Robin Chartier – Page 160

CPR card pain

In order to get our car we need this magical residence card, which isn’t really a card, but a piece of paper since they don’t consider us to be real residents or something. In Oman we were given residence visas, cards, and my driver’s license is good for 10 years, but whatever. When we had to give up our diplomatic passports, we joined the ranks of the unwashed masses. :sigh:

We got news last week that our car has finally arrived (2 and a half months later, sheesh!) so Josh, Meelie, and I are parked in the CPR office this morning. We’ve been here for an hour and they have helped ONE person and are now on number two. We are next. There are probably 15 people behind us, so it could be worse, especially since all the people behind us are sitting on chairs outside of the office, with no discernible order or line. It’s all about jockeying for a spot in one of the 4 chairs inside the office. You snooze, you lose.

There are supposed to be two people working, but this guy says his computer isn’t working. Josh and I suspect he’s just playing minesweeper since he keeps clicking the mouse, but isn’t doing anything else.

Meelie was great for the first hour, but then started to get restless and was whining and crying for yogurt. A lady gave her chocolates so we should be good until they run out about 5 minutes from now.

The one lady who is actually working went over to “fix” the guy’s computer, but I’m pretty sure he’s not planning on working today. The funniest part is seeing all the different people come in trying to get non-working dude to let them jump the line. I can’t understand them, but I can guess what they want based on their facial expressions and hand motions and Josh texts me translations: “That guy wanted to prove that he had his paperwork all ready.” or “She wants a residence number for a baby, but she has to get paperwork from the hospital first.”

Entertaining ourselves with a dirty rubber band that she found on the floor . . . yes, it’s gross, but we had run out of alternatives.

Finally, after two hours of sitting, we walked out with our papers. It only took 15 minutes to process papers for our entire family, so who knows why it took so long to finish the two people before us!

Aside from the pain of having to wait, it was fun to spend the morning with Josh and really interesting to see the different people come in and out of the office. He makes everything more interesting because he can speak the language and pick up the details that I miss, like knowing that a particular guy is from Saudi instead of Bahrain. Or knowing that the woman employee is likely to be more efficient because culturally the men care more about relationships than making progress. That became quite evident as non-working dude spent all morning on his phone, texting and talking while trying to get his computer working (supposedly). It helps to laugh at the inefficiency of it all . . .

After church today (I think we’ve settled on a place — at least that’s where we find ourselves going every Friday. Not the place with the 2 styles of worship. Josh liked the people there, but couldn’t get past the discord in the music) we stopped at the grocery store. This little helper threw a bag of Flaming Hot Cheetos in the cart. Since she’s the baby, of course we thought it was adorable so we went ahead and bought them.

I put them up in the cupboard, thinking I’d end up packing them for the boys’ school lunch one day, but as soon as I went into the living room she climbed up on the counter, opened the bag, and then started chowing down. Spicy!

She also managed to finish off my stash of chocolate that I had been hiding from the boys.

After dinner I came out to find her working away on my computer. Josh was working on something and didn’t realize that she had opened my computer and put it in her lap.

Cheeto, chocolate, and MacBook love? She’s becoming more and more like me every day.

another good day

As the dog gets less crazy, I get less crazy

We had a tiring morning getting Calvin’s physicals/paperwork completed so he can join the school basketball team (Me — the dog had an exhausting morning penned up in his crate).

So while Camille napped, we watched a movie — a hokey modernization of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night (my favorite Shakespeare play). In this one, Amanda Bynes wants to play on the boys soccer team so she pretends to be her twin brother and falls in love with her teammate, while the girl he has a crush on falls in love with boy-that-is-really-a-girl. It was mindlessly perfect.

Things are always better when sleeping babies are involved.

The sleeping dog was just icing on the cake.

dog update

Yesterday was the best day I’ve had in over a week. Probably because it was the first day I didn’t go anywhere or do anything so I didn’t feel like I was losing my mind trying to juggle everything. Camille watched Disney Junior all morning (don’t judge me, I have never been more thankful for toddler TV) and I did a little doggie whispering to try and turn Micah into a productive member of our family instead of just another one of the wild, hairy creatures that runs around here all day eating me out of house and home.

I was this close to finding another home for Micah — not because there was anything truly awful about him, but because he liked us too much. He has separation anxiety (something I found out later is very common in rescue dogs) so every time I would either crate him or leave the house he would howl and yelp the entire time I was gone. Occasionally I would come home to a quiet house, but then he would hear me open the door and the yelping and pawing to get out of the crate would start immediately. In a house with cement walls, the constant echoing of an upset dog is not conducive to good mental health. Add to that the crate aversion interfering with our sleep at night and Josh and I were both about to say, “enough!”

