1st Family Camping Trip!

FLY SEASON - AAAAAAHHHHHHH!

These are the biggest, baddest, ugliest flies you'll ever encounter. They have big, red googly eyes and sit on this tree right outside my kitchen window. It is ALMOST making me regret planting a tree outside my window. Almost. I love to look at something besides concrete - call me crazy.

Fly season will end in a few weeks as the weather warms up. We have had our space-heaters on the last few weeks as our house gets so cold. Thankfully Layla has learned how to keep a blanket on in the middle of the night. But I still wake up and think "Ah! better go see if Layla is freezing!"

The new students arriving to start the new term at the language school so we are having all sorts of those interesting discussions where you see the place through new eyes again. Someone asked us yesterday, "Is there a bunch of dead meat around here? Why are there so many flies?" Well, yes, there is dead meat around as the trash "can" (read: pile) is just over our wall. But it is just fly season and there is nothing to do besides swat them or live with them or both depending on how much energy you have at the time. They are surprisingly slow so it is rather satisfying to use your AMERICAN-MADE fly swatter. If you buy a local-made fly swatter, every time to swat, a little bit of the fly swatter chips off so when you are done you have a bunch of big black dead flies and small plastic chips....and a smaller fly swatter.

Introverted mama issues

http://www.steadymom.com/2010/11/6-survival-strategies-for-the-introverted-mom.html

I had a big chunk of time to just sit at the computer and cruise around the many many blogs run by stay-at-home-moms who are trying to reach out and help others. Normally I get bored on the computer fairly easily but I was really intrigued by some of the stuff I was reading last night. There are so many talented ladies with great ideas and great ways to help each other organize and, as one mom put it, add a little "professionalism" to her mothering.

Anyway, in the process I came across this post from www.steadymom.com. So true. All of it.

Just this week Layla has not slept during her naptime for about 4 days in a row. This is very unusual and I was thinking to myself that there was NO WAY I was letting her go without some sort of quiet time. I need the break as much as she does (=

Helpful thoughts....

Getting an early start!

Some of you may know that Tom learned how to play Xbox once we moved out here. He's always enjoyed computer games and such, but we sure didn't expect it to be one of the main ways to connect with guys out here!

Update on the kids

I haven't been very inspired to write much these days. There have been several things that have happened, but I just haven't felt up to posting. ah well.

So I'll talk about the kids (=

Ryan is almost 8 months old. He is sleeping through the night when he isn't cutting his teeth. Bedtimes with both of them are about 745/800pm. It is a constant struggle to get our lives headed toward bed by that time of day, but I am really working on it!

Ryan is usually up first by about 7am. Some days he is up earlier and Layla comes wailing into our bedroom "Mama! Ryan is awake! Please take him out of the bedroom. He woke me up!"

He had quite a bit of trouble from months 4 through 6 with reflux but it seems to have gone away completely since the beginning of December and we are grateful for that! He is a very happy and easy-going baby. It isn't unusual for me to forget where I've put him....he is pretty content on his own for about 15 mins. I'm grateful for that!! He isn't crawling hand over hand yet, but pulls forward both hands at a time and is very quick to get across the room and find ANY electrical cord or power strip. He is eating some solids and while he was slower to catch on to eating than Lj was, he has ramped up the amount he eats incredibly fast. He'd eat a whole banana or avocado each time if I gave it to him. I keep trying to introduce new foods so that slows him down a bit. Today he refused to eat anything from a spoon - he wanted to feed himself everything. Messy messy messy.

He loves his big sister and is constantly entertained by her dancing and jumping around. Most every afternoon when the sun is low enough that it doesn't bug Layla's eyes, we go outside and I water the plants. Ryan is usually in a stroller parked where he can see both of us and I get some nice "alone" time as I water the plants and while Layla plays her elaborate pretend games.

Layla is 3 years old and 4 months now. She is as much a talker as she always was and I am constantly surprised by her vocabulary, thought processes and the way she can imitate our speech. She is interested in Arabic and wants to know how to say this or that. Her steady diet of Dora episodes from the DVD keep her "speaking" Spanish as well. Diego is a character on Dora and he is one of her constant companions. However, if I get too much into playing pretend with her, she backs out and says "mom. It is only pretend. He can't do that!" As if I should know the boundaries of the pretend world!

