Paradox

I've been meaning to post this picture for awhile. This pillow, and what it means, cracks us up! Some family friends gave this to layla for her birthday this fall. The words say "Girl Power". This is coming from a family that is so conservative that the daugther doesn't hardly leave the house if she can help it and who hardly even looks you in the eye. The only rationale I can find for why they would give us this pillow is that Layla has red hair and so does the girl on the pillow. Wierd. I didn't even want Layla to keep the pillow given the attitude of the girl, but I figured I was probably being over-protective (= Layla can't quite get her hands on her hips like this, but she is getting closer to the attitude though!




One fun little story - this morning I had covered Lj up with the big, thick comforter that someone gave us (thank you!) and noticed that her diaper had leaked because of how she was scrunched up. I decided to just leave her there until she woke up since it wouldn't be too much longer. So I was listening carefully for her to wake up as she can wake up VERY cranky if she wets the bed (only really happens at naps when she isn't in a diaper). Anyway, I could hear her rustling around so I went in and she says very matter-of-factly "mama I wet my pajamas. So I took them off and put them in the dirty clothes. I wet my pajamas because I went SO MUCH pee pee that it came out of my diaper! It is a really full diaper!" She is so cute when she is being 'responsible'. She likes to take off her clothes and put them in the laundry (dirty or not!) and also take off her diaper in the morning, put it in the trash can, clean herself off and get dressed all by herself. She has been doing this for about 4 months or so. Maybe longer. Then she walks into the kitchen (i'm usually in there and can't hear her wake up if she is quiet) like she's 15 years old and looking for food! One day she even emptied the diaper can by herself!

The weather is totally cold at night and in the mornings now. We have our fleece pants on, our jackets out, socks on and warm snuggly house shoes to wear. I keep worrying about Ryan - he doesn't really have good warm clothes now! I'm making it work by layering the oddest things together, but it seems silly to buy more warm clothes as the weather will change in probably 2-3 weeks if our memory is correct. We'll see. Needless to say, Layla was a very well dressed baby and Ryan is just too long for all the lovely warm clothes I got from our friend here.

Ugh.

Not really wanting to go into details, but for those of you who haven't heard yet, Tom was let go from his job this week. It was really quite shocking and I'm sure we'll never know the real reason.

We've only had our visas and paperwork for about a month and we are not sure what will happen.

I'll update once we know more. Tom will have one more meeting with the HR guy to see how long they'll let us keep the visas.

Christmas Eve

We had a fun time in the desert for Christmas Eve with our Friday Group friends (=

It's time for baby food again!

It is hard to believe that Ryan is already eating solid food! After stretching him for two weeks on bananas and a couple of avocados and cousa, I FINALLY got myself organized to get the baby food made. Katie came and helped since she has a boy two weeks older than Ryan and we are in the same boat (= We made carrots, potatoes, applesauce and cousa (which is close to zucchini). I filled up all of my 17 containers from Vic (thank you!) and Katie used up my left over milk storage bags since she has a tighter squeeze in her freezer. Hopefully the boys will like all the food! So far Ryan has been fine with what I've given him and he has been eating like crazy and actually weaning himself rather quickly. It has been a race to keep up with him!
He isn't in a full crawl, but he is almost there. He can scoot around everywhere and is up on all fours rocking back and forth. He's just in time to scoot across the room and pull everything out from under the tree.....hasn't happened yet, but I'm betting it will before the tree is down!

Lj wears a headscarf

We were enjoying one of our first trips across the border with our new passes and had lunch with a friend. She had a birthday/christmas package for us (thanks Roger and Claire!). Although Layla doesn't get this fixed just right, you can see how she flips the scarf around - the movement is JUST like what the ladies do 100 times a day. It was so funny to see her makes the same motion! Check out her sweet little face she makes as she does it.....SUCH A POSER! I love the ending - also a very typical moment for her...."I'm done posing and just want to be crazy!"

Tom's Birthday - 42!

Tom's birthday was on Friday, December 3! It was a very low-key day with some fun family time. Exactly what we all needed. (=

She thinks it really is winter....

