April 2014 – robinchartier

in his own words

This week I got a package from my cousin — a wall hanging that I custom ordered to hang in our living room.

The older my kids get, the more meaningful these words are to me.

Tonight I came home from an evening out and all the kids were in bed asleep (thanks Josh!). As I was going around the house and turning out the lights I found Calvin’s paper that he had written in preparation for a presentation tomorrow. I couldn’t be prouder.

The “mandala” has nothing to do with Nelson Mandela (I asked). It’s a particular type of drawing with symbols to represent the things that are important to him.

Click to enlarge for easier reading:

I just looked up “mandala” in wikipedia and it says: “a spiritual and ritual symbol in Buddhism and Hinduism, representing the Universe.” That’s a bit ironic . . .

My work here is complete — let’s freeze time and enjoy the warm fuzzies.

No news is good news

We’re in the end of year rush — the finish line is within grasp. Only 4 more weeks of early morning soccer drop-offs and 3 weeks of school after that. Hallelujah!

Nothing exciting is going on . . . school, work, knitting . . . yawn.
Our normal life lately:

Camille is dressing herself as stylishly as ever. She also always brings a suitcase or a purse every time we go out. She packs her Ponies, crayons, various items of mine that she steals out of my night stand (balls of yarn/gum — etc until I figure it out and steal them back), and always a change of clothes/panties “in case I get a little damp.”

She’s potty trained, but sometimes chooses to wet a bit rather than go to the toilet. She asked me, “did you pee in your pants when you were my age?” and I was about to say “no,” but then I vaguely remembered some stories about how I wouldn’t want to miss any part of Sesame Street and would do the same. I guess she comes by it honestly.

Also inherited? Her ability to stay up 1/2 the night. Her brothers are long asleep and I thought she was sleeping since it was after 11pm and all had been quiet, but no. She was dressing up in her costumes and coloring by the light of the hallway.

When she does fall asleep, she crashes hard.

This photo was corrupted as I uploaded it to the computer, but it’s worth saving. I woke up one morning to find her passed out in the upstairs living room — the remains of a frat party obviously.

11:25 pm, wide awake. 11:29, out cold. She keeps moving to keep herself awake.

This sums it up: A few days ago at 6am she started thrashing around in our bed (cause that’s where she ends up most nights) screaming “I want chocolate! I want CHOCOLATE!!!” Full body rolling around, whacking us in the face, eyes closed, fully asleep, throwing a tantrum about chocolate in her dreams. After 5 or 6 outbursts she suddenly relaxed and resumed snoring.

But when she’s as adorable as this . . . what can you do?

We went to the Bahrain Fort on a Saturday evening and walked around.

Families enjoying the water’s edge — see the horses?

This is the beautiful side of this country. No real beaches, but this strip is pretty close to it (as long as the sewage smell doesn’t drift your way).

An old Bahraini house (now a museum) — the tower was their air conditioning. Something about it catching the breeze and funneling it down to the main part of the house. So instead of 110, it might be 99?

We are having a Bahraini bench made (they are a particular style with cushions in traditional fabrics) so we stopped by the shop to check on its progress. We were able to see my friend’s almost completed bench.

This one is ours. I had him custom make it so it would be double the depth. I don’t think the traditional size is very comfortable because they are straight backed and you end up perching on them. This way it will act as a lounge/daybed kind of piece and is long enough to sleep on (unless you are Josh). We’re just waiting for the cushions to be finished and then they’ll deliver it.

I’ve been knitting a lot lately in the afternoons. It’s been getting hot and I hang out with Camille in our upstairs living room and she watches shows on Netflix or The People’s Court with me while I knit. She also likes to play with my phone and take 43 billion pictures of the floor or the tv. Surprisingly, she actually got all of me and Zeki in this photo.

This is a dress for a friend’s baby shower. She should be able to wear it as a tunic/shirt once it’s too short to be a dress.

