Month: September 2011

Even though we’ve been here for almost six months, I still can’t keep the Friday = Sunday thing straight. Today is Friday so we went to church. Camille was being talkative so when the sermon started I took her to the nursery for the first time. Usually Josh or I let her walk around in the entryway of the church, but I found out that they pipe the audio from the service into the nursery so I thought I’d try that today.

It’s certainly not your typical American nursery program. People come in and out as they wish — no signing in or out. There were kids in the room ranging in age from newborn to 7 years old (they have an entire children’s church program for kids from preschool on up, but I guess a few of the kids wanted to play in the nursery instead?)

When the service began there was one nursery worker and no kids — by the time I joined there were many caregivers, each with their own kids. Some looked like moms, others were probably nannys (the ones that weren’t the same race as the kids). I didn’t see anyone dropping kids off. By the time the sermon was over there were at least 12 adults and 16 kids sitting on the floor in the very small nursery.

Camille and I had fun. It was clear she’s the princess at home as she walked around taking toys and books from all the other kids in the room. She even managed to score a snack by walking up to one of the moms with her hand out, reaching for the treats she was giving to her little boy.

She loves books. Just like her mom. I told her that when she gets a little older, we can read Us Weekly and People together.

After church there was a lunch for “new people” at a friend’s house so we went and met some new people. Josh and I left after a few hours because he has to read a 30 page article in Arabic and write a 5 page summary of it in Arabic, but the kids stayed and played. After working on it all afternoon, he headed out to youth group (he’s one of the leaders) and I went and picked up the boys and then picked up dinner.

This is one of our favorite places to eat. I took this picture while we were waiting for our food. People can eat at white plastic tables that are set up outside or they can pull up to the curb and honk. The guys run out, find out what you want, and bring your food to the car. Cheap, quick and easy.

We always get schwarma and a whole chicken. Schwarma are flatbread sandwiches that are filled with chicken, sauce, french fries and maybe some parsley and rolled up like a taquito. They are only 75 cents each so we usually get 12. Two for each person, one for the baby and one extra for Josh. We are parked this far away because there’s a line of cars in front of us. It’s packed every night, but it only took 5 minutes to get our food.

We also always get a whole rotisserie chicken because they are the best cooked chickens ever. Spicy, not dry (I refuse to use the word “m**st, ugh), perfectly cooked every time and only $4.00.

Instead of being an easier week, it was actually busier than before. So much so that today, Thursday (Saturday), has been a complete throw-away day. Josh got up with the baby at 6 because she kept yelling and pulling my hair while I was trying to sleep, then we tag-teamed and I hung out with the baby while he slept.

He’s always nice and takes the first shift because I’m not a napper and he is. Once I’m awake then I’m up for the day, but he can fall asleep at will. We used to do this all the time on Saturday mornings in Oklahoma and Virginia when Calvin and Carter were little. He’d play with them while I slept in as long as I wanted and then he’d go back to bed for a few hours while I played parent.

By 10am we were all up and finished with breakfast, but we had to kill time waiting for the repair people to come and fix our A/C units. (The short version: they leak water all over the floor all the time and we’re tired of it.) While we were waiting, I stumbled upon this real life Dwight Schrute/Jim Halpert: http://www.27bslash6.com/f26a.html and Josh and I spent the next hour cackling over it and other funny things that this dude has written (also funny are the entries titled Missing Missy, Flash Drive Infringement, and Party in Apartment 3).

By this time Camille was crabby and ready to nap. Then my eyes refused to stay open so I crawled in Calvin’s bed for a nap (because the A/C people were in our bedroom).

When I dragged myself downstairs a few hours later, Josh handed the baby off to me and went back to sleep. And that’s been our day. I’m currently eating Tim-Tams and tortilla chips for “lunch” as I sit in my pajamas at 3:30 pm. I tried to clean the kitchen, but the dishwasher door will not close, even though there is nothing in the way and I’ve tried to slide the rack in and out a bazillion times to see if it makes any difference. It doesn’t. But I did manage to rescue a DVD and 6 of Camille’s fridge magnet toys from the trash — I guess she had a busy day, even if we didn’t.

PS: Remember how excited I was when we finally got our dishwasher after months of not having one? It’s back to washing by hand until this one can be fixed. Josh figured out that the latching mechanism is broken, which is why I couldn’t get the door to shut. The reason we didn’t have a dishwasher before is because they only had one available, but it was broken and no money was budgeted to fix it. Let’s hope there’s money available to fix this one . . .

Since things have settled down a bit, this week I’m going to try and go back through our Turkey photos and put together some blog posts about parts 3 and 4 of our trip. I know I left everyone hanging with the cave hotel and Cappadocia, but it was such an amazing place that I didn’t want to throw up some photos without explaining what you were seeing. And I haven’t even looked through my many, MANY photos to delete the ones that are out of focus, show me with my mouth open, or are duplicates of the same thing.

I always end up poring over 10 of the same photo trying to figure out which one has the most people actually looking at the camera. Of course it always ends up being the one where I’m smiling so hard I look like a flock of crows has landed around my eyes. The ones where I look like I’m in a ANTM photo shoot? Everyone else has fingers in their noses, hands covering their eyes, or is in mid-yawn.

So that’s why there may be a small lull in posting. Along with organizing and writing my Turkey stories and photo editing, this week I have back to school night for Calvin, the women’s fellowship group at church, a wives coffee (an official one for embassy spouses, not the drop in at Starbucks kind), and a party at the Ambassador’s house. And the kids start Awana and have rugby, but those are both on Josh, not me.

So maybe things haven’t settled down that much.