Author: Robin Chartier

mercy

I give, wave the white flag, surrender, not it, time out, freeze, throw in the towel, tap out  . . . how many different ways can I express that this baby girl is kicking my butt? I know some of you are under the mistaken impression that I’m super-mom or something because I have 4 kids, home schooled, did deployments and multiple moves, but Josh and I have met our match. That was all a piece of cake compared to this dress-wearing whirlwind.

You would think that with the 3 boys in school for the first time AND full time house help that this year would be a breeze, but there’s something about 2 years of cumulative sleep depravation that is really kicking our you-know-whats. Or maybe our parenting mojo got used up on the other three. Or maybe she broke us. All I know is we have deteriorated to this place: we went to Starbucks and Josh bought her a sucker so that she would sit in the stroller without screeching. She wasn’t screeching for a sucker, she was just screeching and he wanted to make it stop. I started to raise my eyebrows in protest and then I decided that I wanted her to stop screeching too and couldn’t think of any other way that didn’t involve complete chaos and broken mugs. It worked for about 5 minutes so I guess we can put a mark in the “win” column.

We really feel like our entire lives would be different if she would just SLEEP. We’ve tried it all: co-sleeping in our bed, co-sleeping in her bed, cry it out, stay up later, go to bed earlier, bath, books, singing routine, wear her out until she falls over in exhaustion . . . the only thing we haven’t tried are chemical sedatives. Josh keeps threatening to give her a shot of whiskey like they used to do “in the olden days.” I pointed out that in the olden days they only lived to be about 40, so they weren’t exactly the medical model I wanted to follow.

The past 3 days: one night she woke up screaming at midnight (Josh went and slept with her all night = no sleep for him because she thrashes around and goes in and out of sleep all night). The next night she woke up screaming around the same time so I slept with her (no sleep for me). Last night we spent over 2 hours trying to get her to go to sleep: Josh read and sang to her, 45 minutes later he gave up. Carter and I tackled phase two — Carter lies in bed with her, I sit in a chair and read The Hunger Games out loud — yes, I know it’s highly inappropriate for a 2 year, and also for a 10 year old probably, but it worked the past 2 nights. I told you, I’m desperate. Two and a 1/2 chapters later (45 minutes) she’s still trying to talk over me and she’s totally interrupting the part where Gale gets nabbed by the peacekeepers so I tell her “night night” and leave with Carter to finish reading in my room.

Screaming and weeping follows. Caleb comes into my room to ask if he can try to get her to sleep. Have at it son — may the force be with you. It wasn’t. At some point after 10 pm, she’s still screaming and yelling, “Daddy!” We decide the lesser of 2 evils is to bring her into our bed. See, lack of sleep is totally clouding our brains because all that resulted from that piece of genius is neither of us slept well.

Not only will she not go to sleep, or stay asleep, but she wakes up before 6am, yelling and bossing us around. According to the all-knowing internet, a kid her age should be getting between 12-14 hours of sleep per day. We figure she’s getting about 9, interrupted, crappy hours of sleep. Which means we’re getting less. Lots less.

In fact, 3 weeks after coming home from our Egypt trip, Josh and I are still so exhausted (we find ourselves falling asleep in the middle of the day without warning) that we realized we can’t do an Israel trip as a family and come back and move 2 days later. So our preliminary plan is that Josh will go to Israel with the older two boys and I’ll stay home with Camille and Caleb. Of course we made this plan right when I could have used a nap and right when Josh was waking up from a nap, so it’s possible that what sounded like a great plan in that mental state will seem completely off the wall a few days from now.

All I know is if she slept, she’d be happier. If she slept, I would be happier. If she were happier (and slept) I’d like her more. God have mercy on us.

Once upon a time, many weeks ago . . .

the boys had a rugby tournament. And I posted video from it, but not many photos. And then they had another tournament — which I didn’t take many pictures of, but it reminded me to go back and dig up the photos from the first tournament that I never got around to posting. So here they are. But first, girly from tournament II. Josh dressed her. I thought it was fantastic that he thought to put her tutu skirt on under her dress. I’ve always said he’s better at this fashion thing than I am. 

