October 2012 – robinchartier

Eid

The boys have been off for the past 6 days, but life hasn’t slowed down any. We have friends visiting from Oman (it’s nice to be loved!), the boys still have baseball practices, pool parties and playdates with friends that require tons of driving around, and they each had school projects that had to be completed over the holiday. And of course they needed my help. Seriously?! I already went to school. The last thing I want to do on my vacation is research Jimmy Carter, document how I would spend a million dollars, try and keep an egg from breaking when it is dropped from a two story building, or measure the affect of diet on urine acidity. I’m having to do more work than when I was homeschooling. Boo.

Some days the only time she’s been able to catch a nap is while we’re in the car. (Not because I didn’t try to put her down for a rest at home, but because all the extra people around made napping alone much less appealing than playing with her brothers).

We are hosting Bible Study at our house tomorrow night, then several days of Halloween themed activities at school will round out the weekend. I’m hoping I’ll finally be able to slow down a little, sit down for longer than a few minutes at a stretch, and blog more regularly next week.

Edited to Add: I may be tired, but our Sleeping Beauty is actually non-Sleeping Beauty. We came upstairs at 11pm to find her lying in a patch of light in the doorway of her room, coloring and cutting paper into little bits — crafting away. Of course all 3 boys are snoozing. Calvin’s going to be thrilled that she got into his backpack while he was sleeping. I have no idea what to do with her. Put her in a padded room and let her play all night?

hangover

This scene from this morning about sums up our weekend . . .

Everyone has been moving slowly this morning after late nights and the crash after a sugar high.

When I went to take a shower, she was asleep. I came out to find that she had woken up, crawled over, snuggled up next to the dog, and then went back to sleep. Moments like this make all the extra work of having a dog almost worth it.

Before the Halloween party/Trunk or Treat on base

I never ever thought he looked like Harry Potter until he put on the cloak and glasses and he transformed. His teacher saw him on base and didn’t recognize him until he said, “Hey! It’s me, Caleb!”

The costume thing is totally freaking her out (especially our friend dressed as a lion with fangs — see the photo above).

So many people decorated their cars, dressed up, and handed out candy. Too much candy . . . multiplied by four kids . . . ooh, I think I might still have some Reese’s in the freezer.

Calvin wanted to be a member of the Donner Party and walk around gnawing on a big turkey leg. I thought that was gross and he didn’t like any of my ideas so he went costume-free.

She was having a great time until she realized we were at another party where everyone had on scary masks. Only one more event next week and then the scary stuff should be over. At least until Santa makes an appearance!

birds of a feather

Camille and I went to our preschool playgroup at a park near our house the other day. Since we were there first thing in the morning, there were hundreds of these tracks in the playground sand.

Was this place home to millions of giant pigeons?

Nope, just these two ~~ostriches~~ emus (I can’t tell the difference, but someone else there said ostriches are wider and have more tail feathers). This was not a zoo, just a normal park with a playground and slide and, oh yeah, a couple of exotic birds in a cage.

The way they walked around with their beaky heads bobbing reminded me of the velociraptors from Jurrasic Park.

Like everything else in life, she wasn’t too sure about them, but she did tell me, “I want to go see the chickens.”

A maintenance worker showed them how to pick the green plants growing around the perimeter of the park and feed them to the birds through the holes in the fence.

She tried it once and then let me do all the feeding after that. Their jerky head movements and pecks were a little intimidating.

After birdwatching and playtime were over we let the kids play in the park’s fountains.

She wasn’t so sure about the water shooting out of the ground at unpredictable intervals.

(Yes, I do realize she’s just like me.)

Getting braver . . .

but ready to run at any moment . . .

In the end she did get wet — see the drenched hair and face?

(we just take a little while to warm up . . .)

play

Cameelie and I go to a toddler/preschool playgroup every other week. It’s one of those things that didn’t occur to me to do with her until someone invited us to join in and then I thought, “Oh yeah! Playdates. I used to do those with Calvin way back when he was my only child.” It’s embarrassing all the things I’ve forgotten to do this time around. It’s no wonder that my youngest sisters never learned to ride a bike (until they were adults). You do all the normal, good parent things with the first few and then your brain cells all die off and your memory goes and you swear you taught them all to ride a bike . . . except you didn’t. I get it, Dad. Been there, doing that.

