Camille – Page 2 – robinchartier

Phase 3: Paper Chains

First we had the naked tree. Then the musical lights with the store bought, “unusual” ornaments. Then came the homemade construction paper glitter ornaments, followed by another wave of lights — this time flashing LEDs and an “interesting” lighted tube of lights (the blue glowing thing on the tree). We have a power strip tucked up inside the tree to hold all the plugs since none of the strands here plug into each other. Since we have 5 different types of lights on our tree, the non-connecting part didn’t matter anyway.

The final phase of tree decorating this year is the paper chain. I went out and bought a pack of colored construction paper and Carter, Caleb, and I put together a long paper chain tonight to wrap around 2/3s of our tree. The bottom third we’re leaving pretty bare, since Camille already ate several candy canes that turned out to be within her reach. We had to readjust and shuffle everything a few feet up.

Look at this little girl — she holds a pencil correctly. No one ever showed her, she just does it that way naturally. I would wonder if this is one of those “girl things,” but she didn’t get it from me . . . I can barely hold a pencil correctly as an adult.

She is dangerous with the scissors — trying to open and close the blades as fast as she can before mom steps in to ruin her fun.

The finished labor of love.

A friend crocheted this cute little santa for me when she heard we didn’t have any ornaments. Isn’t he awesome?

I’m not big on Christmas decorations (really, holiday decorations in general), but this turned out to be really fun. I didn’t think that putting up a tree would be worth the time and energy and I knew we didn’t need a tree to celebrate Christmas, so I thought this year we would go for the “minimalist” approach. I’m a fan of minimalism because it’s a fancy label to throw out when I don’t feel like trying to impress anyone or when I’m feeling too lazy to drag a 7 foot tree out of the closet under the stairs.

But this minimalist turned out a tree that made all the kids happy and we even got a little crafty in the process. I’m actually considering making stockings this coming week, just for fun. I was going to try and whip some knitted ones out, but I only have sock weight yarn (for those non-knitters that means I have very thin yarn that would take a million stitches to make a stocking-size sock and that would take months, not days) so my alternate plan involves black fabric and something sparkly. Stay tuned for “minimalist Christmas,” part 2.

want some yogurt?

I end up going to the grocery store almost every day here. In America I tried to go to the store as infrequently as possible, but in Oman I love walking up to Al Fair. I usually take the stroller and buy what we can comfortably carry home, but sometimes I get a little ambitious in my shopping and Camille ends up surrounded by piles of food that I then pack into our reusable bags and wedge them in around her — and usually I have to sling a few over my shoulder too. Good thing the walk home isn’t too far.

Today was a mountain of food day and my little eater managed to bite a hole in the bag of carrots and start gnawing on one while I was busy picking out onions. So I gave it to her. Then, while I was getting (very expensive) turkey for the boys’ lunches, she snaked one of the small yogurts and poked a small hole in the foil lid. When I saw that she was sucking the yogurt out through the top I thought, “How clever! My girly is a genius!” and I let her continue. Since I am not a genius, I failed to anticipate the small hole would eventually become a giant crevasse as curious fingers explored the foil and the yogurt. By the time I saw the mess, it was too late to salvage it.

I got a few curious looks as I walked home, but people look at us everywhere we go, so I’m pretty used to it. It was hard to tell if the one group of ladies we passed was horrified by the toddler with a carrot (choking hazard), the huge mess down her face and front, or the fact that she was squished in between bags of potatoes and eggs.

Right before we got out the hose to wash everything down. Cheers!

coffee please

Girly has a strange love of coffee. Not so strange when you’re a grownup, but since when do babies like black coffee with just a splash of cream? This one does. I guess it goes along with her love of salsa, spicy curries, lemons, and salad dressing that is heavy on the vinegar.

*** A heads-up: she does the same thing over and over again, so unless you’re family, you probably won’t want to stick it out for the entire 2 1/2 minutes.

*** no need to call CPS, it’s decaf

baby face

Some pictures from today when she was being funny over lunch. She was very proud to be feeding herself.

Loving Lucy’s eggplant salad.

All done! She loves throwing things in the trash. Lucy is always finding magnets off the fridge or silverware that she “helpfully” finds and tosses when we’re not looking.

Breakfast with Santa

This morning we walked over to the MEA (American club) to have breakfast with Santa. The biggest draw for us wasn’t Santa, but bacon. It’s the only place in town I know of where we can have real bacon with our eggs. Everywhere else serves either turkey bacon (eh) or beef bacon (which tastes strangely like beef jerky).

Another storm is on the way. Last year Muscat got almost no rain, but this year we’ve been hit by the edges of a few tropical storms.

Camille was excited to be out and walking on her own instead of up in the Ergo or in the stroller.

We arrived, ate awesome pancakes (blueberry, chocolate chip, and apple in addition to regular ones), eggs, potatoes, and bacon and waited for Santa to arrive. When Calvin and Carter were little we didn’t do the whole Santa thing (made easier by the fact that Calvin was deathly afraid of Santa for several years), but in my old age I have lightened up. They still don’t believe in Santa, but if they want to go sit on Santa’s lap and tell him that they want Harry Potter Legos (Caleb), then rock on.