 

 


Enough frilly stuff — on to the rugby photos from weekend 1:

  
 


Caleb was all over the place on defense — pulling flags right and left

 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

splash and dash

A few weeks ago the boys’ school sponsored a duathlon — a swim/run for all ages. Each of the boys and Josh participated in their own age bracket. Camille and I were cheerleader and sports photographers for the day. 

 


Getting ready to watch Daddy swim

It wasn’t a competitive event so they did a rolling start.

After Josh’s swim we followed him out to the transition area to see him off on the run portion, not realizing that as soon as the adults finished swimming they moved right into the next age bracket. So I missed Calvin’s swim, but I caught him on the run. 

Calvin finished second in his age group (it may not have been a competition, but they were keeping track!)

I made it back to the pool in time to catch Carter’s swim (by the end of it all I felt like I’d run my own race, especially trying to get from one place to the next with Camille on my hip!)


Carter in the pool — his age group swam 100 meters

Heading out to run — Carter finished near the top of his age group too. 

Caleb’s age group lined up. 7&8 year olds swam 50 meters
 
 

I followed Caleb out to try to get a photo of him at the transition area and I was looking all around the tent to see where he was putting his shoes on. Nope, no need to waste time putting on shoes! The kid bypassed the transition area entirely and went right to the run. 

 
 

And then we all went inside and had pancakes and bacon and fruit for breakfast. A really fun morning together.

at sea

As we’re winding down our time in Oman we’re trying to make sure we don’t miss out on any of the things that are “must dos” here. The boys and Josh had been out on a boat to go dolphin watching and snorkeling several months ago, but that time I stayed home with Camille because what sane person takes a toddler on an all day boat trip? 
On Thursday I decided that I would be joining the ranks of the insane (since I’ve spent plenty of time there already, what’s one more day?) and was going to attempt a dolphin watching/snorkeling/beach picnic day with a child under the age of 2. It couldn’t have gone more perfectly. 
She looks concerned, but that’s just the wind in her eyes — the boat was traveling at serious speeds as we headed out to find the dolphin pod. 
The ship captains all have radios and communicate with each other when they find dolphins. Our guy went right to the spot, slowed down the boat and the kids went out on deck to watch. 
One of my favorite photos from the day
We saw hundreds of dolphins — swimming, jumping, splashing
 
 
 

This one is a little sea-sick inducing, but it shows more of the dolphins. I was too busy watching to get much with my camera.
After we had our fill of dolphin watching the boat turned around and headed to a snorkeling spot — the wind in her face and the speed of the boat jostled her to sleep. 
We went to a protected area (not that there are waves to contend with anyway, but we were surrounded by the mountains on all sides) and the boat captain dropped anchor above a coral reef. Josh was going to sit with the baby since she was still asleep, but as soon as the boat stopped moving, she woke up. Now what? Rock, paper, scissors for who gets to go in the water? Thankfully, I had a brilliant idea (if I do say so myself). 
Camille had a life vest so we brought her into the water and I was going to swim around with her while Josh snorkeled and then we would trade. But then I thought: since Camille is used to hanging out on my back, why couldn’t she ride on my back while I snorkeled?  I realized if I put on a vest I could propel us around using my fins and she could ride along while I checked out the sights below. 
Win. Win. Win.
It worked perfectly. She was happy, I was happy, and Carter even snapped these pictures of us once he climbed back on the boat. Taking baby wearing to new places. The fish were plentiful and diverse — as I was swimming through schools of them it felt like I was in one of the tanks in the Monterey aquarium (except I bet the Monterey tank water is much colder). Brightly colored fish only inches from my fingertips, parting on either side as I reached out to try and touch them. We also saw 2 turtles, some big parrotfish, and a bunch of other fish that I couldn’t begin to identify — orange ones, silver ones, striped ones, spotted ones . . .
When we’d all had enough of the snorkeling, the driver pulled up the anchor and brought us to a picnic area on a nearby shore. The best part about my snorkeling partner is that I got tired of the water before she did. Amazing. 
We ate, played in the water, the kids all had mini water guns that shot surprisingly far (you never know how well things will work when you buy them here)
photo credit: Ross Macfadyen

Before we packed up to leave we were able to take a group photo. Josh’s favorite part about this picture (taken with a timer) is that it caught the jet skier in the background. Normally that would ruin your picture (and we did take another one that was skier free), but this jet skier is unique: If you zoom in you can see that the woman on the back in the orange life vest is wearing jeans, a long sleeved shirt, and a hijab. Of course her male companion isn’t restricted in the same way. :sigh: 
As we packed up to leave the boys were having fun hanging off the bow of the boat and dropping into the water. 
 
