Robin Chartier – Page 155

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.”

Take me out to the ballgame . . .

As baseball season is winding down in the US, it’s just beginning here. Usually baseball means new cleats, broken in leather gloves, and the smell of freshly mown grass in the air.

Welcome to the baseball “field.”

It was dusty, hot and humid, and the sweat turned the dust to mud on our skin.

All three boys had tryouts over the weekend — not because anyone was going to be cut, but to make the teams as even as possible. Caleb played well enough that they moved him from the younger age bracket to the league with both of his brothers.

And this is where they’ll be playing

Warming up

The luscious green grass in the background is the new artificial turf soccer field. Too bad we can’t use it for baseball while we wait for spring (soccer season).

At the end of tryouts we found out that all 3 boys would be on the same team — crazy age span (8 year olds playing with 13 year olds?). I’m actually pretty happy about it because yay for less driving and yay for being able to cheer for all 3 boys at the same time. I’m sure it will never happen again so I’m going to enjoy it while I can. There aren’t enough kids here to have more than two teams so they kept things simple and put all siblings on the same team (God bless them!).

I’m hot and dirty and I’ve had enough! Time to go!

Halloweenie

There was a Halloween party on base for the kids tonight. I thought it would be fun to go as a family. Nope. She hated it. They were doing face painting and all the kids running around with painted on cat whiskers and skull faces scared her. She started shaking and crying, “I want to go home!” so I took her over to the base department store (right down the hall) and we looked at shoes while the boys ate pizza and candy, watched a movie, and played with friends.

While we were shopping, these punks decided to get their faces painted and then came over and scared their sister.

It was super fun to have her start screaming in the middle of the store every time she saw them: “Scary, Daddy!”

Clicking

This week has been better. Camille is watching less tv, which is always my barometer for how successful I’m being at life, and she’s been napping during the day. Our routine has been falling into place — do something in the morning, lunch, nap, kids home from school and homework, pick up Calvin, dinner, bed. Not the most exciting life, but it will do.

The biggest change has been in my driving. Not that it’s any better out there, but I have determined that I am going to show love to the other drivers on the road. Sure, pull in front of me! Let me wave you in so you don’t block the other traffic. I don’t need to make this light, I’ll catch the next one. (I know that you suspect I’m being sarcastic, but this is for real.) The result has been that I’m arriving at my destinations no later than before and much less stressed. Win. Win. Win. Who knows how long my Zen will last, but it’s working for now. I was tired of feeling angry all the time — this is much better.

My seeds are sprouting! The rocket (arugula) is up, and beans and sunflowers have joined the beets and chard. Things sprout ridiculously fast when it’s 95 and sunny. My lettuce isn’t showing itself so I may have planted it too deep — it needs light to germinate. I reseeded today to be sure.

Today is our busy afternoon out that ends with home group this evening. I wrote this on base while waiting for Calvin to finish basketball practice and Josh to finish work. Then we’ll have dinner here before going over to our friends’ house.

PS: I’m so relaxed, I let them get ice cream before dinner. New and improved Mom for sure.