Month: March 2011

I’m currently sitting at our gate, waiting for them to call for our flight to board. Sounds peaceful, right? Well, in the hour or so that we’ve been at the airport: The baby screamed all the way through security (but we got to go in the family line so no naked pictures and a shorter wait. Josh swore that he heard Calvin’s name being paged over the loudspeaker so he went off to go solve that mystery about 10 minutes ago. I don’t know how anyone can distinguish anything anyone says over those paging systems. I hear things like, “Your mom freesia – please come to the carnival house yesterday” or “will passenger Gi Yu Romania, please go to the dog latch.” But Josh is convinced that they called Calvin’s name and he’s usually right about these sort of things so who knows what that’s about. Meanwhile I am sitting with baby girl who managed to dump an entire container of puffs in her lap – I think I rescued most of them but there are crumbs and puff dust everywhere. I thought she would just play with the jar, but I guess she’s smarter than I am. I tried to get on SFO’s free wifi, but it either wasn’t working, or I just didn’t connect properly. I’m betting on the latter. Then a loud, shrill BEEP BEEP BEEP (pause) BEEP BEEP BEEP started and I was sure it was some sort of fire alarm and was just waiting for them to announce we had to evacuate when it stopped.` Josh just came back and said that one of our bags is locked and he has to go all the way back through security to figure out which bag has the problem. It’s probably the guitar. Baby is yelling and teething so I gotta go pull out the Motrin. Happy travels to us!

until we’re in the air, again. Josh is checking us in online as I write this and all the bags are packed. It seems like we have more stuff than last time, which shouldn’t be possible, but we were able to buy shoes and other extra clothes to replace those that were left behind in Egypt so I guess that’s part of it. The Monterey Hillbillies are hitting the road, this time with knives and an electric fly zapper.

Speaking of Egypt, the word from there is that embassy employees should all be headed back in the next 2 weeks or so, but no families yet. And those who are there haven’t been allowed to travel freely around the city so it is to our benefit to be headed to Oman instead. Of course today the Omani army moved in, shut down a protest and arrested a bunch of people in Sohar, about 200 km (125 miles) from Muscat. Maybe I shouldn’t unpack when we get there . . .

I think baby girl reads my blog because ever since I posted about how we compete to get her to sleep she has been all, “oh yeah? I’ll show you!” and has been sleeping like a normal human all week long. 2 hour naps, more than one nap a day, no screaming for almost an hour as we futilely try and sooth her to sleep. Instead she’s been snuggling into her sheets, whimpering a little, yawning a lot and drifting off to sleep easily. She’s even been sleeping for a 6 hour stretch each night. Someone snuck in and swapped babies with me and I came out the winner in that trade.

I woke up at 3:30 in the morning 3 nights ago and Camille hadn’t woken up yet and I my first thought was, “I’m sure she’s OK, but I need to check to see if she’s still alive or I’m just going to lie awake all night wondering if she is actually breathing.” She was, but I think my poking woke her up — I tried the hand on the back, but I couldn’t feel anything through the blanket and I put my hand in front of her nose and mouth, but I couldn’t feel any breathing, so I just poked her until she moved, but then she was awake and yelling for me and I was thinking, “no wonder your kids don’t sleep through the night.”

So anyway, happy days are here again. At least temporarily, until we do a time-warp/shape-shifting move on our little girl again. And just in case she is reading . . . I totally bet that she won’t sleep at all on the plane.

Go ahead and prove me wrong little girl. I dare you.

We went out to lunch today to meet a friend from church one last time before we leave the country. Eating out is fun, but it’s also an exercise in juggling my own food, feeding bits to the baby, glaring at those who take huge bites of food and then proceed to chew those bites with their mouths wide open, directing others who can’t seem to sit and eat at the same time . . . you get the picture. So we were actually having a pretty relaxing, enjoyable lunch. Baby was in lemon heaven, the boys were eating and coloring, and Josh and I were enjoying grown-up talk. Then Caleb accidently knocked his (plastic) cup of ice off the table, spilling it all over the floor. Without prompting, he got down on the floor and picked up every single piece of ice and put it back in the cup and wiped up the water off the floor with his napkin. I was so proud. I gave myself a silent pat on the back, “My boys are going to grow up to be well mannered men who know how to eat in public. Whew!” And then, out of the corner of my eye, I see Caleb eating the ice he had just picked up off the floor. Our friend was in the middle of a story and not wanting to interrupt (and really, I didn’t want anyone else to know that I had a kid who would actually eat off the floor), I started shooting crazy eyed glares and willing him to look up at me so he could catch my “whatareyoudoingyoucrazykid” look. No luck. My baby boy continued to happily suck away on floor ice. *sigh* Let’s just hope the folks at Islands pride themselves on really clean floors.

there is a new sport that has developed at our house — everyone has a different way to play it, but the objective is the same: getting Camille to sleep.

We’ve all experienced the “thrill of victory and the agony of defeat.” (Remember the old intro to ABC’s Wide World of Sports where the skier crashes and flips down the mountain?) You don’t?
Maybe this will refresh your memory:

 I loved watching that dude crash every week . . . have I mentioned how much I love the internet? I found that video in less than 10 seconds and then spent the next 10 minutes watching all the intros from the different years, all featuring the same crashing skier. I’m actually supposed to be packing, but I’m having my own 80s flashback party instead. Good times.

Anyway, back to my own crashing and burning. I am unable to get my baby to sleep. And every other member of the family has a trick that sometimes works. I got nothing.

My approach: Nurse baby. She falls asleep. Move her to her bed. She wakes up. I pat her for 20 seconds, arm starts to fall asleep (from hanging over the side of the bed) and I think, “I just nursed you for 20 minutes. This blows. I’m outta here.”

Thankfully, I have scores of teammates waiting to sub in. Calvin’s secret weapon is his ipod touch. He has a special playlist that he put together and labeled Camille’s nap music. He climbs in her bed, puts the ipod next to her head and pats her back. The other day he came out saying, “2 songs. A new record.”

Carter employs music too, but he sings to Camille. As long as he can pat and sing at the same time, he’s successful about 70% of the time.

Caleb lies down next to her and gets right up in her face. Sometimes he sings, sometimes he just talks to her and tells her to go to sleep. When she turns away from him he climbs to the other side so he can look right in her eyes. I only usually sub him in if it’s a hail-Mary type of situation since the odds of it working aren’t very high, but every now and then he gets the win.

I say that Josh has the best baby sleeper skillz since he is successful 95% of the time, but really I think that he just has more patience than I do. And he can’t nurse the baby. I think one of the unwritten rules of our game is possession of food is an automatic DQ.

Thankfully, in the last week Camille has gone from formidable adversary to a reluctant member of our team. Or at least she has moved to sitting on our sidelline. She is going to sleep easier and sleeping for “longer” stretches. I know it’s sad that I’m celebrating stretches of 3 -5 hours at night, but I’m enjoying thrill of victory anyway.

banging with the old spoon-o . . . yeah, that doesn’t really work, does it.

(It’s late. I’m out of clever things to say. I just wanted to post this video.)