I have no idea how many sodas Carter drank that day and I didn’t notice it at the time, but he has a Coke in hand in almost every photo. (The boat came with a cooler full of sodas and water). That kid. 
 
 
 
Ready to cruise home 
 
 
photo credit: Ross Macfadyen
On the way back the driver let the kids take turns at the wheel. I wasn’t the biggest fan of that. I was sure they were going to hit an extra big swell at the wrong angle and we would capsize. Yes, I know that’s completely ridiculous, it’s just what my brain does. And in my defense, we were going really fast and I was sitting on the side of the boat that was leaning into the water. 
photo credit: Ross Macfadyen

 
Carter’s adrenaline rush after giving up command to the driver. Now my heart can go back to beating normally.
 
My brightest child — he didn’t want to drive the boat. I wonder where he gets that from? (poor thing)
 
When we got close to this our driver slowed down and we were all able to go out on the deck as we glided through the hole in the rock. 
 
 
 
 
 
3:30 pm and she was still all smiles as we pulled into the harbor. A perfect day.

garbage in, garbage out

The first time I heard about Garbage City was from a friend who was trying to encourage me as I lamented about the trash that we walked through, around, and by as we walked the neighborhoods in Maadi. I told her there was nothing that made me want to reduce my personal waste and recycle as much as possible as seeing the mountains of trash on the street. She told me that she had been to Garbage City (a neighborhood on the outskirts of Cairo) which handles much of the city’s trash and although it looks like a lot of trash, about 80% is recycled. In comparison, the US has recycling rate of only 30%. She said we could go and see mountains of shampoo bottles, piles of glass and mounds of scrap metal as big as my living room. Anything useable is saved or repurposed, such as melting down plastic to make the soles of shoes. They also make handicrafts and sell them (like quilts from material picked from the trash). They are fastidious about salvaging useful materials because their livelihood depends upon it. 
The residents are all Coptic Christians. I’m not sure which came first in this symbiotic relationship, the pigs or the Christians, but in Egypt the Christians handle the trash because pigs are a huge asset in disposing of garbage and waste. Muslims won’t have anything to do with pigs because they are considered unclean. In 2009, during the world-wide outbreak of “swine flu” the Egyptian government killed all the pigs that were owned by the Christians in Garbage City. Some say the decision was based on ignorance (since you can’t catch swine flu from pigs), others claim it was intentional religious persecution, but either way, everyone suffered in the months following the pig slaughter as piles of rotting garbage sat with no way to dispose of it. 

The members of the community drive around the city and pick up trash — it is brought back here and sorted by the families. 

It’s amazing how high they stack these bags!
 

Narrow streets — garbage coming and going
 

The women and children sit in the piles of trash and sort all day — paper, cardboard, plastic, cans, glass, etc.
 
 

I’ve never seen this kind of poverty this close.  

Down every street and side street were mountains of trash 

Inside every open doorway was more garbage, either sorted or waiting to be sorted. We could barely get down this street. I wanted to go to the store where they sell the handicrafts, but the local guy who was leading us in the front car didn’t know where it was. Next time. 
 

Look different? Only a few blocks away we have entered the Muslim section. 

Goats here — no pigs. (I didn’t see any pigs. I’m not sure where they keep them.)


No Regrets.

*If you’re interested in learning more about this community, there’s a documentary called Garbage Dreams that was made in 2009. I haven’t figured out a way to view it yet (not on Netflix), but this is the website: Garbage Dreams

**Update: I found another documentary called Zabaleen (Arabic for “Garbage People”). More info about Garbage City and a promo for the movie can be found here: Zabaleen movie