Month: May 2011

Cause this kid?

 

Josh and a few friends took the boys hiking in a waadi a few hours away the other day. They came home with stories of waterfalls, swimming in deep, deep pools and jumping off of 25-30 foot cliffs.

This was the day that baby and I were home sick. Josh took the boys to scope it out and see if it was doable for us as a family.

But you won’t catch me swimming in any dark caves . . . cause of the baby.

A minor annoyance I have had since arriving in Oman is that every single toilet paper holder is on the left side of the toilet. It doesn’t seem like a big deal, but every time I look for toilet paper, it’s never where I would naturally reach for it. I look to the right, but it’s always on the left. It was the same way in Egypt, but I figured it was just because lots of things were backward in Egypt.

Then I started thinking that maybe the middle east has a high percentage of left handed people and that was the reason for the unreasonably placed toilet paper. Um, no.

The answer seems so simple now, but it escaped me for 6 weeks. Yesterday the light bulb finally turned on. The general rule in an Arabic country is: you don’t eat with your left hand because your left hand is for cleaning (yourself) and your right hand is for eating.

So that begs the question: if they aren’t using toilet paper, why put it on the left side of the toilet?

This is what I looked like last night.

No, I don’t know why Josh takes blurry pictures. Just kidding. I have a new camera and it must have been on a weird setting.

Yes, I was hobbling around with my wool socks on, 3 layers of long sleeved shirts and my SF jacket. No one else seemed to think it was cold in our house, which pretty much clued me in that I was getting sicker. At least it explains why I’ve felt so tired and crabby for the past week. No more fever today, just feeling like I need to sleep for hours on end . . . something that baby girl is completely opposed to.

You know you’re grasping at straws when you start googling things like “10 month old baby number of naps?” and “normal sleep hours 10 month old baby.” I guess I should read her the articles that say she should be sleeping from 7pm to 7am and then taking at least two naps per day. I guess I could read her those articles when she’s crawling around the living room at 11 pm cause she went to bed at 7:30 like a normal baby but then woke up screaming twice before 10:30.

We’ve figured out it’s just part of the Chartier life-cycle:

•  Start with a move or extended period of travel (why not? we’ve had plenty of those lately)
• Baby gets sick, sleeps horribly and nurses round the clock so can’t take reflux medicine (it has to be taken on an empty stomach).
• Baby starts to feel better, but starts sleeping even worse and screaming. Very loudly and very often.
• Parents realize that it must be a reflux flare up and just have to wait it out until the medicine starts working again (We think we’ve figured out it takes a week to kick in fully).
• Fuzzy area here where things aren’t great, but not the stuff horror movies are made of.
• One day parents think, “Wow, she napped for a few days in a row without screaming . . . maybe we’re getting to a new normal.”
• Chartiers move or leave for an extended trip . . . and, repeat. 

Hopefully we’ll be better and out exploring Oman soon. You sure you’re not sick of pictures of beautiful oceans yet?

they’ve been shut down all day and night and now that things are up and running again, my post about cliff jumping still hasn’t come back.

Supposedly, they are working at restoring missing posts and comments . . . I’m sick tonight anyway, so I’m heading to bed and will figure things out tomorrow. Happy weekend everyone!

So the other gift I got for Mother’s Day was the nasty cold from the baby. Who got it from Calvin. Who got it from an unnamed source. So I have my sore throat and am all stuffy and Lucy says, “I will make you ginger tea. Ginger is so good for you. Indians use it all the time.”

She took a piece of ginger, peeled it and minced it and put it in water on the stove to simmer. Then she went out in our backyard where we have lemongrass growing (who knew?) and picked a stalk of lemongrass. She minced up the lemongrass, added it to the pot and then took the pepper grinder and added some black pepper. After the mixture simmered for a few minutes she strained it into a mug, added a spoonful of honey, and stirred it in. Then she said I needed to inhale the steam and drink the tea.

It was mildly sweet and surprisingly peppery. The spiciness helped to numb my throat and clear my sinuses. She said another way to do it is to take warm ginger juice and pepper and put it in brandy and it works really fast, but she doesn’t like brandy. Just the smell of it makes her dizzy. And since we don’t have liquor stores here I’ll have to stick with the AA approved version.

I said I hoped that she didn’t get sick and she replied, “Madame, when I feel like I’m not well I take fresh coriander (cilantro), a little onion, several small dried chilles — VERY spicy, and a cube of chicken bullion. I drink it and it’s VERY spicy (and she runs her hands over her forehead and face like she’s breaking out in a sweat), but then I don’t get sick. I wanted to make it for you, but TOO spicy!”

I told her Josh would probably like it. “Ah, Sir likes spicy? I make it for him if he gets sick.”
Get ready Josh. Doctor Lucy is in the house.