We were at this playgroup 2 weeks ago and one of the moms pulled out bubbles and I realized the girl has never seen bubbles before. She loved them, of course. All kids do. How did I forget about bubbles? Because if we were living in America I would be wandering the aisles of Target or Walmart and when the summer displays of toys came out I would see the wall of bubbles and think, “Ooh, Camille would like those!” And I would buy them for her, just like I did for each of the kids. There’s not a lot of impulse shopping here and the toy sections of the department stores are ridiculously priced, extremely poor quality plastic junk. Worse than dollar store quality, but Toys R Us in price. I don’t even bother looking at them anymore. Which is why my girlie doesn’t have any toys. Well, she didn’t, but I remedied that problem quickly thanks to my friend Amazon. I didn’t even notice the lack of toys until we went to playgroup and saw all the toys. Like Christmas. My girlie has been playing with her brother’s legos when there are loads of toys out there that I didn’t even know existed. Again, the problem with not having a store to browse and never having had a girl before. Who knew they still make My Little Ponies?

I went home and emailed my sister for suggestions since my niece is only a little older than Camille. And then I shopped. And then the packages started to arrive: wooden food, wooden dollhouse and furniture, a Dora microphone, toddler legos. We’re going to have a good time playing with ~~my dollhouse~~ her dollhouse. I’m sure there are still gaps in her childhood fun checklist, but at least I can check off playdates, bubbles, and dolls. I promise I won’t forget to teach her how to ride a bike.

Fabulous Friday!

My sister (Kristy) says that my life sounds like something you’d see on reality TV and sometimes I have to agree with her. Sitting in Friday School at church with Camille I noticed this huge rat’s nest in her hair. I’m obviously a boy mom (and have been enjoying the low maintenance life of a mom with a bald baby) since it never occurred to me that I needed to brush her hair before we headed out. I guess it’s finally getting long enough to need some work.

Isn’t that awful? And this is after I subtly tried to claw through it with my fingers to flatten it.

It didn’t work.

As we were sitting in class (and I was contemplating my horrible hairstyling skills), I was really proud of the way Camille was coming out of her shell, playing with the toys without clinging to my leg, and seeming to enjoy herself. I was starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel — the day I would finally be able to enjoy singing and hearing a sermon with the other adults, when she suddenly started to act shy. She stopped playing and hid behind me. I thought it was because I was talking about her to the other mom there and she was self-conscious. I tried to encourage her to go back with the other girls, but she didn’t want any part of it. I looked around at the other kids her age and honestly wondered what was wrong with mine. They were playing and chatting while my freaky child was burying her face in my back.

Look at this little girl with the perfectly combed hair and barrettes. Her mom obviously knows what she’s doing.

Then as suddenly as it began, she crawled out from behind me and started smiling and chatting. What the heck? So now my baby has a split personality? As she cruised past, I caught a whiff of funk and it all became clear: my baby wanted to poop in peace.

Relieved that my child wasn’t emotionally stunted, I excused us to go to the bathroom, thankful that I brought my purse for a change (I usually only carry a wallet and keys). In the bathroom I dug around in my huge bag for the diaper I knew was there — except it wasn’t. Oh, good grief. I have to walk all the way to the car to get a diaper? I was pretty sure there was one there — if not, I was going to be in big trouble because her mess was already starting to leak out the sides onto her shorts and, oh great! Onto my shirt. Yuck!

Since time was of the essence, I carried her, hammock style, by her shoulders and feet all the way out and down the street to the car, getting progressively stickier with each step (we may be in the same region, but it is MUCH MORE HUMID here than Oman). When we finally made it to the car I dug around in all my usual emergency diaper hiding spots . . . nothing. But by now the diaper contents was out of control so I cleaned her up the best I could, scrubbed poop out of the car upholstery (it went up her back, people!), off of the tailgate of the car, off of my wallet that she rolled on when I let go of her for a fraction of a second to grab another wipe, off of her clothes, and off of my shirt.

Now I was left with a “clean” baby, but no diaper. Providentially, there is a British grocery store located across the street from church so I headed over to buy some overpriced “nappies.” But first I had to trudge another half a block with grubby baby on my hip and the disgusting 2 pound diaper in my hand to the dumpster to offload the toxic waste, collecting a million more beads of sweat along the way.

Diapers purchased, we headed back to the car to finish the changing process so we could get back to church. But now my clicker wasn’t working. I stood there pushing the unlock button over and over and thought, “You’ve got to be kidding me!” And then I noticed the tribal bumper sticker and realized that I was trying to get into the wrong car. Oops.

Back at my own car, the clicker worked, I used a million more wipes to get all the fuzz, sand and grit off of her diaper area (from lying in the back of the car during the previous change), and then we went back to church. I wasn’t feeling particularly spiritual or clean at the moment, but at least there was air conditioning.

I would like to say that the rest of the morning was uneventful, but right as services were ending she went again — Mohammed’s Revenge, perhaps? On the bright side I had 27 more diapers in the back of the car, but her shorts were beyond salvaging with baby wipes and required buying a new pair of pants. Though I think she’d call her new pair of pink jeggings a “win.”