Month: June 2011

Camille has been taking Prevacid for her reflux for the past six months. They have baby versions that are either a flavored liquid or a chewable tablet, but since we were in Egypt when it was prescribed, all we could get was the adult pill form. Actually in Egypt, you can buy any prescription medicine over the counter so the doctor just pulled out the “magic book” that listed all the medicines available at Egyptian pharmacies and told us what dose we needed to ask for. It seemed a little sketchy at the time, but it was our only choice.

There are all sorts of tips and tricks on the internet for how to give the adult version to a baby. Crack open the capsule, mix the beads of medicine with water or apple juice, then use a syringe to administer. Or mix the beads with applesauce and spoon feed it. Common problems are the baby spitting it out, the beads spilling all over the place, the beads sticking in the syringe . . . generally it can be a pain in the butt.

We struggled through all these different ways of giving Camille her medicine and then Josh figured out this trick:

Yep, she eats it. Just like everything else. Now our most difficult task is finding a time to give it to her since it has to be taken on an empty stomach and our super-eater is always jonesing for food.

All week long Josh and the boys have been going to Kids’ Games at church. Today Camille and I got to go watch the closing ceremonies.

The 170 kids have been divided into color (red, yellow, blue, green) and age groups: Josh was the leader of the Red Omegas (kids age 9-14) and the boys were in the Yellow Alphas (Caleb) and the Yellow Omegas. That’s why they were wearing matching yellow Muscat t-shirts in our moving pictures. We had to run out and get yellow shirts the first night of camp so they could dress in their team colors. Speaking of colors, it’s pretty easy to spot the two kids in the above picture who are related to me — just look for the hair and skin that is lighter than everyone else’s.

For the closing ceremonies the kids sang the praise songs they’ve been singing all week (you’ll see in the video below that they really know how to throw themselves into singing) and showed off the skills they’ve been learning. In the mornings they had singing, Bible lessons, games and lunch. Then in the afternoon, each kid attended two different classes (art, photography, chess, guitar, etc). We saw musical numbers from the choirs, skits from the drama classes, a choreographed dance from the dance group, and examples from the photography and drawing classes were displayed around the room.

I thought Caleb was in choir class and was looking forward to seeing him sing, but it turned out that he only went to choir for one day and then switched to art class and table tennis. He displayed an origami bird.

But I did get to see him perform after all, since when the choir class went on stage he got up there with them and sang his heart out and did the motions along with the rest of the group. That is so typical of him. 

Calvin and Carter both took guitar lessons. Their groups didn’t perform, but I’ve been hearing them strum out tunes all week. They’d probably need a month long camp to be tolerable to an audience. Calvin’s other class was table tennis, led by Josh. He had 30 kids in each group (2 groups), but only 1 table. They constructed an additional table using packing tape, some metal and a few napkins (I think I saw that on an episode of MacGyver one time) and the rest of the kids played makeshift games using the lines on the floor. The kids loved having Josh as their group leader. His kids all screamed loudly when they called his name, they asked to take pictures with him afterward, and they all wanted to meet his baby girl.

 My girl is back to not sleeping again (not that it was ever great, but it was acceptable) . It’s either her teeth, her reflux, her gut, or possibly all three. She’s been up till midnight, awake at 6:45 and waking many times in-between. And she’s napping for less than an hour a day combined so it’s not like she’s making up for her lack of sleep. Ever.

I wore her and rocked her to the music and she relaxed like this, eyes open almost the entire time.

Carter was so excited about his drawing class because his teacher taught them techniques for drawing people all week: faces, arms and hands, bodies, etc. When I arrived he came running up to point out that one of his drawings was on display. He clearly gets his artistic talent from me.

*YouTube must have been having issues last night. I reloaded it today and all is well.

This is a quick clip from one of the songs during worship time. If you look closely, you’ll be able to spot all three boys. I like this video because it shows off each of their personalities: Calvin hanging with his friends, Caleb bouncing around not caring about anyone else, and Carter chilling in the back. They’re already all asking if they can go again next year. Who knows where we’ll be then . . .

It came! A moving truck carrying four crates of things that were packed and sent from our apartment in Egypt pulled up around 5pm yesterday.

We had all been looking forward to this day for months, but an event that started out feeling like Christmas quickly turned into, “Hi-ho! Hi-ho! It’s off to work we go!” And not all cheery like the dwarfs in the movie. Nope, we started out with Doc, two Happys, a Sneezy and a Sleepy, but ended up with a whole crew of Grumpys.

Ugh. So much crap. Of course we need it, since it’s necessary things like sheets, towels, and dishes that up until now we have been borrowing from the embassy. But still. Ugh.