Next week, more of the same. Hot, drive, eat, sleep, repeat.

Heritage

Each spring Bahrain has a month-long event called Spring of Culture where they celebrate the arts, music, and handicrafts in various locations all over the island. Some events included an Eric Clapton concert at the Arad Fort (sold out in less than 5 minutes — I would have loved to go!), a Chinese Acrobat show, a children’s theater production of Eric Carle’s The Very Hungry Caterpillar, and countless others.

As part of the celebration, last week was Bahraini Heritage week at the national museum, featuring weavers, artists, musicians, and food all native to Bahrain. We went and sampled, purchased, and enjoyed.

I wasn’t sure the evening was going to go all that splendidly when 2 of the kids fell asleep in the car on the way there.

The theme for this year was Weaving Colors, with an emphasis on textiles and costumes/clothing. I loved this beautiful (and huge!) display of brightly colored spools of thread.

Carter had fallen on his face an hour before, Caleb was still waking up, but Camille was ready for fun.

The display stretched the entire width of the museum courtyard (multiply this section by 5 or 6)

These women are weaving gold metal threads (actual metal that another woman was twisting with a drop spindle) by reaching over and under each other’s hands to form a pattern. The woman with the needle is applying them to the hem of this garment.

The weaver! I loved seeing the loom strung with these beautiful cotton threads. He is weaving shawls/scarves in the traditional way.

This one is grey with charcoal stripes on the edges. The foot pedals raise and lower every other thread. Then he slides a horizontal thread through the gap between them, adjusts the pedals again so the threads switch places and trap the horizontal thread in place. It takes hours to make a piece of cloth this way.

The finished product is soft and pliable and a work of art. I bought this dove gray one with blue stripes on the edges. I love wearing it.

The basket weaver — the colored stripes are made from dyed palm fronds

Free floating art hanging from clear wires. They all featured various pieces of traditional clothing or fabric. The entire festival took place outdoors and it was a perfect warm evening to explore it all.

admiring the artwork

These women were embroidering clothing and pieces to be turned into pillowcases or wall hangings.

I was taken by this tribal looking piece and I bought it to have it framed

Warm evenings of music and dancing — every night for a week.

They also held workshops for both kids and adults. This particular class gave kids the opportunity to make a doll wearing traditional Bahraini clothes. Carter and Caleb saw the finished product and begged me to sign them up the following night so they could make their own dolls. I’ll put that adventure in a post of its own.

ETA: I just realized that this is post #1000! May I have 1000 more stories to tell . . .

Many Happy Returns

I have a few more photos to post from our fun spring break adventures, but I’m side-tracking to post that Calvin is home!! It probably sounds like I’m the worst mom ever when I say that I didn’t miss him, at least not the way people expected me to, but I knew that he was doing great things, that he was learning a lot about the world and himself, and he was only gone 11 days. I barely had time to blink before he was back, full of smiles and stories and though I didn’t “miss” him, I was very happy to have him home.

Final day of spring break — the kids requested brunch at Lilou’s. Sort of a “last supper” kind of thing?

she always snakes my cookie

The famous pain perdu — almond french toast with whipped cream and berries

Waiting at the airport for our world traveler to come home

I think they missed him

He still has a nasty cough, but is fine otherwise

He came bearing gifts — t-shirts and soccer jerseys for the boys and Nutella for Camille.

(Mzungu is Ugandan for “white person,” kind of like gringo in Spanish, but not pejorative)

Hopefully he’ll have time to write up some of his experiences this week for a first-person account of his trip.

more vacation, more fun . . . bucket list.

I’m all worn out from spring break. It’s been a fun week of play, but I’m not going to be ready for early wake-ups and after-school activities come Sunday.

Josh had one day off this week and we spent the day visiting Al Dar island with friends who hadn’t been before. As people get ready to move, there are a few “must dos” before leaving the island, and this is one of them. We got together a group of 6 families — a whole bunch of kids.