Failed Attempt

Next week we have to travel. I say "have to" because it is one of the three worst travel weeks of the year. Really why are we subjecting ourselves to this? I know traveling the day before Thanksgiving and Christmas is a nightmare in the US, but you have never been in a traveling nightmare until you live in a country with more than a billion people...and at least half of them are trying to get somewhere...and it is only on either a bus or a train (We will be on a train). This year we get to be one of the crazy people! Why are we doing this again?

We are taking a train about 4 hours north to see some friends, sort of. While there KB and myself will be engaged, and Avril will spend some playtime with several other kids. From what I understand she will be the youngest one there.

For nap time, the kids will sleep on pallets on the floor. AB has never slept on a pallet. Our three attempts at getting her to sleep with us in bed while at a hotel were huge failures, and we came to understand that she needs to be restricted when she sleeps. I know as she gets older, like now, she should be able to easily sleep unrestricted, but there has never been a need, so we have never tried.

We decided to try out the whole pallet thing, because who knows, she might really like it! We took the pad out of her pack and play, put a sheet on it, set it up with all her toys that she likes to sleep with (way too many for sure), and put her down for a nap on the pallet.

For an hour we heard nothing from her room. We were so excited! We thought we had success and we would not get embarrassed when our kid is the one who keeps all the other kids up during nap time. After an hour KB and I slowly opened her door expecting to see her sleeping peacefully on her pallet. No, no, no. That is not what we saw.

The first thing we noticed was the smell. It was a overwhelming smell of Johnson and Johnson baby wipes. Then we saw she was sitting in a huge pile of them. She had opened her top dresser drawer, that we did not know she was tall enough to reach into - yet, took out an unopened package of baby wipes and basically spent a fun filled hour of pulling baby wipes out of the package one by one. It was also apparent she has used some of the baby wipes to "clean" things in her room. She is such a helper.

Waterman

Most places outside of the United States it is not wise to drink water from the tap. In our country it is not wise to even cook with it. Apparently there are all types of nasty metals in our water, and boiling does nothing to get rid of those. We have to buy our water. Coming from a society (from the US) that just uses and uses water to our hearts content, drinking water and cooking with water that comes from a bottle that we have to order somehow made me anxious in the beginning. I did everything I could to conserve it, even drinking sodas instead of water because I feared we would run out of water. This fear partly stemmed from the fact that the first 8 months of our time here we could not manage to say the name of our apartment and that really hindered ordering water over the phone. After a while we learned that no one, not even the locals can correctly say the name of our apartment (isn't it cruel to put the foreigners trying to learn the language in this apartment?) and the water company just came to an understanding that the people calling with an American accent were at such and such apartment. We are the only foreigners they deliver water to, so it confounds us when a new person answers their phone and asks us for a detailed description of where we live. Eventually they put the manager on the phone who asks, "you the foreigners?" and we say yes.

I should go ahead and say, delivering water is not an easy job. They deliver water at all hours of they day and in all sorts of weather. Usually they drive a motorcycle that is rigged up with a contraption that holds about 6 bottles of water. One bottle of water costs us about 75 cents, so you can imagine how little they get paid. Not an easy job indeed.

For the first two years we lived here the same skinny little man with massively toned legs carried our two 5 gallon bottles of water up to our 5th floor apartment in one trip, but recently they have been getting some new guys to help out. When we order water it usually takes 30 minutes to 2 hours to get our water. However, we think one of the new guys was especially eager to deliver water to the foreigners yesterday, as he arrived just 10 minutes after we called, and apparently he had an agenda. Usually these guys are in a hurry and only drop off the water, pickup the empty bottles, take the money, and maybe say hello. Amazingly they are usually not out of breath. It makes me feel out of shape when I am hauling just myself up the stairs and need to take a break.

So when our new water guy arrived I was not surprise when he did not say hello, but I was taken by surprise when the guy instead asked me, "how much does it cost to fly to the US?" I said, "one way about $1,000 USD." Then he asked me if I watch basketball, and I immediately deferred to KB who tends to know sports vocabulary better than I do. Essentially he got to the point. He loves Michael Jordan and wanted to know if was possible to meet him. He thought maybe he could get a job in the US, like delivering water, and deliver it to MJ's house. KB had to break it to him that most people do not get their water delivered in the US. He asked if he waited outside his home, maybe he could meet him when he leaves to go somewhere. KB warned him this is considered very impolite in the US and they may not understand his intentions. He also told him MJ probably has a security guard with him to keep people away from him. Then the guy asked if it was going to be a problem that he did not speak or read English. KB had to tell him that outside of certain sections in large cities, most average Americans do not speak his language. He thought we already knew how to speak the language before we came here and was shocked the rest of the world does not commonly speak it. It was a hard blow for him. This conversation continued for about 15 minutes. This guy's dream is to meet MJ and he saw us as a way to get information how to accomplish it. You have got to love a guy who has a dream!

Our fellow American friend said he was recently asked by his water guy if he could purchase him an iphone in the US and bring it back to him. He too was taken back since his water guy has been delivering his water for 2 years and has never said even hello to him.

Welcome Back Onesie

Recently I have been trying to phase out the onesie as it hinders that "in the momentness" of trying to get AB to the potty when she looks at us and says "tee."

However, as a result she has learned how easy it is to take her clothes and diaper off when she is only wearing a dress or a shirt and bottoms. This morning when she had her alone time (because it is no longer nap time), we found her completely naked and standing in her bed after one hour. Then when she woke up and hour and a half early from her afternoon nap I found her once again completely naked but sitting in her pee. Bring out the onesies because those darn little snaps are just too difficult for her to figure out. Welcome back onesie.

