Month: April 2018

For 7 and 3/4 years my constant refrain has been, “My girlie does not sleep.” I mean she goes to sleep eventually, but it’s been years of hours of her lying awake, getting up repeatedly, and a general inability to go to sleep at night.

But for the past 3 weeks I’ve been witnessing a miracle. She goes upstairs to bed and a few minutes later when I come in to say goodnight she’s either already asleep or almost there. That has never happened before in the history of our lives. 

Or she crawls in my bed and snuggles up next to me and to watch a show but ends up deeply asleep before the first commercial break. That has never happened before in the history of our lives. It has been glorious.

Tonight Josh and I were out to dinner together and left bedtime instructions for her. Right at 8pm this video pops up on my phone: “Night-night Mom and Dad. I love you.”

30 minutes later we arrived home to find this.

She put herself to bed and fell asleep reading. I feel like I won the parent lottery.

What’s our secret?

Drugs.

Or if you prefer, herbs.

Josh found this product in a in WholeFoodsesque grocery store and in desperation, bought the entire display. I laughed when I saw all those boxes lined up, but it pretty much sums up the level of our desperation. It’s melatonin, chamomile, and magic all wrapped up in a chocolate M&M shaped pill and if I could nominate the inventors for a Nobel Peace Prize, I would. God bless and night-night.

I’ll miss this view. 

I pass the Grand Mosque every day as I drive to the gym and it’s always impressive. Gleaming white domes and towers rising up from sand colored surroundings. A sparkling jewel in the desert.

It’s modeled after the Taj Mahal, but I’ve had friends from Abu Dhabi go and visit the Taj Mahal and come back disappointed because it was smaller and less impressive than what we can see right down the street from our house. That is very much the Middle Eastern way though — let’s copy something, but do it bigger and better. Largest carpet, tallest building, biggest mosque, most expansive mall. The more impressive and over the top, the better.

This girl.

 

Dressed up for a birthday party at an art studio. She even picked out the sunglasses that best accessorized her outfit. No worries that her dress drags on the ground and the armholes are open 1/2 way down her torso (until I cinched them up with a hair elastic from her wrist) because it’s sized for a 12 year old girl. She likes it so that’s what she’ll wear.

I love that about her. She likes what she likes and isn’t concerned what anyone else thinks. She painted her finger and toenails with aqua glitter nail polish and she was telling me how much she liked putting a clear topcoat over it because “it has extreme shine. I love extreme shine!”

Keep shining girl. I hope you’re always so bold.

Another day in the desert. It’s hazy and hot and we are on our way to Dubai to watch Carter’s baseball tournament. As I’ve mentioned before, I love my kids, but despise baseball so I think of this as the ultimate maternal sacrifice.

I bring books, magazines, knitting and snacks to kill all the time in between at bats or random pop flies to the outfield. On the bright side I might finish my sweater and a book today.

Back in the day there were those souvenir t-shirts that said something like this: “My Grandma went to Disneyworld and all I got was this stupid t-shirt.” Well, my husband went to Bahrain and I got another gorgeous carpet!

Yes, my love was in Bahrain for work and went carpet shopping for me. He even brought an empty duffel bag to haul his treasure home. The question wasn’t if he would find a carpet, but which one? Continue reading virtual carpet shopping