
10. thank you (his response to you giving him something and saying there you go to him)
11. peek-a-boo
12. uh-oh
13. moo (for cow and other cow like animals)
14. woof (for dog and other dog like animals)
15. roar (for dinosaurs, lions, and other roaring type animals)
16. where are you
17. light
18. tickle
19. 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?

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!

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!