When Layla goes outside to play these days she is almost always wearing one of her coats - totally zipped up and with the hood on. When she takes it off, she is invariably sweating all over her head. But she insists that she is cold (=

Part of our decision to stay put in our home was to plant some trees to give some shade which is SOOOO important during the summer. We enjoy being outside to water them every day! We have planted four trees outside and Tom lined them up with our neighbor's trees which are the same type of tree. Hopefully we'll live here long enough to see the trees get as large as Abdullah's! Of course, our house is so poorly made it will be totally falling apart at that point, but let's not think about that. We keep seeing more cracks in the floors and walls and hope that we made the right decision to stay (=

Trip to Istanbul!

We went to Istanbul for the week of Eid which is right before Thanksgiving. It was the last mental hurdle I have had to feeling settled into life (= Not that all the dust has settled, but at least I know that it is just normal life from here on out for awhile. No trips or conferences or anything. Yipee!

Thanksgiving!

There are a group of Americans in town and we got together for Thanksgiving. The couple on the end hosted us - he teaches English at a local school and she is in language school. The couple in the middle are attending language school and the wife is a midwife. We had lots and LOTS of food as the local neighbor family were invited but didn't show up. So hard to cook all that food knowing they may or may not show up! There were seven kids under the age of 4!! It was a crazy time. We did round 2 of TG dinner the next day since we kept all the food at the same house (=

The bottom picture is Layla and Ryan playing with a little boy just 3 weeks older than Ryan! It is nice to have other moms around who are in the same stage of life.

It was a great Thankgiving and we have much to be Thankful for this year!! As soon as we get our last piece of official paperwork I am going to lay it ALL out on a table at take a picture so you can see the sheer volume of red-tape that has been our life the last few months.

6 months old....a comparison (=

These are both kids at 6 months of age in our rocking chair. Don't ask me HOW I remembered that I took photos of Layla at 6 months in this rocking chair. I forget everything else important! Fun to see how they are similar and how they are different!

Wrestling!

Ryan has just turned 6 months old and is a real fun baby. People comment that he smiles with his whole body (= He is much more responsive than Layla was at this age which is fun.....Lj was just such a laid back baby (=

We were in Turkey for one week over Eid for a conference and we had a great time meeting lots of new folks. We love Turkey and love the people and all the green trees, grass and bushes! Our hotel had THE MOST fabulous buffet at every meal. It was stunning. I just wish I could have focused more on the food without little ones to tend to (= Silly, I know!

Lj's eye problem diagnosed!

For those of you who have followed our little family happenings, you may know that Layla has had a wierd eye thing for most of her life. We went to two specialists in the US and never got it properly diagnosed. After a double whammy of two back-to-back episodes last week(usually lasting 4-5 days each) we went to the small local hospital in hopes of at least getting something to help the pain.

The doctor took 10 mins and said it is VKC or Viral Conjunctivitis. It is essentially an allergy so there is no cure other than dealing with symptoms and the hope that she will outgrow it as she gets closer to puberty. It can be triggerd by an allergen OR any time her immune system is depressed. This would explain why it was SO difficult for us to track a consistent triggering event.

It is nigh on impossible to get Layla to open her eyes during an episode so I had taken photos one morning while Layla was distracted while Tom was reading a book to her. The doctor said these photos were very helpful and certainly confirmed for him that he had diagnosed it correctly.

It is very painful for her and usually keeps her in bed in a dark room for the first 3-4 hours of the day. She perks up by late afternoon but we have one crying and whiney girl on our hands until the whole thing passes. The eyes are painful to open in the morning, feel gritty, have blurred vision and are usually itchy.

Thankfully we are no longer using the steriod drops given to us in the US and it has been confirmed (yet again) that is not a problem that will affect her vision. Long-term use of the steroid drops, however, would. So we have some good medical help for her right here in town and we are so so grateful for some resolution to this pesky and painful issue for her!

Whole lotta cash!

One of the things of living in a "2nd/3rd world" world is that some transactions are still in cash.
Since we moved here back in April, we have had the generous loan of three different cars and had put off buying a car since we were hoping that our residence visas were going to come "soon". Registering a car in someone else's name is a hassle for all parties involved and if we were just going to turn around and reverse the process to put the car in our name a few weeks later, it didn't seem worth it.