She is doing well at nursery school for the most part. She is still hesitant every day when I drop her off. Sometimes she cries, but one of the maids scoops her up and takes her upstairs. They call her "dalula" which essentially is a softer, kinder term for spoiled (= I say " Of COURSE I spoil her! She's my only daughter!" They laugh at that.

Today I was driving around trying to find a small, dirty car shop in the midst of a million other small, dirty car shops and I said "I can't find the store daddy wants to meet us at!" and Lj says "Don't worry mom. I know where it is. But I don't have my telescope." (= I so wish I could remember all the funny things she says. I'm sure every mom says that.

She had her first "sleep-over" last night. We had a party at our house and I didn't want her up until 11 or 12 at night so she went to sleep at a friend's house. I introduced the idea of sleeping over and packing her jammies and she jumped up and got ALL excited about packing her suitcase which is this silver metal thing someone gave her. It was TOOO funny watching her march out the door with her silver suitcase, lamb under arm and chatting like crazy to the friend who was picking her up. Narry a glance back at the door (=

This morning we were talking about her time and apparently at some point during the evening she did something with the TV. She was quite serious when she said:

-I turned the TV off. It was just an accident. I didn't get put in time out.

-Miss Sarah didn't put you in time out? Should she have put you in time out?

-blank look

-If mommy was there, would she have put you in time out?

-nods head. yes, Miss Sarah didn't....can't....she doesn't know how to put children in time out.

ha ha!

Anyway. all for now.

Check it out

We were at a park the other day and Layla was walking around the toilet area trying to find the ladies bathroom. After she spent significant time trying to find the door, I decided to join her and see what the problem was. Here is the sign they had (= Plus it was padlocked shut. Hmmmm. I just love that they included gloves on the lady!

Personality

Here is our little man at 7 months old! We are enjoying his developing personality - he is mellow and very very happy and giggly unless he sees me making food for him. Then he just screams bloody murder until the spoon is in his mouth.
We are in the midst of our cold weather here. 50s and 60s may not seem that bad but in concrete houses with no heat it is COLD. We bought some small space heaters several years ago and really appreciate them even though we only use them about 2 weeks out of the year! So Ryan has been wearing his brown fleece jacket here 24/7 for awhile.

He as 2 bottom teeth and we can see the top two coming in. He has had more trouble with teething than Layla di so his new talent of sleeping through the night is no where to be found these days. We trust he'll get back to sleeping from 8pm to 7am again soon. He and Layla have also been sick with major coughs and nose junk.

Well I can't end a post on "nose junk" so I'll just say that we are doing okay with the situation with Tom's job. You may remember we had done some construction around the house and built a room in the back part of the yard for the maid. We can't sponsor a maid now so we moved Tom's desk and computer stuff back there right away so he can get some work done. Despite not having his full-time job, he still has plenty to keep him busy at his desk! We are all glad that he can have some quiet space to work.

oops. A bit late on this one...

I thought I had posted this slideshow about our decorating for Christmas ages ago but just realized that I had forgotten to do so. Tom and I just took down all our Christmas stuff yesterday so we are far less festive (= We really enjoyed decorating with Sue!

The comments thing is not working on the slideshow for some reason, so the brief description is that Sue joined us (family friend who now lives in the area. YIPPEE!) to make our occasion much more festive.

Layla decorated all her stuffed animals with these extra plastic balls I had. She lined them all up. It was quite funny because I had hardly gotten started and she seemed to get the idea of decorating right away.

Love the photo of the two of them reading - Layla was being a Christmas fairy (=

Pulling the tree out of storage after 2 years....trying to find a way to get all the dust off of it!

Ryan has 2 bottom teeth now (beginning of December)

I made apple cider both to drink and for the smell - something we always did at our home.

In terribly UN-American Christmas fashion, we had Indian sandwiches for dinner that night (=

New Year! 2011

We did nothing noteworthy to celebrate the new year - we are feeling unsure about what to come and that doesn't incline one to throw a party which was our original plan.

Instead, we stayed home and rolled in the new year with Ryan truly screaming because of new teeth and all of us watching Nanny McPhee in an attempt to distract ourselves!

2010 was certainly a banner year with our move back overseas, the birth of Ryan, my second surgery, Layla starting nursery school, my learning how to mother TWO children at the same time, Tom finding and losing work, and getting our residency visas and border cards! Whew.

We are truly hoping that 2011 will be much less noteworthy (=

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.