Little Woodchuck

I have mentioned before that AB eats her bed. Here are the pictures. There are about 8 spots on her bed just like these. Arrgg. Fortunately I do not think she actually swallows the wood since I find pieces of it all over her room, and I never see any in her diaper. Sometimes I find her still chewing the pieces when I enter her room. She usually then takes them out of her mouth and hands them to me.

While we are in the US we will be using a borrowed bed, but I already have a plan in place for protecting that bed. It will involve an old bed-sheet and lots of duct tape. I found suggestions online, and it seems the most AB proof. Also, we will work to transition to a big bed soon after we arrive. Potty training, successfully using utensils and moving to a big bed, they seem like intimidating tasks don't they? I am just doing to do whatever other parents who have had success tell me to do.

Me

This is the first and only pregnancy photo I have taken. I will be 20 weeks tomorrow. I figured I popped out so early this time, there was not a very good reason to chart my progress. This child will most likely (hopefully) become a middle child. Apparently I am starting with the middle child neglect early. I am a middle child, so I should be doing better.

It is also 100% safe to say, I feel a whole lot bigger than I look in this picture. Talk about invalidating! Gee whiz!

Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders

In April/May when we were in the big city we bumped into these girls. Yep they are the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders. Here is the story -

As Kristy, Jeremy, KB, AB and myself pulled up to this shopping center, we saw a group of girls that just did not "fit" in this city scene. Their hair was too done up, they had on way too much makeup, and the biggie, they were all wearing matching track suits. Turns out they were heading to the same restaurant we were going to. This left our little party to speculate the entire meal as to who they were. By the way, there was a camera crew and photographers with them.

When I tried to get a closer look at them I noticed they were wearing white cowboy boots with their blue and grew track suits. I thought, "no way; not in this city and definitely not in this country." However, after asking the restaurant manager who they were, he confirmed they were in fact the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders. They were in town to promote a new direct flight with American Airlines that incidentally got canceled a couple days later because the capital airport would only give them a middle of the night landing time. At least the girls got a trip out of it.

Anyways, as we were leaving, they were leaving. I totally used my baby for this one. I asked if they would take a picture with my daughter. They said sure. I sucked in my stomach, stood up as tall as I could and put on my old cheerleader smile. Really, do I look that different from them...don't answer that. I did not realize my picture was over with them until one of them gently guided me away from them.

That is how we ran into the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders in one of the most random places to meet them, ever.

Little bit of this and a little bit of that...

Most foreigners who live overseas find it quite necessary to have a helper. Our apartments get dirty faster, we often go to the store (most produce spoils in 2 days), food preparation is more complicated, and the biggie washing all those dishes that get dirty from the complicated food preparations. Before AB we did everything ourselves, and on average between KB and myself we spent about 4-6 hours a day cleaning or going to the store. On top of that we were in language school for 4 hours each day. That did not leave much time for our other goal in life. After AB we realized we needed a helper.

The first lady was awesome. However, she lived a 10 minute taxi ride away, but did not want to take a taxi and therefore rode her bike. After one week she said it was too far and quit. Eventually we got another helper, Ms. Ge, through an agency. She was not great, but she was sufficient. In March after working for us for almost a year, Ms. Ge took two weeks paid vacation (that she did not ask for) and then two weeks later said she injured her back was in the hospital for 2 weeks then quit. However, while she was "in the hospital," she was well enough to climb up our four flights of stairs to get her wages. We did not say anything, but it seemed fishy with her injured back and all.

Thankfully Karen, who was already watching AB during our language classes, took over the cleaning of our apartment. After about 3 months she said it was too hot to ride her bike to our apartment. I offered to pay for her taxis and she said she did not like taxis. What confuses me is that she would have to ride her bike to any job she has, so....uhhh, I think she was fibbing. However, she was our friend, and I think she was pulling one of those cultural things called "saving face," (she had some reason for quitting that she did not want to tell us, so she gave us a more "acceptable" reason, very common) so we let the inconsistencies go. Since leaving us in June she has had 2 different jobs, so I do not think it has much to do with us.

Our fourth helper was temporary and we knew it. She was great and we just tried to enjoy every moment she worked for us. Our fifth helper is a senior in college. When colleges are overcrowded here, they tend to tell the seniors to not attend class their senior year, do independent study, and then come for graduation. Our local university just spent every dime they have on building a new campus and cannot even afford to pay their teachers, so yes, all the seniors are doing "independent study" by working on their parent's farms, bagging groceries, or in Alice's case, she is the helper to a desperate foreign family.

Alice is ridiculously sweet and she does not complain about having to clean up the Toby poop. Because she is a senior and has nothing else to do, she said she can work for us until we leave in mid October, and this makes us very happy. In addition to her regular wages, we pay for her bus fare to our apartment and for her lunch, which she purchases a the supermarket across the street. One day I was eating lunch when she came back from the store with her lunch. I asked what she bought and she said, "fried silk worms." I know the people of this country like to eat fried silk worms, but I choose not to partake in them. This decision was further enforced when I got a nice whiff of the fried silk worms. Let's just say, I made an excuse about having a headache (which fortunately I did) and made swift retreat to our bedroom until every last one of those worms were consumed. I may be in my 2nd trimester, but my annoying gag reflex to unusual smells (i.e. unsavory to me) is not quite in check. Nevertheless, we love Alice, and AB calls her Alish.

KB took a picture for your enjoyment.

More Random Pictures from KB's Phone

Sometime last month AB decided to give us a heart attack and climb up on this little stool for the first time. She has sense learned that is a no no, but apparently KB wanted to keep a picture for prosperity.

See those diapers behind her? You should see what her room looks like. She got into an unopened package of 120 diapers and took every single diaper out of the bag.