Well here we are 6 months later finally buying a car (= In cash!

Once we decided on the car it took a mere 24 hours to open the bank account here in town, transfer money to my dad, to friends here the country, from their account to our new account and to withdraw it all! We needed to add the step of using our friend's account because of the different weekends between the US and here. We knew we needed one full day for our account to work, and by that time the US banks would have probably closed and we would have had to wait several more days.

Some things can go so much faster than in the US and some things are slower. There is no predicting what category something will fall into. I would not have predicted 'financial gymnastics' to be in the fast category.

Because Tom was opening a new account and trying to transfer a chunk of american dollars, the bank manager now things we have some sort of wasta (= The combination of that and taking Layla into the bank has made sure that we will be remembered (=

All in all, we are so grateful for the resources to do this, the resources of friends' we've used along the way and for His provision of it ALL.

We're not trying to teach Layla to love money here...it's just that there aren't many ways to make pictures of cash interesting (=

Some things Daddys do, mamas would just NEVER do!

Sorry to post twice....just couldn't get the video the right size for my blog....plus I didn't want all the extra You Tube videos showing up.....you never know what you might accidentally click on! Yikes.

Ryan is 4.5 months old here.

Get a job; throw a party!

In the culture here, when someone gets a new job, or buys a new car or has a baby, they treat their friends to a big meal. We aren't quite up for doing that, but I made a TRIPLE batch of chocolate chip cookies (yes, all in one go in my FAB mixer).

Can you see sweet Ryan peeping through the chairs? Tom bought that walker for him and I thought it was a bit much, but he really enjoys it so I am grateful to have a place to put him where he is happy for a long stretch of time.

It has been very fun and gratifying for me to remember so many things that we used to do with Layla that are the same with Ryan. I've said it before, but we've had SO much change in our last 8 years that having two babies in the same hospital and the same house has been very grounding for me. It has been wonderful to remember Layla in the same bouncy seat on the same kitchen table while I cook at the same stove (=

We have been nesting like crazy - today we bought trees to plant! Our neighbor went with us to get the trees. You should see their yard - all kinds of jasmine bushes, a fig tree, guava, lemon, and bunches of other things I don't remember. They know what they are doing! Anyway, he and Tom are going to dig holes early tomorrow morning and I am finally going to have trees to look at out my kitchen window!!!!! I'm probably more excited than I should be about this (= This big tall trees are pretty wimpy looking but rather tall. I can't believe they are only $8 each. I'll have pictures soon!

Part 2: Finished Construction - Oct 2010

House Improvements!

After being in the US for 18 months, we moved back in April of this year. We had a baby one month later and have been working on trying to get our residence visa. During this time we had considered moving to a slightly larger house and were casually looking around. We decided for sure that we were going to stay a few weeks ago and as a result we are doing some improvements around the house.

The major construction stuff was supposed to take 10 days but they finished in 5! It was a little hard to trust the construction process at the beginning because things are made soooo poorly here.

Anyway, Tom did a great job managing the guys and making friends with them and they really did a great job for us. They even cleaned up which is UNHEARD of! Part of having men work on your house is supplying them with water and chai (tea) and sometimes even meals.

These guys didn't expect meals as they brought they own. Layla got a kick out of watching their picnics in our yard under the shade of our massive palm tree.

Sorry this is in two slideshows - I made a mistake in my uploading and I'm not going to take all the time necessary to correct it. I'm happy I even have this done in the same month as the construction!

Enjoy the pictures!

Residence Visa Photos

How CUTE are these photos??!! Tom has his labor card which means we are really official and that he can legally start to work! Just in time for most of the construction around the house to be finished. Getting our paperwork done should be a matter of just a few days at this point.

Daddy Time

We've often said that Layla is a daddy's girl. Maybe all little girls are
at some point (= If Layla is having a hard time sleeping, Tom often goes
in and lays down with her. She LOVES to have someone to snuggle with.
And with so much going on these days, sometimes Tom just falls asleep and takes his nap right there with Layla (=

You can see her sippy cup by the bookshelf...it has to be in that exact spot. She'll check it a few times as she goes to sleep and gets irritated if it is moved or has rolled over or something. Such a child of habit.