As Josh put it, there was never a break. Since he was always running free we had to follow him around the house, making sure he wasn’t taking a pee break inside or chewing a shoe (he has a thing for barefoot shoes), but Camille has to be watched in the same way or I’m likely to find that she’s taken off her diaper and smeared lotion all over her body (yes, that actually happened). Since school started last week I’ve been home by myself all day and it is too much for one person to handle. I’ve been praying this week that it would be clear whether we made a mistake in adopting him or not so we can find him a better placement if that would be best for everyone. Jonah was the same way as far as getting into everything, but I could at least put him “to bed” for cooling off periods when he was getting to be too much to handle. I could have put Micah in the crate, but it would have involved catching him, carrying him and then having to listen to ear piercing shrieks. Not exactly relaxing or endearing to the neighbors. I tried all the “give him a delicious treat to keep him busy” advice, but he would be so anxious he couldn’t do anything but focus on getting out of the crate. Ironic that I have a dog with anxiety, isn’t it? Out of desperation, I looked online and there actually is anti-anxiety medication you can give to dogs. Josh just rolled his eyes and said, “This is getting ridiculous.”

Micah’s not out of the woods yet, but I can say he seems to be doing better the past 2 days. He slept in his crate all night and didn’t need to go out at 4am like he has every other night since we got him. He’s not in love with the idea, but he has been going in willingly instead of having to lure him or catch him and assist him into the crate. I haven’t left the house since I’ve started working on our dog improvement system, but I have been putting him in the crate for 20 minutes at a time throughout the day and he’s tolerating that much better than before. I’m really hoping he can relax and not be so anxious — for his sake and for mine. I’m tempted to slip him a klonapin to take the edge off before I go somewhere (they really do give it to dogs — in amounts much greater than I ever took!), but maybe I should just take one myself instead.

Anyway, I hope this story has a happy ending. Actually, I’m sure it will have a happy ending either way. We’ll end up with a well adjusted dog or I will have loads of free time in my dog-free home.

Photos from this week:

We walked to dinner — she ended up sleeping through it.

Go Giants!

the dual menaces to society

I can’t get him in it and I can’t keep her out of it.

not my photo, but an awesome typo — I wonder what they do with all that bottled up sewing rage?

playing kitchen in her new room

Interior decorating for dummies

The other night the boys spent the night at a friends’ house (yes, all 3!), so Josh and I got some things done around the house. We went out and bought special hooks to hang the pictures on the wall and now everything is up. Our walls are cement, so if you try to hammer a nail in, it either bends or makes a big hole and pulls right out. We cleaned out the rack at the store with the ones we needed and had just enough.

Since we’re going to be here for 2 years (baring any unforeseen revolutions, evacuations, etc) I wanted to make the kids’ rooms feel a little more personalized. Our landlord said he would paint for us, but I thought this would be an easier, more creative solution.

I know people have been using these vinyl wall stickers for years, but I’ve never fussed around with putting anything on the walls before. This set contained flowers, stems and bugs and I just put them up where I felt like it. It was pretty fun. The best part is you can take them down easily. The other half of the room is still blank, since I didn’t want to put flowers all over Calvin’s half.

I wonder if the boys would let me play around and decorate their walls? (I put the stickers up higher than normal so little fingers would be less tempted to pick them off).

I’m glad I took pictures of the dates last week, because it turns out that the dates are now gone. I came out this morning to find this man in my tree. He has a cool sling attached to a rope that hooks around the trunk and he scales the trunk the way loggers scale the trunk of a tree, leaning back and putting all his weight in the sling.

These are the red dates — they are probably 3 times the size of the yellow ones. Most of these didn’t look like they were ripe yet (the ones that have fallen on the ground are more of a dark purple color), but I guess it was time. The guy cut down all 5 huge bunches and I’m guessing they’ll lay them out in the sun until they are dried. He also cleared out the remainder of the yellow ones. No more date snacks for Micah!

Josh is home now from the memorial service. He said it went really well and it was good to see all of our friends from school. He said the church was packed with people who aren’t church-goers, so I hope they were encouraged by the hope that we have for Michelle and Julia.

This is the song that I’ve been listening to over and over again these past few days. I heard it for the first time as part of Michelle and Julia’s memorial service in Minnesota (I was able to watch the service on YouTube) and it captures exactly what I hope that they are experiencing right now and what we will experience someday when we get to heaven.