In general the boys were a huge help. As soon as the crates came in the front door and the movers snipped the metal bands, they were tearing into them. It was the perfect excuse to pull out all the sharp knives and cut away at the packing tape. And then the stuff bomb exploded in my house and I started hearing cries of “moving is hard!” when the wadded up paper threatened to take over the living room. And everything was grimy. After sitting in our apartment in Egypt for 3 months collecting Egyptian dust and dirt, and then being boxed up and sitting in crates in 100 degree heat for a month, everything felt gritty and smelled like old boxes from an attic. I may have thrown a teeny-tiny fit when I came in after sorting 10 loads of laundry and still had a mountain to go and found everyone sitting in the living room, in a state of mid-unpacking, having stopped to play with the various toys they had uncovered. But by that time it was 8:30 at night and time for a McDonald’s run to salvage the evening.

Once the crates were empty, the boys carried them outside. They were cardboard sides with a reinforced wood and metal bottom, so they didn’t break down easily. Before bringing them outside, they practiced stage diving into the piles of paper. 

This, my friends, is why you don’t pack candles. I purposely did not include this in our things to be shipped, but the packers must have done a quick sweep of the house and boxed it up. Thankfully it only melted on one of my laundry baskets and all over some of my cleaning rags. If this candle had puked on Josh’s uniforms or our bedding, it would have been ugly.
The candle is totally sticking its tongue out at me like it’s auditioning for a part in a KISS cover band.

The funniest thing that I unpacked (aside from the piece of bread that Lucy found in the toaster and my KISS candle) was this booklet that we were given upon our arrival in Egypt that reminds everyone to have an evacuation plan “just in case.” I remember getting it and thinking, “when would that ever happen in Egypt? There are so many military and state department people working here, it would take an act of God or something for that to happen. Besides, Egypt is so stable. That’s why bazillions of tourists come here every year.” Ha ha ha ha ha. Ha ha ha ha. :wiping tears from my eyes: Ha ha ha ha ha.  

For the big kid in the house:

our second (third) car. In Egypt we would have been fine with no car at all, but in Oman we quickly realized that it made sense for us to get a second car. So Josh scoured the classifieds and the job board at Al-Fair market for a car that was in our price range and found this beauty. A 1995 Jeep Wrangler that has been embedded with half of the desert sand in Oman. I don’t think the A/C works either, but that’s sort of a moot point when your car doesn’t have any sides or roof. The boys love it as much as Josh does, especially since it makes them feel like they’re the A-Team. They scramble over the sides of the jeep and argue over who gets to be Face that particular day.

They are off for another day at Kid’s Games — the Protestant Church of Oman’s version of VBS. They had a great time yesterday with games, music, food, and they have electives for the kids to choose from. The two older boys chose guitar lessons and Caleb is doing choir class. Josh is volunteering so it’s just me and the baby today.

waving goodbye to the Jeep

I come downstairs this morning and Lucy says, “Madame, Commander had a huge party last night, tons of food leftover. I told them not to cook so much. Such a waste. Commander say, ‘Lucy take all this food,’ but we like spicy so my husband told me to bring it to the boys. My husband will call me and we will go pick it up. But don’t tell anybody.”

Okay.

To translate: Lucy’s husband works as a private chef for an important person, the head of a private club. He has lots of parties for visiting dignitaries or ambassadors or something like that. When he has these parties Lucy’s husband cooks (but they also bring in additional chefs) and Lucy oversees the running of the waitstaff, the food prep, and makes sure that no one steals any alcohol (she told me the workers always try to steal alcohol). Last night there was a going-away party for some VIP and the amount of food left over afterward was enormous. She said she told one of the cooks not to make so much rice with all the appetizers and other dishes they were serving, but he didn’t listen to her and cooked 2 kilos. The leftover container of cooked rice was bigger than a large microwave.

The commander said that Lucy and her husband should take the leftovers because they were just going to throw them away, but she likes Indian food with lots of spices and this was all made for non-native Indian eaters so she didn’t want to eat it, but didn’t want it to go to waste. She knew she would find an appreciative audience at our house, but for reasons unknown to me, she was worried that someone would find out that she gave it away.  I’m guessing because she wouldn’t want people to think she was stealing, or for the commander to think she didn’t appreciate the food, but I really have no idea.

To time our arrival so that we don’t run into any of the Omani staff who are cleaning up after the party, Lucy’s husband calls us when “the coast is clear” and we head over to Lucy’s house, many empty tupperware containers in hand. I pull up to the back gate and she comes back 5 minutes later with 2 bags full of food. She breathes a sigh of relief that no one saw her and hands me a small package and says, “this is a piece of cake that I saved special for my baby. The Omanis love sweets too much and they ate the entire cake last night, but I kept a piece for her.” Camille is going to be so spoiled by the time we leave here. Between Lucy and her brothers and two adoring parents . . . she’s got it good.

We come home and unpack our haul and there are containers of Lobster Thermidor, green vegetable curry with ginger and lemongrass, a sweet and “spicy” red chicken curry, a cold potato salad with tuna and asparagus, Lucy’s moussaka that she made special for one of the guests who called in a specific request, and of course, a ton of rice. Sure beats Taco Bell.