So we're enjoying these day when she wants to snuggle up. I think there are few things sweeter than a three year old girl falling asleep (=

Should work now....

Layla turned 3 less about a month ago and a friend gave her these shoes. She wears them multiple times a day. We have tile floors everywhere, and this is what I have to live with now (=

She is wearing jeans which is VERY unusual. She totally prefers dresses these days. We were headed out to a park and I wanted to make sure she was really ready to play without having to worry about a dress (=

btw, she is singing "Oh say, what can the matter be, Oh say, what can the matter be....." Someone has gone to the fair. Something like that (=

Ryan sits up!

Ryan is 22 weeks old now which is about 5 months old. We had him in the bouncy seat the other day and he just sat right up and leaned over to grab that toy on the floor! I was so surprised. He didn't make it back into the sitting position, but I was impressed nonetheless.

He is still not sleeping through the night in stark contrast to Layla who slept like a rock from about 6 weeks of age on. She still does! Consequently, I've been pretty exhausted and wiped out. Last week we started to think he has some reflux issues and once we began to take some measures to deal with that, his nights have gotten better. He wasn't ever really crying, but we can see now that even his mild fussies were about his tummy. Once we elevated his crib, he is able to actually fall asleep on his back for the first time. Now I am feeding him once a night as opposed to sometimes four times a night!

Some things I love about Ryan at the moment:

When you lay him down to bed on his tummy he rubs his hands in a circular motion on the sheets (= So predictable. If he isn't doing this, he isn't ready to drop off (=

He is a very mellow baby - really only cries if in pain or missing a nap. He
needs lots of burping periodically so we carry him a lot more than we carried Layla. He is HEAVY.

His blue eyes and red hair

He crosses his ankles almost all the time. Layla points this out constantly (=

He has a very quick smile when Tom or Layla are around. He loves to watch her and I've banned them both from being in the room when we nurse. It is just too distracting for him!

I think he is just too handsome (=

When I wake him up to nurse (we are nursing more frequently since smaller meals are easier on his tummy) he just nuzzles up so close until we are ready to feed. It is too precious.

New Photos

Gangsta Girl

Tom was playing his guitar the other day and Lj was prancing around the room. I'm betting she was sniffing her runny nose but sadly, she looks mean and scary and like a 3 year old gangsta girl.

If you can get past that look (= the dress and pants are SO cute. She has several cotton pants like this that also work as cropped pants so she's been wearning them for AGES. We usually have her wear shorts under her dresses since it is more modest. At this age in the blink of an eye her dress is over her head (=

40 cents and 20 minutes

We live in a "2nd world" country which mean there are aspects of the 1st world and 3rd world all mixed in together. This can be charming, bizarre and irritating all at the same time.
This is one of those charming things, at least as far as I am concerned. We have these "bakeries" in town which have signs that say something like this "manl baker" or "manual baker" for those who spell it correctly. These blessed little stores just make one kind of bread. One kind. They stuff it in a plastic grocery bag, charge you 40 cents and send you on your way. The bread is warm and delicious for 20 minutes and then it gets hard, crackling and stale.

Needless to say, you buy this bread ON YOUR WAY home to sit down at eat dinner ASAP. Someday I'll take a picture of the bakery itself (=

We do have "normal" bakeries in town that churn out loaf bread we recognize in the west, but it is a far cry from this lovely warm stuff, however short-lived it is!

When Tom and I find the time (ha) we are going to go to the places that say "Milling of Flour" and get some corn ground into cornmeal for cornbread! I miss my cornbread and another friend who used to live her got hers freshly ground. Thats a 3rd world kind of thing.....another little store that just does one thing and sells it dirt cheap. In the US you have to go to a swanky natural foods store to find anything freshly ground.....or live near the Amish (=

Milestones

Milestone #1 - Residence Visa - Many of you know that we have been living in limbo about our residence status here. We've been here for almost 6 months and assumed we would have passed this milestone several months back. This milestone is the key to getting a bank account, a post office address, being able to buy and register a car in our name and, of course, travel across the border in our small town. This milestone is not totally passed - I'm deciding to call it a Mile - Zone as opposed to a Milestone because it isn't passing quickly (= We have a job, we've signed the contract (that took 6 days) now we need to wait for visa paperwork to be completed. Hence the zone concept.

Milestone #2 - Layla starts pre-school and loves it.
Yes indeed. She has gone three days this week and is doing well. In her words:
"I cried a little bit, but it was okay."
" I had some trouble today. I was grabbing. But it will be okay."
" We need to put the juice box in this pocket on my bag. It leaks in the other pocket." (she's majorly attached to her little rolling bag she takes to school!)
"I said (arabic word arabic word arabic word) and (somethign like an arabic word?) today in school!"

Milestone #3 - We are not going to look for another house to move into.
We had been casually looking for a slightly larger house. We could really do with one more room to use as a guest room/other things, but we just aren't finding anything that we like as much as our place. One GREAT thing about our house is that no one could build another house near us that is two stories tall. If that happend, I'd have to wear different clothes in our yard and one of the things I love about our yard is that no one can see in and I can wear whatever I want. Also, because we've been in our house for 4 years, the rent is super low compared to market value these days. We've never met our landlord, but from what we can tell from our agent, he is very happy to have us stay in the house and doesn't want us to move. Consequently, we've been given permission to make some changes/improvements to the house.

Milestone #4 - Ryan sleeps through the night. Oh wait. That isn't happening yet.


In the picture above, Layla is a week from turning three years old, Ryan is almost 4 months (yes, he is a big kid) and I am 37 and Tom is 42 (= We are definitely feeling our age these days! Thanks to all of you who make it possible for us to be here in so many ways.

Random

This week has been noticeably cooler! We can't believe how fast it changed. The afternoons are still unpleasant, but the mornings and evenings are actually pretty nice. Still sweaty if you move, but if you are sitting still with some cool water, and if you aren't stressed or worried about anything, you may not even break a sweat. I've yet to get to that place, but we're happy that "Fall" is around the corner!

Layla started nursery school again today! It went much better than last time. This is likely due to the fact that she knows 4 of the 11 kids in her class. Their parents are all at the language school - see Birthday party photos and you'll see all the older kids who are with her. This is a big advantage over our last attempt, plus Layla is 5 months older and she has been settled here for much longer. we are hoping to have her in four days a week. One of those days will be without the foreign kids - we hope she will get more comfortable in a more Arab environment. It is likely that in January we will consider moving her to another good nursery school reccommend to us that does not have any foreign kids. It REALLY hampers learning language if there is even one other english speaking kid in class!

Visa attempts #2 and #4 are back in play. #2 was the situation where Tom was flat out told he wouldn't get a visa because of the wording on his diploma. We got a call two days ago that his paperwork was ready to be picked up today! hmmmm. Attempt #4 is a totally new situation that is our preference and a verbal offer has almost been made - enough that he was told the offer would come by email by today or tomorrow. We'll see about that.

So it feels like schedules are all mixed up and not ready to be settled for a week or two. Hopefully Tom will have a new work schedule and Lj has her nursery school and I am ready for my times out to the ladies gym and Ryan....well Ryan still needs to figure out how to sleep for 7 hours. Sigh. He was 80% there before our trip to Dtown, but we are back to waking up at about 4am or 5am every night. he isn't hungry, just awake and progressively crankier. I would like to chalk it all up to his runny nose (he sounds SO sad and pathetic!) but that might be wishful thinking. He's a completely easy baby in every other way so we are rather mystified by this one issue. However, we are grateful for just ONE issue at the moment with him!

I have been helping a new language school family get to know their neighbors...they need some to go with them to say hello and do general chatting. It has been fun to be out speaking Arabic again - I feel like it has been ages since I've visited. Oh wait. It HAS been ages. (=

Our visit yesterday was a total surprise. After the lady opened the door, I told my friend Debbie that this would be a short visit. It was a rather elderly lady and her generation speaks a version of Arabic I totally do not understand. The yard and house were dirty and not cleaned up. It wasn't filthy or anything, just old rugs laying around outside on the gravel (rugs keep the dust down) with trash and stuff all over. The mejulis (sitting room) had only two back cushions and a patchwork of carpets covering the floor. I got the impression they just bought a new carpet when the other got too dirty! I sat down on something hard and realized it was an ashtray. When is the last time you saw an honest-to-goodness ashtray! Or sat on one?

The dear woman had two teeth - one on the bottom right and one on the top left and both of them stuck out beyond her lips (= She was clearly surprised by the visit. Everything she brought out was dirty and it was definitely one of those times you just eat, drink and pray. Like I mentioned, I was shocked by how well I understood her and she told us that she was from the "dach a leah" which means the Interior. Her family were likely semi-nomadic bedouins that herd goats/camels and farm dates at certain points in the year. Her husband died 17 years ago in a car accident and she had just moved to this house last year. I was surprised by that - older folks don't tend to move. I think the house was such a bit because only her sons lived there (= Sorry to all you bachelor-types..... You'd likely think her family was poor, but I'm sure they aren't - one is an electrician, two are in the policeforce and one in the Army. They are well-cared for by the government, I assure you. They just live in that social/economic class of rural folks who have just moved to the city. They display their wealth in the cars, clothes and watches, not in their homes. They didn't even have air conditioners in all the rooms! It may mean all the guys sleep in the mejulis (likely) or that some of them are so fresh off the desert that the air conditioners are unpleasant. Who knows.

Anyway - that was my morning yesterday (= Hopefully I'l have a post here very soon about Tom's visa option being decided!! Please God?

Henna!

I've been meaning to post these pictures for awhile.....I may not have unpacked our suitcases from Dtown yet, but I'm getting caught up on posting pictures (= Ahhh, priorities! Jessy wanted to get Henna done before she left and we took Layla along for her first Henna experience! She did SOOOOO well sitting in the chair and not moving! I was shocked at how careful she was and how still she sat afterwards to let it dry. So cute (= These were taken in July before I chopped off her hair (= She was getting so hot and sweaty all the time and she was refusing to wear any hair things so I just cut it all off one day!

Birthday Party #2

The day after we returned from D town, we had our Princess and Pool party. These are only photos of the Princess part....I didn't take any pictures of the pool part. Just imagine all those kids running around outside with underwear, swimsuits or birthday suits and you get the picture! We are very grateful for our hosh (yard) that is large enough for lots of kids to play in! Yeah to Tom for taking care of the pool (= We are actually considering buying a bigger one with a frame and putting it on our roof!! They are much cheaper than we expected when we looked at the store (the guest house we were staying in has a framed-pool). Who knows....just an idea at this point. All in all, it was a TOTALLY chaotic 2 hours and I hope it was worth all the work before hand and attitude issues afterwards (=

Birthday Party #1

Tom's Dad came through town for a few nights last week so we all stayed in a guest house up near the airport. With the border issues, there was no point in coming all the way back to our house. We celebrated Layla's birthday one evening after dinner since it was only a few days after Jon left.

Happy Birthday Layla!!

It is so hard to believe that three years have passed since my crazy birth experience with Layla. She has changed so much and been such a delight to us in so many ways. How fun to be her mama (=

We had a party here this afternoon with way too many kids (= It was crazy fun and I'll post pictures soon.

Birthday Preparations!

I am making a real attempt at planning a birthday for Layla this year. Her first birthday was on the heels of packing up our house here and arriving in the US. I actually PURCHASED a cake from the grocery store and decorated it with tubes of icing. A major no-no in my opinion. I love decorating cakes - and doing fun shapes was something my mom always did. Her second birthday was a little better. We did a school bus cake in honor of the most irritating song in the world. I dare not type the title of it as it will be in everyone's brain the rest of the day. There were no invites or other sweet little girls at that party. Just family -- which is wonderful, mind you!

This year, it will be a BUNCH of kids for a "Princess and Pool" party! I managed to think up a fun invite and I have the cakes already made and in the freezer ready to be cut and decorated. I'm doing this almost a week in advance because we leave tomorrow for 5 days in D-town. We are excited to see Layla's Granddaddy and to have some time in a "slightly" more modern city (=

You can't read this, but basically it says that YOU are invited to the Carlson Villa for a Princess and Pool party on September 19th. 430pm - 630pm. Hopefully it won't be too uncomfortably hot at that time of day. Who am I kidding. It'll be hot.